2 Kings 23:24

Moreover theworkers with [R.V. them that had] familiar spirits, and the wizards See note on 2 Kings 21:6. Josiah now proceeds to exterminate all the superstitious practices which grow up side by side with idolatry.

and the images R.V. the teraphim. These were a sort of household gods, and some charm or virtue seems to have been ascribed to the possession of them. Hence Rachel stole the teraphim(Genesis 31:19) when she was leaving her father's home. Micah made teraphimfor his house in Mount Ephraim (Judges 17:5), and it was the teraphimwhich Michal, Saul's daughter, hid in the bed, to make believe that David was sick, and thus give him time to escape.

that he might perform(R.V. confirm) the words of the law The change is as in verse 3. What Josiah desired was not only to carry out on this occasion the prescription of the Law, but so to establish the observance that it should continue and not be lightly modified. There is no mention of the passover held in the nineteenth year and in the succeeding years of Josiah's reign. It would be rash, however, to conclude from such absence of the record, that the same solemnity was not used every succeeding year of the king's reign, almost as rash as to decide that the passover had been unobserved since the time of Samuel.

The ordinances for putting down them that had familiar spirits and other like superstitions are found in Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 20:6; Leviticus 20:27.