2 Kings 23 explained: Josiah's Great Clean Sweep

The covenant renewed (vv. 1-3)

Josiah gathers everyone, from leaders to ordinary people, and has the newly found scroll read aloud. Standing at the temple pillar, he publicly promises to live by it and the people agree; many scholars think the scroll was an early form of Deuteronomy.

Clearing out the temple (vv. 4-9)

Objects made for Baal, the goddess Asherah and the stars had been kept inside the LORD's own temple, so Josiah burns them in the Kidron Valley east of the city and shuts down the hilltop shrines across Judah. The priests who had served at those shrines are brought to Jerusalem, barred from the main altar but still allowed to share the priests' food.

Ending child sacrifice and star worship (vv. 10-14)

He ruins Topheth, a site where children were burned as offerings to the god Molek, removes horses and chariots dedicated to the sun, and smashes rooftop altars and old shrines going back to Solomon. Covering these sites with human bones made them ritually unclean, a deliberate way of defiling them.

Bethel and the north (vv. 15-20)

Josiah destroys the altar at Bethel, set up about three centuries earlier as a rival to Jerusalem, which fulfills a prophecy told in 1 Kings 13, and he spares the tomb of the prophet who foretold it. He then kills the priests of the northern shrines on their own altars, a violent act the text reports plainly as part of the purge.

Passover, praise and a hard verdict (vv. 21-27)

Josiah holds the Passover as one national festival in Jerusalem, following the scroll, and the writer calls him the most wholehearted king Judah ever had. Even so, the writer says the LORD's anger over King Manasseh's earlier reign still stands, and Judah will be lost as the northern kingdom was.

Josiah's death and Egypt's grip (vv. 28-37)

In 609 BC Pharaoh Necho marches north to support Assyria, and Josiah confronts him at Megiddo and is killed; the text does not say why he went out, and scholars are unsure. Egypt then removes Josiah's son Jehoahaz after three months, installs his brother Jehoiakim, and drains the land with heavy tribute that Jehoiakim squeezes out of the people.

Key verse: 2 Kings 23:25

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on why Josiah's reform could not save Judah: some, drawing on the prophet Jeremiah, see the people's change as mostly outward and short lived, while others read the chapter as saying the judgment was already settled because of Manasseh's sins.

Something to think about

Can a person do nearly everything right and still be unable to undo harm set in motion before their time, and what would you make of that?