Josiah and the Book of the Law

This Amon imitated those deeds of his father that he had insolently done when he was young. So a conspiracy was formed against him by his own servants, and he was killed in his own house, when he had lived twenty-four years and reigned two of them. But the people punished those who had killed Amon, buried him with his father, and gave the kingdom to his son Josiah, who was eight years old. His mother was from the city of Bozkath, and her name was Jedidah. Josiah was of a most excellent disposition and naturally virtuous, and he followed the deeds of King David as a pattern and a rule for the whole conduct of his life. When he was twelve years old he gave proofs of his religious and righteous character. He brought the people to a sober way of living and urged them to give up the opinion they had of their idols, since these were not gods, and to worship the God of their fathers. Looking back over the deeds of his forefathers, he wisely corrected what they had done wrong, like a very elderly man and one fully able to understand what ought to be done; and what he found they had done well, he kept as it was and imitated. So he acted, following the wisdom and good sense of his own nature and the advice and instruction of the elders; for it was by following the laws that he succeeded so well in the ordering of his government and in piety toward the worship of God. And this came about because the sins of the former kings were seen no more, but quite vanished away. For the king went through the city and the whole country, cut down the sacred groves devoted to foreign gods, and overthrew their altars; and if there were any gifts dedicated to them by his forefathers, he treated them with contempt and pulled them down. By this means he brought the people back from their opinion of them to the worship of God. He also offered the customary sacrifices and burnt offerings on the altar. Moreover, he appointed judges and overseers to manage the matters that belonged to each of them, to regard justice above all things, and to administer it with the same concern they would have for their own lives. He also sent throughout the country and asked those who were willing to bring gold and silver for the repair of the temple, as each one was inclined and able. When the money was brought in, he made Maaseiah, the governor of the city, Shaphan the scribe, Joah the recorder, and Eliakim the high priest the overseers of the temple and of the funds given for it. They made no delay and did not put the work off at all, but got architects and whatever was needed for the repairs and set closely to the work. So the temple was repaired by this means, and became a public proof of the king’s piety. [a]

When he was now in the eighteenth year of his reign, he sent to Eliakim the high priest and gave orders that out of the money left over he should cast cups, dishes and bowls for the service of the temple; and besides this, that they should bring out all the gold or silver among the treasures and spend that also on making cups and similar vessels. As the high priest was bringing out the gold, he came upon the holy books of Moses that had been laid up in the temple. He brought them out and gave them to Shaphan the scribe, who read them and then came to the king and told him that everything he had ordered to be done was finished. He also read the books over to the king. When the king had heard them read, he tore his clothes, and called for Eliakim the high priest, for the scribe, and for some others of his closest friends, and sent them to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, a man of rank and of a distinguished family. He told them to go to her and say that he wanted her to appease God and try to make him favorable to them; for there was reason to fear that, because their forefathers had broken the laws of Moses, they were in danger of being uprooted and thrown out of their own country, and of ending their days miserably in a foreign land, stripped of everything. When the prophetess had heard this from the messengers the king had sent to her, she told them to go back to the king and say that God had already passed sentence against them, to destroy the people, drive them out of their country, and take away all the happiness they enjoyed. No prayers of theirs could set that sentence aside, since it had been passed because of their breaking of the laws and their failure to repent in so long a time, while the prophets had urged them to reform and had foretold the punishment that would follow their impious practices. God would certainly carry out that threat against them, so that they might be persuaded that he is God and had not deceived them in any respect in what he had declared through his prophets. Yet because Josiah was a righteous man, he would hold back those calamities for the present; but after Josiah’s death he would send on the people the miseries he had determined for them. [f]

So the messengers came and told the king this prophecy of the woman. At this he sent to the people everywhere and ordered the priests and the Levites to come together to Jerusalem, and commanded that people of every age should be present too. When they had gathered, he first read the holy books to them. Then he stood on a platform in the middle of the crowd and bound them to make a covenant with an oath that they would worship God and keep the laws of Moses. They gave their assent willingly and undertook to do what the king had urged on them. So they immediately offered sacrifices, and in an acceptable manner, and begged God to be gracious and merciful to them. He also ordered the high priest that if any vessel dedicated by their forefathers to idols or to foreign gods remained in the temple, they should throw it out. So when a great number of such vessels had been collected, he burned them and scattered their ashes, and he killed the priests of the idols who were not of the family of Aaron. [i]

When he had done this in Jerusalem, he went into the country and utterly destroyed the buildings that King Jeroboam had put up there in honor of foreign gods. He burned the bones of the false prophets on the altar that Jeroboam first built, as the prophet who came to Jeroboam while he was offering sacrifice had foretold in the hearing of all the people: that a certain man of the house of David, Josiah by name, would do what is described here. And so it happened that those predictions were fulfilled after three hundred and sixty-one years. [j]

After these things Josiah went also to the other Israelites, those who had escaped captivity and slavery under the Assyrians, and persuaded them to give up their impious practices and to stop paying honors to foreign gods, and to worship rightly the supreme God of their fathers and hold fast to him. He also searched the houses, the villages and the cities, suspecting that someone might keep one idol or another in private. Indeed, he took away the chariots set up in his royal palace that his predecessors had made, and whatever else there was that they worshiped as a god. When he had purified the whole country in this way, he called the people to Jerusalem and there celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the feast called the Passover. He gave the people twenty thousand young goats and lambs for the Passover sacrifices, and three thousand oxen for burnt offerings. The leading priests also gave the priests two thousand six hundred lambs for the Passover, and the heads of the Levites gave the Levites five thousand lambs and five hundred oxen. By these means there was a great abundance of sacrifices, and they offered them according to the laws of Moses, while every priest explained the matter and served the people. And no other festival had been celebrated in this way by the Hebrews since the times of Samuel the prophet, because now everything was done according to the laws and the ancient observance of the custom of their forefathers. So when Josiah had lived on after this in peace, and in wealth and good repute among all men as well, he ended his life in the following manner. [k]