Then the king [Josiah] called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord.
The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.
He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.
The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones. (New International Version)
The actions and reforms of King Josiah were bold, pervasive, and challenging.
The Book of Law was found in the Temple. Incredibly, over time, it had been lost. No one had read the words from that large scroll for a very long time. Yet, when Josiah decided to repair the dilapidated Temple, the Torah scroll was found.
Having heard the Torah’s words read to him, Josiah was cut to the heart. He quickly realized that he and the people had strayed far from the laws and commands of their God. So, Josiah was determined to do something about it.
The king decided to reinstate the provisions of the Torah. He assembled people from all levels of Jewish leadership and made a formal covenant to reinstitute the laws found in the scroll.
Over the centuries, other Jewish kings had introduced foreign deities, and built altars to those gods, even within the house of the Lord. There were sacrificial worship practices happening in Judea, from an array of nations with gods at odds with Yahweh, the one true God of Israel.
King Josiah’s purpose was to completely restore the worship of Yahweh, centered in Jerusalem. This meant that all the other gods and their worship practices had to be eliminated. They were defiling the worship of Yahweh.
Beginning in Jerusalem, and going throughout the entire land, Josiah enacted his reforms by removing the altars of foreign gods, high places of worship, and the priests who officiated at them.
Josiah’s reforms had their foundation in a clear set of values. The king knew exactly what he wanted the nation of Judah to be like, which warranted a thorough riddance of everything that was an obstacle to the values espoused in the Torah scroll.
Since Josiah had an objective standard, he was able to aggressively change anything which did not align with those values of worship and practice. And a lot of things had to go in order for the scriptural standard to be enacted and remain.
Most of us are never going to be in a position as Josiah. Yet, we can still bring about the sort of values change that is needed. Change always begins with us personally.
There may be a lot of things in your life, presently, which are obstacles to what you really want. We tend to accumulate a lot of extraneous things in our lives that are not adding to what is most important to us. This is why we often feel so loaded down with all sorts of busyness and activity.
Josiah’s reforms were a national large-scale pruning, so that the true worship of Yahweh could happen. A good place to begin for many of us is to do a regular pruning of our lives, so that we can keep ourselves free of the stuff that doesn’t really matter.
We must rid ourselves of guilt and shame, of the sin which weighs down the soul.
Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1b, NIV)
We need to carefully prune our religious activities, so that we can spiritually grow and mature.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful… Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:1-4, NIV)
It is good to identify and toss out plans that don’t achieve what we really need and want in life; and are not in sync with what God wants to do in our lives.
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:11, NIV)
Like a good gardener, it is imperative we keep the garden of our soul free of weeds, insects, and critters that would either choke out or eat away at what is most important in life.
Blessed God, I will try this day to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and selfishness; cultivating cheerfulness, encouragement, love, and the habit of holy silence; exercising restraint in purchasing, generosity in giving, carefulness in conversation, diligence in work, faithfulness in every task, and faith in all things.
And as I cannot in my own strength do this, nor even with a hope of success attempt it, I look to you, O Lord God my Father, in Jesus my Savior, through the enablement of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 