old age.'

The two incidents which the passage narrates, the purging of the land
and the repair of the Temple, are told in inverted order in 2 Kings,
but the order here is probably the more accurate, as dates are given,
whereas in 2 Kings, though the purging is related after the Temple
restoration, it is not said to have occurred after. But the order is
of small consequence. What is important is the fiery energy of Josiah
in the work of destruction of the idols. Here, there, everywhere, he
flames and consumes. He darts a flash even into the desolate ruins of
the Israelitish kingdom, where the idols had survived their devotees
and still bewitched the scanty fragments of Israel that remained. The
altars of stone were thrown down, the wooden sun-pillars were cut to
pieces, the metal images were broken and ground to powder. A clean
sweep was made.

A dash of ferocity mingled with contempt appears in Josiah's
scattering the 'dust' of the images on the graves of their
worshippers, as if he said: 'There you lie together, pounded idols and
dead worshippers, neither able to help the other!' The same feelings
prompted digging up the skeletons of priests and burning the bones on
the very altars that they had served, thus defiling the altars and
executing judgment on the priests. No doubt there were much violence
and a strong strain of the 'wrath of man' in all this. Iconoclasts are
wont to be 'violent'; and men without convictions, or who are
partisans of what the iconoclasts are rooting out, are horrified at
their want of 'moderation.' But though violence is always unchristian,
indifference to rampant evils is not conspicuously more Christian,
and, on the whole, you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude
or without using some force to compress the sinuous neck.