2 Chronicles 34:6

Cities of Manasseh. Josiah was at this time exercising a measure of control in the former territory of the northern kingdom, where Assyrian power had begun to weaken. Before Josiah’s 18th year Assyria was in the last stages of decline, and Babylon had become an independent state. Josiah destroyed the altar that had been set up at Bethel and the high places in Samaria (2 Kings 23:15, 19).

With their mattocks. Probably literally, “in their minds.” The meaning of the Hebrew is not clear. The LXX reads “in their places.” The whole verse should perhaps be connected with the following verse, thus: “even unto Naphtali, with their minds [regions] round about, he broke down the altars and the Asherim.” Much of the northern nation must at this time have been in a state of ruin, having fallen to Assyria in the early part of Hezekiah’s reign (2 Kings 18:9-11).