John Gill Commentary 2 Chronicles 34

Ver. 1,2. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign
2 Chronicles 34:2

(See Gill on 2 Chronicles 34:1)

But the man that [is] clean ;
Free from any pollution by a dead body, or the like:

and is not in a journey ;
in a distant country; for if he was on a journey in his own nation, he ought to return and attend the passover, which all the males from the several parts of the land were obliged unto.

Wherefore the Vulgate Latin version of (Numbers 9:10) ; is a wrong one; "or in a way afar off in your nation"; for at whatsoever distance they were in their own nation, they were bound to appear:

and forbeareth to keep the passover ;
the first passover in the first month, the month Nisan, wilfully, through negligence, or not caring to be at the expense and trouble of it, or on any pretence whatsoever: Ben Gersom interprets it of one that will not keep neither the first nor the second passover:

even the same soul shall be cut off from his people ;
either be excommunicated from them, or cut off by death by the immediate hand of God:

because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed
season :
this is the ground and reason of the resentment; it was a breach of the divine command, which required this offering; ingratitude to God, being a thank offering for a singular deliverance; and this aggravated by its not being brought at the appointed time, which was the fit ti me for it:

that man shall bear his sin ;
be chargeable with the guilt of it, and bear the punishment of it; he on himself, as Aben Ezra notes, he, and he only; not his wife and family, for he being the head and master of the family, it lay upon him to provide the passover lamb for himself and his house.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young ,
&c.] Being in the sixteenth year of his age; though Kimchi thinks it was the very year he began to reign, which was the eighth of his age; and Jarchi observes, it may be interpreted, "though he was young, he began to seek after the God of David his father"; to pray to him, to seek after the knowledge of him, and the true manner of worshipping him, what his will, commands, and ordinances were;

the Targum is, to seek instruction or doctrine of the Lord God of David his father, to be taught his ways, such as David, his great ancestor, walked in, and whom he chose to follow:

and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the
high places, and the groves and the carved images, and the molten
images ;
which were made in the times of Manasseh; and though removed by him when humbled, were restored in the reign of Amon. Now Josiah purged the land from these, by putting them down, and destroying them; and this he did when he was twenty years of age, having now more authority, being out of his minority, and from under guardians, and one year before Jeremiah began to prophesy, (Jeremiah 1:1–2:37) .

And they broke down the altars of Baalim in his presence
He not only ordered them to be broke down, but he went in person, and saw it done; these were the altars Manasseh had reared up to the idols; and though upon his humiliation he cast them out, they were rebuilt by Amon his son, see (2 Chronicles 33:3 2 Chronicles 33:15 2 Chronicles 33:22) ,

and the images that were above them he cut down ;
sun images, as the word signifies; these Chamanim might be representatives of Cham or Ham, the same with Jupiter Ammon; and there was another Heathen deity, Amanus, Strabo ^F23 speaks of, (See Gill on Leviticus 26:30), these, as Jarchi says, were in the form of the sun, and were set above the altars, over against the sun, to whom worship was paid; though some think this respects not place, but time, and that these were images in times past; in the preceding age, as the Tigurine version:

and the groves, and the carved images and the molten images, he brake
in pieces ;
ordered them to be broken; the groves were statues, or images in groves, and thereby distinguished from those made of wood, and were carved, and from those that were of molten metal, and were placed elsewhere:

and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that
had sacrificed unto them ,
see (2 Kings 23:6) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F23: Geograph l. 11. p. 352.

And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars
On which they sacrificed, in detestation of their idolatry, and to deter from it; and this he did according to the prophecy of him, above three hundred and fifty years before:

and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem ;
from idolatry, and all the monuments of it.