reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images. 4And they brake down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the sun-images, that were on high above them, he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 5And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem. 6And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim
is preferable to the suggestion that "eighth" (bishĕmōneh) and "twelfth" (bishtēym 'esreh) may be due to a transcriptional error of "eighteenth" (bishĕmōneh 'esreh).]
while he was yet young] There is no clause corresponding to this in 2 Kin., and the statement is probably due to the motive indicated in the previous note. There is, of course, no reason to question the piety of Josiah in his early years, for though in 2 Kin. his reformation is dated in the eighteenth year of his reign, i.e. when he was 25 years of age (hardly "young" for a king), the favourable judgement passed on him (2 Kin. xxii. 2) is unqualified by any suggestion that he was tardy in turning to Jehovah, and the prophetic activity of Jeremiah is dated from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign (Jer. xxv. 3).
in the twelfth year he began] The Chronicler spreads the cleansing of the land over six years, i.e. from the twelfth to the eighteenth; cp. ver. 8.
to purge] Josiah's measures are more fully enumerated and described in 2 Kin. xxiii.; notice e.g. the removal of the Asherah from the Temple (ver. 6), the destruction of the houses of the Ḳĕdēshim (cp. Deut. xxiii. 17, 18) which were in the house of the Lord (ver. 7), the deportation of priests from the cities of Judah into Jerusalem (vv. 8, 9), and the defiling of Topheth and of Beth-el (vv. 10, 15, 16). The Chronicler not unnaturally prefers to avoid these details and employs the usual general terms here, partly because he has already credited the penitent Manasseh with a reform of this character (xxxiii. 15), partly also because he may have been unwilling to suppose that such flagrant abuses in the Temple as are mentioned in Kings had continued to this date.
the Asherim] Cp. xiv. 3 (note).
4. the Baalim] Cp. xxxiii. 3 (note).
the sun-images] See note on xiv. 5; and cp. 2 Kin. xxiii. 11.
5. he burnt the bones of the priests] Specially at Beth-el; 2 Kin. xxiii. 15, 16.
