2 Kings 23 (King James Version)
1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
The power that man has with a title is deadly without God. The king sent, and they gathered. Whatever the king said it was done.
Lord, I pray for those who are in authority that they will seek your word. The power is of a leader can be a conduit for the word of God or a dam.
Josiah called all of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.
2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
The king read God's word. Everybody listened to the words he read. Not only did he read, but he also read all of the book.
3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
Josiah took an oath to God and promised as the leader, he will obey, and he also commanded all the people he led that they too will do what the Word of God commanded. After hearing the Word of the Lord read, all the people agreed to the promise he made to God.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
When Josiah saw the word of the Lord, he began to modify the things he saw that were against the word of God. Josiah wanted to please the Lord. When it is God we want to please, we make changes. The changes are changes that God wanted to be removed because it was destroying the lives he made. There is nothing God gave a command to do or not to do that was not good.
Josiah commanded the high priest and the priest who was second in the priest's order, and the men who watched the door to take away everything used to make an offering toward Baal. He burned the idols outside of Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried them away to Bethel.
Today we are to remove all that has kept or held us back from all we know God hates. Don't just reposition, hide, or modify anything God disapproves of; we must destroy what God says destroy.
5 And he put down 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 round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
- He removed the well-known priest.
- He pulled all people who cooperated with the non-sense of supporting those that disobeyed God's word.
Josiah knew the word of God. He knew who had to be removed. If his friends or family were operating against what God wanted, he destroyed what had to be destroyed.
6 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
Judah was conducting a behavior that showed they were lost. Judah profaned the house of God, and it was a common practice to do so. When we ignore God's word, it is evident in how things are carried out.
Josiah had one book that he read to all of Judah with instructions from God. Today all people have access to know what God said. If all of us read and did God's instructions, life would look different.
King Josiah burned to ashes the grove and put the ashes outside of Jerusalem in the people's children's graveyard. Dead things belong in the cemetery.
God told us to put away lying, fornication, stealing, and more, but we do these things anyway. If we don't blatantly do these sins, we search for ways to disguise them and still do them. God told us the behaviors he hated. If God hates it, why do we do the things God hates? We don't just sin against God; we sin against God's word in how we treat each other.
We can't love God or do God harm; we love God when we love God's people.
7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
Josiah broke down the houses of the sexual sins. People knew where these houses were located. Women made curtains to indicate the practice of sodomy can be found in these locations.
When we live apart from God, we will live like animals.
8 And he 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 brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.
Josiah spent many days tearing down anything that referenced itself against what he read in the word. He was dedicated to doing what he knew had to be done.
9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
Some commentators explained this by saying Josiah allowed them to eat unleavened bread away from God's assigned place. Nevertheless, the word indicates a sense of non-approval; the priest did not wholeheartedly obey God's word.
10 And he 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.
Josiah put an end to killing children in the name of god.
11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
Judah lived in sin. Josiah spent a lot of time getting rid of what Judah should not have had. God does not require much when he instructs. Anything we build or practice would be a waste of our time if God did not command it.
12 And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
We must not preserve things because it was passed down from relatives. If it does not agree with God, destroy it. Josiah did not want a trace of what his grandfather made that was against God's word.
13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
Josiah pulled down and destroyed some expensive places. God does not care how long it took us to build what he called wrong; tear it down. If a famous person erects anything that is against God's word, God says to destroy it.
14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
Josiah made what he tore down look like what it was, nothing. And he wanted the places he tore down to be a place for the dead.
He destroyed the image of wrong. Josiah made a vivid change in what people used to see until it was a conversation of what it was rather than looking at it.
15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
Because Jeroboam designed it, that meant nothing to Josiah. Josiah has moved into the land of Israel, who now lived in exile. Josiah tore down what was not like God everywhere he went.
16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
What Josiah is doing now was a prophesy being fulfilled 300 years later.
17 Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.
18 And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
Josiah paid attention to what he was doing. Every place he went, he recorded what was there and what he destroyed and lastly where you can find its remains if there were any remains left.
19 And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.
Josiah took the land that David ruled and treated it as such as it were God's. He destroyed beyond the land of Judah.
20 And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
He removed everything that belongs to Israel's children in Israel's northern and southern territories, and then he went home.
21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
After removing the idols and the people who served the idols, Josiah said, now let us keep the Passover correctly. We try to give God offerings in crime. God uses Josiah by saying, get your house in order, then bring me an offering. Let us do first thing first. Clean before you serve.
22 Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;
Israel has wasted years. God has been patient. God waited on someone to carry out what had to be done. Josiah was eight years old when he reigns as king. He stayed busy until he died. Josiah never built anything left in his name. All we know of him is what he reformed. Josiah is an example of what we ought to be doing. Instead of building a name for ourselves, we should be known for carrying out the will of God.
23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem.
It took years to destroy those things that God hated. If the Passover was in his 18th year of being king of Judah, it seems it took most of those years putting things in order from the word of God.
The kings wasted hundreds of years of disobeying God. God never willed a king for his people. God used one man to destroy all the evidence of all the kings who brought evil things and led his people off course.
24 Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
Josiah kept his eyes open, and when he found anything surfacing that looked wrong, he destroyed it immediately.
When Josiah put away every evil business made by man against God's word, Josiah performed what God said.
We are wasting time if we are serving God in contaminated vessels.
25 And like unto him was there no king before him, that 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; neither after him arose there any like him.
Josiah obeyed God. No king served God as he did.
To serve God as Josiah should be our national theme as a nation.
26 Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.
God knows the heart of all men. Josiah submitted to God. The people had itchy ears and only obeyed because it was law. God wants loyalty to his word. To pledge allegiance to follow what is right because you are forced is a waste of time.
27 And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.
God promises to remove Judah, and he did.
28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
Yes.
29 In his days Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.
Josiah was killed. More details or in the book of Chronicles.
30 And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead.
The people respected Josiah. Josiah's son took his place as king.
31 Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
Jehoahaz, Josiah's son, is 23 years old, and he reigned three months.
32 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
Jehoahaz decided to ignore what his father put in place and did as the evil grandparents did.
33 And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
The Pharo of Egypt removed him from being king. Pharo collected taxes o 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold from the people of Judah. This is the beginning of the breakdown of Judah.
34 And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.
Pharo made Josiah another son king instead;\ of Jehoahaz. This is the first time Egypt dictated the children of Israel since they left Egypt. Jehoahaz died in the place God took them from.
When we disobey God, we spin our wheels.
35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh. but, he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaohnechoh.
Josiah's son named is changed to Jehoiakim, a name given by Pharo. He became a servant of Pharo, although he was the king of Judah.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was
Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
Egypt is taking charge of Judah. When we don't let God lead, we become servants of servants.
37 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
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