2 Chronicles 34:6

And so did he in the cities ... unto Naphtali. — Sec 2 Kings 23:15; 2 Kings 23:19, according to which Josiah destroyed the sanctuary of Bethel, and the high places “in the cities of Samaria,” i.e., 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, i.e., the northern kingdom, as in 2 Chronicles 31:1; Isaiah 9:21.

With their mattocks. — Rather, in their ruins; reading behorbuthêhem, instead of behorbôthêhem, which means “with their swords.” (Comp. 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 years’ siege, and carried the people captive to Assyria, in 721 B.C., replacing them by foreign colonists. This explains how it was that 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 LXX. has “in their places round about”; the Vulg. 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 unto Naphtali, to wit, in their ruins round about, he pulled down the altars and the Asherim; and the carven images he dashed into pieces unto pulverising.” Hedaq is an unusual form of the infinitive, not a perfect, as Bertheau supposes.