2 Kings 23:13

The high places that were before the city... — See 1 Kings 11:5. “Before” means “to the east of,” because, to determine the cardinal points, one faced the sunrise. The right hand was then the south, the left hand the north, and the back the west.

The mount of corruption. — The southern summit of the Mount of Olives was so-called, because of the idolatry there practised. It still bears the name of the “Hill of Offence,” derived from the Vulg. “mons offensionis.” (The word rendered “corruption,” mashhîth, may originally have meant “anointing,” from mâshah “to anoint,” and have simply referred to the olive oil there produced. The name would thus be equivalent to the German Oelberg. In later times the term was so modified as to express detestation of idol-worship.)

Did the king defile. — As it is not said that they were pulled down, these high places may have been merely sacred sites on the mountain, consisting of a levelled surface of rock, with holes scooped in them for receiving libations, &c. Such sites have been found in Palestine; and it is hardly conceivable that chapels erected by Solomon for the worship of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom, would have been spared by such a king as Hezekiah, who even did away with the high places dedicated to Jehovah (2 Kings 18:3).