What Does 2 Kings 23:24 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
In Jerusalem, a name carrying wholeness, the clearing is not the end: it makes room for the written instruction to stand.
THE MEANING
Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim) carries wholeness in its name, yet the verse names what is cleared from within it so written instruction can stand. The same movement speaks now: direction returns as rival claims are removed, not by piling on another source of power.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that every source of spiritual guidance can be added beside the written instruction without consequence; here, the competing practices are cleared so its words can stand.
THE ROOT
הָקִים
hāqîm
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand; in the causative form, make something stand or establish it.
“perform” in this verse is hāqîm. The verb pictures the written words being made to stand in lived reality. What is cleared away and what is established belong to one movement: the instruction takes form.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
This is the root’s basic image beneath the action of establishing the words.
maqom: Place; standing place.
מָקוֹם
The word for a place grows from the same root of standing, linking established instruction with what has a place in life.
בִּעֵר
biʿēr
GROWS FROM
בער
b-ʿ-r
Burn or consume; in this context, clear away.
The removal is expressed with a verb that can mean consuming by fire, giving “put away” the force of a thorough clearing. The verse binds that clearing to making the instruction stand.
ALSO GROWS
baʿar: Burn; consume.
בָּעַר
The literal image shows how forcefully this root can describe removal.
biʿarta: You shall put away; clear away.
בִּעַרְתָּ
The same verb appears in Deuteronomy 13:5 in the phrase “put the evil away,” showing this root used for a full purge.
תּוֹרָה
torah
GROWS FROM
ירה
y-r-h
Point, direct, instruct.
“law” in this verse is torah. The words being established are instruction that gives direction. The root links being shown a way with the written words taking effect in life.
ALSO GROWS
yarah: Point out; direct; teach.
יָרָה
This verb carries the directional sense within Torah, the instruction Josiah establishes.
moreh: Teacher; instructor.
מוֹרֶה
The instructor and the instruction share the same root of showing direction.
THE PATTERN
Living instruction takes form as competing sources of authority are cleared away.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,THE THREAD
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.The same root appears in “put the evil away,” where the verse explicitly prescribes the execution of a prophet who turns people from God. That connection reveals the severity of this clearing language: it names a purge, not a gentle figure for ignoring a rival claim.
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