Chronological

22 ^1-2 New king of Judah: Josiah

^3-4 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent his secretary Shaphan (son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam) to the Temple to give instruction to Hilkiah, the High Priest:

“Collect the money given to the priests at the door of the Temple when the people come to worship. ^5-6 Give this money to the building superintendents so that they can hire carpenters and masons to repair the Temple, and to buy lumber and stone.”

⁷ (The building superintendents were not required to keep account of their expenditures, for they were honest men.)

⁸ One day Hilkiah the High Priest went to Shaphan the secretary and exclaimed, “I have discovered a scroll in the Temple, with God’s laws written on it!”

He gave the scroll to Shaphan to read. ^9-10 When Shaphan reported to the king about the progress of the repairs at the Temple, he also mentioned the scroll found by Hilkiah. Then Shaphan read it to the king. ¹¹ When the king heard what was written in it, he tore his clothes in terror. ^12-13 He commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Shaphan, and Asaiah, the king’s assistant, and Ahikam (Shaphan’s son), and Achbor (Michaiah’s son) to ask the Lord, “What shall we do? For we have not been following the instructions of this book: you must be very angry with us, for neither we nor our ancestors have followed your commands.”

¹⁴ So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the Mishneh section of Jerusalem to find Huldah the prophetess. (She was the wife of Shallum—son of Tikvah, son of Harhas—who was in charge of the palace tailor shop.) ^15-16 She gave them this message from the Lord God of Israel:

“Tell the man who sent you to me that I am going to destroy this city and its people, just as I stated in that book you read. ¹⁷ For the people of Judah have thrown me aside and have worshiped other gods and have made me very angry; and my anger can’t be stopped. ^18-19 But because you were sorry and concerned and humbled yourself before the Lord when you read the book and its warnings that this land would be cursed and become desolate, and because you have torn your clothing and wept before me in contrition, I will listen to your plea. ²⁰ The death of this nation will not occur until after you die—you will not see the evil that I will bring upon this place.”

So they took the message to the king.

23 ^1-2 Then the king sent for the elders and other leaders of Judah and Jerusalem to go to the Temple with him. So all the priests and prophets and the people, small and great, of Jerusalem and Judah gathered there at the Temple so that the king could read to them the entire book of God’s laws which had been discovered in the Temple. ³ He stood beside the pillar in front of the people, and he and they made a solemn promise to the Lord to obey him at all times and to do everything the book commanded.

⁴ Then the king instructed Hilkiah the High Priest and the rest of the priests and the guards of the Temple to destroy all the equipment used in the worship of Baal, Asherah, and the sun, moon, and stars. The king had it all burned in the fields of the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and he carried the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He killed the heathen priests who had been appointed by the previous kings of Judah, for they had burned incense in the shrines on the hills throughout Judah and even in Jerusalem. They had also offered incense to Baal and to the sun, moon, stars, and planets. ⁶ He removed the shameful idol of Asherah from the Temple and took it outside Jerusalem to Kidron Brook; there he burned it and beat it to dust and threw the dust on the graves of the common people. ⁷ He also tore down the houses of male prostitution around the Temple, where the women wove robes for the Asherah idol.

⁸ He brought back to Jerusalem the priests of the Lord, who were living in other cities of Judah, and tore down all the shrines on the hills where they had burned incense, even those as far away as Geba and Beersheba. He also destroyed the shrines at the entrance of the palace of Joshua, the former mayor of Jerusalem, located on the left side as one enters the city gate. ⁹ However, these priests^[a] did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, even though they ate with the other priests.

¹⁰ Then the king destroyed the altar of Topheth in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, so that no one could ever again use it to burn his son or daughter to death as a sacrifice to Molech. ¹¹ He tore down the statues of horses and chariots located near the entrance of the Temple, next to the quarters of Nathan-melech the eunuch. These had been dedicated by former kings of Judah to the sun god. ¹² Then he tore down the altars that the kings of Judah had built on the palace roof above the Ahaz Room. He also destroyed the altars that Manasseh had built in the two courts of the Temple; he smashed them to bits and scattered the pieces in Kidron Valley.

¹³ Next he removed the shrines on the hills east of Jerusalem and south of Destruction Mountain. (Solomon had built these shrines for Ashtoreth, the evil goddess of the Sidonians; and for Chemosh, the evil god of Moab; and for Milcom, the evil god of the Ammonites.) ¹⁴ He smashed the obelisks and cut down the shameful idols of Asherah; then he defiled these places by scattering human bones over them. ¹⁵ He also tore down the altar and shrine at Bethel that Jeroboam I had made when he led Israel into sin. He crushed the stones to dust and burned the shameful idol of Asherah.

¹⁶ As Josiah was looking around, he noticed several graves in the side of the mountain. He ordered his men to bring out the bones in them and to burn them there upon the altar at Bethel to defile it, just as the Lord’s prophet had declared would happen to Jeroboam’s altar.^[b]

¹⁷ “What is that monument over there?” he asked.

And the men of the city told him, “It is the grave of the prophet who came from Judah and proclaimed that what you have just done would happen here at the altar at Bethel!”

¹⁸ So King Josiah replied, “Leave it alone. Don’t disturb his bones.”

So they didn’t burn his bones or those of the prophet from Samaria.^[c]

¹⁹ Josiah demolished the shrines on the hills in all of Samaria. They had been built by the various kings of Israel and had made the Lord very angry. But now he crushed them into dust, just as he had done at Bethel. ²⁰ He executed the priests of the heathen shrines upon their own altars, and he burned human bones upon the altars to defile them. Finally he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king then issued orders for his people to observe the Passover ceremonies as recorded by the Lord their God in The Book of the Covenant. ²² There had not been a Passover celebration like that since the days of the judges of Israel, and there was never another like it in all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah. ²³ This Passover was in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Josiah, and it was celebrated in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Josiah also exterminated the mediums and wizards, and every kind of idol worship, both in Jerusalem and throughout the land. For Josiah wanted to follow all the laws that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the Temple. ²⁵ There was no other king who so completely turned to the Lord and followed all the laws of Moses; and no king since the time of Josiah has approached his record of obedience.

²⁶ But the Lord still did not hold back his great anger against Judah, caused by the evils of King Manasseh. ²⁷ For the Lord had said, “I will destroy Judah just as I have destroyed Israel; and I will discard my chosen city of Jerusalem and the Temple that I said was mine.”

²⁸ The rest of the biography of Josiah is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. ²⁹ In those days King Neco of Egypt went out to help the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. Then King Josiah went out with his troops to fight King Neco; but King Neco withstood him at Megiddo and killed him. ³⁰ His officers took his body back in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in the grave he had selected. And his son Jehoahaz was chosen by the nation as its new king.

³³ Pharaoh Neco jailed him at Riblah in Hamath to prevent his reigning in Jerusalem, and he levied a tax against Judah totaling $230,000. ³⁴ The Egyptian king then chose Eliakim, another of Josiah’s sons, to reign in Jerusalem; and he changed his name to Jehoiakim. Then he took King Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. ³⁵ Jehoiakim taxed the people to get the money that the Pharaoh had demanded.

34 Josiah was only eight years old when he became king. He reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. ² His was a good reign, as he carefully followed the good example of his ancestor King David. ³ For when he was sixteen years old, in the eighth year of his reign, he began to search for the God of his ancestor David; and four years later he began to clean up Judah and Jerusalem, destroying the heathen altars and the shameful idols on the hills. ⁴ He went out personally to watch as the altars of Baal were knocked apart, the obelisks above the altars chopped down, and the shameful idols ground into dust and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. ⁵ Then he burned the bones of the heathen priests upon their own altars, feeling that this action would clear the people of Judah and Jerusalem from the guilt of their sin of idol worship.

⁶ Then he went to the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even to distant Naphtali, and did the same thing there. ⁷ He broke down the heathen altars, ground to powder the shameful idols, and chopped down the obelisks. He did this everywhere throughout the whole land of Israel before returning to Jerusalem.

⁸ During the eighteenth year of his reign, after he had purged the land and cleaned up the situation at the Temple, he appointed Shaphan (son of Azaliah) and Maaseiah, governor of Jerusalem, and Joah (son of Joahaz), the city treasurer, to repair the Temple. ⁹ They set up a collection system for gifts for the Temple. The money was collected at the Temple gates by the Levites on guard duty there. Gifts were brought by the people coming from Manasseh, Ephraim, and other parts of the remnant of Israel, as well as from the people of Jerusalem. The money was taken to Hilkiah the High Priest for accounting, ^10-11 and then used by the Levites to pay the carpenters and stonemasons and to purchase building materials—stone building blocks, timber, lumber, and beams. He now rebuilt what earlier kings of Judah had torn down.

¹² The workmen were energetic under the leadership of Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the subclan of Merari. Zechariah and Meshullam, of the subclan of Kohath, were the building superintendents. The Levites who were skilled musicians played background music while the work progressed. ¹³ Other Levites superintended the unskilled laborers who carried in the materials to the workmen. Still others assisted as accountants, supervisors, and carriers.

¹⁴ One day when Hilkiah the High Priest was at the Temple recording the money collected at the gates, he found an old scroll that turned out to be the laws of God as given to Moses!

^15-16 “Look!” Hilkiah exclaimed to Shaphan, the king’s secretary. “See what I have found in the Temple! These are the laws of God!” Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan, and Shaphan took it to the king, along with his report that there was good progress being made in the reconstruction of the Temple.

¹⁷ “The money chests have been opened and counted, and the money has been put into the hand of the overseers and workmen,” he said to the king.

¹⁸ Then he mentioned the scroll and how Hilkiah had discovered it. So he read it to the king. ¹⁹ When the king heard what these laws required of God’s people, he ripped his clothing in despair ²⁰ and summoned Hilkiah, Ahikam (son of Shaphan), Abdon (son of Micah), Shaphan the treasurer, and Asaiah, the king’s personal aide.

²¹ “Go to the Temple and plead with the Lord for me!” the king told them. “Pray for all the remnant of Israel and Judah! For this scroll says that the reason the Lord’s great anger has been poured out upon us is that our ancestors have not obeyed these laws that are written here.”

²² So the men went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum (son of Tokhath, son of Hasrah). (Shallum was the king’s tailor, living in the second ward.) When they told her of the king’s trouble, ²³ she replied, “The Lord God of Israel says, Tell the man who sent you,

²⁴ “‘Yes, the Lord will destroy this city and its people. All the curses written in the scroll will come true. ²⁵ For my people have forsaken me and have worshiped heathen gods, and I am very angry with them for their deeds. Therefore, my unquenchable wrath is poured out upon this place.’

²⁶ “But the Lord also says this to the king of Judah who sent you to ask me about this: Tell him, the Lord God of Israel says, ²⁷ ‘Because you are sorry and have humbled yourself before God when you heard my words against this city and its people, and have ripped your clothing in despair and wept before me—I have heard you, says the Lord, ²⁸ and I will not send the promised evil upon this city and its people until after your death.’” So they brought back to the king this word from the Lord. ²⁹ Then the king summoned all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, ³⁰ and the priests and Levites and all the people great and small, to accompany him to the Temple. There the king read the scroll to them—the covenant of God that was found in the Temple. ³¹ As the king stood before them, he made a pledge to the Lord to follow his commandments with all his heart and soul and to do what was written in the scroll. ³² And he required everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin to subscribe to this pact with God, and all of them did.

³³ So Josiah removed all idols from the areas occupied by the Jews and required all of them to worship Jehovah their God. And throughout the remainder of his lifetime they continued serving Jehovah, the God of their ancestors.

35 Then Josiah announced that the Passover would be celebrated on the first day of April in Jerusalem. The Passover lambs were slain that evening. ² He also reestablished the priests in their duties and encouraged them to begin their work at the Temple again. ³ He issued this order to the sanctified Levites, the religious teachers in Israel:

“Since the Ark is now in Solomon’s Temple and you don’t need to carry it back and forth upon your shoulders, spend your time ministering to the Lord and to his people. ^4-5 Form yourselves into the traditional service corps of your ancestors, as first organized by King David of Israel and by his son Solomon. Each corps will assist particular clans of the people who bring in their offerings to the Temple. ⁶ Kill the Passover lambs and sanctify yourselves and prepare to assist the people who come. Follow all of the instructions of the Lord through Moses.”

⁷ Then the king contributed 30,000 lambs and young goats for the people’s Passover offerings and 3,000 young bulls. ⁸ The king’s officials made willing contributions to the priests and Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the overseers of the Temple, gave the priests 2,600 sheep and goats and 300 oxen as Passover offerings. ⁹ The Levite leaders—Conaniah, Shemaiah, and Nethanel, and his brothers Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad—gave 5,000 sheep and goats and 500 oxen to the Levites for their Passover offerings.

¹⁰ When everything was organized and the priests were standing in their places, and the Levites were formed into service corps as the king had instructed, ¹¹ then the Levites killed the Passover lambs and presented the blood to the priests, who sprinkled it upon the altar as the Levites removed the skins. ¹² They piled up the carcasses for each tribe to present its own burnt sacrifices to the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses. They did the same with the oxen. ¹³ Then, as directed by the laws of Moses, they roasted the Passover lambs and boiled the holy offerings in pots, kettles, and pans, and hurried them out to the people to eat. ¹⁴ Afterwards the Levites prepared a meal for themselves and for the priests, for they had been busy from morning till night offering the fat of the burnt offerings.

¹⁵ The singers (the sons of Asaph) were in their places, following directions issued centuries earlier by King David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s prophet. The gatekeepers guarded the gates and didn’t need to leave their posts of duty, for their meals were brought to them by their Levite brothers. ¹⁶ The entire Passover ceremony was completed in that one day. All the burnt offerings were sacrificed upon the altar of the Lord, as Josiah had instructed.

¹⁷ Everyone present in Jerusalem took part in the Passover observance, and this was followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread for the next seven days. ¹⁸ Never since the time of Samuel the prophet had there been such a Passover—not one of the kings of Israel could vie with King Josiah in this respect, involving so many of the priests, Levites, and people from Jerusalem and from all parts of Judah, and from Israel. ¹⁹ This all happened in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.

²⁰ Afterwards King Neco of Egypt led his army to Carchemish on the Euphrates River, and Josiah declared war on him.

²¹ But King Neco sent ambassadors to Josiah with this message: “I don’t want a fight with you, O king of Judah! I have come only to fight the power with which I am at war. Leave me alone! God has told me to hurry! Don’t meddle with God or he will destroy you, for he is with me.”

²² But Josiah refused to turn back. Instead he led his army into the battle at the valley of Megiddo. (He laid aside his royal robes so that the enemy wouldn’t recognize him.) Josiah refused to believe that Neco’s message was from God. ²³ The enemy archers struck King Josiah with their arrows and fatally wounded him.

“Take me out of the battle,” he exclaimed to his aides.

^24-25 So they lifted him out of his chariot and placed him in his second chariot and brought him back to Jerusalem where he died. He was buried there in the royal cemetery. And all Judah and Jerusalem, including even Jeremiah the prophet, mourned for him, as did the Temple choirs. To this day they still sing sad songs about his death, for these songs of sorrow were recorded among the official lamentations.

²⁶ The other activities of Josiah, and his good deeds, and how he followed the laws of the Lord, ²⁷ all are written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah.