Commentaria in IV Regum
3. AND THE KING STOOD UPON THE STEP,—upon which was raised the royal seat as a throne; hence in 2 Paralipomenon 34:31 it is called a “tribunal,” on which also Joas before Josias made a similar covenant between God and the people, 4 Kings chapter 11, v. 14, as did Solomon, 2 Paralipomenon chapter 6, v. 13. And this seems to be the “Musach of the sabbath,” as I said in chapter 16, v. 18. Further, Josias adjured the people to keep this covenant exactly, as is said in 2 Paralipomenon chapter 34, v. 32. In like manner Moses first established the covenant of the people with God, Exodus 24, with various ceremonies that might impress it more on the people.
AND PERFORM THE WORDS OF THE COVENANT.—“To raise up” is to rouse from death to life; but the words of the divine law and covenant had already by the idols of Manasses been consigned to oblivion by many, and were as it were dead; wherefore Josias, reading them beforehand to the people and impressing them, seems to have raised them as it were from death to life, or certainly, as sleepers, from sleep to wakefulness,
4. AND THE KING COMMANDED HELCIAS THE HIGH PRIEST AND THE PRIESTS OF THE SECOND ORDER,—that is, the lesser ones, who were under the chief priest, namely Helcias the high priest. So Abulensis, Vatablus, Sanchez and others, although others by the second order understand the second class. For the priests had been distributed by David according to their families into various classes.
AND CARRIED THE DUST OF THEM (of the idols and the vessels dedicated to them, and therefore burned by him) TO BETHEL,—so that not even the dust of so impious things should remain in the land of Juda, which was holy: for “Bethel” was a place profaned by the idolatry of Jeroboam, who was the first king of Israel. So Cajetan.
7. HE DESTROYED ALSO THE PLACES OF THOSE THAT WERE CONSECRATED TO UNCLEANNESS,—namely of male prostitutes dedicated to Venus and Priapus, as Asa also destroyed them, 3 Kings chapter 15, vv. 12 and 13.
FOR WHICH WOMEN WEAVED (of threads, strands or twigs) AS IT WERE LITTLE HOUSES FOR THE GROVE,—so that with these, as with curtains and hangings, the effeminate might veil their obscenity, in the grove which they had set up in the temple, for unspeakable lusts.
8. AND HE DEFILED THE HIGH PLACES,—namely the profane temples and shrines built on high places, by profaning them, destroying them, and filling them with filth and the bones of the dead, as is said in v. 14; whence, explaining, he adds: AND HE BROKE DOWN THE ALTARS.—What and of what kind the “high places” were I said in 3 Kings chapter 3, v. 2.
9. NEVERTHELESS THE PRIESTS OF THE HIGH PLACES CAME NOT UP TO THE ALTAR OF THE LORD IN JERUSALEM, BUT ONLY DID EAT UNLEAVENED BREAD IN THE MIDST OF THEIR BRETHREN,—as if to say: Josias did not allow those priests who had impiously or unlawfully sacrificed in the high places to go to Jerusalem and to minister in the temple, as being polluted by the impure victims of idols or superstitions; but yet he permitted them to be fed on unleavened bread and the other foods offered to them by the people, on which the other priests and Levites fed. So Abulensis and others.
10. HE DEFILED ALSO TOPHETH.—It was a place in “Gehennom,” that is, in the valley of the sons of Ennom, near Jerusalem, in which parents burned their children to the idol Moloch, and, that their cries might not be heard, beat the toph, that is, the drum; whence the place was called Topheth. See what was said on Isaias 30:33 and Jeremias 7:31. This place, therefore, with the idol Moloch, to whom it was sacred, Josias “defiled,” that is, profaned, destroyed and filled with bones and dung.
11. HE TOOK AWAY ALSO THE HORSES WHICH THE KINGS OF JUDA HAD GIVEN TO THE SUN.—Who and of what kind were these horses of the Sun? I answer: the Persians and other nations worshipped the Sun as a god for his exceptional brightness, beauty and usefulness, and called him Mithras and Apollo, and dedicated horses to him, some painted and carved, some real and living, because the horse, the swiftest of animals, represents the very swift motion of the Sun. Xenophon is witness, Cyropaedia, book 8; Herodotus, book 1, at the end; Justin, book 1, and others. Whence Ovid, Fasti, book 1:
The Persians appease Hyperion, girt with rays, with a horse, lest a slow victim be given to the swift god.
Hence the Poets fable that the Sun is carried in a four-horse chariot, drawn by four very swift horses, namely, as Ovid says, Metamorphoses 2: Pyrois, Eous and Aethon, horses of the Sun, and Phlegon the fourth.
By which Abulensis thinks the four parts of the year and of the day are signified.
Macrobius describes the image and idol of the Sun thus, Saturnalia, book 1, ch. 23: “Now that Jupiter and the Sun are the same,” he says, “is known both from the very rites of the sacred things, and from the dress. For the image is golden, of beardless aspect, in the manner of a charioteer, with the right hand raised with a whip, and the left holds a thunderbolt and ears of corn. All which things show the united power of Jupiter and the Sun. The religion of this temple prevails also in divination, which is referred to the power of Apollo, who is the same as the Sun. For the image of the Heliopolitan god is carried on a litter as the images of the gods are carried in the procession of the Circensian games, and for the most part the chief men of the province take it up, with shaven heads, pure from long chastity, and they are carried by the divine spirit, not by their own will, but whither the god impels the bearers.” Macrobius adds that hence the god is called by the Syrians “Adad,” that is “one,” because there is one Sun, as there is one God in the world. The same, book 1 on the Dream of Scipio: “Cicero,” he says, “asserts that the Sun is the leader, and prince, and moderator of the other lights, whom Heraclitus calls the fountain of heavenly light. He is leader, therefore, because he precedes all by the majesty of his light. Prince, because he is so eminent that, because he alone appears such, he is called Sol. He is called moderator of the rest because he himself moderates their course and return by a fixed measure of space.” And presently: “He is called the mind of the world, as the physicists called him the heart of heaven, because the Sun divides day and night, the mild temperature of spring, the scorching heat of Cancer and Leo, the softness of the autumnal breeze, the force of cold between the two temperatures, all these the course and reason of the Sun dispenses. Rightly therefore he is called the heart of heaven, by whom all things are done which we see done by divine reason.”