King Josiah finds he has major cleaning to do, ridding the kingdom of all signs of idlolatry.
2 Kings 23
(New International Version, ©2011)
Josiah Renews the Covenant
1 Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 He went up to the temple of the LORD with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the LORD. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD—to follow the LORD and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book.
Josiah knew judgment was coming but still he wanted to do the right thing. So he himself read the law to his subjects. (This is one of the videos I want to see when I get to Heaven — “Josiah Reading Law to People”!)
Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
Nearly all the rest of this chapter details what Josiah did to eliminate idolatry in the land. As you read, notice the extent of the worship of false gods. Notice the many gods and goddesses, priests, places, buildings, support activities — idol worship was deeply ingrained in the kingdom. It takes significant effort on Josiah’s part to root out all the many tentacles of idolatry.
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.
Jewish graves in Atlanta, Georgia.
This was not meant to desecrate the graves. Rather, the ashes were desecrated by being flung on dead things. In just a few verses, we will read of bones being burned on altars to defile the altars. The dead bodies/bones make whatever they touch unclean.
7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the LORD, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
8 Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. 9 Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10 He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. 11 He removed from the entrance to the temple of the LORD the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the LORD. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.
Josiah even takes his reforms up to Bethel in the former Northern Kingdom.
15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also.
16 Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.
17 The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”
The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”
18 “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
This is the remarkable fulfillment of a prophecy made hundreds of years earlier. The words of this anonymous prophet are recorded in 1 Kings 13:1-2: Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you. Josiah was careful to honor the gravestone of this anonymous prophet.
19 Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the LORD’s anger. 20 Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.
21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed. 23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.
A Passover tidbit for you (too late for Josiah):
For years Coca Cola has been made with high fructose corn syrup, a low cost sugar substitute made with (surprise!) corn. Corn is a leavening agent which means it must be cut out of the Jewish diet for Passover. So, to serve the Jewish population in large cities in the United States, the Coca Cola company opens a special production line, supervised by a rabbi, to make a kosher Coke alternative with real sugar instead of corn syrup. Passover Coke (bright yellow cap with Hebrew writing) is hard to find but flies off the shelf wherever it’s sold, since many people remember the flavor as the “old” (they would say tastier) Coke.
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24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the LORD. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
Sola scriptura regards the Bible as the only final authority in matters of faith and practice. To quote Martin Luther — “The true rule is this: God’s Word shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel, can do so.”
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Music:
The incomparable Phil Keaggy and “True Believers,” to encourage us to “stand on every word You say.”
Phil is a seven-time recipient of the GMA Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year, and was twice nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Gospel Album. He has frequently been listed as one of the world’s top-3 “fingerstyle” as well as “fingerpicking” guitarists by Guitar Player Magazine readers’ polls.
Just don’t know where, where to begin
When earthly kings surrender to this world of sin.
To walk the walk, talk the talk, truth is
Heaven on earth is one stairway
That can’t be bought.
The price is paid, we believe that our God reigns,The true believers stand on every word You say,
The true believers made alive in Christ today,
This is how we survive and where we mean to stay.
The true believers.You’ve had enough, all you can take
When your river of tears
Runs into an ocean of heartbreak.
He’ll be your moon when your sun goes down,
Fire for you if ice is all that’s on your ground.
When your music has died,
And silence is the sound,The true believers stand on every word You say,
The true believers made alive in Christ today,
This is how we survive and where we mean to stay.
The true believers.So if you need to call on a friend,
He’s there for you right until the very end,
His love is alive forever and amen.The true believers stand on every word You say,
The true believers made alive in Christ today,
This is how we survive and where we mean to stay.
The true believers.
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26 Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his anger. 27 So the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”
28 As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
29 While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria.
Assyria was in decline and Babylonia was ascending. Assyria turned to Egypt for help against the Babylonians. Pharaoh Necho of Egypt was marching up to Assyria, through Judah. Josiah tried to stop him . . .
King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.
“Josiah killed by the Egyptians” by Frank E. Wright
30 Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.
Jehoahaz King of Judah
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his predecessors had done. 33 Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
Pharaoh Necho in this chapter is known in history as Necho II. This bronze statue of him is in the Brooklyn Museum.
So now Judah is effectively a tribute state to Egypt.
34 Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died. 35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Necho the silver and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments.
Jehoiakim King of Judah
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah. 37 And he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his predecessors had done.
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What’s even more amazing about Phil Keaggy’s finger picking is that he’s missing a finger on his picking hand!