And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
As Josiah looked around, he noticed the tombs that were on the mountainside. He had his men take the bones from those tombs and burn them on the altar, making it unclean. This happened exactly as the LORD had said through his prophet, who had spoken these words long ago.
King Josiah fulfilled an ancient prophecy by destroying a pagan altar, using the bones of false priests to make it permanently unclean for worship.
📚 Historical Context
During the reign of King Josiah in ancient Judah, around the 7th century BC, the king was actively reforming the nation by removing idols and pagan practices that had corrupted the worship of God. This action in 2 Kings 23:16 specifically refers to Josiah discovering and desecrating tombs at a site associated with idolatry, fulfilling a prophecy made by a man of God centuries earlier as recorded in 1 Kings 13. By burning the bones on the altar, Josiah was symbolically polluting it and turning the people back to true worship.
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