- 144-
- "Priests of the second order" (2 Kings 23:4). We regard these as younger and
subordinate priests - not as the suffragans of the high-priest.
** Probably in the place where the manure for these fields was deposited. The reference
to Bethel at the close of ver. 4 may possibly depend on some corruption in the text. It
does not occur in 2 Chronicles 34:3, 4.
*** Various derivations and explanations of the word have been proposed - none of
them, however, quite satisfactory. The same designation occurs in Hosea 10:5 and
Zephaniah 1:4. They are distinguished from the Levitical priests, or Kohanim.
|* The place where the common people and strangers were buried. All those of the better
classes had sepulchers of their own.
But these measures were not limited to the removal of idolatry from the Temple, and of
the non-Levitical priesthood from office. Beside the Kemarim there were those of
Levitical descent - Kohanim, or priests - who had celebrated an unlawful worship at the
high places throughout Judah.* These unworthy members of the priesthood were brought
to Jerusalem and declared unfit for strictly priestly service in the Temple, although not
deprived of what to many must have been the only means of subsistence.**
- "From Geba to Beer-sheba" (2 Kings 23:8). The former in Benjamin was a priest-city,
and marked what afterwards was the northernmost town in the kingdom of Judah. Beer-
sheba was the most southern seat of this worship (Amos 5:5; 8:14).
** As priests they had neither tribal possessions, nor yet other avocations. They were
treated like priests in a state of Levitical impurity (Leviticus 21:21-23), but do not seem
to have shared in the common meals of the regular priests. Probably they were allowed to
discharge inferior functions (comp. Ezekiel 44:10-14).
At the same time any resumption of the former unlawful services was rendered
impossible by the destruction of all the high places. Chief among these, as the common
resort of those who passed in or came out of the city, were "the high places of the gates:
that at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, [as well as] that at the
left of a man, in the city-gate."*
- So according to all the best critics. The rendering alike in the A.V. and the R.V. gives
not any intelligible meaning.
Similarly Topheth was permanently defiled. The sacred horses dedicated by previous
kings to the sun, and perhaps used in processional worship, were "put away," and the sun-
chariots burned. The altars, alike those on the roof of the Aliyah of Ahaz, and those set up
(^)