מלכים ב, פרק כ״ג, פסוק י״ב

Josiah's sweeping campaign of purification reaches the lingering remnants of idol worship left behind by previous kings of Judah, targeting structures within both the royal palace and the Temple complex. A natural question arises as to why these altars were not eliminated earlier by righteous kings like Hezekiah, or even by Manasseh after his repentance. In the past, kings were satisfied with merely halting the idol worship, or they simply repurposed the existing altars to offer sacrifices to God. Josiah, however, took a much stricter approach. He decided to completely destroy these structures because the stain of their idolatrous history still clung to them [מלבי״ם].

The purification effort focused on two primary locations. The first was the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz. Ahaz likely constructed this upper chamber specifically for idol worship [רד״ק], modeling it after the design of Assyrian or Aramean altars [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. The second location involved the altars built by Manasseh in the two courtyards of the House of God, which refer specifically to the courtyard of the priests and the courtyard of the Israelites [מצודת דוד].

Josiah systematically broke down and crushed these altars [מצודת ציון]. There are differing perspectives on how he finalized this removal. One view maintains that the king physically smashed and shattered the altars into pieces [רד״ק, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Another perspective suggests that he acted with intense speed, hastily and urgently clearing the altars away from the holy site [רש״י, רד״ק, מצודת דוד]. To ensure the total eradication of these idolatrous objects, Josiah took the dust that remained from the shattered altars and threw it away into the Kidron Valley, specifically scattering it across the Kidron plain [רלב״ג].