Josiah’s reforms
23
📚And the king sent word, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. 2 📚And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and with him went all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And in their hearing he read all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the LORD. 3 📚And the king stood by a pillar 📖 and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took their stand 📖 for the covenant 📖.4 📚And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the articles that were made for Baal and for Asherah and for all the starry host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and took their ashes to Bethel.
23:4 These must have been put there by Josiah’s father Amon (2 Kings 21:21-22). Notes on Baal and Ashtoreth at Jud 2:11; 1 Kings 11:5; 1 Kings 16:31.⚜
5 📚And he put down the idolatrous priests 📖, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places 📖 in the cities of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem, also those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and to the moon and to the planets, and to all the starry host 📖 of heaven. 6 📚And he brought the Asherah 📖 pole from the house of the LORD outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and ground it to powder and threw its ashes on the graves of the children of the people. 7 📚And he tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for Asherah.
8 📚And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and broke down the high places 📖 at the gates that were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on a person’s left at the city gate. 9 📚Nevertheless the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they ate of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
10 📚And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, so that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire 📖 to Molech. 11 📚And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the LORD, by the room of Nathan-Melech, an official, which was in the court, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
23:11 Sun worship was absolutely forbidden – Deut 4:19. It is called detestable (Deut 17:2-5), which means that the true God hates and despises it. See Rom 1:25. We must worship the Creator, not the things the Creator has made.⚜
12 📚And the king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he smashed them there and threw their dust into the brook Kidron.
23:12 2 Kings 21:5. Though Manasseh repented toward the end of his reign and destroyed some of the places where idolatry had been, it would seem from this that he did not destroy them all. Or else his son Amon restored them.⚜
13 📚And the king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom 📖, the abomination of the children of Ammon.
23:13 See 1 Kings 11:5, 7. These had remained there for three hundred years, through the reigns of even the best of Judah’s kings.⚜
14 📚And he broke the images in pieces and cut down the groves and filled their places with the bones 📖 of men.
15 📚Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down, and burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and burned the grove. 16 📚And as Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs that were there in the mountain, and sent men and removed the bones from the tombs, and burned them on the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
23:15-16 1 Kings 12:28-33. Josiah thus fulfilled a prophecy uttered nearly three hundred years before – 1 Kings 13:2.⚜
17 📚Then he said, “What is that tombstone that I see?” And the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel”.
18 📚And he said, “Let him alone. Do not let anyone move his bones”. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.
19 📚And also all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger, Josiah took away and did to them just as he had done everything in Bethel. 20 📚And he killed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them, and returned to Jerusalem.
23:20 2 Kings 17:27-28, 33, 34. These were priests of the apostate religious system that came into existence after the northern kingdom Israel had gone into captivity.⚜
21 📚And the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover 📖 to the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant”. 22 📚Surely no such Passover was kept from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah. 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, this Passover was held before the LORD in Jerusalem.
24 📚Moreover Josiah put away the spiritists 📖 and the mediums and the images and the idols 📖, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might carry out the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD. 25 📚And there was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
23:25 Hezekiah and Josiah are the only two kings of Judah who receive unqualified commendation in the Bible. Hezekiah was highly praised particularly for his faith (2 Kings 18:5), Josiah for his turning to God and for his zeal for the law of Moses. Of course, this does not mean that either of these men was sinless and perfect.⚜
26 📚Nevertheless the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, his anger 📖 which burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh 📖 had provoked him. 27 📚And the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel 📖, and will cast off 📖 this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My name 📖 will be there.’ ”
28 📚Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah?
29 📚In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the river Euphrates against the king of Assyria, and King Josiah went against him. And when Neco saw him he killed him at Megiddo.
23:29 2 Chron 35:20-27. Assyria was being attacked by Babylon. Egypt went to help Assyria because it feared the rising power of Babylon. Josiah wanted Babylon to prevail. Babylon did, but this eventually resulted in disaster to Judah.⚜
30 📚And his servants took his dead body in a chariot from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him and made him king in his father’s place.
Judah’s evil king Jehoahaz
31 📚Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal; she was the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, in everything just as his ancestors 📖 had done.
Egypt subdues Judah
33 📚And Pharaoh Neco put him in chains at Riblah 📖 in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on the land a fine of a hundred talents 📖 of silver and a talent of gold. 34 📚And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away and went to Egypt, where he died.
35 📚And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money in accordance with the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from each one according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.
Judah’s evil King Jehoiakim, the first invasion of the Babylonians
36 📚Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zebidah; she was the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 37 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, in everything just as his ancestors had done.