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2 Kings 23
The Message

23 1-3 The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. Then the king proceeded to The Temple of God, bringing everyone in his train—priests and prophets and people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of God. The king stood by the pillar and before God solemnly committed them all to the covenant: to follow God believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the book. The people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous.

4-9 Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, his associate priest, and The Temple sentries to clean house—to get rid of everything in The Temple of God that had been made for worshiping Baal and Asherah and the cosmic powers. He had them burned outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and then disposed of the ashes in Bethel. He fired the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had hired to supervise the local sex-and-religion shrines in the towns of Judah and neighborhoods of Jerusalem. In a stroke he swept the country clean of the polluting stench of the round-the-clock worship of Baal, sun and moon, stars—all the so-called cosmic powers. He took the obscene phallic Asherah pole from The Temple of God to the Valley of Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it up, then ground up the ashes and scattered them in the cemetery. He tore out the rooms of the male sacred prostitutes that had been set up in The Temple of God; women also used these rooms for weavings for Asherah. He swept the outlying towns of Judah clean of priests and smashed the sex-and-religion shrines where they worked their trade from one end of the country to the other—all the way from Geba to Beersheba. He smashed the sex-and-religion shrine that had been set up just to the left of the city gate for the private use of Joshua, the city mayor. Even though these sex-and-religion priests did not defile the Altar in The Temple itself, they were part of the general priestly corruption and had to go.

10-11 Then Josiah demolished the Topheth, the iron furnace griddle set up in the Valley of Ben Hinnom for sacrificing children in the fire. No longer could anyone burn son or daughter to the god Molech. He hauled off the horse statues honoring the sun god that the kings of Judah had set up near the entrance to The Temple. They were in the courtyard next to the office of Nathan-Melech, the warden. He burned up the sun-chariots as so much rubbish.

12-15 The king smashed all the altars to smithereens—the altar on the roof shrine of Ahaz, the various altars the kings of Judah had made, the altars of Manasseh that littered the courtyard of The Temple—he smashed them all, pulverized the fragments, and scattered their dust in the Valley of Kidron. The king proceeded to make a clean sweep of all the sex-and-religion shrines that had proliferated east of Jerusalem on the south slope of Abomination Hill, the ones Solomon king of Israel had built to the obscene Sidonian sex goddess Ashtoreth, to Chemosh the dirty-old-god of the Moabites, and to Milcom the depraved god of the Ammonites. He tore apart the altars, chopped down the phallic Asherah-poles, and scattered old bones over the sites. Next, he took care of the altar at the shrine in Bethel that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built—the same Jeroboam who had led Israel into a life of sin. He tore apart the altar, burned down the shrine leaving it in ashes, and then lit fire to the phallic Asherah-pole.

16 As Josiah looked over the scene, he noticed the tombs on the hillside. He ordered the bones removed from the tombs and had them cremated on the ruined altars, desacralizing the evil altars. This was a fulfillment of the word of God spoken by the Holy Man years before when Jeroboam had stood by the altar at the sacred convocation.

17 Then the king said, “And that memorial stone—whose is that?”

The men from the city said, “That’s the grave of the Holy Man who spoke the message against the altar at Bethel that you have just fulfilled.”

18 Josiah said, “Don’t trouble his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet from Samaria.

19-20 But Josiah hadn’t finished. He now moved through all the towns of Samaria where the kings of Israel had built neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines, shrines that had so angered God. He tore the shrines down and left them in ruins—just as at Bethel. He killed all the priests who had conducted the sacrifices and cremated them on their own altars, thus desacralizing the altars. Only then did Josiah return to Jerusalem.

21 The king now commanded the people, “Celebrate the Passover to God, your God, exactly as directed in this Book of the Covenant.”

22-23 This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel—none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it. But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to God in Jerusalem.

24 Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures—all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of God’s Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of God.

25 There was no king to compare with Josiah—neither before nor after—a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to God, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.

26-27 But despite Josiah, God’s hot anger did not cool; the raging anger ignited by Manasseh burned unchecked. And God, not swerving in his judgment, gave sentence: “I’ll remove Judah from my presence in the same way I removed Israel. I’ll turn my back on this city, Jerusalem, that I chose, and even from this Temple of which I said, ‘My Name lives here.’”

28-30 The rest of the life and times of Josiah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Josiah’s death came about when Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched out to join forces with the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. When King Josiah intercepted him at the Plain of Megiddo, Neco killed him. Josiah’s servants took his body in a chariot, returned him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. By popular choice Jehoahaz son of Josiah was anointed and succeeded his father as king.

Jehoahaz of Judah

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah. She came from Libnah.

32 In God’s opinion, he was an evil king, reverting to the evil ways of his ancestors.

33-34 Pharaoh Neco captured Jehoahaz at Riblah in the country of Hamath and put him in chains, preventing him from ruling in Jerusalem. He demanded that Judah pay tribute of nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold. Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah the successor to Josiah, but changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was carted off to Egypt and eventually died there.

35 Meanwhile Jehoiakim, like a good puppet, dutifully paid out the silver and gold demanded by Pharaoh. He scraped up the money by gouging the people, making everyone pay an assessed tax.

Jehoiakim of Judah

36-37 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah. She had come from Rumah. In God’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors.

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2 Kings 23
International Standard Version

Josiah’s Covenant

23 At this, the king sent for and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 The king went up to the Lord’s Temple, accompanied by all the men of Judah, everyone who lived in Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone—including those who were unimportant and those who were important—and he read to them everything written in the Book of the Covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s Temple. 3 The king stood beside a pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord: to follow after the Lord, to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all of his heart and soul, and to carry out what was written in the covenant contained in the book. All the people consented to enter into the covenant.

Josiah Abolishes Idolatry

4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the secondary order, and the doorkeepers to take out of the Lord’s Temple all of the implements that had been crafted for Baal, for Asherah, and for every star in the heavens. Then he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried the ashes to Bethel. 5 The king unseated the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places throughout the cities of Judah and in the environs surrounding Jerusalem, including those who had been burning incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to every star in the heavens. 6 He brought the Asherah from the Lord’s Temple to the Kidron Brook outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Kidron brook, pulverized the ashes[a] to dust, and scattered it[b] over the graves of the common people.

7 He also demolished the temples of the cultic male prostitutes that had been operating[c] in the Lord’s Temple, where the women had been doing weaving for the Asherah. 8 Then he gathered together all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places from Geba to Beer-sheba, where the priests had burned incense. He also demolished the high places of the gates that had been erected to the left as one enters the city gate—that is, near the entrance operated by Joshua, the governor of the city. 9 Nevertheless, the priests of the high places did not approach the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem, but instead they ate unleavened bread given to them by their[d] relatives.

10 He also defiled Topheth, which is located in the Ben-hinnom Valley,[e] so that no one would force his son or daughter to pass through the fire in dedication to Molech. 11 He abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the Lord’s Temple, near the offices of Nathan-melech, the official, that were in the precincts. He also set fire to the chariots of the sun.

12 The king demolished the rooftop altars on top of Ahaz’s upper chamber that the kings of Judah had erected, as well as the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the Lord’s Temple. He pulverized them where they stood and cast their dust into the Kidron Brook. 13 The king defiled the high places which faced[f] Jerusalem on the south[g] side of Corruption Mountain, which King Solomon of Israel had constructed for Ashtoreth, the Sidonian abomination, for Chemosh, the Moabite abomination, and for Milcom, the Ammonite abomination. 14 He broke the pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherim, and filled their locations with human bones.

15 Furthermore, he even broke down the altar that had been at Bethel as well as the high place constructed by Nebat’s son Jeroboam, who had caused Israel to sin. He demolished its stones, pulverized them to dust, and burned the Asherah. 16 As Josiah turned around, he observed the graves located there on the mountain, so he sent for and recovered the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar to defile it, in keeping with the message from the Lord that the godly man had proclaimed when he was declaring these things. 17 He asked, “What is this monument that I’m looking at?”

The men who lived in that city answered him, “It’s the grave of that godly man who came from Judah and predicted these things that you’ve done against the altar at Bethel!”

18 Josiah[h] replied, “Leave him alone. No one is to disturb his bones.” So they preserved his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria. 19 Josiah also removed all of the temples on the high places that had been in the cities of Samaria and that the kings of Israel had erected, thereby provoking the Lord.[i] He treated Samaria[j] just as he had Bethel. 20 After he had slaughtered all the priests who served at the high places and burned their bones on those high places, he returned to Jerusalem.

Josiah Reinstates the Passover

21 After this, the king commanded all of the people, “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, just as it’s prescribed in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 From the days of the judges who ruled in Israel, no Passover had been celebrated like this, not even in all the reigns of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. 23 In the eighteenth year of the reign of[k] King Josiah, this Passover was observed in Jerusalem to honor the Lord. 24 Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums, the necromancers, the household gods,[l] the idols, and every despicable thing that could be seen in the territory of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might confirm the words of the Law that had been written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s Temple. 25 There had been no king like him before him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, in obeying everything in the Law of Moses. No king arose like Josiah after him.

26 Even so, the Lord did not turn away from his fierce and great anger that burned against Judah because of everything with which Manasseh had provoked him. 27 The Lord said, “I’m going to remove Judah from my sight as well, just as I’ve removed Israel. I will abandon Jerusalem, this city that I’ve chosen, as well as the Temple, about which I’ve spoken, ‘My Name shall remain there.’”

Pharaoh Neco Kills Josiah

28 Now the rest of Josiah’s actions, including everything that he did, are recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, are they not? 29 During his reign, Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, marched out toward the Euphrates River to meet the king of Assyria. King Josiah went out to engage him in battle, but Pharaoh Neco[m] killed him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him. 30 Josiah’s servants drove his corpse in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in a tomb made for him.

Jehoahaz is Anointed King

The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, anointed him, and installed him as king in his father’s place. 31 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king. He reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal. She was the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 He practiced what the Lord considered to be evil, just as all of his ancestors had done. 33 Pharaoh Neco placed him in custody at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, so that he would not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed a tribute of 100 talents[n] of silver and a talent[o] of gold.

Jehoiakim is Made King by Pharaoh Neco

34 Pharaoh Neco installed Josiah’s son Eliakim as king to replace his father Josiah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He transported Jehoahaz off to Egypt, where he died. 35 As a result, Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold tribute[p] to Pharaoh, but he passed on the costs to the inhabitants of the land in taxes, in keeping with Pharaoh’s orders. He exacted the silver and gold from the people who lived in the land, from each according to his assessment, in order to pay it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was named Zebidah. She was the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 37 Eliakim practiced what the Lord considered to be evil, just as his ancestors had done.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 23:6 The Heb. lacks the ashes
  2. 2 Kings 23:6 The Heb. lacks it
  3. 2 Kings 23:7 The Heb. lacks operating
  4. 2 Kings 23:9 Or bread among
  5. 2 Kings 23:10 So MT; LXX and MT variant read the valley of the descendants of Hinnom
  6. 2 Kings 23:13 So LXX.
  7. 2 Kings 23:13 Lit. right; i.e. the side on the right when facing east
  8. 2 Kings 23:18 Lit. He
  9. 2 Kings 23:19 So LXX. The Heb. lacks the Lord
  10. 2 Kings 23:19 Lit. them
  11. 2 Kings 23:23 The Heb. lacks the reign of
  12. 2 Kings 23:24 Lit. the teraphim
  13. 2 Kings 23:29 Lit. but he
  14. 2 Kings 23:33 I.e. about 7,500 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds
  15. 2 Kings 23:33 I.e. about 75 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds
  16. 2 Kings 23:35 The Heb. lacks tribute
Listen to 2 Kings 23
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2 Kings 23
New International Version

Josiah Renews the Covenant(A)(B)(C)(D)

23 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(E) in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant,(F) which had been found in the temple of the Lord. 3 The king stood by the pillar(G) and renewed the covenant(H) in the presence of the Lord—to follow(I) 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. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers(J) to remove(K) 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(L) to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.(M) 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley(N) outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder(O) and scattered the dust over the graves(P) of the common people.(Q) 7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes(R) 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(S) 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(T) at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

10 He desecrated Topheth,(U) which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom,(V) so no one could use it to sacrifice their son(W) 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(X) had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court[a] near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.(Y)

12 He pulled down(Z) the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof(AA) near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts(AB) of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.(AC) 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon(AD) 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(AE) god of the people of Ammon.(AF) 14 Josiah smashed(AG) the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.(AH)

15 Even the altar(AI) at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam(AJ) 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(AK) 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(AL) 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(AM).” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet(AN) who had come from Samaria.

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(AO) all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones(AP) on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover(AQ) to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”(AR) 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.(AS)

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists,(AT) the household gods,(AU) the idols and all the other detestable(AV) 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(AW) 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.(AX)

26 Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger,(AY) which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh(AZ) had done to arouse his anger. 27 So the Lord said, “I will remove(BA) Judah also from my presence(BB) as I removed Israel, and I will reject(BC) Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’[b]”

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(BD) king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.(BE) 30 Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot(BF) 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(BG)

31 Jehoahaz(BH) was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal(BI) daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. 32 He did evil(BJ) in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done. 33 Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah(BK) in the land of Hamath(BL) so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents[c] of silver and a talent[d] of gold. 34 Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim(BM) 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.(BN) 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.(BO)

Jehoiakim King of Judah(BP)

36 Jehoiakim(BQ) 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(BR) in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 23:11 The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
  2. 2 Kings 23:27 1 Kings 8:29
  3. 2 Kings 23:33 That is, about 3 3/4 tons or about 3.4 metric tons
  4. 2 Kings 23:33 That is, about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms
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2 Kings 23
New English Translation

The King Institutes Religious Reform

23 The king summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem.[a] 2 The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud[b] all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed[c] the covenant before the Lord, agreeing to follow[d] the Lord and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being,[e] by carrying out the terms[f] of this covenant recorded on this scroll. All the people agreed to keep the covenant.[g]

4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests,[h] and the guards[i] to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of[j] Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky.[k] The king[l] burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces[m] of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 He eliminated[n] the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices[o] on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices[p] to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.) 6 He removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it.[q] He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard.[r] 7 He tore down the quarters[s] of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines[t] for Asherah.

8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined[u] the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba.[v] He tore down the high place of the goat idols[w] situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate. 9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.)[x] 10 The king[y] ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.[z] 11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses[aa] that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.)[ab] He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.[ac] 12 The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them[ad] and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley. 13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction,[ae] that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom. 14 He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled those shrines[af] with human bones.

15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin.[ag] He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust, including the Asherah pole.[ah] 16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought;[ai] he burned them on the altar and defiled it, just as in the Lord’s message that was announced by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. Then the king turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this.[aj] 17 He asked, “What is this grave marker I see?” The men from the city replied, “It’s the grave of the prophet[ak] who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel.” 18 The king[al] said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him.[am]

19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord.[an] He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel.[ao] 20 He sacrificed all the priests of the high places on the altars located there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

21 The king ordered all the people, “Observe the Passover of the Lord your God, as prescribed in this scroll of the covenant.” 22 He issued this edict because[ap] a Passover like this had not been observed since the days of the judges who led Israel; it was neglected for the entire period of the kings of Israel and Judah.[aq] 23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, such a Passover of the Lord was observed in Jerusalem.

24 Josiah also got rid of[ar] the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits,[as] the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images,[at] and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law[au] recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple. 25 No king before or after repented before the Lord as he did, with his whole heart, soul, and being in accordance with the whole law of Moses.[av]

26 Yet the Lord’s great anger against Judah did not subside; he was still infuriated by all the things Manasseh had done.[aw] 27 The Lord announced, “I will also spurn Judah,[ax] just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose—both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, ‘I will live there.’[ay]

28 The rest of the events of Josiah’s reign and all his accomplishments are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.[az] 29 During Josiah’s reign[ba] Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched toward[bb] the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to fight him, but Necho[bc] killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. 30 His servants transported his dead body[bd] from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head,[be] and made him king in his father’s place.

Jehoahaz’s Reign over Judah

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother[bf] was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the sight of[bg] the Lord as his ancestors had done.[bh] 33 Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem.[bi] He imposed on the land a special tax[bj] of 100 talents[bk] of silver and a talent of gold. 34 Pharaoh Necho made Josiah’s son Eliakim king in Josiah’s place, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died.[bl] 35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho.[bm]

Jehoiakim’s Reign over Judah

36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother[bn] was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah. 37 He did evil in the sight of[bo] the Lord as his ancestors had done.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 23:1 tn Heb “and the king sent and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered to him.”
  2. 2 Kings 23:2 tn Heb “read in their ears.”
  3. 2 Kings 23:3 tn Heb “cut,” that is, “made, agreed to.”
  4. 2 Kings 23:3 tn Heb “walk after.”
  5. 2 Kings 23:3 tn Or “soul.”
  6. 2 Kings 23:3 tn Heb “words.”
  7. 2 Kings 23:3 tn Heb “stood in the covenant.”
  8. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.
  9. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Or “doorkeepers.”
  10. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Heb “for.”
  11. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).
  12. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  13. 2 Kings 23:4 tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.
  14. 2 Kings 23:5 tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”
  15. 2 Kings 23:5 tn Or “burn incense.”
  16. 2 Kings 23:5 tn Or “burned incense.”
  17. 2 Kings 23:6 tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”
  18. 2 Kings 23:6 tc Heb “on the grave of the sons of the people.” Some Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses read the plural “graves.” tn The phrase “sons of the people” refers here to the common people (see BDB 766 s.v. עַם), as opposed to the upper classes who would have private tombs.
  19. 2 Kings 23:7 tn Or “cubicles.” Heb “houses.”
  20. 2 Kings 23:7 tn Heb “houses.” Perhaps tent-shrines made from cloth are in view (see BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת). M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 286) understand this as referring to clothes made for images of the goddess.
  21. 2 Kings 23:8 tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”
  22. 2 Kings 23:8 sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.
  23. 2 Kings 23:8 tc The Hebrew text reads “the high places of the gates,” which is problematic in that the rest of the verse speaks of a specific gate. The translation assumes an emendation to בָּמוֹת הַשְּׁעָרִים (bamot hasheʿarim), “the high place of the goats” (that is, goat idols). Worship of such images is referred to in Lev 17:7 and 2 Chr 11:15. For a discussion of the textual issue, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 286-87.
  24. 2 Kings 23:9 tn Heb “their brothers.”
  25. 2 Kings 23:10 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  26. 2 Kings 23:10 sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.
  27. 2 Kings 23:11 tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
  28. 2 Kings 23:11 tn Heb “who/which was in the […?].” The meaning of the Hebrew term פַּרְוָרִים (parvarim), translated here “courtyards,” is uncertain. The relative clause may indicate where the room was located or explain who Nathan Melech was, “the eunuch who was in the courtyards.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 288-89, who translate “the officer of the precincts.”
  29. 2 Kings 23:11 tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”
  30. 2 Kings 23:12 tc The MT reads, “he ran from there,” which makes little if any sense in this context. Some prefer to emend the verbal form (Qal of רוּץ [ruts], “run”) to a Hiphil of רוּץ with third plural suffix and translate, “he quickly removed them” (see BDB 930 s.v. רוּץ, and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 289). The suffix could have been lost in MT by haplography (note the mem [מ] that immediately follows the verb on the form מִשָּׁם, misham, “from there”). Another option, the one reflected in the translation, is to emend the verb to a Piel of רָצַץ (ratsats), “crush,” with third plural suffix.
  31. 2 Kings 23:13 sn This is a derogatory name for the Mount of Olives, involving a wordplay between מִשְׁחָה (mishkhah), “anointing,” and מַשְׁחִית (mashkhit), “destruction.” See HALOT 644 s.v. מַשְׁחִית and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.
  32. 2 Kings 23:14 tn Heb “their place.”
  33. 2 Kings 23:15 tn Heb “And also the altar that is in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat who encouraged Israel to sin, also that altar and the high place he tore down.” The more repetitive Hebrew text is emphatic.
  34. 2 Kings 23:15 tn Heb “he burned the high place, crushing to dust, and he burned the Asherah pole.” High places per se are never referred to as being burned elsewhere. בָּמָה (bamah) here stands by metonymy for the combustible items located on the high place. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.
  35. 2 Kings 23:16 tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”
  36. 2 Kings 23:16 tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).sn This recalls the prophecy recorded in 1 Kgs 13:2.
  37. 2 Kings 23:17 tn Heb “man of God.”
  38. 2 Kings 23:18 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  39. 2 Kings 23:18 tn Heb “and they left undisturbed his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” If the phrase “the bones of the prophet” were appositional to “his bones,” one would expect the sentence to end “from Judah” (see v. 17). Apparently the “prophet” referred to in the second half of the verse is the old prophet from Bethel who buried the man of God from Judah in his own tomb and instructed his sons to bury his bones there as well (1 Kgs 13:30-31). One expects the text to read “from Bethel,” but “Samaria” (which was not even built at the time of the incident recorded in 1 Kgs 13) is probably an anachronistic reference to the northern kingdom in general. See the note at 1 Kgs 13:32 and the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 290.
  40. 2 Kings 23:19 tc Heb “which the kings of Israel had made, angering.” The object has been accidentally omitted in the MT. It appears in the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions.
  41. 2 Kings 23:19 tn Heb “and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.”
  42. 2 Kings 23:22 tn The Hebrew text has simply “because.” The translation attempts to reflect more clearly the logical connection between the king’s order and the narrator’s observation. Another option is to interpret כִּי (ki) as asseverative and translate, “indeed.”
  43. 2 Kings 23:22 tn Heb “because there had not been observed [one] like this Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel and all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.”
  44. 2 Kings 23:24 tn Here בִּעֵר (biʿer) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.
  45. 2 Kings 23:24 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.
  46. 2 Kings 23:24 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.
  47. 2 Kings 23:24 tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”
  48. 2 Kings 23:25 tn Heb “and like him there was not a king before him who returned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his being according to all the law of Moses, and after him none arose like him.”sn The description of Josiah’s devotion as involving his whole “heart, soul, and being” echoes the language of Deut 6:5.
  49. 2 Kings 23:26 tn Heb “Yet the Lord did not turn away from the fury of his great anger, because his anger raged against Judah on account of all the infuriating things by which Manasseh had made him angry.”
  50. 2 Kings 23:27 tn Heb “Also Judah I will turn away from my face.”
  51. 2 Kings 23:27 tn Heb “My name will be there.”
  52. 2 Kings 23:28 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Josiah, and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
  53. 2 Kings 23:29 tn Heb “In his days.”
  54. 2 Kings 23:29 tn Heb “went up to.” The idiom עַל…עָלָה (ʿalah…ʿal) can sometimes mean “go up against,” but here it refers to Necho’s attempt to aid the Assyrians in their struggle with the Babylonians.
  55. 2 Kings 23:29 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Necho) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  56. 2 Kings 23:30 tn Heb “him, dead.”
  57. 2 Kings 23:30 tn Or “anointed him.”
  58. 2 Kings 23:31 tn Heb “the name of his mother.”
  59. 2 Kings 23:32 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
  60. 2 Kings 23:32 tn Heb “according to all that his fathers had done.”
  61. 2 Kings 23:33 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “when [he was] ruling in Jerusalem,” but the marginal reading (Qere), which has support from Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses, has “[preventing him] from ruling in Jerusalem.”
  62. 2 Kings 23:33 tn Or “fine.”
  63. 2 Kings 23:33 tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold (cf. NCV, NLT); CEV “almost four tons of silver and about seventy-five pounds of gold.”
  64. 2 Kings 23:34 tn Heb “and he took Jehoahaz, and he came to Egypt and he died there.”
  65. 2 Kings 23:35 tn Heb “And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver at the command of Pharaoh, [from] each according to his tax he collected the silver and the gold, from the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Necho.”
  66. 2 Kings 23:36 tn Heb “the name of his mother.”
  67. 2 Kings 23:37 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
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