Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 34:6

"And [so did he] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, in their ruins round about." — 2 Chronicles 34:6 (ASV)

And so did he in the cities ... to Naphtali. — See 2 Kings 23:15 and 2 Kings 23:19, according to which Josiah destroyed the sanctuary of Bethel, and the high places in the cities of Samaria, that is, the northern kingdom.

Simeon is again mentioned somewhat strangely, as in 2 Chronicles 15:9, no doubt because Beersheba, a famous sanctuary within its territory, was a place of pilgrimage for the northern tribes.

Manasseh and Ephraim, that is, the northern kingdom, as in 2 Chronicles 31:1; Isaiah 9:21.

With their mattocks. — Rather, in their ruins; reading behorbuthêhem, instead of behorbôth ê hem, which means “with their swords.” (Compare Ezekiel 26:9.) The phrase qualifies the word “cities.” The cities of Israel had been ruined by the Assyrians, Sargon and Shalmaneser, the latter of whom took Samaria after a three-year siege and carried the people captive to Assyria in 721 B.C., replacing them with foreign colonists. This explains how Josiah was able to desecrate the northern sanctuaries and slay their priests (2 Kings 23:20).

The ordinary Hebrew text divides the word thus: behar bûtthêhem, so as to suggest the reading behar bûtthêhem, “in the hill of their houses.” The Septuagint has “in their places round about”; the Vulgate omits the phrase; and the Syriac reads “in their streets around.” The whole verse should be connected with 2 Chronicles 34:7, thus: And in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, that is, in their ruins round about, he pulled down the altars and the Asherim; and the carved images he dashed into pieces until pulverized. Hedaq is an unusual form of the infinitive, not a perfect, as Bertheau supposes.