2 Kings 23:24

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

The workers

Images

That he might

The book

2 Kings 22:8

2 Chronicles 34:14

Bible References

The workers

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them.

Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had lamented over him and had buried him in Ramah, his hometown. In the meantime Saul had removed the mediums and magicians from the land.

They will say to you, "Seek oracles at the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, from the magicians who chirp and mutter incantations. Should people not seek oracles from their gods, by asking the dead about the destiny of the living?"

The Egyptians will panic, and I will confuse their strategy. They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead, from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians.

Now as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit that enabled her to foretell the future by supernatural means. She brought her owners a great profit by fortune-telling.

Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!

Images

While Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole the household idols that belonged to her father.

Now this man Micah owned a shrine. He made an ephod and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest.

The five men who had gone to spy out the land broke in and stole the carved image, the ephod, the personal idols, and the metal image, while the priest was standing at the entrance to the gate with the six hundred fully armed men.

For the Israelites must live many days without a king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred fertility pillar, without ephod or idols.

That he might

Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God.

"'A man or woman who has in them a spirit of the dead or a familiar spirit must be put to death. They must pelt them with stones; their blood guilt is on themselves.'"

There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,

Then you must recall the Lord's instructions and the prophetic testimony of what would happen. Certainly they say such things because their minds are spiritually darkened.

For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out -- he will be blessed in what he does.

The book

Hilkiah the high priest informed Shaphan the scribe, "I found the law scroll in the Lord's temple." Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan and he read it.

When they took out the silver that had been brought to the Lord's temple, Hilkiah the priest found the law scroll the Lord had given to Moses.