Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

22:2 Josiah is the ideal king of Deut. 17:20, who does not turn from the Mosaic law to the right or to the left. He transcends even David and Hezekiah in his faithfulness to God (2 Kings 23:21-25).

22:3-7 the king sent Shaphan. Josiah's initial concern is simply to repair the temple, like Joash in 12:1-16, not to reform its worship. In fact, the reforms introduced by Joash some 200 years previously are still in place: it is still the task of the doorkeepers to collect the money for temple repairs, and it is the task of the secretary to oversee, with the high priest, the counting and distribution of the money to the men in charge of the work.

22:8 I have found the Book of the Law. The phrase "Book of the Law" is used in the Pentateuch only in reference to Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut. 28:61; 29:21), which was read to the king and provided the basis for his actions. Available to the kings of Israel and Judah in previous years (cf. 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 10:31; 14:6; 18:6), it was evidently lost or concealed during the long reign of the apostate Manasseh, who systematically infringed its laws.

22:11-13 Although it is not until the eighteenth year of his reign (v. 3) that the new king begins to take action concerning the apostate condition of worship in Judah, the authors of 1-2 Kings do not blame him. Brought up in a royal court that had been apostate for 57 years and that subjected all opposition to a reign of terror, Josiah was not aware of the Lord's demands. As soon as he became aware, he tore his clothes in grief and despair (cf. 1 Kings 21:27; 2 Kings 5:7-8; 6:30; 11:14; 19:1-2) and sent officials to inquire of the Lord.

22:14-16 Huldah. It was not Jeremiah or Zephaniah (Jer. 1:2; Zeph. 1:1) who was consulted, but an obscure prophetess who was the wife of a court official or perhaps of one of the temple personnel (it is not clear whether Shallum was in charge of the wardrobe of the king or of the priests). Huldah lived in the Second Quarter of Jerusalem, probably a residential area on the western hill. Her words confirm what is already known from the unnamed prophets of 2 Kings 21: the Lord is going to bring disaster on Jerusalem and its people.

22:20 you shall be gathered to your grave in peace. Because Josiah has humbled himself before the Lord, he will not personally see all the disaster that is to fall on Jerusalem. He will die before the terrible events prophesied in 21:12-14 and 22:15-17 come to pass.

23:2-3 the king went up to the house of the Lord. Since Josiah is a pious king, Huldah's oracle about the future does not deflect him from the path of religious reform; reformation in the light of the Book of the Covenant is still the right thing to do. His first move is to organize a covenant-renewal ceremony (cf. 11:12-14, when the king also stood by the pillar).

23:4-9 all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah. Everything to do with Baal and Asherah and the worship of the host of heaven is subject to radical treatment (see 1 Kings 14:15; 16:31-33; 2 Kings 17:7-23). The Kidron Valley, whose eastern slopes had been associated with idolatry since the time of Solomon (1 Kings 11:7), was a convenient place to destroy their cult objects, thereby removing them from Jerusalem and desecrating the valley itself as a religious site. On male cult prostitutes (2 Kings 23:7), see note on 1 Kings 14:24. The hangings for the Asherah (2 Kings 23:7) are probably ritual garments used in the worship of this goddess (cf. 10:22). Among the high places destroyed (see note on 1 Kings 3:2) were some at a particular gate (2 Kings 23:8) of the city (otherwise unknown).

23:8 defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings. These were local places of worship in various cities (see note on 1 Kings 3:2). One example is probably an Israelite temple found at the site of Arad. It was built in the tenth century b.c., and has many similarities to the Solomonic Jerusalem temple: e.g., a sacrificial altar in the courtyard of the Arad complex measured exactly the same as the temple altar described in Ex. 27:1. The Arad complex was not a legitimate Israelite shrine and was therefore abolished in the seventh century b.c., through the reforms of either Josiah or Hezekiah.

23:10 The Valley of the Son of Hinnom ran along the western and southern sides of ancient Jerusalem until it met the Kidron Valley running from north to south. It is here associated with the worship of Molech (see note on 1 Kings 11:7-8), and Topheth is the site where this worship was practiced. Sacred sites of this kind, containing urns holding ashes and bone remains of children and animals, have been found at Carthage and other Phoenician colonies of the western Mediterranean. "Hinnom Valley" is the short form of the name, which was transliterated into Greek as "Gehenna" (see note on Matt. 23:15).

23:11 horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. The practice of dedicating horses to the sun appears to have been distinctively Assyrian (by way of the Hurrian peoples of Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in the second half of the second millennium b.c.). In an excavation in Jerusalem, dating from the eighth to seventh centuries b.c., hundreds of religious vessels were found. Among these were animal figurines, many of them horses. Some of the horses had a disk between their ears, perhaps representing the sun. They could have been miniatures of the horses described here, placed at the entrance to the house of the Lord.

23:12 altars on the roof. A Ugarit text (describing the ritual for the annual celebration of the grape harvest at the temple of Baal in that city) mentions a king sacrificing on a roof (in the context of the worship of Shaphash, the female sun deity at Ugarit). The roof is a natural location for worship of the starry host (see 16:1-4).

23:13 Because of its hosting of idolatrous altars, the Mount of Olives, the central summit on a ridge of three running to the east of Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley, is here called the mount of corruption. On Ashtoreth (Astarte), see note on 17:7-23; on Chemosh and Milcom, see notes on 1 Kings 11:5; 11:7-8.

23:14 he broke in pieces the pillars. Josiah is destroying all the buildings associated with idol worship. Excavations at ‘En Hatzeva, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of the Dead Sea, have uncovered a huge cache of religious objects from the seventh to sixth centuries b.c. These objects were used in a nearby shrine. The shrine and the objects appear to be Edomite. The temple was suddenly destroyed, perhaps during Josiah's reforms.

23:15-20 altar at Bethel. A marked feature of Josiah's reforms is that he not only destroys but also defiles (vv. 8, 10, 13), particularly by placing pagan religious objects in proximity with graves and human bones (vv. 6, 14). It has already been hinted in v. 4 that this procedure was extended to Bethel, and now that narrative is picked up. Josiah takes action against this cult, which survives in the activities of the new settlers in the land of Israel (17:24-41), in fulfillment of the prophecy of 1 Kings 13:2 (see also 1 Kings 13:11-32 for the background to 2 Kings 23:17-18). Josiah's opportunity to act in this way in Assyrian territory arose from King Ashurbanipal's death around 630 b.c. and the consequent civil war and general strife in Assyria; Assyria was not capable of exercising effective control in Syria-Palestine during this period.

23:22 A Passover like this had not been observed since the days of the judges who judged Israel (see Josh. 5:10-12 for the last mention of Passover in the narrative; also Deut. 16:1-8 for the stipulations, esp. v. 6). In celebrating this festival Josiah outstrips not only Hezekiah in faithfulness to God, but even David.

23:24 On mediums and necromancers, see note on 21:1-9. The household gods were images of deities (see note on 19:15-19) that could be either life-size (1 Sam. 19:13-16) or figurine-size (Gen. 31:19-35). They could be used in divination in general (Ezek. 21:21; Zech. 10:2), and perhaps necromancy in particular. Some extrabiblical texts suggest that the worship of such family deities in the ancient Near East was closely linked with the care and worship of dead ancestors, and rituals in Mesopotamia certainly involved such figurines that often represented a dead person, who was believed to speak through the representation.

23:25 In spite of several generations of idolatry and rebellion against the Lord, somehow Josiah arose as a righteous king who not only appeared outwardly to be righteous but 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.

23:26 Though Josiah was himself righteous (v. 25), it was not enough to turn away God's wrath from the nation that had done such evil: Still the Lord did not turn from the burning of his great wrath. The righteousness of this one king could not change the overall situation. because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. God must purge his people of deeply rooted unfaithfulness, and only exile would accomplish this.

23:28-30 Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo. After the death of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal around 630 b.c., Egypt gradually emerged as the major power in Syria-Palestine and as the ally of Assyria in its struggle with Babylon, sending troops northward, at least from 616 onward, to join with the Assyrians in battle. The battle mentioned here took place in 609 b.c. as Pharaoh Neco II marched north for what was apparently the last joint Assyrian-Egyptian engagement with the Babylonians (and their allies, the Medes). Megiddo controlled the main international highway running from Egypt to Damascus as it entered the Jezreel Valley (see note on 9:27-28). Josiah's decision to confront the Egyptian army there implies that he had captured Megiddo from either the Egyptians or the Assyrians before the battle, and was perhaps hoping to benefit from being seen to take the Babylonians' side. But Josiah died in the battle. On the Chronicles of the Kings, see note on 1 Kings 14:19. The Babylonian Chronicle recounts the expeditions of Pharaoh Neco II of Egypt to aid the Egyptians. Josiah sought to prevent Egypt's reinforcing of Assyria. Evidence of the battle at Megiddo can be seen at the site.