Scripture Daily

Context No. 801 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 23:1-14: in context

1The king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. 2The king went up to the LORD’s house, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him—with the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the LORD’s house. 3The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people agreed to the covenant. 4The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the LORD’s temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for all the army of the sky; and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5He got rid of the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the army of the sky. 6He brought out the Asherah from the LORD’s house, outside of Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast its dust on the graves of the common people. 7He broke down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the LORD’s house, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. 8He 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 he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. 9Nevertheless the priests of the high places didn’t come up to the LORD’s altar in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. 10He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. 11He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance of the LORD’s house, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12The 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 LORD’s house, and beat them down from there, and cast their dust into the brook Kidron. 13The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon. 14He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.

Josiah's reform begins not with a bulldozer but with a book. The lost Book of the Law has been found in the temple, and the young king gathers everyone, from the least to the greatest, and reads the whole covenant aloud in their hearing, then stands by the pillar and pledges to follow the LORD with all his heart, and the people join him. Only then does the demolition start, and once it starts it does not stop. He clears the temple of every object made for Baal and Asherah and the starry host and burns them; he deposes the idol-priests, grinds the Asherah pole to powder, tears down the shrines, defiles the valley where children had been burned to Molech, removes the horses dedicated to the sun.

What is striking is how far back his reform reaches. He does not only tear down the recent altars his grandfather Manasseh had built. He goes after the high places that Solomon himself had put up for the gods of Sidon and Moab and Ammon, shrines that had been standing on the hills outside Jerusalem for roughly three hundred years. Generations of kings had walked past them and left them alone, because they had always been there, because they were old and familiar and part of the landscape. Josiah treats age and familiarity as no protection at all. If it was an idol, it came down, whether it went up last year or three centuries ago. The entrenched evil that everyone had learned to live with was exactly what he refused to leave standing.

Josiah tore down idols that had stood for three hundred years, that everyone had simply gotten used to. What long-standing, tolerated wrong in my own life have I left alone only because it has always been there?

Sources