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Josiah Reads
(2 Chronicles 34.29-33)
1King Josiah called together the older leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2Then he went to the Lord's temple, together with the people of Judah and Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. Finally, when everybody was there, he read aloud The Book of God's Law that had been found in the temple.
3After Josiah had finished reading, he stood by one of the columns. He asked the people to promise in the Lord's name to faithfully obey the Lord and to follow his commands. The people agreed to do everything written in the book.
Josiah Follows
(2 Chronicles 34.3-7)
4 Josiah told Hilkiah the priest, the assistant priests, and the guards at the temple door to go into the temple and bring out the things used to worship Baal, Asherah, and the stars. Josiah had these things burned in Kidron Valley just outside Jerusalem, and he had the ashes carried away to the town of Bethel.
5Josiah also got rid of the pagan priests at the local shrines in Judah and around Jerusalem. These were the men that the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices to Baal and to the sun, moon, and stars. 6Josiah had the sacred pole for Asherah brought out of the temple and taken to Kidron Valley, where it was burned. He then had its ashes ground into dust and scattered over the public cemetery there. 7He had the buildings torn down where the male prostitutes lived next to the temple, and where the women wove sacred robes for the idol of Asherah.
8In almost every town in Judah, priests had been offering sacrifices to the Lord at local shrines. Josiah brought these priests to Jerusalem and had their shrines made unfit for worship—every shrine from Geba just north of Jerusalem to Beersheba in the south. He even tore down the shrine at Beersheba that was just to the left of Joshua Gate, which was named after the highest official of the city. 9Those local priests could not serve at the Lord's altar in Jerusalem, but they were allowed to eat sacred bread, just like the priests from Jerusalem.
10 Josiah sent some men to Hinnom Valley just outside Jerusalem with orders to make the altar there unfit for worship. That way, people could no longer use it for sacrificing their children to the god Molech. 11He also got rid of the horses that the kings of Judah used in their ceremonies to worship the sun, and he destroyed the chariots along with them. The horses had been kept near the entrance to the Lord's temple, in a courtyard close to where an official named Nathan-Melech lived.
12 Some of the kings of Judah, especially Manasseh, had built altars in the two courts of the temple and in the room that Ahaz had built on the palace roof. Josiah had these altars torn down and smashed to pieces, and he had the pieces thrown into Kidron Valley, just outside Jerusalem. 13 After that, he closed down the shrines that Solomon had built east of Jerusalem and south of Spoil Hill to honor Astarte the disgusting goddess of Sidon, Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Milcom the disgusting god of Ammon. 14He tore down the stone images of foreign gods and cut down the sacred pole used in the worship of Asherah. Then he had the whole area covered with human bones.
15 But Josiah was not finished yet. At Bethel he destroyed the shrine and the altar that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built and that had caused the Israelites to sin. Josiah had the shrine and the Asherah pole burned and ground into dust. 16 As he looked around, he saw graves on the hillside. He had the bones in them dug up and burned on the altar, so that it could no longer be used. This happened just as God's prophet had said when Jeroboam was standing at the altar, celebrating a festival.
Then Josiah saw the grave of the prophet who had said this would happen 17 and he asked, “Whose grave is that?”
Some people who lived nearby answered, “It belongs to the prophet from Judah who told what would happen to this altar.”
18Josiah replied, “Then leave it alone. Don't dig up his bones.” So they did not disturb his bones or the bones of the old prophet from Israel who had also been buried there.
19Some of the Israelite kings had made the Lord angry by building pagan shrines all over Israel. So Josiah sent troops to destroy these shrines just as he had done to the one in Bethel. 20He killed the priests who served at them and burned their bones on the altars.
After all that, Josiah went back to Jerusalem.
Josiah and the People of Judah
(2 Chronicles 35.1-19)
21Josiah told the people of Judah, “Celebrate Passover in honor of the Lord your God, just as it says in The Book of God's Law.”
22This festival had not been celebrated in this way since the time that tribal leaders ruled Israel or the kings ruled Israel and Judah. 23But in Josiah's eighteenth year as king of Judah, everyone came to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
The Lord Is Still Angry
24Josiah got rid of every disgusting person and thing in Judah and Jerusalem—including magicians, fortunetellers, and idols. He did his best to obey every law written in the book that the priest Hilkiah found in the Lord's temple. 25No other king before or after Josiah tried as hard as he did to obey the Law of Moses.
Passover Is Celebrated
(2 Kings 23.21-23)
1Josiah commanded that Passover be celebrated in Jerusalem to honor the Lord. So, on the fourteenth day of the first month, the lambs were killed for the Passover celebration.
2On that day, Josiah made sure the priests knew what duties they were to do in the temple. 3He called together the Levites who served the Lord and who taught the people his laws, and he said:
No longer will you have to carry the sacred chest from place to place. It will stay in the temple built by King Solomon son of David, where you will serve the Lord and his people Israel. 4 Get ready to do the work that David and Solomon assigned to you, according to your clans. 5Divide yourselves into groups, then arrange yourselves throughout the temple so that each family of worshipers will be able to get help from one of you. 6When the people bring you their Passover lamb, you must kill it and prepare it to be sacrificed to the Lord. Make sure the people celebrate according to the instructions that the Lord gave Moses, and don't do anything to make yourselves unclean and unacceptable.
7Josiah donated 30,000 sheep and goats, and 3,000 bulls from his own flocks and herds for the people to offer as sacrifices. 8Josiah's officials also voluntarily gave some of their animals to the people, the priests, and the Levites as sacrifices. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, who were the officials in charge of the temple, gave the priests 2,600 sheep and lambs and 300 bulls to sacrifice during the Passover celebration. 9Conaniah, his two brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, as well as Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad were leaders of the Levites, and they gave the other Levites 5,000 sheep and goats, and 500 bulls to offer as sacrifices.
10When everything was ready to celebrate Passover, the priests and the Levites stood where Josiah had told them. 11Then the Levites killed and skinned the Passover lambs, and they handed some of the blood to the priests, who splattered it on the altar. 12The Levites set aside the parts of the animal that the worshipers needed for their sacrifices to please the Lord, just as the Law of Moses required. They also did the same thing with the bulls. 13 They sacrificed the Passover animals on the altar and boiled the meat for the other offerings in pots, kettles, and pans. Then they quickly handed the meat to the people so they could eat it.
14All day long, the priests were busy offering sacrifices and burning the animals' fat on the altar. And when everyone had finished, the Levites prepared Passover animals for themselves and for the priests.
15 During the celebration some of the Levites prepared Passover animals for the musicians and the guards, so that the Levite musicians would not have to leave their places, which had been assigned to them according to the instructions of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king's prophet. Even the guards at the temple gates did not have to leave their posts.
16So on that day, Passover was celebrated to honor the Lord, and sacrifices were offered on the altar to him, just as Josiah had commanded. 17 The worshipers then celebrated the Festival of Thin Bread for the next seven days.
18People from Jerusalem and from towns all over Judah and Israel were there. Passover had not been observed like this since the days of Samuel the prophet. In fact, this was the greatest Passover celebration in Israel's history! 19All these things happened in the eighteenth year of Josiah's rule in Judah.
Josiah Dies in Battle
(2 Kings 23.28-30)
20Some time later, King Neco of Egypt led his army to the city of Carchemish on the Euphrates River. And Josiah led his troops north to meet the Egyptians in battle.
21Neco sent the following message to Josiah:
I'm not attacking you, king of Judah! We're not even at war. But God has told me to quickly attack my enemy. God is on my side, so if you try to stop me, he will punish you.
22But Josiah ignored Neco's warning, even though it came from God! Instead, he disguised himself and marched into battle against Neco in the valley near Megiddo.
23During the battle an Egyptian soldier shot Josiah with an arrow. Josiah told his servants, “Get me out of here! I've been hit.” 24They carried Josiah out of his chariot, then put him in the other chariot he had there and took him back to Jerusalem, where he soon died. He was buried beside his ancestors, and everyone in Judah and Jerusalem mourned his death.
25Jeremiah the prophet wrote a funeral song in honor of Josiah. And since then, anyone in Judah who mourns the death of Josiah sings that song. It is included in the collection of funeral songs.
26Everything else Josiah did while he was king, including how he faithfully obeyed the Lord, 27is written in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah.
King Jehoahaz of Judah
(2 Kings 23.30-35)
1After the death of Josiah, the people of Judah crowned his son Jehoahaz their new king.
Reflect
When Josiah read the Book of the Law that had been found in the Temple, he was completely persuaded by what he read, and realized that for years his people had not been keeping the covenant. This chapter is impressive for its descriptions of how thoroughly Josiah tried to put things right.
The people of Judah had done what people in antiquity tended to do, which was to cover all their bases when it came to religious practice. You could never be too sure. You could never be too careful. So, along with maintaining Temple worship they had also absorbed religious practices from the people around them, offering sacrifices to Baal and the sun, moon and the stars. They worshipped a fertility goddess, Asherah, and set up poles as images of her. She was associated with Baal, who needed a wife to bestow fertility on his people. Male prostitutes performed sex with women who served Asherah.
It was worse than that. People sacrificed their children to the god Molech, believing that he demanded what they valued most.
Much of this had started with David’s son, Solomon, as he attempted to please his many foreign wives. And much of it took place beside the Temple in Jerusalem or in the palace. Solomon had even built shrines for the “disgusting” gods of the surrounding nations, Astarte, Chemosh, Milcom. There were pagan shrines all over Israel.
What was wrong with all this? “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45:5)
As we read this it all sounds very foreign and ancient. Or is it? Do we have other “idols” in our own culture that we like to worship alongside God? Are there “idols” in our own lives? Idolatry is the root of all sin.
Respond
Father, keep me true and single-minded in my worship of you, remembering that you gave Jesus Christ to die for my sins. Amen.
Annabel Robinson
Annabel was born in Kew, near London, England. She committed her life to Jesus Christ at a Scripture Union camp when she was 16, and immediately found joy and peace. At Oxford she was active in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where she met her husband, Reid. They emigrated to Canada in 1965, where she taught Classics at the University of Regina until 2007. She has two children, Heather in Oslo and Alasdair in Calgary.