2 Kings 23

KJV · Chapter 23/25

¹And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

²And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and 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: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord.

³And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

⁴And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth–el.

⁵And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

⁶And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁷And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

⁸And 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 Beer–sheba, 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.

⁹Nevertheless 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.

¹⁰And 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.

¹¹And 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 Nathan–melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

¹²And 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.

¹³And 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.

¹⁴And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

¹⁵Moreover the altar that was at Beth–el, 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.

¹⁶And 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.

¹⁷Then 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 Beth–el.

¹⁸And 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.

¹⁹And 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 Beth–el.

²⁰And 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.

²¹And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.

²²Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

²³But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴Moreover 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.

²⁵And like unto him was there no king before him, that 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; neither after him arose there any like him.

²⁶Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.

²⁷And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.

²⁸Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁹In his days Pharaoh–nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

³⁰And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

³²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

³³And Pharaoh–nechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.

³⁴And Pharaoh–nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.

³⁵And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh–nechoh.

³⁶Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

³⁷And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Josiah publicly reads the Book of the Law and renews the covenant with God before all the people. He then carries out the most extensive religious reform in the history of Judah, tearing down pagan altars throughout the kingdom, including at Bethel, and celebrates the most complete Passover since the days of the judges. He dies in battle against Egypt at Megiddo.

Explanation

Josiah is described as the most faithful king in the history of Judah, unmatched before or after him in complete dedication to God's law 'with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might.' His reform does not stop in Judah but extends into the former territory of Israel, including the destruction of the altar at Bethel exactly as prophesied 300 years earlier (1 Kings 13). Despite all this, the text makes clear that the judgment already decreed against Judah because of Manasseh would not be reversed — showing that sincere national reform, though valuable and blessed, does not automatically erase the accumulated historical consequences of generations of sin.

Fun facts

Josiah's death at Megiddo, while trying to stop the Egyptian army's advance, was mourned so deeply that 2 Chronicles 35:25 records that the prophet Jeremiah composed special laments for him, and the national grief became a byword for mourning still referenced in Zechariah 12:11.
Megiddo, where Josiah died, is the very site whose Greek name, 'Armageddon,' would come to symbolize the final apocalyptic battle in Revelation 16:16 — a remarkable historical irony, given that one of the most righteous kings in biblical history died there.

Verse-by-verse explanation

2 Kings 23:1The king summons and gathers all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem for a decisive moment.
2 Kings 23:2Josiah goes up to the temple with all the people — the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, from the least to the greatest — and reads aloud the entire book of the covenant.
2 Kings 23:3Standing by the pillar, the king makes a covenant before the Lord to follow His commandments with his whole heart, and all the people commit themselves along with him.
2 Kings 23:4Josiah’s reform is the most thorough in the whole history of the kings of Judah: he removes the objects for Baal and Asherah and physically defiles the old altars, including the one at Bethel set up by Jeroboam centuries earlier. It is the direct fulfillment of the specific prophecy in 1 Kings chapter 13.
2 Kings 23:5Josiah removes the pagan priests appointed by earlier kings, who burned incense at the high places, to Baal, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
2 Kings 23:6He takes the Asherah pole out of the temple, carries it to the Kidron Valley, burns it, grinds it to dust, and scatters it over the graves of the common people — a deliberate dishonor.
2 Kings 23:7He tears down the quarters for male cult prostitution that stood inside the temple itself, where women wove garments for Asherah.
2 Kings 23:8Josiah brings all the priests from the towns of Judah to Jerusalem and defiles the high places from Geba to Beersheba, tearing down the gate shrines as well.
2 Kings 23:9The priests of the high places are not allowed to serve at the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem, but they are still permitted to eat unleavened bread with the other priests.
2 Kings 23:10Josiah defiles Topheth, in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one could ever again sacrifice a son or daughter in the fire to Molech there.
2 Kings 23:11He removes the horses dedicated to the sun that earlier kings had set up at the entrance of the temple, and burns the chariots of the sun.
2 Kings 23:12Josiah tears down the altars Ahaz had built on the roof and the ones Manasseh made in the courts of the temple, grinding it all to dust thrown into the Kidron Valley.
2 Kings 23:13He even defiles the high places east of Jerusalem that Solomon himself had built for foreign gods centuries before — the reform corrects even the mistakes of Israel’s wisest king.
2 Kings 23:14Josiah smashes the sacred pillars, cuts down the Asherah poles, and fills those places with human bones — the ultimate dishonor for a once-idolatrous space.
2 Kings 23:15He also tears down the altar at Bethel built by the first Jeroboam, the starting point of the northern kingdom’s idolatry, burning it and grinding it all to dust.
2 Kings 23:16On identifying the tomb of the prophet who had foretold exactly this reform, Josiah orders that no one disturb his bones or those of the old prophet buried beside him. It is a specific gesture of respect amid a general destruction of the graves of idolatrous priests.
2 Kings 23:17On seeing a different monument, Josiah asks what it is; he is told it is the tomb of the man of God who foretold, long before, exactly these actions against the altar of Bethel.
2 Kings 23:18Josiah orders that this particular tomb be left untouched, letting the bones rest alongside those of the old prophet of Samaria involved in the same ancient story.
2 Kings 23:19Josiah also removes all the shrines of the high places in the towns of Samaria (the former northern kingdom), doing there the same thing he did at Bethel.
2 Kings 23:20He slaughters all the priests of those high places on their own altars and burns human bones there, before returning to Jerusalem — a purge that reaches even into the territory of the former Israel.
2 Kings 23:21The text states that no Passover had been kept that way since the days before the kings themselves. It is a way of marking Josiah’s reform as a return to practices so ancient they had almost been forgotten entirely.
2 Kings 23:22No Passover like this one had been kept since the days of the judges, nor during the whole reign of the kings of Israel or Judah — a celebration without precedent.
2 Kings 23:23This Passover takes place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, in Jerusalem, together with the rest of the reform.
2 Kings 23:24Josiah also does away with mediums, spiritists, household idols, and other detestable practices, carrying out to the letter the words of the Law found in the temple.
2 Kings 23:25No king before or after him turned to the Lord so completely, with all his heart, soul, and strength, according to the whole Law of Moses — the highest praise given to any king in the book.
2 Kings 23:26Even so, the Lord does not turn away from His great anger against Judah (the south) because of everything Manasseh had provoked — Josiah’s reform comes too late to reverse the judgment.
2 Kings 23:27The Lord declares that He will also remove Judah from His presence, just as He did with Israel, rejecting Jerusalem and even the temple itself.
2 Kings 23:28The closing formula for Josiah points to the chronicles of the kings of Judah (the southern kingdom).
2 Kings 23:29Josiah dies in battle against an Egyptian army that was not even marching to attack Judah, but passing through to help Assyria against the rising Babylon. It is a death many readers find unsettling precisely because it strikes down the most praised king in the book in the middle of a war that was not really his own.
2 Kings 23:30Josiah’s servants carry his dead body from Megiddo to Jerusalem for burial; the people anoint his son Jehoahaz as the new king.
2 Kings 23:31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and stayed only three months in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah, of Libnah.
2 Kings 23:32Jehoahaz also does what is evil, repeating the pattern of his ancestors.
2 Kings 23:33Pharaoh Necho imprisons Jehoahaz at Riblah to keep him from continuing to reign in Jerusalem, and also imposes a heavy tribute of silver and gold on the land.
2 Kings 23:34Pharaoh Necho puts Eliakim on the throne in his place, changing his name to Jehoiakim, and takes Jehoahaz away captive to Egypt, where he dies.
2 Kings 23:35Jehoiakim pays the tribute to Pharaoh by taxing the people of the land, collecting silver and gold from each according to his means.
2 Kings 23:36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and stayed eleven years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Zebudah, daughter of Pedaiah, of Rumah.
2 Kings 23:37Jehoiakim also does what is evil, following the same pattern of his ancestors that the book has kept repeating.

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