Josiah¡¯s religious reform
1 The king summoned to his side all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem.
2 Then he went up to the House of Yahweh followed by all the peo ple of
Judah and Jerusalem. The priests with the prophets and all the people went
with him, from the youngest to the oldest. When all were gathered, he read
to them the book of the Law found in the House of Yahweh.
3 The king stood by the pillar; he made a covenant in the presence of Yah
weh, promising to follow him, to keep his commandments and laws, and to
respect his ordinances. He promised to keep this covenant according to what
was written in the book with all his heart and with all his soul. And all
the people promised with him.
4 Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiah as well as the priests of
lesser rank and all the gatekeepers to bring out all the objects which had
been made for Baal, Asherah and for all the stars of heaven. He had them
burned out side Jerusalem, in the idle land of Kidron, and had their ashes
brought to Bethel.
5 The kings of Judah had appointed pagan priests who offered sacrifices in
the sanctuaries on the hills, in the different cities of Judah and in the
suburbs of Jerusalem. Josiah did away with them and with those who offered
incense to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the stars and all the heavenly host.
6 The Sacred Pi llar that was in the House of Yahweh was brought out of
Jerusalem and was taken to the brook Kidron, where it was burned and its
ashes thrown on the public grave.
7 The king demolished the house of the effeminate men who dedicated them
selves to prostitution (as was done in the cult of Asherah). This was within
the courtyards of the House of Yahweh, and in this house too the women wove
veils for Asherah.
8 Right after this he made all the priests from the cities of Judah come to
Jerusalem, and he destroyed all the sanctuaries on the hills where they had
offered sacrifice from Beersheba in the south to Geba in the north. He
destroyed the Sanc tuary of the Gates that was at the entrance of the gate
of Jo shua, the city governor. It was on the left side of the entrance gate
to the city.
9 The priests who had served in the sanctuaries on the hills could not offer
sacrifices in the House of Yah weh; they only ate the un leavened bread with
the priests of Jerusalem.
10 The king had the place for burning hu man sacrifices in the valley of
Ben-hinnom destroyed, so that no one could sacrifice his sons or daughters
in the fire according to the ritual of Molech.
11 The horses which the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun were removed
from the entrance of the House of Yahweh; these were in the atrium, near the
house of the palace official, Nathanmelech. And the chariots of the sun were
burned.
12 There were altars which the kings of Judah had built on the roof of the
palace of Ahaza. There were also altars built by Manasseh in the two
courtyards of the House of Yahweh. Josiah had them all destroyed and reduced
to dust, which was thrown into the brook Kidron.
13 The king destroyed the sanctuaries on the hills facing Jerusalem, to the
south of the Mount of Olives. Solomon, king of Israel, had built them for
Ashtoreth the idol of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the idol of Moab, and for
Milcom, the idol of the Ammonites.
14 The king broke in pieces the images of the false gods, cut down the
sacred pillars, and filled the places in which these had been with human
bones to make them unclean.
15 There was also the sanctuary of Bethel, with the altar which Jeroboam,
king of Israel, had made. This cult had been the sin of Israel. The king
destroyed it. He set the sanctuary on fire and burned the sacred pillar.
16 Looking around on all sides, Josiah saw the tombs on the mountain; he had
the bones taken out of the tomb and burned on the altar. So the word of
Yahweh was fulfilled which the man of God had proclaimed when Jeroboam was
standing by the altar during a feast. Josiah noticed the tomb of this man of
God,
17 and he said, ¡°What is that monument that I see?¡± The people of the city
said to him, ¡°That is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah to
announce what you have just done with the altar of Bethel.¡±
18 The king commanded, ¡°Leave the tomb in peace, and let no one touch his
bones.¡± And his bones, together with the bones of the prophet of Samaria,
were not touched.
19 Josiah also removed all the sanctuaries on the hills in the cities of
Samaria. These sanctuaries had been made by the kings of Israel and they had
provoked the anger of Yahweh. The king destroyed them and did to them as he
had done to the temple of Bethel.
20 He slaughtered upon the altars all the priests of the sanctuaries on the
hills who were found there, and he burned human bones on the altars. Then he
returned to Jerusalem.
21 The king gave this order to all the people, ¡°Celebrate the Passover in
honor of Yahweh, our God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.¡±
22 A Passover like this had not been celebrated since the days of the Judges
who had governed Israel, or during the time when the kings of Israel and the
kings of Judah reigned.
23 This Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of King
Josiah.
24 Josiah obeyed all the words of the Law written in the book which the
priest Hilkiah had found in the House of Yahweh. He immediately did away
with the mediums and seers, the small household gods and the idols, and all
those loathsome things seen in the lands of Judah and Jerusalem.
25 There had never before been a king like him who returned to Yahweh with
all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, ob serving all
the Law of Moses, nor was another like him seen again.
26 In spite of this, Yahweh did not turn from the fire of his anger. He was
angry with Judah because of all the evils Manasseh had done.
27 So Yahweh de clared, ¡°I shall also cast Judah away from my presence as I
have cast Israel; I shall no longer take Jerusalem into consideration,
though it is the city I have chosen and there is the House of which I have
said: My Name dwells here.¡±
28 The rest regarding Josiah and all that he did is written in the Book of
the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
29 In those days, the Pharaoh Neco crossed the river Euphrates and went to
join the king of Asshur. King Josiah set out to confront him, but Neco
killed him in Me gid do when he saw him.
30 Josiah¡¯s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to
Jerusalem, and they buried him in his tomb. Then the people took Jehoahaz,
son of Josiah, to anoint him and make him king in place of his father.
Josiah¡¯s sons
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned for three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal, daughter of
Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 He did what displeases Yahweh, imitating his ancestors.
33 The Pharaoh Neco bound Jehoahaz in chains in Riblah, in the land of
Hamath, since he did not want him to reign in Jerusalem. Then he imposed on
the land a contribution of one hundred talents of silver and ten of gold.
34 And he installed as king another son of Josiah, Eliakim, as the successor
to his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jeho ahaz away
and brought him to Egypt, where Jehoahaz died.
35 Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to the Pharaoh to pay the contribution
which the Pharaoh himself exacted from him, through a tax imposed on all the
land. Everyone had to pay his quota ac cording to what he possessed. So Jeho
iakim collected from all the people the gold and silver demanded by the Pha
raoh.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zebidha, daughter of
Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 He did what displeased Yah weh, imitating his fathers.
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Comments 2 Kings, Chapter 23
• 23.15 Taking advantage of the decadence of the Assyrian empire, Josiah
reconquered part of the land of Israel to the north which had become an
Assyrian province a hundred years before. There, too, he destroyed all the
sanctuaries, idols and practices that offend Yahweh and go against his
demands.
For a few years the prophets believed that Yah weh¡¯s threats predicting the
total destruction of Israel would not be fulfilled. In the reconquest, they
even saw a sign of the happy times when the Messiah would reunite again
Judah and Israel as one people with one covenant (Jer 31:31).
• 28. Josiah, the reformist king, dies a victim of a poli tical mistake. For
centuries, Israel had been squeezed between Egypt and Assyria (or Asshur).
Assyria was the most brutal and cruel nation of those days. When Babylon
began to destroy Assyrian power, the Pharaoh, worried by the dyna mism of
this new ¡°great¡± power, wanted to help the weakened Assyria, forgetting the
old rivalry.
Josiah refused to allow it. Jewish consciousness longed for the destruction
of ¡°the cruel nation¡± (see Nahum¡¯s prophecies).
How could God allow the death of Josiah, the holy king of the reforms? It
was such a stumbling block for Jewish consciousness that the author of this
book prefers to say nothing about it. Much later, they tried to justify
Josiah¡¯s tragic end by a mistake he would have made (2 Chr 35:21). His
death, in part, inspires the great prophecy of Zechariah 12:10 and, in the
Bible, the name Megiddo becomes the symbol of a curse (Rev 16:16).