2 Kings 23:1-20
The importance of God’s house on earth, that place where the Lord causes His name to dwell, and of the book of the covenant—this now, as we have seen, is what characterizes the spiritual revival under Josiah. Let us not hesitate to repeat: in the times in which we live these two things always characterize a true revival. Interest in the Assembly of the Living God and not in the miserable imitations thereof with which fallen Christendom has replaced it, zeal for the inspired authority of the Holy Scriptures—this is that to which every faithful soul that is seeking the glory of the Lord will be attached today, whatever the cost may be.
The king has all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem gathered about him and goes up to Jehovah’s house, having “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.” He causes to be read before them “all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of Jehovah” (2 Kings 23:2). This book of the covenant included not only the covenant of Sinai, but also that which was made in the plain of Moab, that is to say, all the words of Deuteronomy. It applied exactly to the people’s state as it now was; and God had beforehand described it in this book. Deuteronomy spoke above all of obedience and made the blessing or cursing of the people whom God had redeemed from Egypt depend upon obedience to the Word. Here this covenant is renewed: “The king stood on the dais, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart, and with all his soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.” (2 Kings 23:3).
In these end time revivals a powerful effect is produced upon all, although reality is found only in the hearts of the remnant. The book of Jeremiah, who prophesied under Josiah, shows us that in fact the moral state of the people was in no wise changed. They easily consented to the abolition of idolatry through the faithfulness of the king, but their hearts remained as far removed from God as ever. The prophet says: “And Jehovah said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen what backsliding Israel hath done? She hath gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath committed fornication. And I said, After she hath done all these things, she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her sister Judah, the treacherous, saw it. And I saw that when for all the causes wherein backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce, yet the treacherous Judah, her sister, feared not, but went and committed fornication also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her fornication that she polluted the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And even for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, said Jehovah” (Jer. 3:6-10. Read also Jer. 5:27-29; 6:9-15, 29; 8:8-13).
In spite of that, a moral constraint upon souls is exercised by means of those who are faithful, even upon those who are in fact afar off from God. In 2 Chronicles 34:33 we see that Josiah “made to serve, all that were found in Israel — to serve Jehovah their God: all his days they did not depart from following Jehovah, the God of their fathers.” It is thus that all the people here enter into the covenant. Amon had reestablished all that Manasseh had abolished at the time of his repentance. Josiah in his zeal for God and for God alone, quite different from Jehu’s zeal, completely cleanses Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel, as far as his arm could reach. In the fields of Kidron he burns all the objects that had been accumulated in the temple for the worship of Baal, Astarte, and the stars, and carries their dust to Bethel, the initial site of Jeroboam’s idolatry. He suppresses (2 Kings 23:5; Zeph. 1:4) the Chemarim — the priests established by the kings of Judah to burn incense before false gods. He completely destroys the lewd statue of the goddess of love which had been set up in house of the Lord, and casts the powder of its ashes on the graves of those who had worshipped her. He does away with the prostitution which had been widespread at Jerusalem under guise of the worship of Astarte. He gathers together the priests who under repentant Manasseh had continued to offer sacrifices to the Lord upon the high places (2 Chron. 33:17). He does not treat them like the Chemarim, but does not allow them to go up to the altar of the Lord at Jerusalem. All fellowship with a religion which, even in being separated from idolatry, had dared to despise the only gathering center for the people, is resolutely broken. In this we find instruction for the day in which we live. This deed of Josiah’s shows us that a true revival cannot be associated with worship which is not rendered around the Lord’s Table, the only gathering center for His own. Nevertheless, Josiah acknowledges the right of these priests to eat “of the unleavened bread among their brethren” (2 Kings 23:9). The individual holiness of those whom the Lord had consecrated is fully recognized, but for the moment, if not forever, their functioning in Israel’s worship is not tolerated. Josiah furthermore abolishes the horses given to the sun and demolishes and burns the altars which had dared to replace God’s only altar. In his zeal for the Lord he even attacks altars built by Solomon (2 Kings 23:13).
He goes still further. His interest extends to all the people of God. He goes to Bethel, condemns all this evil at its source, and thus fulfills the prophecy once pronounced before Jeroboam against the altar where that king had offered up sacrifices (2 Kings 23:15-16; 1 Kings 13:2). However, he spares the sepulcher of the man of God who had pronounced these things. Whatever the unfaithfulness of this man had been, he recognizes what had been done for God by him, also sparing the bones of the prophet of Samaria, the cause of his fall, but who had humbled himself for his error. It is thus that every truly Christian heart acknowledges that which men of God in the past times have done to serve Him, and respects their work, though blemished by failures which caused it to lose its power or spoiled its result (2 Kings 23:17-18).
Lastly, the king goes through all the cities of Israel destroying the temples of the high places without pity for their idolatrous priests whom he exterminates, although since the people had been carried away by the Assyrians, the influence of these to all appearances had been lost. He acts in view of a future restoration; and his heart, fervent in the service of the Lord, is attached to this; for prophets, even during his own reign, were announcing a restoration under the scepter of a king of righteousness and peace.