Changing People’s Daily Lives

God had promised that Josiah would escape destruction because he sincerely sought to please God, but that Judah would be destroyed for their rejection of God.  Josiah spent the next few years trying to turn Judah completely to the Lord, destroying the high places and drove the false priests out of the cities, although he was unable to completely eradicate the idolatry, as II Kings 23:8-9 tells us.  “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.  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.”

In Leviticus, God had specially forbidden sacrificing children to the Ammonite God, Molech,besides the prohibitions agains serving other Gods.  Solomon had built temples to Molech, and other kings had set up altars to other gods.    Josiah went through the land, destroying these temples and altars as II Kings 23:10-14 describes, to prevent the people from worshipping those other gods.  “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.  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.

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.  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.  And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.”

When Israel and Judah split after Solomon’s death, about three hundred fifty years before, Jeroboam had started his own religion, with Bethel as one of the centers of worship.  God had warned that the altar would be destroyed by a king named Josiah, in I Kings 13:1-2.  “And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.  And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.”

Three hundred fifty years later, Josiah fulfilled that promise, in II Kings 23:15-18.  “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.  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.  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.

 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.”

While he was at it, Josiah wiped out the false religions throughout both Judah and Israel, as described in II Kings 23:19-24.  “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.  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.   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.”

While it was essential that the teachings and practices in the church be corrected, it would have little impact unless changes are made in the people’s daily lives as well.  Josiah was doing everything he could to prevent or postpone Judah’s destruction.