Context & Key Themes
2 Kings 23 is Josiah’s reform, and it is the most comprehensive act of covenant renewal in the entire history of the monarchy. He gathers all the people and reads the Book of the Covenant in their hearing and makes the covenant before the Lord. Then he goes to work. He removes from the temple every vessel made for Baal, for Asherah, for the host of heaven. He tears down the houses of the male cult prostitutes. He defiles the high places from Geba to Beersheba. He destroys the altars Manasseh made in the two courts of the temple. He demolishes the altar at Bethel — the very one Jeroboam made — burning the bones of the dead on it exactly as the man of God from 1 Kings 13 prophesied three centuries earlier. He keeps the Passover in Jerusalem in a way that had not been done since the days of the judges. And still, the Lord does not turn from his burning anger, because of everything Manasseh provoked. Josiah dies in battle at Megiddo. Judah never has another king like him.
Key Verse
“Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.”
— 2 Kings 23:25
Summary
Josiah gathers all the elders, all the men of Judah and Jerusalem, the priests and prophets and all the people, and reads to them all the words of the Book of the Covenant. He makes a covenant before the Lord to walk after him and keep his commandments with all his heart and all his soul. All the people join in the covenant. He commands Hilkiah to bring out of the temple every vessel made for Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven. He burns them outside Jerusalem and carries their ashes to Bethel. He removes the idolatrous priests the kings of Judah had ordained. He tears down the houses of the male cult prostitutes. He defiles the high places where the priests burned incense. He tears down the altars and the high places Manasseh had built in the two courts. He defiles Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, where people had burned their sons and daughters. He removes the horses the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. He pulls down the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz. He destroys the high places Solomon built for Ashtoreth, for Chemosh, for Milcom. He fills those places with human bones.
He goes to Bethel, tears down and burns the altar Jeroboam made, burns bones on it from the tombs nearby — fulfilling the word of the man of God from chapter 13. He sees the tomb of the man of God and commands: let no one disturb his bones. He executes all the priests of the high places in Samaria. He returns to Jerusalem and commands all the people to keep the Passover. Such a Passover had not been kept since the days of the judges. For all that Josiah does, the Lord does not turn from his great burning anger, because of all the provocations of Manasseh. Pharaoh Necho goes up against the king of Assyria. Josiah goes out to meet him. Necho kills him at Megiddo. The people of the land make Jehoahaz king in his father’s place. Jehoahaz reigns three months and does evil. Pharaoh Necho deposes him, imposes tribute on the land, and makes Eliakim — renamed Jehoiakim — king.
Reflection
Josiah’s reform is breathtaking in its scope and its speed. He does not make gradual adjustments. He identifies every site of idolatrous corruption in Judah, in the former northern territory, in Jerusalem, in the temple itself, and he destroys them systematically. Solomon’s high places stood for three centuries. Jeroboam’s altar at Bethel stood for nearly three centuries. Josiah tears them all down in what reads like a single sustained campaign of covenant obedience. There is no king who matches the wholeness of his turning — the text says so explicitly, all his heart, all his soul, all his might, according to all the Law of Moses. This is Deuteronomy 6:5 enacted by a king.
And it is not enough to stop the judgment, because the judgment is not about Josiah. It is about the accumulated weight of what Manasseh did over fifty-five years and what the nation chose generation after generation. Josiah clears the ground, restores the covenant, keeps the Passover, and then dies at Megiddo in a battle that is not even his to fight. After him, the kings come quickly — three months, eleven years, three months, eleven years — and none of them do right. The long decline that Josiah briefly interrupted resumes immediately after his death, and it does not stop until Nebuchadnezzar arrives.