2 Kings 23 commentary

Josiah had received a message from God, that there was no preventing the ruin of Jerusalem, but that he should only deliver his own soul; yet he does his duty, and leaves the event to God. He engaged the people in the most solemn manner to abolish idolatry, and to serve God in righteousness and true holiness. Though most were formal or hypocritical herein, yet much outward wickedness would be prevented, and they were accountable to God for their own conduct.

What abundance of wickedness in Judah and Jerusalem! One would not have believed it possible, that in Judah, where God was known, in Israel, where his name was great, in Salem, in Zion, where his dwelling-place was, such abominations should be found. Josiah had reigned eighteen years, and had himself set the people a good example, and kept up religion according to the Divine law; yet, when he came to search for idolatry, the depth and extent were very great. Both common history, and the records of God's word, teach, that all the real godliness or goodness ever found on earth, is derived from the new-creating Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Josiah's zeal extended to the cities of Israel within his reach. He carefully preserved the sepulchre of that man of God, who came from Judah to foretell the throwing down of Jeroboam's altar. When they had cleared the country of the old leaven of idolatry, then they applied themselves to the keeping of the feast. There was not holden such a passover in any of the foregoing reigns. The revival of a long-neglected ordinance, filled them with holy joy; and God recompensed their zeal in destroying idolatry with uncommon tokens of his presence and favour. We have reason to think that during the remainder of Josiah's reign, religion flourished.

Upon reading these verses, we must say, Lord, though thy righteousness be as the great mountains, evident, plainly to be seen, and past dispute; yet thy judgments are a great deep, unfathomable, and past finding out. The reforming king is cut off in the midst of his usefulness, in mercy to him, that he might not see the evil coming upon his kingdom: but in wrath to his people, for his death was an inlet to their desolations. (2Ki 23:31-37)

After Josiah was laid in his grave, one trouble came on another, till, in twenty-two years, Jerusalem was destroyed. The wicked perished in great numbers, the remnant were purified, and Josiah's reformation had raised up some to join the few who were the precious seed of their future church and nation. A little time, and slender abilities, often suffice to undo the good which pious men have, for a course of years, been labouring to effect. But, blessed be God, the good work which he begins by his regenerating Spirit, cannot be done away, but withstands all changes and temptations.

CHAPTER 23

2Ki 23:1-3. Josiah Causes the Law to Be Read.

1-3. the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders--This pious and patriotic king, not content with the promise of his own security, felt, after Huldah's response, an increased desire to avert the threatened calamities from his kingdom and people. Knowing the richness of the divine clemency and grace to the penitent, he convened the elders of the people, and placing himself at their head, accompanied by the collective body of the inhabitants, went in solemn procession to the temple, where he ordered the book of the law to be read to the assembled audience, and covenanted, with the unanimous concurrence of his subjects, to adhere steadfastly to all the commandments of the Lord. It was an occasion of solemn interest, closely connected with a great national crisis, and the beautiful example of piety in the highest quarter would exert a salutary influence over all classes of the people in animating their devotions and encouraging their return to the faith of their fathers.

4. the king commanded Hilkiah, &c.--that is, the high priest and other priests, for there was not a variety of official gradations in the temple.

all the vessels, &c.--the whole apparatus of idol-worship.

burned them without Jerusalem--The law required them to be consigned to the flames (De 7:25).

in the fields of Kidron--most probably that part of the valley of Kidron, where lies Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. It is a level, spacious basin, abounding at present with plantations [Robinson]. The brook winds along the east and south of the city, the channel of which is throughout a large portion of the year almost or wholly dry, except after heavy rains, when it suddenly swells and overflows. There were emptied all the impurities of the temple (2Ch 29:15, 16) and the city. His reforming predecessors had ordered the mutilated relics of idolatry to be thrown into that receptacle of filth (1Ki 15:13; 2Ch 15:16; 30:14); but Josiah, while he imitated their piety, far outstripped them in zeal; for he caused the ashes of the burnt wood and the fragments of the broken metal to be collected and conveyed to Beth-el, in order thenceforth to associate ideas of horror and aversion with that place, as odious for the worst pollutions.

5. put down the idolatrous priests--Hebrew, chemarim, "scorched," that is, Guebres, or fire-worshippers, distinguished by a girdle (Eze 23:14-17) or belt of wool and camel's hair, twisted round the body twice and tied with four knots, which had a symbolic meaning, and made it a supposed defense against evil.

them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, &c.--or Baal-shemesh, for Baal was sometimes considered the sun. This form of false worship was not by images, but pure star-worship, borrowed from the old Assyrians.

and--rather, "even to all the host of heaven."

6. brought out the grove--that is, Asherah, the mystic tree, placed by Manasseh in the temple [2Ki 21:5; 2Ch 33:5], removed by him after his conversion [2Ch 33:15], but replaced in the sanctuary by his wicked son Amon [2Ki 21:20, 21]. Josiah had it taken to Kidron, burnt the wood, ground the metal about it to powder, and strewed the ashes "on the graves of the children of the people." The poor were buried in a common on part of the valley of Kidron. But reference is here made to the graves "of those that had sacrificed" (2Ch 34:4).

7. brake down the houses of the sodomites--not solid houses, but tents, called elsewhere [2Ki 17:30] Succoth-benoth, "the booths of the young women," who were devoted to the service of Asherah, for which they made embroidered hangings, and in which they gave themselves to unbridled revelry and lust. Or the hangings might be for Asherah itself, as it is a popular superstition in the East to hang pieces of cloth on trees.

8-9. he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places, &c.--Many of the Levitical order, finding in the reigns of Manasseh and Amon the temple-worship abolished and the tithes and other offerings alienated, had been betrayed into the folly of officiating on high places, and presenting such sacrifices as were brought to them. These irregularities, even though the object of that worship was the true God, were prohibited in the law (De 12:11). Those who had been guilty of this sin, Josiah brought to Jerusalem. Regarding them as defiled, he debarred them from the service of the temple, but gave them an allowance out of the temple revenues, like the lame and disabled members of the priesthood (Le 21:21, 22).

from Geba to to Beer-sheba--the most northern and the most southern places in Judah--meaning all parts of the kingdom.

the high places ... which were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua--The governor's house and gate were on the left of the city gate, and close by the entrance of that civic mansion house were public altars, dedicated, it might be, to the true God, but contrary to His own ordinance of worship (Is 57:8).

10. Topheth--so called from Toph--a "drum." It is the prevailing opinion among Jewish writers that the cries of the terrified children made to pass through the fire in that place of idolatrous horror were drowned by the sound of that instrument.

11. took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun--Among the people who anciently worshipped the sun, horses were usually dedicated to that divinity, from the supposed idea that the sun himself was drawn in a chariot by horses. In some cases these horses were sacrificed; but more commonly they were employed either in the sacred processions to carry the images of the sun, or for the worshippers to ride in every morning to welcome his rise. It seems that the idolatrous kings, Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon, or their great officers, proceeded on these horses early on each day from the east gate of the temple to salute and worship the sun at his appearing above the horizon.

12. the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz--Altars were reared on the flat roofs of houses, where the worshippers of "the host of heaven" burnt incense (Zep 1:5; Jr 19:13). Ahaz had reared altars for this purpose on the oleah, or upper chamber of his palace, and Manasseh on some portion of the roof of the temple. Josiah demolished both of these structures.

13-14. the high places ... which Solomon ... had builded--(See on 1Ki 11:5).

the right hand of the mount of corruption--The Mount of Olives is a hilly range on the east of Jerusalem. This range has three summits, of which the central one is the Mount of Corruption, so called from the idol temples built there, and of course the hill on the right hand denotes the southernmost peak. Josiah is said not to have destroyed, but only defiled, "the high places on the hill of corruption." It is most probable that Hezekiah had long before demolished the idolatrous temples erected there by Solomon but, as the superstitious people continued to regard the spot as consecrated ground, Josiah defiled it.

15-20. Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, &c.--Not satisfied with the removal of every vestige of idolatry from his own dominion, this zealous iconoclast made a tour of inspection through the cities of Samaria and all the territory formerly occupied by the ten tribes, destroying the altars and temples of the high places, consigning the Asherim to the flames, putting to death the priests of the high places, and showing his horror at idolatry by ransacking the sepulchers of idolatrous priests, and strewing the burnt ashes of their bones upon the altars before he demolished them.

21-23. the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, &c.--It was observed with great solemnity and was attended not only by his own subjects, but by the remnant people from Israel (see on 2Ch 35:1-19). Many of the Israelites who were at Jerusalem might have heard of, if they did not hear, the law read by Josiah. It is probable that they might even have procured a copy of the law, stimulated as they were to the better observance of Jehovah's worship by the unusual and solemn transactions at Jerusalem.

26. Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath,--&c. The national reformation which Josiah carried on was acquiesced in by the people from submission to the royal will; but they entertained a secret and strong hankering after the suppressed idolatries. Though outwardly purified, their hearts were not right towards God, as appears from many passages of the prophetic writings; their thorough reform was hopeless; and God, who saw no sign of genuine repentance, allowed His decree (2Ki 21:12-15) for the subversion of the kingdom to take fatal effect.

29. In his days Pharaoh-nechoh--(See 2Ch 35:20-27).

The king went up into the house of the Lord - Here is another very singular circumstance. The high priest, scribes, priest, and prophets, are gathered together, with all the elders of the people, and the king himself reads the book of the covenant which had been lately found! It is strange that either the high priest, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, or some other of the prophets, who were certainly there present, did not read the sacred book! It is likely that the king considered himself a mediator between God and them, and therefore read and made the covenant.

Stood by a pillar - He stood, על העמוד al haammud, "upon the stairs or pulpit." This is what is called the brazen scaffold or pulpit which Solomon made, and on which the kings were accustomed to stand when they addressed the people. See 2Chr 6:13, and the parallel places.

Made a covenant - This was expressed,

1. In general. To walk after Jehovah; to have no gods besides him.

2. To take his law for the regulation of their conduct.

3. In particular. To bend their whole heart and soul to the observance of it, so that, they might not only have religion without, but, piety within.

To this all the people stood up, thus giving their consent, and binding themselves to obedience.

The priests of the second order - These were probably such as supplied the place of the high priest when he was prevented: from fulfilling the functions of his office. So the Chaldee understood the place - the sagan of the high priests. But the words may refer to those of the second course or order established by David: though it does not appear that those orders were now in use, yet the distinction was continued even to the time of our Lord. We find the course of Abia, which was the eighth, mentioned Luk 1:5 (note); where see the note.

All the vessels - These had been used for idolatrous purposes; the king is now to destroy them; for although no longer used in this way, they might, if permitted to remain, be an incentive to idolatry at a future time.

The idolatrous priests - הכמרים hakkemarim. Who these were is not well known. The Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, call them the priests simply, which the kings of Judah had ordained. Probably they were an order made by the idolatrous kings of Judah, and called kemarim, from כמר camar, which signifies to be scorched, shriveled together, made dark, or black, because their business was constantly to attend sacrificial fires, and probably they were black garments; hence the Jews in derision call Christian ministers kemarim, because of their black clothes and garments. Why we should imitate, in our sacerdotal dress, those priests of Baal, is strange to think and hard to tell.

Unto Baal, to the sun - Though Baal was certainly the sun, yet here they are distinguished; Baal being worshipped under different forms and attributes, Baal-peor, Baal-zephon, Baal-zebub, etc.

The planets - מזלות mazzaloth. The Vulgate translates this the twelve signs, i.e., the zodiac. This is as likely as any of the other conjectures which have been published relative to this word. See a similar word Job 37:9; Job 38:32.

He brought out the grove - He brought out the idol Asherah. See at the end of 2Kgs 21:26 (note).

Upon the graves of the children of the people - I believe this; means the burial-place of the common people.

The houses of the sodomites - We have already often met with these קדשים kedeshim or consecrated persons. The word implies all kinds of prostitutes, as well as abusers of themselves with mankind.

Wove hangings for the grove - For Asherah; curtains or tent coverings for the places where the rites of the impure goddess were performed. See at the end of 2Kgs 21:26 (note).

The gate of Joshua - The place where he, as governor of the city, heard and decided causes. Near this we find there were public altars, where sometimes the true God, at other times false gods, were honored.

The priests of the high places came not up - As these priests had offered sacrifices on the high places, though it was to the true God, yet they were not thought proper to be employed immediately about the temple; but as they were acknowledged to belong to the priesthood, they had a right to their support; therefore a portion of the tithes, offerings, and unleavened bread, shew-bread, etc., was appointed to them for their support. Thus they were treated as priests who had some infirmity which rendered it improper for them to minister at the altar. See Lev 21:17, etc., and particularly Lev 21:22, Lev 21:23.

He defiled Topheth - St. Jerome says that Topheth was a fine and pleasant place, well watered with fountains, and adorned with gardens. The valley of the son of Hinnom, or Gehenna, was in one part; here it appears the sacred rites of Molech were performed, and to this all the filth of the city was carried, and perpetual fires were kept up in order to consume it. Hence it has been considered a type of hell; and in this sense it is used in the New Testament.

It is here said that Josiah defiled this place that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire. He destroyed the image of Molech, and so polluted the place where he stood, or his temple, that it was rendered in every way abominable. The rabbins say that Topheth had its name from תף toph, a drum, because instruments of this kind were used to drown the cries of the children that were put into the burning arms of Molech, to be scorched to death. This may be as true as the following definition: "Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, was a place near Jerusalem, where the filth and offal of the city were thrown, and where a constant fire was kept up to consume the wretched remains of executed criminals. It was a human shambles, a public chopping-block, where the arms and legs of men and women were quartered off by thousands." Query, On what authority do such descriptions rest?

The horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun - Jarchi says that those who adored the sun had horses which they mounted every morning to go out to meet the sun at his rising. Throughout the East the horse, because of his swiftness and utility, was dedicated to the sun; and the Greeks and Romans feigned that the chariot of the sun was drawn by four horses - Pyroeis, Eous, Aethon, and Phlegon. See the note on 2Kgs 2:11.

Whether these were living or sculptured horses, we cannot tell; the latter is the more reasonable supposition.

On the top of the upper chamber - Altars built on the flat roof of the house. Such altars were erected to the sun, moon, stars, etc.

Mount of corruption - This, says Jarchi, following the Chaldee, was the mount of Olives, for this is the mount המשחה hammishchah, of unction; but because of the idolatrous purposes for which it was used, the Scripture changed the appellation to the mount המשחית hammashchith, of corruption.

Ashtoreth the abomination, etc. - See on 1Kgs 11:7 (note).

Filled their places with the bones of men - This was allowed to be the utmost defilement to which any thing could be exposed.

And as Josiah turned himself - This verse is much more complete in the Septuagint, and in the Hexaplar Syriac version at Paris. I shall give the whole, making a distinction where, in those versions, any thing is added: "And 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 burnt them upon the altar, and polluted it: according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed [when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the feast. And turning about, he cast his eyes on the sepulcher of the man of God] who proclaimed these words." See 1Kgs 13:2 (note), where these things were predicted, and see the notes there.

What title is that - There was either a stone, an image, or an inscription here: the old prophet no doubt took care to have the place made sufficiently remarkable.

The prophet that came out of Samaria - See the note on 1Kgs 13:32.

That were in the cities of Samaria - Israel had now no king; and Josiah, of the blood royal of Judah, had certainly a direct right to the kingdom; he had, at this time, an especial commission from God, to reform every abuse through the whole land - all that ground that was given by the Lord as an inheritance to the twelve sons of Jacob. Therefore he had every right to carry his plans of reformation into the Samaritan states.

Slew all the priests - The lives of these, as corrupters of the people, were forfeited to the law.

Surely there was not holden such a passover - Not one on purer principles, more heartily joined in by the people present, more literally consecrated, or more religiously observed. The words do not apply to the number present, but to the manner and spirit. See the particulars and mode of celebrating this passover in 2 Chronicles 35:1-18 (note).

The workers with familiar spirits - See on 2Kgs 21:5 (note).

And the images - The teraphim. See the note on Gen 31:19.

Like unto him was there no king - Perhaps not one from the time of David; and, morally considered, including David himself, none ever sat on the Jewish throne, so truly exemplary in his own conduct, and so thoroughly zealous in the work of God. David was a greater but not a better man than Josiah.

The Lord turned not - It was of no use to try this fickle and radically depraved people any longer. They were respited merely during the life of Josiah.

In his days Pharaoh-nechoh - See the note on the death of Josiah, 2Kgs 22:20 (note).

Nechoh is supposed to have been the son of Psammitichus, king of Egypt; and the Assyrian king, whom he was now going to attack, was the famous Nabopolassar. What the cause of this quarrel was, is not known. Some say it was on account of Carchemish, a city on the Euphrates, belonging to the Egyptians, which Nabopolassar had seized. See Isa 10:9.

Dead from Megiddo - The word מת meth should here be considered as a participle, dying, for it is certain he was not dead: he was mortally wounded at Megiddo, was carried in a dying state to Jerusalem, and there he died and was buried. See 2Chr 35:24.

Herodotus, lib. i., c. 17, 18, 25, and lib. ii. 159, appears to refer to the same war which is here mentioned. He says that Nechoh, in the sixth year of his reign, went to attack the king of Assyria at Magdolum, gained a complete victory, and took Cadytis. Usher and others believe that Magdolum and Megiddo were the same place. The exact place of the battle seems to have been Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddo, for there Zechariah tells us 2Kgs 12:11, was the great mourning for Josiah. Compare this with 2Chr 35:24, 2Chr 35:25.

Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old - This was not the eldest son of Josiah, which is evident from this, that he was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; that he reigned but three months; that, being dethroned, his brother Eliakim was put in his place, who was then twenty-five years of age. Eliakim, therefore, was the eldest brother; but Jehoahaz was probably raised to the throne by the people, as being of a more active and martial spirit.

Nechoh put him in bands - But what was the cause of his putting him in bands? It is conjectured, and not without reason, that Jehoahaz, otherwise called Shallum, raised an army, met Nechoh in his return from Carchemish, fought, was beaten, taken prisoner, put in chains; and taken into Egypt, where he died; 2Kgs 23:34, and Jer 22:11, Jer 22:12. Riblah or Diblath, the place of this battle, was probably a town in Syria, in the land or district of Hamath.

Turned his name to Jehoiakim - These names are precisely the same in signification: Eliakim is God shall arise; Jehoiakim, Jehovah shall arise; or, the resurrection of God; the resurrection of Jehovah. That is, God's rising again to show his power, justice, etc. The change of the name was to show Nechoh's supremacy, and that Jehoiakim was only his vassal or viceroy. Proofs of this mode of changing the name, when a person of greater power put another in office under himself, may be seen in the case of Mattaniah, changed into Zedekiah; Daniel, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah, into Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; and Joseph into Zaphnath-paaneah. See Dan 1:6, Dan 1:7; Gen 41:45.

Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold - Nechoh had placed him there as viceroy, simply to raise and collect his taxes.

Every one according to his taxation - That is, each was assessed in proportion to his property: that was the principle avowed: but there is reason to fear that this bad king was not governed by it.

He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord - He was a most unprincipled and oppressive tyrant. Jeremiah gives us his character at large, Jer 22:13-19, to which the reader will do well to refer. Jeremiah was at that time in the land, and was an eyewitness of the abominations of this cruel king.

Prophets - Either Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Urijah: or, the sons of the prophets. It seems he read it himself. Josiah did not think it beneath him, to be a reader, any more than Solomon did to be a preacher, and David to be even a door keeper in the house of God. All people are concerned to know the scripture, and all in authority, to spread the knowledge of it.

Stood - They declared their consent to it, and their concurrence with the king in that act, which possibly they did by standing up, as the king himself stood when he took it. It is of good use, with all possible solemnity, to oblige ourselves to our duty. And he that bears an honest heart, does not startle at assurances.

Second order - Either those two who were next in degree to the high - priest, and in case of sickness were to manage his work: or the heads of the twenty four courses which David had appointed. The grove - The image of the grove: it being most frequent to call images by the names of the persons or things which they represent. The fields - Adjoining to the brook of Kidron. To Beth - el - To shew his abhorrence of them, and that he would not give the ashes of them a place in his kingdom: and to pollute and disgrace that place which had been the chief seat and throne of idolatry.

Priests - Heb. the Chemarim; the highest rank of priests, employed in the highest work, which was to burn incense.

The people - Of that people, those idolatrous people, as it is explained, 2Chron 34:4.

Sodomites - Sodomy was a part of idol - worship, being done to the honour of some of their idols, and by the appointment of those impure and diabolical spirits, which were worshipped in their idols. Hangings - Or, curtains, either to draw before the idols which were worshipped in the grove, to preserve them from defilement, or to gain more reverence for them: Or, garments for the service of the grove, for the idols or the priests belonging to them. Heb. houses, that is, either little chappels made of woven work, like those which were made of silver, Acts 19:24, within which there were some representations of their grove - idols: or rather, tents made of those curtains for the use above - mentioned.

Priests - Belonging to the high - places following, whether such as worshipped idols; or such as worshipped God in those forbidden places. Defiled - By burning dead mens bones upon them, or by putting them to some other unclean use. From Geba - The northern border of the kingdom of Judah. Beer - sheba - The southern border, from one end to the other. Gates - Which were erected by the gates of the city here mentioned, to the honour of their tutelary gods, whom after the manner of the heathen they owned for the protectors of their city and habitations. The governor - This circumstance is noted to shew Josiah's great zeal and impartiality, in rooting out all monuments of idolatry, without any respects unto those great persons who were concerned in them.

The priest - Who worshipped the true God there. In Jerusalem - Were not suffered to come thither to the exercise of their priestly function; as a just punishment for the corruption of God's worship, and the transgression of so plain and positive a law of God, Deut 12:11, which was much worse in them who had more knowledge to discern the will of God, and more obligations to observe it. Did eat - Of the meal - offerings, allotted to the priests, wherein there was to be no leaven, Lev 2:4,5,10,11, and consequently of other provisions belonging to the priests, which are contained under this one kind. Thus their spiritual blemish puts them into the very same state which corporal blemishes brought them, Lev 21:17, &c. And thus he mitigates their punishment: he shuts them out from spiritual services, but allows them necessary provisions.

Topheth - Very near Jerusalem, where was the image of Molech, to whom some sacrificed their children, burning them in the fire, others dedicated them, making them pass between two fires. It is supposed to be called Topheth, from toph, a drum; because they beat drums at the burning of the children, that their shrieks might not be heard.

Horses - Such the eastern nations used to consecrate to the sun, to signify the swiftness of his motion. The sun - Either, to be sacrificed to the sun: or, to draw those chariots in which the kings, or some other in their stead, went forth every morning to worship the rising sun: for both these were the customs of the Armenians and Persians, as Xenophon testifies. Entering in - By the gate of the outward court of the temple. Chamberlain - Or, officer, to whom the care of these horses were committed. Suburbs - Of the temple: in certain outward buildings belonging to the temple. Chariots - Which were made for the worship of the sun.

The top - Upon the roof of the king's house. They were so mad upon their idols, that they were not content with all their publick high places and altars, but made others upon their house - tops, for the worship of the heavenly bodies. Cast - To shew his detestation of them: and to abolish the very remembrance of them.

Corruption - The mount of olives, called the mount of corruption, for the gross idolatry there practiced. Which - Not the same individual altars; which doubtless either Solomon upon his repentance, or some other of Josiah's predecessors had taken away, but other altars built by Manasseh or Amon, which because erected by Solomon's example, and for the same use, and in the same place, are called by his name: this brand is left by the Holy Ghost upon his name and memory, as a just punishment of that abominable practice, and a mean to deter others from the like. Abomination - The idol, so called, because it was abominable, and made them abominable to God.

Men - Of the idolatrous priests, which he caused to be taken out of their graves, ver.18. As he carried the ashes of the images to the graves, to mingle them with dead mens bones, so he carried dead mens bones to the places where the images had been, that both ways idolatry might be rendered loathsome. Dead men and dead gods were indeed much alike, and fittest to go together.

Beth - el - Probably this city was now under the kingdom of Judah, to which it was added by Abijah long since. And it is probable, since the ten tribes were carried away, many cities had put themselves under the protection of Judah. The golden calf, it seems, was gone; but Josiah would leave no remains of that idolatry.

Himself - Josiah's care and zeal was so great, that he would not trust his officers with these things, but would see them done with his own eyes. These words - Three hundred years before it was done.

The priests - By this relation it appears, that after the departure of the king of Assyria, divers of the Israelites who had retired to other parts, and kept themselves out of the conqueror's hands, returned together with their priests to their own land, and to their old trade, worshipping idols; to whom, peradventure, they ascribed this their deliverance from that judgment which Jehovah had brought upon them. And burnt - According to that famous prophecy, 1Kings 13:1,2.

Such a passover - Celebrated with such solemn care, and great preparation, and numerous sacrifices, and universal joy of all good men; which was much the greater, because of their remembrance of the former wicked and miserable times under Manasseh, and Amon; and the good hopes they now had of the happy establishment of their nation, and the true religion; and of the prevention of God's judgments denounced against them. Judges - Or, from the days of Samuel, the last of the judges; as it is expressed 2Chron 35:18. None of the kings had taken such care to prepare themselves, the priests, and people, and accurately to observe all the rites, and diligently to purge out all uncleanness, and to renew their covenant with God. And undoubtedly God was pleased to recompense their zeal in destroying idolatry with uncommon tokens of his presence and favour. All this concurred to make it such a passover as had not been, even in the days of Hezekiah.

Images, &c. - Three words noting the same thing, to shew, That all the instruments and monuments of idolatry were destroyed, as God had commanded. Spied - All that were discovered; not only such as were in the place of worship, but such as their priests or zealots had removed, and endeavoured to hide.

No king - For his diligent study in God's law, and his exact care, and unwearied industry, and fervent zeal, in rooting out idolators, and all kinds and appearances of idolatry, not only in Judah, but in Israel also; and in the establishment of the true religion in all his dominions, and in the conforming of his own life, and his peoples too, (as far as he could) to the holy law of God: though Hezekiah might excel him in some particulars.

Notwithstanding - Because though the king was most hearty in his repentance and acceptable to God, and therefore the judgment was delayed for his time; yet the people were in general corrupt, and secretly averse from Josiah's pious reformation, as appears from the complaints of the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Zephaniah, against them: and by the following history, wherein we see, that as soon as ever Josiah was gone, his children, and the princes, and the people, suddenly and greedily returned to their former abominations. Because - The sins of Manasseh, and for the men of his generation; who concurred with him in his idolatrous and cruel practices, are justly punished in this generation: because of God's sovereign right of punishing sinners when he sees fit: because of that publick declaration of God, that he would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children: and principally, because these men had never sincerely repented of their own, nor of their fathers sins.

I said - Upon the conditions in sundry places expressed, which they broke, and therefore God justly made them to know his breach of promise.

The king, &c. - The king of Babylon, who having formerly rebelled against the Assyrian had now conquered him; as appears by the course of the sacred, and the concurrence of the prophane history; and therefore is here and elsewhere called the Assyrian, and the king of Assyria, because now he was the head of that empire. Euphrates - Against Carchemish by Euphrates, as it is expressed, 2Chron 35:20, which the Assyrian had taken from Pharaoh's confederates, who therefore sends forces against the Assyrian, that he might both help them, and secure himself. Josiah went - Either to defend his own country from Pharaoh's incursions; or to assist the king of Babylon, with whom he seems to have been in league. Slew - Gave him his death wound there; though he died not 'till he came to Jerusalem. Seen him - When he fought with him, or in the first onset. It does not appear, that Josiah had any clear call to engage in this war; possibly he received his death wound, as a punishment of his rashness.

Dead - Mortally wounded. Jehoahaz - Who was younger than Jehoiakim, yet preferred by the people before the elder brother; either because Jehoiakim refused the kingdom for fear of Pharaoh, whom he knew he should hereby provoke. Or because Jehoahaz was the more stout and warlike prince; whence he is called a lion, Ezek 19:3.

His fathers - His grand - parents, Manasseh, and Amon. He restored that idolatry which his father had destroyed. Jerusalem saw not a good day, after Josiah was laid in his grave; but one trouble came after another, 'till within two and twenty years it was destroyed.

In bands - Either, because he presumed to take the kingdom without his consent: or because he renewed the war against Pharaoh.

Jehoiakim - The giving of names was accounted an act of dominion; which therefore parents did to their children, and conquerors to their vassals or tributaries.

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

The chief Governors both of Church and State.

Marginal references: 2 C[illegible: 1+ letters]r. 34. 30.

2 And 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.

Either Ieremiah, Zephaniah, Urijah: or, the Sons or Disciples of the Prophets.

He caused to be read.

Marginal references: Heb. from [illegible: 1 word] even [illegible: 1+ letters]to great.

3 ¶ And the king stood by the 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 .

Of which see on chap. 11. 14. and 2 Chron. 34. 31.

To wit, as to the taking of it: they declared their consent to it, and their concurrence with the King in that act, which possibly they did by standing upright, as the King himself stood when he took it.

4 And 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 burnt them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron , and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el .

Either those two who were next in degree to the High-Priest, and in case of his sickness were to manage his work: Of whom see 2 S[illegible: 1+ letters]m. S. 17. or the heads of the [illegible: 1+ letters]4 courses which David had appointed, 1 C[illegible: 1+ letters]r. 25.

See above on chap. 22. 4.

i. e. To take care that they should be brought forth.

i. e. The image of the grove: of which see on chap. 21. 7. it being most frequent to call Images by the names of the persons or things which they represent.

i. e. Adioyning to the brook of Kidron.

Partly, to shew his abhorrency of them, and that he would not give the Ashes of them a place in his Kingdom: and partly, to pollute and disgrace that place which had been the Chief Seat and Throne of Idolatry.

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

Heb. the Chemarim; which were Ministers of Idols, Hos. 10. 5. distinct from the Priests, Zeph. 1. 4. Possibly they were the highest rank of Priests, because they are here employed in the highest work, which was to burn Incense.

A particular god, of greatest esteem with them, so called: though elsewhere the name of Baal is common to all false gods.

Marginal references: Heb. caused to [illegible: 1+ letters]ease.; Heb. Chemarim.; Or, twelve signs or constellations.

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

See on ver. 4.

i. e. Of the common people, whose Graves were made together in some common place, which was generally accounted very impure and contemptible, and therefore a sit place for this [illegible: 1+ letters]ilth to be thrown into. Or, of Bastards, who are oft called the children of the people: who as they had this brand of infamy laid upon them, that they might not enter into the congrigation of the Lord, Deut. 23. 2. so possibly they were exposed to this further Ignominy, to be buried in a peculiar, and in the most infamous place. Or rather, as it is in the Hebrew, of that people, i. e. those Idolatrous people, as it is explained, 2 Chr. 34. 4. and here sufficiently implied in this and the foregoing Verse.

Marginal references: Chap. 21. 7.

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

Wherein some Males prostituted their Bodies to the Lusts of others: which abominable practise was both a punishment of Idolatry, Rom. 1. 23, 24, 27. and a part of Idolworship, this being done to the honour of some of their Idols, and by the appointment and instigation of those impure and diabolical spirits, which were worshipped in their Idols. See 1 King. 14. 24. and 15. 12. and 22. 46.

Or, curtains, either to draw before the Idol or Idols which were worshiped in the Grove, to preserve them from defilement, or to gain more reverence for them; or which were set up in the Grove, that the abominable filthiness last mentioned might be committed within them. Or, garments for the service of the Grove, for the Idols or the Priests belonging to them. Heb. houses, i. e. either little Chappels made of woven work, like those which were made of Silver, Act. 19. 24. within which there were some representations of their Grove-Idols: or rather, Tents made of those Curtains for the use abovementioned.

Or, for Asherah, an Idol so called, as was noted before.

Marginal references: Heb. houses.

8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense, from Geba to Beersheba , and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entring in of the gate of Joshua the governour of the city , which were on a mans left hand at the gate of the city.

To wit, belonging to the high-places here following, whether such as worshipped Idols; or rather, such as worshipped God in those forbidden places, Deut. 12. 11. as may be gathered from the following Verse.

By burning dead mens Bones upon them, as ver. 14, 16, 20. or by putting them to some other unclean or filthy use.

The Northern border of the Kingdom of Iudah: Of which see Jos. 18. 24. 1 Kin. 15. 22.

Which was the Southern border. See Gen. 21. 31. [illegible: 1 word]. 20. 1. i. e. from one end to the other.

Which were erected by the Gates of the City here mentioned, into the honour of their Tutelary gods, which after the manner of the Heathen they owned for the Protectors of their City and Habitations.

This circumstance is noted to shew Iosiah's great zeal and impartiality, in rooting out all monuments of Idolatry, without any respect unto those great persons who were concerned in them, or affected to them.

9 Nevertheless, 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.

Which Worshipped the True God there.

i. e. Were not suffered to come thither to the exercise of their Priestly function; as a just punishment for the corruption of Gods Worship, and the transgression of so plain and positive a Law of God, Deut. 12. 11. which was much worse in them who had more knowledge to discern Gods mind therein, and more obligations to observe it, and to ingage others to the observation of it. Compare Ezek. 44. 10.

i. e. Of the Meat-Offerings, allotted to the Priests, wherein there was to be no Leaven, Lev. 2. 4, 5, 10, 11. and consequently of other Provisions belonging to the Priests, which by a Synecdoche are contained under this one kind. Thus their Spiritual blemish puts them into the very same state which corporal blemishes brought them, Lev. 21. 17, &c. And thus he mitigates their punishment: he shuts them out from Spiritual Services, but allows them natural and necessary Provisions.

10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom , that no man might make his son, of his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech .

Of which see Ios. 15. 8. Nehem. 11. 30. Ier. 7. 31. and 19. 6, 11.

See on Lev. 18. 21. Deut. 18. 10.

Marginal references: Lev. 18. 21. Deut. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. 10.

11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun , at the entring in of the house of the LORD , by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain , which was in the suburbs , and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire.

Either, [illegible: 1+ letters]. The Carved or Graven Horses, to which were [illegible: 1+ letters]yned a Graven Chariot, in which there might be the Picture of the Sun, which the Heathens used to represent in this manner. Or rather, 2. Living Horses: For, 1. Such the [illegible: 1+ letters]stern Nations used to Consecrate to the Sun, to signify the swifness of his motion. 2. These Horses are mentioned apart from the Chariots, and are said to be given to the sun, which is not said of the Chariots; and to be taken away, when the [illegible: 1 word] more burnt, &c. and a certain place is here allotted to the Horses, not to the Chariots.

Either, to be Sacrificed to the Sun: or, to draw those Chariots in which the Kings, or some other in their stead, and by their appointment, went forth every Morning to worship the rising Sun: for both these were the customs of the Armenians and Per [illegible: 1+ letters], as Xenophon testifies.

i. e. By the Gate of the outward Court of the Temple: for the Courts are oft contained under the name of the House or Temple.

Or, officer, to whom the care of these Horses was committed.

Either, 1. Of the City of David: or rather, of the Temple: in certain outward Buildings belonging to the Temple, and the uses thereof. See Ezek. 45. 2. Heb. in Parvarim; a place near the Temple, called also Parbar, 1 Chr. 26. 18. though it be not now known either where it was, or why it was so called.

Which were made for the honour and worship of the Sun, as was before expressed.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word], or, officer.; 1 Chr. 26. 18.

12 And the altars that [illegible: 1 word] 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 .

i. e. Upon the Roof of the Kings House. They were so mad upon their Idols, that they were not content with all their publick high places and Altars, but made others upon their House-tops, for the worship of the Heavenly bodies. See Ier. 19. 13. Zeph. 1. 5.

Quest. How could this be, when Manasseh had taken them away before, 2 Chr. 33. 15▪ Ans. Either, these Altars were not so fully destroyed as they should have been, the foundations of them being left through the neglect of the Officers appointed to do that work, upon which Amon built his new Altars. Or, if they were wholly rooted out, Amon's new Altars are called by his Fathers name, because they were built by his example, and in the very same place where his Fathers Altars were; as the Wells which Isaac digged in the same place, where Abraham had digged them before, were therefore called by their ancient names, Gen. 26. 15. See more on the next Verse.

The Priests and the Peoples. See ch. 21. 5.

Partly, to shew his derestation of them: and partly, to abolish the very remembrance of them as far as he could.

Marginal references: Chap. [illegible: 1+ letters]1. [illegible: 1+ letters].; Or, [illegible: 1 word] from thence.

13 And 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 builed 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.

i. e. The Mount of Olives, 1 King. 11. 7. here called the mount of corruption, for the gross Idolatry there practised, which is oft expressed by the name of corruption. See Exod. 32. 7. Deut. 32. 5. In the Hebrew is an elegant allusion between M[illegible: 1+ letters]seah, anointing, and Mosh[illegible: 1+ letters]ith, corruption, as there is between Bethel and Bethaven, Hos. 4. 15.

Not the same individual Altars; which doubtless either Solomen upon his repentance, or some other of Iosiah's Godly predecessors had taken away long before this time; but other Altars built by Man[illegible: 1+ letters]sseh or Amon, which because erected by Solomon's example, and for the same use, and in the same place, are called by his name; this brand being left by the Holy Ghost upon his name and memory, as a just punishment of that abominable practise, and a mean to deter others fro[illegible: 1+ letters] the like.

Of which and the rest see on 1 King. 11. 5▪ 6, 7.

i. e. The Idol, so called, because it was abominable, and made them abominable to God.

Marginal references: That is, the mount o[illegible: 1+ letters] [illegible: 1 word].; 1 [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]

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

i. e. Of the Idolatrous Priests, which he caused to be taken out of their Graves, v. 18.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. De[illegible: 1+ letters]. 7. 5[illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1+ letters]; [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1 word].

15 ¶ Moreover, the altar that was at Beth[illegible: 1+ letters]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 burnt the high place, and stampt it small to powder, and burnt the grove.

Quest. How could he rightly do this, seeing Bethel was a part of the Kingdom of Israel, not of Iudah? Ans. Either, First, This City was now under the Kingdom of Iudah, to which it was added by Abijah long since, 2 Chron. 13. 19. Or, Secondly, He did this by vertue of that ancient right which David and his posterity had to the Kingdom of Israel, which though suspended for a time by God's grant of the Ten Tribes to Ieroboam, and the succeeding Kings of Israel; yet these being all extinct, it might seem to return to him, at least so far as to pluck up Idolatry out of the Land of Israel, as he had opportunity, and especially out of those parts of it which bordered upon Iudah. Or, Thirdly, The King of Babylon having ingaged in a War with the Assyrian, Hezekiah's great enemy, and having thereupon occasion for Hezekiah's friendship, did (as some suppose) enlarge his Dominion, and give him some power over the Kingdom of Israel, at least as to matters of Religion: Which▪may seem not improbable from 2 Chron. 30. 1, 4, 5, 6. And the same power seems to have been continued, and some kind of League made between the King of Babylon and Manasseh (who thereupon was restored to his Kingdom, 2 Chron▪ 33. 13.) and after him Iosiah, who therefore was so zealous in his quarrel against the King o[illegible: 1+ letters] Egypt, 2 Chron. 35. 20, &c. Or, Fourthly, He did it in purseance of God's prediction concerning this action, 1 King. 13. 2. which (in a matter so good, and so agreeable to God's wi[illegible: 1+ letters] and word, as the extirpation of Idolatry unquestionably was) had the force of a warrant or command upon him to do it, as God's prediction of the Conversion of the Gentiles by the Messias, was a command to his Apostles to Preach to them, Act. 13. 47.

Which seems to have been some little Temple or House erected for that Worship, or for the Priests attending upon it.

Marginal references: 1 [illegible: 1 word].

16 And 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 burnt them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words .

Iosiah's care and zeal was so great, that he would not trust his Officers with these things, but would see them done with his own Eyes.

300 years before it was done.

Marginal references: 1 [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

17 Then 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.

It was the manner then, as now it is, to set up little Pillars or Stones, by, or upon the Graves of the higher sort of Men, upon which the name of the Person, and some Remarkable passages relating to him, were Engraven.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] 13.

18 And 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 Sa [illegible: 1+ letters]aria .

Which were now mixed together.

The place of his Birth or former abode, though now he were in Bethel, 1 Sam. 13. 11.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] escape.; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] 13.

19 And 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.

By what Authority he did this, see on, ver. 15.

20 And he slew all the priests of the high places , that were there upon the altars , and burnt mens bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

Either, 1. The Priests which Ieroboam had made of the meanest of the People, whom he [illegible: 1+ letters]ew, both for their Pre [illegible: 1+ letters] Usurpation of that Sacred Office, which of it self [illegible: 1+ letters]as Punishable with Death by God's Law, [illegible: 1 word]. 3. 10. and for their Idolatry. Or rather, 2. The Priests of Baalim; by comparing this Verse with the former, where speaking of these same High Places, he [illegible: 1+ letters]oth not say, which Ieroboam made; as is usual when he speaks of the High Places of the Calves; but which the other kings of Israel made, who were divers of them Worshippers of Baal; and by considering the Parallel place, 2 Chron. 34. 4. where it is said, they brake down the altars of Baalim, &c. By this Relation it appears, and from the nature of the thing, and common practise in like cases, it is more than probable, that after the departure of the King of Assyria, divers of the Israelites who had retired to other parts, and kept themselves out of the Conquerors hands, returned together with their Priests to their own Land, and to their old trade of Worshipping Idols; to whom, peradventure, they ascribed this their Deliverance from that Judgment which Iehovah had brought upon them.

According to that Famous Prophecy, 1 King. 13. 1, 2.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word].; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] 11. 18.

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

Having abolished False Worship, he now endeavours to set up the True Worship of the True God.

In this Book which I have found; wherein is contained the Covenant made between God and Israel, and the terms of it.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. 1.; [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. 3. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. 5. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

22 Surely 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:

i. e. Celebrated with such Solemn care, and great Preparation, and numerous Sacrifices, 2 Chron. 35. 7, 8, 9. and universal Joy of all good men; which was much the greater, because of their remembrance of the former wicked and miserable times under Manasseh, and Amon; and the good hopes they now had of the happy Establishment of their Nation, and the True Religion; and of the prevention of God's Judgments denounced against them.

Or, from the days of Samuel, the last of the Judges; as it is expressed 2 Chron. 35. 18. None of the Kings had taken such care to prepare themselves, the Priests, and People, and accurately to observe all the Rites, and diligently to purge out all uncleanness, and to renew their Covenant with God, so solemnly as Iosiah now did.

24 ¶ Moreover, 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.

Of which see on, Levit. 19. 31. and 20. 27. Numb. 22. 5. Deut. 18. 11.

Three words noting the same thing, to shew, That all the Instruments and Monuments of Idolatry were Destroyed, as God had Commanded.

i. e. All that were discovered; not onely such as were in the place and state of Worship, but such as their Priests or Zealot[illegible: 1+ letters] had removed, and indeavoured to hide and secure.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]; [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1+ letters]0. 27. [illegible: 1 word] 18. 11.

25 And 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.

To wit, for his diligent Study in God's Law, and [illegible: 1 word] exact Care, and unwearied Industry, and fervent Zeal, in rooting out of Idolaters, and all kinds and appearances of Idolatry, not onely in Iudah, but in Israel also; and in the Establishment of the True Religion in all his Dominions, and in the conforming of his own Life, and his Peoples too, (as far as he could) to the holy Law of God▪ though Hezekiah might excel him in some other particulars; of whom therefore the like is said above, Chap. 18. 55.

Marginal references: Chap. 18. [illegible: 1+ letters].

26 ¶ Notwithstanding, 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 .

Because though the King was most hearty in his Repentance and acceptable to God, as was said before, and therefore the Judgment was delayed for his time; yet the people were generally corrupt, and secretly averse from Iosiah's pious and excellent Reformation, and inclined to their old Lusts and Idols; as appears from the complaints of the Prophets, especially Ieremiah, and Zephaniah, against them: and by the following History, wherein we see, that as soon as ever Iosiah was gone, his Children, and the Princes, and the People, suddenly and greedily returned to their former Abominations.

The Sine of Manasseh, and of the men of his Generation; who complied and concurred with him in his Idolatrous and cruel practises, Chap. 24. 3, 4. are justly punished in this Generation; partly, because of God's Soveraign Right of Punishing Sinners (such as these unquestionably were) when, and upon what occasion he sees sit: partly, because of that publick Warning and Declaration of God, That he would visit the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children: and principally, because these men had never sincerely Repented of their own, nor of their Fathers Sins; but their hearts still hankered after them; which, though not yet seen by men, was manifest to God, who therefore pronounced this Terrible Sentence against them.

Marginal references: Jer. 15. 4.; Heb. angers.

27 And 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.

To wit, upon the conditions in sundry places expressed, which they broke, and therefore God justly made them to know his breach of promise, as he threatens Numb. 14. 34.

Marginal references: 1 King. 8. 29▪

29 ¶ In 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 .

Called Necos by Herodotus, who makes mention of this Fight; wherein, as he saith, Ne[illegible: 1+ letters]os conquered the Syrians in Magdalo.

i. e. The King of Babylon, who having formerly Rebelled against the Assyrian his Lord, had now conquered him; as appears by the course of the Sacred, and the concurrence of the Prophane History; and therefore is here and elsewhere called the Assyrian, and the king of Assyria, because now he was the Head of that Empire.

i. e. Against Carchemish by Euphrates, as it is expressed, 2 Chron. 3[illegible: 1+ letters]. 20. which the Assyrian had taken from the Syrians, Isa. 10. 9. Pharach's Confederates, who therefore sendeth Forces against the Assyrian, that he might both help them, and secure himself.

Either to defend his own Country from Pharaoh's Incursions; or to Assist the King of Babylon▪ with whom he seems to have been in League, as was noted before.

i. e. Gave him his Deaths Wound there; though he died not till he came to Ierusalem, 2 Chron. 35▪ 23, 24.

i. e. When he Fought with him, or in the first Onset. Thus Fighting is called a looking in the face, 2 King. 14. 8.

Marginal references: 2 Chron. 35▪ [illegible: 1 word]; Zech. 12. 11▪

30 And 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 fathers stead.

i. e. Mortally Wounded, as in the former Verse; and as we commonly say of a sick man, past hopes of Recovery, that he is a dead man; Compare Gen. 20. 3.

Who was younger than Iehoiakim, by comparing ver. 31. with 36. yet preferred by the People before the elder Brother; either because Iehojakim refused the Kingdom for fear of Pharaoh, whom he knew he should hereby provoke▪ or because, Iehoahaz was the more Stout and Warlike Prince; whence he is called a Lion, Ezek. 19. 3. though indeed he shewed his Courage more against his People, than his Enemies: but they judged, that he was most able and willing to defend them against the Conquering Army.

As they used to do in such Extraordinary Cases, because this was a troublesome time, and he was not the right Heir to the Crown, and therefore needed this Solemn Rite of Confirmation, which Solomon had in the same Circumstances.

Marginal references: 2 Chron. 36. 1.; 1 Chron. 3▪ 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1+ letters]er. 22. 11. Shall[illegible: 1+ letters].

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

i. e. His grand Parents, Manasseh, and Amon. He restored that Idolatry which his Father had destroyed; partly, to gratifie the generality of the people, who had made him King, and who were inclined to their old Superstitions, even in Iosiah's time, as was observed before, though restrained from the outward acts, by fear: and partly, to sweeten the King of Egypt, who possibly was a Zealous Idolater, by his compliance with him in the Worship of Idols.

33 And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at Kiblah , 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.

Either, because he presumed to take the Kingdom without his leave and consent: or because he renewed the War against Pharaoh, as some affirm, and by him was Conquerred, and taken Prisoner.

An eminent City in Syria; of which see Numb. 34. 11. 2 King. 25. 6. where Pharaoh now was to finish, or make good his Conquests, whither Iehoahaz was carried to receive his Sentence.

Or, because he had reigned; i. e. Taken the Kingdom without right, and without his leave. Or, according to the other reading, in the beginning of his Reign; the word reigning being commonly used for beginning to reign; when he was scarce warm in his Throne.

To wit, a Yearly Tribute, whereby they should acknowledge him to be their Superior; and for which, he would be their Protector, when they needed his help.

Marginal references: Or, because he Reigned.; [illegible: 1 word] set a [illegible: 1 word] upon the land.

34 And 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.

Whom he perceived to be of a more mild and peaceable disposition.

Because the giving of Names was accounted an act and sign of Dominion; which therefore Parents did to their Children, and Conquerors to their Vassals or Tributaries. Compare Chap. 24. 17. Dan. 1. 7.

Partly as a Punishment for him: and partly, that he might give no disturbance to his Brother.

Marginal references: Matt. 1. 11. called Io[illegible: 1+ letters]im.

36 ¶ Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign , and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mothers name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

Either, 1. When he began to Reign alone, and with full Power, or after Iehoahaz his Death: till which the people would not disown him whom they had Anointed King, which was esteemed a great tie; 2 Sam. 19. 10. nor own, or accept Iehojakim as their King, but only as his Brothers Vice-roy, though Pharaoh had by violence forced him upon them. And so Iehoahaz might be his Elder Brother, and the same who is called Iohanan, and is first mentioned, as the eldest son, 1 Chron. 3. 15. though he may be placed first, not in regard of his Birth, but of his Dignity; the Crown being first put upon his Head. Or, 2. When he was first set up by Pharaoh, and so this was the Elder Brother, though by popular Violence put by his Right. See on ver. 31.

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

By Idolatry, the Oppression of his People, and the Persecution of the Prophets, and other good men, Ier. 26. 20. Ezek. 19. 5, 6, 7.

2Ki 23:1-2 Reading of the law in the temple, and renewal of the covenant (cf. 2Ch 34:29-32). Beside the priests, Josiah also gathered together the prophets, including perhaps Jeremiah and Zedekiah, that he might carry out the solemn conclusion of the covenant with their co-operation, and, as is evident from Jer 1-11, that they might then undertake the task, by their impressive preaching in Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, of making the people conscious of the earnestness of the covenant duties which they had so recently undertaken (see Oehler in Herzog’s Cycl.). Instead of the prophets, the Levites are mentioned in the Chronicles, probably only because the Levites are mentioned along with the priests in other cases of a similar kind. ויּקרא, he read, i.e., had it read; for the duty of reading the law in the temple devolved upon the priests as the keepers of the law (Deu 31:9.).

2Ki 23:3

The king stood העמּוּד על, as in 2Ki 11:14. For וגו ויּכרת see 2Ki 11:17. ללכת, i.e., he bound himself solemnly to walk after the Lord, that is to say, in his walk to follow the Lord and keep His commandments (see at 1Ki 2:3). - בּבּרית...ויּעמוד, all the people entered into the covenant (Luther and others); not perstitit, stood firm, continued in the covenant (Maurer, Ges.), which would be at variance with Jer 11:9-10; Jer 25:3., and other utterances of the prophets. 2 Kings 23:4-20 The eradication of idolatry. - According to 2Ch 34:3-7, this had already begun, and was simply continued and carried to completion after the renewal of the covenant.

2Ki 23:4-14

In Jerusalem and Judah. 2Ki 23:4. The king commanded the high priest and the other priests, and the Levites who kept the door, to remove from the temple everything that had been made for Baal and Asherah, and to burn it in the valley of Kidron. המּשׁנה כּהני, sacerdotes secundi ordinis (Vulg., Luth., etc.), are the common priests as distinguished from הגּדול הכּהן, the high priest. The Rabbins are wrong in their explanation vicarii summi sacerdotis, according to which Thenius would alter the text and read כּהן for כּהני. הסּף שׁמרי, the keepers of the threshold, are the Levites whose duty it was to watch the temple, as in 2Ki 22:4 (cf. 1Ch 23:5). כּל־הכּלים (alles Zeug, Luth.), i.e., all the apparatus, consisting of altars, idols, and other things, that had been provided for the worship of Baal and Astarte. Josiah had these things burned, according to the law in Deu 7:25, and that outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron valley. The קדרון שׁדמות (fields of Kidron) are probably to be sought for to the north-east of Jerusalem, where the Kidron valley is broader than between the city and the Mount of Olives, and spreads out into a basin of considerable size, which is now cultivated and contains plantations of olive and other fruit-trees (Rob. Pal. i. p. 405). “And he had their dust carried to Bethel,” i.e., the ashes of the wooden objects which were burned, and the dust of those of stone and metal which were ground to powder, to defile the idolatrous place of worship at Bethel as the chief seat of idolatry and false worship.

2Ki 23:15-20 Extermination of idolatry in Bethel and the cities of Samaria. - In order to suppress idolatry as far as possible, Josiah did not rest satisfied with the extermination of it in his own kingdom Judah, but also destroyed the temples of the high places and altars and idols in the land of the former kingdom of the ten tribes, slew all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned their bones upon the high places destroyed, in order to defile the ground. The warrant for this is not to be found, as Hess supposes, in the fact that Josiah, as vassal of the king of Assyria, had a certain limited power over these districts, and may have looked upon them as being in a certain sense his own territory, a power which the Assyrians may have allowed him the more readily, because they were sure of his fidelity in relation to Egypt. For we cannot infer that Josiah was a vassal of the Assyrians from the imprisonment and release of Manasseh by the king of Assyria, nor is there any historical evidence whatever to prove it. The only reason that can have induced Josiah to do this, must have been that after the dissolution of the kingdom of the ten tribes he regarded himself as the king of the whole of the covenant-nation, and availed himself of the approaching or existing dissolution of the Assyrian empire to secure the friendship of the Israelites who were left behind in the kingdom of the ten tribes, to reconcile them to his government, and to win them over to his attempt to reform; and there is no necessity whatever to assume, as Thenius does, that he asked permission to do so of the newly arisen ruler Nabopolassar. For against this assumption may be adduced not only the improbability that Nabopolassar would give him any such permission, but still more the circumstance that at a still earlier period, even before Nabopolassar became king of Babylon, Josiah had had taxes collected of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel for the repairing of the temple (2Ch 34:9), from which we may see that the Israelites who were left behind in the land were favourably disposed towards his reforms, and were inclined to attach themselves in religious matters to Judah (just as, indeed, even the Samaritans were willing after the captivity to take part in the building of the temple, Ezr 4:2.), which the Assyrians at that time were no longer in a condition to prevent. 2Ki 23:15 “Also the altar at Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam had made-this altar also and the high place he destroyed.” It is grammatically impossible to take הבּמה as an accusative of place (Thenius); it is in apposition to המּזבּח, serving to define it more precisely: the altar at Bethel, namely the high place; for which we have afterwards the altar and the high place. By the appositional הבּמה the altar at Bethel is described as an illegal place of worship. “He burned the בּמה,” i.e., the buildings of this sanctuary, ground to powder everything that was made of stone or metal, i.e., both the altar and the idol there. This is implied in what follows: “and burned Asherah,” i.e., a wooden idol of Astarte found there, according to which there would no doubt be also an idol of Baal, a מצּבה of stone. The golden calf, which had formerly been set up at Bethel, may, as Hos 10:5-6 seems to imply, have been removed by the Assyrians, and, after the settlement of heathen colonists in the land, have been supplanted by idols of Baal and Astarte (cf. 2Ki 17:29).

2Ki 23:21-23 The passover is very briefly noticed in our account, and is described as such an one as had not taken place since the days of the judges. 2Ki 23:21 simply mentions the appointment of this festival on the part of the king, and the execution of the king’s command has to be supplied. 2Ki 23:22 contains a remark concerning the character of the passover. In 2 Chron 35:1-19 we have a very elaborate description of it. What distinguished this passover above every other was, (1) that “all the nation,” not merely Judah and Benjamin, but also the remnant of the ten tribes, took part in it, or, as it is expressed in 2Ch 35:18, “all Judah and Israel;” (2) that it was kept in strict accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic book of the law, whereas in the passover instituted by Hezekiah there were necessarily many points of deviation from the precepts of the law, more especially in the fact that the feast had to be transferred from the first month, which was the legal time, to the second month, because the priests had not yet purified themselves in sufficient numbers and the people had not yet gathered together at Jerusalem, and also that even then a number of the people had inevitably been allowed to eat the passover without the previous purification required by the law (2Ch 30:2-3, 2Ch 30:17-20). This is implied in the words, “for there was not holden such a passover since the days of the judges and all the kings of Israel and Judah.” That this remark does not preclude the holding of earlier passovers, as Thenius follows De Wette in supposing, without taking any notice of the refutations of this opinion, was correctly maintained by the earlier commentators. Thus Clericus observes: “I should have supposed that what the sacred writer meant to say was, that during the times of the kings no passover had ever been kept so strictly by every one, according to all the Mosaic laws. Before this, even under the pious kings, they seem to have followed custom rather than the very words of the law; and since this was the case, many things were necessarily changed and neglected.” Instead of “since the days of the judges who judged Israel,” we find in 2Ch 35:18, “since the days of Samuel the prophet,” who is well known to have closed the period of the judges.

2Ki 23:24-25 Conclusion of Josiah’s reign. - 2Ki 23:24. As Josiah had the passover kept in perfect accordance with the precepts of the law, so did he also exterminate the necromancers, the teraphim and all the abominations of idolatry, throughout all Judah and Jerusalem, to set up the words of the law in the book of the law that had been found, i.e., to carry them out and bring them into force. For האבות and היּדּענים see at 2Ki 21:6. תּרפים, penates, domestic gods, which were worshipped as the authors of earthly prosperity and as oracular deities (see at Gen 31:19). גּלּלים and שׁקּצים, connected together, as in Deu 29:16, as a contemptuous description of idols in general. - In 2Ki 23:25 the account of the efforts made by Josiah to restore the true worship of Jehovah closes with a general verdict concerning his true piety. See the remarks on this point at 2Ki 18:5. He turned to Jehovah with all his heart, etc.: there is an evident allusion here to Deu 6:5. Compare with this the sentence of the prophet Jeremiah concerning his reign (Jer 22:15-16).

2Ki 23:26

Nevertheless the Lord turned not from the great fierceness of His wrath, wherewith He had burned against Judah on account of all the provocations “with which Manasseh had provoked Him.” With this sentence, in which שבּ לא אך forms an unmistakeable word-play upon יי אל שבּ אשׁר, the historian introduces the account not merely of the end of Josiah’s reign, but also of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh is mentioned here and at 2Ki 24:3 and Jer 15:4 as the person who, by his idolatry and his unrighteousness, with which he provoked God to anger, had brought upon Judah and Jerusalem the unavoidable judgment of rejection. It is true that Josiah had exterminated outward and gross idolatry throughout the land by his sincere conversion to the Lord, and by his zeal for the restoration of the lawful worship of Jehovah, and had persuaded the people to enter into covenant with its God once more; but a thorough conversion of the people to the Lord he had not been able to effect. For, as Clericus has correctly observed, “although the king was most religious, and the people obeyed him through fear, yet for all that the mind of the people was not changed, as is evident enough from the reproaches of Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and other prophets, who prophesied about that time and a little after.” With regard to this point compare especially the first ten chapters of Jeremiah, which contain a resumé of his labours in the reign of Josiah, and bear witness to the deep inward apostasy of the people from the Lord, not only before and during Josiah’s reform of worship, but also afterwards. As the Holy One of Israel, therefore, God could not forgive any more, but was obliged to bring upon the people and kingdom, after the death of Josiah, the judgment already foretold to Manasseh himself (2Ki 21:12.).

2Ki 23:27-28

The Lord said: I will also put away Judah (in the same manner as Israel: cf. 2Ki 17:20, 2Ki 17:23) from my face, etc. ויּאמר expresses the divine decree, which was announced to the people by the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Zephaniah.

2Ki 23:29-30

Compare 2Ch 35:20-24. The predicted catastrophe was brought to pass by the expedition of Necho the king of Egypt against Assyria. “In his days (i.e., towards the end of Josiah’s reign) Pharaoh Necho the king of Egypt went up against the king of Asshur to the river Euphrates.” Necho (נכה or נכו,   2Ch 35:20; Jer 46:2; called Νεχαώ by Josephus, Manetho in Jul. Afric., and Euseb., after the lxx; and Νεκώς by Herod. ii. 158,159, iv. 42, and Diod. Sic. i. 33; according to Brugsch, hist. d'Eg. i. p. 252, Nekåou) was, according to Man., the sixth king of the twenty-sixth (Saitic) dynasty, the second Pharaoh of that name, the son of Psammetichus I and grandson of Necho I; and, according to Herodotus, he was celebrated for a canal which he proposed to have cut in order to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, as well as for the circumnavigation of Africa (compare Brugsch, l.c., according to whom he reigned from 611 to 595 b.c.). Whether “the king of Asshur” against whom Necho marched was the last ruler of the Assyrian empire, Asardanpal (Sardanapal), Saracus according to the monuments (see Brandis, Ueber den Gewinn, p. 55; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 110ff. and 192), or the existing ruler of the Assyrian empire which had already fallen, Nabopolassar the king of Babylon, who put an end to the Assyrian monarchy in alliance with the Medes by the conquest and destruction of Nineveh, and founded the Chaldaean or Babylonian empire, it is impossible to determine, because the year in which Nineveh was taken cannot be exactly decided, and all that is certain is that Nineveh had fallen before the battle of Carchemish in the year 606 b.c. Compare M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 109ff. and 203, 204. - King Josiah went against the Egyptian, and “he (Necho) slew him at Megiddo when he saw him,” i.e., caught sight of him. This extremely brief notice of the death of Josiah is explained thus in the Chronicles: that Necho sent ambassadors to Josiah, when he was taking the field against him, with an appeal that he would not fight against him, because his only intention was to make war upon Asshur, but that Josiah did not allow himself to be diverted from his purpose, and fought a battle with Necho in the valley of Megiddo, in which he was mortally wounded by the archers. What induced Josiah to oppose with force of arms the advance of the Egyptian to the Euphrates, notwithstanding the assurance of Necho that he had no wish to fight against Judah, is neither to be sought for in the fact that Josiah was dependent upon Babylon, which is at variance with history, nor in the fact that the kingdom of Judah had taken possession of all the territory of the ancient inheritance of Israel, and Josiah was endeavouring to restore all the ancient glory of the house of David over the surrounding nations (Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 707), but solely in Josiah’s conviction that Judah could not remain neutral in the war which had broken out between Egypt and Babylon, and in the hope that by attacking Necho, and frustrating his expedition to the Euphrates, he might be able to avert great distress from his own land and kingdom.M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Ass. p. 364) also calls Josiah’s enterprise “a perfectly correct policy. Nineveh was falling (if not already fallen), and the Syrian princes, both those who had remained independent, like Josiah, and also the vassals of Asshur, might hope that, after the fall of Nineveh, they would succeed in releasing Syria from every foreign yoke. Now well-founded this hope was, is evident from the strenuous exertions which Nabukudrussur was afterwards obliged to make, in order to effect the complete subjugation of Syria. It was therefore necessary to hinder at any price the settlement of the Egyptians now. Even though Necho assured Josiah that he was not marching against him (2Ch 35:21), Josiah knew that if once the Egyptians were lords of Coele-Syria, his independence would be gone.”

This battle is also mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 159); but he calls the place where it was fought Μάγδολον, i.e., neither Migdol, which was twelve Roman miles to the south of Pelusium (Forbiger, Hdb. d. alten Geogr. ii. p. 695), nor the perfectly apocryphal Magdala or Migdal Zebaiah mentioned by the Talmudists (Reland, Pal. p. 898,899), as Movers supposes. We might rather think with Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 708) of the present Mejdel, to the south-east of Acca, at a northern source of the Kishon, and regard this as the place where the Egyptian camp was pitched, whereas Israel stood to the east of it, at the place still called Rummane, at Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, as Ewald assumes (Gesch. iii. p. 708). But even this combination is overthrown by the face that Rummane, which lies to the east of el Mejdel at the distance of a mile and three-quarters (geogr.), on the southern edge of the plain of Buttauf, cannot possibly be the Hadad-Rimmon mentioned in Zec 12:11, where king Josiah died after he had been wounded in the battle. For since Megiddo is identical with the Roman Legio, the present Lejun, as Robinson has proved (see at Jos 12:21), and as is generally admitted even by C. v. Raumer (Pal. p. 447, note, ed. 4), Hadad-Rimmon must be the same as the village of Rümmuni (Rummane), which is three-quarters of an hour to the south of Lejun, where the Scottish missionaries in the year 1839 found many ancient wells and other traces of Israelitish times (V. de Velde, R. i. p. 267; Memoir, pp. 333, 334). But this Rummane is four geographical miles distant from el Mejdel, and Mediggo three and a half, so that the battle fought at Megiddo cannot take its name from el Mejdel, which is more than three miles off. The Magdolon of Herodotus can only arise from some confusion between it and Megiddo, which was a very easy thing with the Greek pronunciation Μαγεδδώ, without there being any necessity to assume that Herodotus was thinking of the Egyptian Migdol, which is called Magdolo in the Itin. Ant. p. 171 (cf. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften altägypt. Denkmäler, i. pp. 261,262). If, then, Josiah went to Megiddo in the plain of Esdrelom to meet the king of Egypt, and fell in with him there, there can be no doubt that Necho came by sea to Palestine and landed at Acco, as des Vignoles (Chronol. ii. p. 427) assumed.This is favoured by the account in Herodotus (ii. 159), that Necho built ships: τριήρεες αἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τῇ βορηΐ́η θαλάσσῃ ... αἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ Ἀραβίῳ κόλπῳ (triremes in septentrionale et australe mare mittendas. Bähr) - καὶ ταυτῃσί τε ἐχρᾶτο ἐν τῷ δέοντι· καὶ Σύροισι πεζῇ ὁ Νεκὼς συμβαλὼν ἐν Μαγδόλῳ ἐνίκησε; from which we may infer that Necho carried his troops by sea to Palestine, and then fought the battle on the land. M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. p. 365) also finds it very improbable that Necho used his fleet in this war; but he does not think it very credible “that he embarked his whole army, instead of marching them by the land route so often taken by the Egyptian army, the key of which, viz., the land of the Philistines, was at least partially subject to him,” because the ὅλκαδες (ships of burden) required for the transport of a large army were hardly to be obtained in sufficient numbers in Egypt. But this difficulty, which rests upon mere conjecture, is neutralized by the fact, which M. Duncker (Gesch. i. p. 618) also adduces in support of the voyage by sea, namely, that the decisive battle with the Jews was fought to the north-west of Jerusalem, and when the Jews were defeated, the way to Jerusalem stood open for their retreat. Movers (Phöniz. ii. 1, p. 420), who also imagines that Necho advanced with a large land-army towards the frontier of Palestine, has therefore transferred the battle to Magdolo on the Egyptian frontier; but he does this by means of the most arbitrary interpretation of the account given by Herodotus.

For if the Egyptian army had marched by land through the plain of Philistia, Josiah would certainly have gone thither to meet it, and not have allowed it to advance into the plain of Megiddo without fighting a battle.

2Ki 23:31-32

Reign of Jehoahaz (cf. 2Ch 36:1-4). - Jehoahaz, called significantly by Jeremiah (Jer 22:11) Shallum, i.e., “to whom it is requited,” reigned only three months, and did evil in the eyes of the Lord as all his fathers had done. The people (or the popular party), who had preferred him to his elder brother, had apparently set great hopes upon him, as we may judge from Jer 22:10-12, and seem to have expected that his strength and energy would serve to avert the danger which threatened the kingdom on the part of Necho. Ezekiel (Eze 19:3) compares him to a young lion which learned to catch the prey and devoured men, but, as soon as the nations heard of him, was taken in their pit and led by nose-rings to Egypt, and thus attributes to him the character of a tyrant disposed to acts of violence; and Josephus accordingly (Ant. x. 5, 2) describes him as ἀσεβὴς καὶ μιαρὸς τὸν τρόπον.

2Ki 23:33 “Pharaoh Necho put him in fetters (ויּאסרהוּ) at Riblah in the land of Hamath, when he had become king at Jerusalem.” In 2Ch 36:3 we have, instead of this, “the king of Egypt deposed him (יסירהוּ) at Jerusalem.” The Masoretes have substituted as Keri ממּלך, “away from being king,” or “that he might be no longer king,” in the place of בּמלך, and Thenius and Bertheau prefer the former, because the lxx have τοὺ μὴ βασιλεύειν not in our text only, but in the Chronicles also; but they ought not to have appealed to the Chronicles, inasmuch as the lxx have not rendered the Hebrew text there, but have simply repeated the words from the text of the book of Kings. The Keri is nothing more than an emendation explaining the sense, which the lxx have also followed. The two texts are not contradictory, but simply complete each other: for, as Clericus has correctly observed, “Jehoahaz would of course be removed from Jerusalem before he was cast into chains; and there was nothing to prevent his being dethroned at Jerusalem before he was taken to Riblah.”

We are not told in what way Necho succeeded in getting Jehoahaz into his power, so as to put him in chains at Riblah. The assumption of J. D. Michaelis and others, that his elder brother Eliakim, being dissatisfied with the choice of Jehoahaz as king, had recourse to Necho at Riblah, in the hope of getting possession of his father’s kingdom through his instrumentality, is precluded by the face that Jehoahaz would certainly not have been so foolish as to appear before the enemy of his country at a mere summons from Pharaoh, who was at Riblah, and allow him to depose him, when he was perfectly safe in Jerusalem, where the will of the people had raised him to the throne. If Necho wanted to interfere with the internal affairs of the kingdom of Judah, it would never have done for him to proceed beyond Palestine to Syria after the victory at Megiddo, without having first deposed Jehoahaz, who had been raised to the throne at Jerusalem without any regard to his will. The course of events was therefore probably the following: After the victory at Megiddo, Necho intended to continue his march to the Euphrates; but on hearing that Jehoahaz had ascended the throne, and possibly also in consequence of complaints which Eliakim had made to him on that account, he ordered a division of his army to march against Jerusalem, and while the main army was marching slowly to Riblah, he had Jerusalem taken, king Jehoahaz dethroned, the land laid under tribute, Eliakim appointed king as his vassal, and the deposed Jehoahaz brought to his headquarters at Riblah, then put into chains and transported to Egypt; so that the statement in 2Ch 36:3, “he deposed him at Jerusalem,” is to be taken quite literally, even if Necho did not come to Jerusalem in propriâ personâ, but simply effected this through the medium of one of his generals.Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 720) also observes, that “Necho himself may have been in Jerusalem at the time for the purpose of installing his vassal:” this, he says, “is indicated by the brief words in 2Ki 23:33-34, and nothing can be found to say against it in other historical sources;” though he assumes that Jehoahaz had allowed himself to be enticed by Necho to go to Riblah into the Egyptian camp, where he was craftily put into chains, and soon carried off as a prisoner to Egypt. - We should have a confirmation of the taking of Jerusalem by Necho in the account given by Herodotus (ii. 159): μετὰ δὲ τήν μάχην (i.e., after the battle at Megiddo) Κάδυτιν πόλιν τῆς Συρίης ἐοῦσαν μεγάλην εἶλε, if any evidence could be brought to establish the opinion that by Κάδυτις we are to understand Jerusalem. But although what Herodotus says (iii. 5) concerning Κάδυτις does not apply to any other city of Palestine so well as to Jerusalem, the use of the name Κάδυτις for Jerusalem has not yet been sufficiently explained, since it cannot come from קדושה, the holy city, because the ש of this word does not pass into t in any Semitic dialect, and the explanation recently attempted by Böttcher (N. ex. Krit. Aehrenlese, ii. pp. 119ff.) from the Aramaean חדיתא, the renewed city (new-town), is based upon many very questionable conjectures. At the same time so much is certain, that the view which Hitzig has revived (de Cadyti urbe Herod. Gott. 1829, p. 11, and Urgeschichte der Philister, pp. 96ff.), and which is now the prevalent one, viz., that Κάδυτις is Gaza, is exposed to some well-founded objections, even after what Stark (Gaza, pp. 218ff.) has adduced in its favour. The description which Herodotus gives (iii. 5) of the land-road to Egypt: ἀπὸ Φοινίκης μέχρι οὔρων τῶν Καδύτιος πόλιος ἥ ἐστι Σύρων τῶν Παλαιστινῶν καλεομένων· ἀπὸ δὲ Καδύτιος, ἐούσης πόλιος (ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκέει) Σαρδίων ου ̓ πολλῷ ἐλάσσονος, ἀπὸ ταύτης τὰ ἐμπόρια τὰ ἐπὶ θαλάσσης μέχρι Ἰηνύσου πόλιός ἐστι τοῦ Ἀραβίου· does not apply to Gaza, because there were no commercial towns on the sea-coast between the district of Gaza and the town of Yenysus (the present Khan Yûnas); but between the district of Jerusalem and the town of Yenysus there were the Philistian cities Ashkelon and Gaza, which Herodotus might call τὰ ἐμπόρια τοὺ Ἀραβίου, whereas the comparison made between the size of Kadytis and that of Sardes points rather to Jerusalem than to Gaza. Still less can the datum in Jer 47:1, “before Pharaoh smote Gaza,” be adduced in support of Gaza. If we bear in mind that Jeremiah’s prophecy (2 Kings 47) was not uttered before the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign, and therefore that Pharaoh had not smitten Gaza at that time, supposing that this Pharaoh was really Necho, it cannot have been till after his defeat at Carchemish that Necho took Gaza on his return home. Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf assume that this was the case; but, as M. v. Niebuhr has correctly observed, it has “every military probability” against it, and even the incredibility that “a routed Oriental army in its retreat, which it evidently accomplished in one continuous march, notwithstanding the fact that on its line of march there were the strongest positions, on the Orontes, Lebanon, etc., at which it might have halted, should have taken the city upon its flight.” And, lastly, the name Κάδυτις does not answer to the name Gaza, even through the latter was spelt Gazatu in early Egyptian (Brugsch, Geograph. Inschr. ii. p. 32) since the u (y) of the second syllable still remains unexplained.Riblah has been preserved in the miserable village of Rible, from ten to twelve hours to the S.S.W. of Hums (Emesa) by the river el Ahsy (Orontes), in a large fruitful plain of the northern portion of the Bekaa, which was very well adapted to serve as the camping ground of Necho’s army as well as of that of Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki 25:6, 2Ki 25:20-21), not only because it furnished the most abundant supply of food and fodder, but also on account of its situation on the great caravan-road from Palestine by Damascus, Emesa, and Hamath to Thapsacus and Carchemish on the Euphrates (cf. Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 542-546 and 641).

In the payment imposed upon the land by Necho, one talent of gold (c. 25,000 thalers: £3750) does not seem to bear any correct proportion to 100 talents of silver (c. 250,000 thalers, or £37,500), and consequently the lxx have 100 talents of gold, the Syr. and Arab. 10 talents; and Thenius supposes this to have been the original reading, and explains the reading in the text from the dropping out of a y (= 10), though without reflecting that as a rule the number 10 would require the plural כּכּרים.

2Ki 23:34-35

From the words “Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of his father Josiah,” it follows that the king of Egypt did not acknowledge the reign of Jehoahaz, because he had been installed by the people without his consent. “And changed his name into Jehoiakim.” The alteration of the name was a sign of dependence. In ancient times princes were accustomed to give new names to the persons whom they took into their service, and masters to give new names to their slaves (cf. Gen 41:45; Ezr 5:14; Dan 1:7, and Hävernick on the last passage). - But while these names were generally borrowed from heathen deities, Eliakim, and at a later period Mattaniah (2Ki 24:17), received genuine Israelitish names, Jehoiakim, i.e., “Jehovah will set up,” and Zidkiyahu, i.e., “righteousness of Jehovah;” from which we may infer that Necho and Nebuchadnezzar did not treat the vassal kings installed by them exactly as their slaves, but allowed them to choose the new names for themselves, and simply confirmed them as a sign of their supremacy. Eliakim altered his name into Jehoiakim, i.e., El (God) into Jehovah, to set the allusion to the establishment of the kingdom, which is implied in the name, in a still more definite relation to Jehovah the covenant God, who had promised to establish the seed of David (2Sa 7:14), possibly with an intentional opposition to the humiliation with which the royal house of David was threatened by Jeremiah and other prophets. - “But Jehoahaz he had taken (לקח, like יקּח in 2Ki 24:12), and he came to Egypt and died there” - when, we are not told. - In 2Ki 23:35, even before the account of Jehoiakim’s reign, we have fuller particulars respecting the payment of the tribute which Necho imposed upon the land (2Ki 23:33), because it was the condition on which he was appointed king. - “The gold and silver Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh; yet (אך = but in order to raise it) he valued (העריך as in Lev 27:8) the land, to give the money according to Pharaoh’s command; of every one according to his valuation, he exacted the silver and gold of the population of the land, to give it to Pharaoh Necho.” נגשׂ, to exact tribute, is construed with a double accusative, and בּערכּו אישׁ placed first for the sake of emphasis, as an explanatory apposition to הערץ את־עם.

2Ki 23:36-37 Reign of Jehoiakim (cf. 2Ch 36:5-8). - Jehoiakim reigned eleven years in the spirit of his ungodly forefathers (compare 2Ki 23:37 with 2Ki 23:32). Jeremiah represents him (2Ki 22:13.) as a bad prince, who enriched himself by the unjust oppression of his people, “whose eyes and heart were directed upon nothing but upon gain, and upon innocent blood to shed it, and upon oppression and violence to do them” (compare 2Ki 24:4 and Jer 26:22-23). Josephus therefore describes him as τὴν φύσιν ἄδικος καὶ κακοῦργος, καὶ μήτε πρὸς Θεὸν ὅσιος, μήτε πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ἐπιεικής (Ant. x. 5, 2). The town of Rumah, from which his mother sprang, is not mentioned anywhere else, but it has been supposed to be identical with Aruma in the neighbourhood of Shechem (Jdg 9:41).

Josiah Destroys Idolatry. (b. c. 623.)

1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. 2 And 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 . 3 And 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.

Josiah had received a message from God that there was no preventing the ruin of Jerusalem, but that he should deliver only his own soul; yet he did not therefore sit down in despair, and resolve to do nothing for his country because he could not do all he would. No, he would do his duty, and then leave the event to God. A public reformation was the thing resolved on; if any thing could prevent the threatened ruin it must be that; and here we have the preparations for that reformation. 1. He summoned a general assembly of the states, the elders, the magistrates or representatives of Judah and Jerusalem, to meet him in the house of the Lord, with the priests and prophets, the ordinary and extraordinary ministers, that, they all joining in it, it might become a national act and so be the more likely to prevent national judgments; they were all called to attend (v. 1, 2), that the business might be done with the more solemnity, that they might all advise and assist in it, and that those who were against it might be discouraged from making any opposition. Parliaments are no diminution at all to the honour and power of good princes, but a great support to them. 2. Instead of making a speech to this convention, he ordered the book of the law to be read to them; nay, it should seem, he read it himself (v. 2), as one much affected with it and desirous that they should be so too. Josiah thinks it not below him to be a reader, any more than Solomon did to be a preacher, nay, and David himself to be a door-keeper in the house of God. Besides the convention of the great men, he had a congregation of the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to hear the law read. It is really the interest of princes to promote the knowledge of the scriptures in their dominions. If the people be but as stedfastly resolved to obey by law as he is to govern by law, the kingdom will be happy. All people are concerned to know the scripture, and all in authority to spread the knowledge of it. 3. Instead of proposing laws for the confirming of them in their duty, he proposed an association by which they should all jointly engage themselves to God, v. 3. The book of the law was the book of the covenant, that, if they would be to God a people, he would be to them a God; they here engage themselves to do their part, not doubting but that then God would do his. (1.) The covenant was that they should walk after the Lord, in compliance with his will, in his ordinances and his providences, should answer all his calls and attend all his motions—that they should make conscience of all his commandments, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, and should carefully observe them with all their heart and all their soul, with all possible care and caution, sincerity, vigour, courage, and resolution, and so fulfil the conditions of this covenant, in dependence upon the promises of it. (2.) The covenanters were, in the first place, the king himself, who stood by his pillar (ch. xi. 14) and publicly declared his consent to this covenant, to set them an example, and to assure them not only of his protection but of his presidency and all the furtherance his power could give them in their obedience. It is no abridgment of the liberty even of princes themselves to be in bonds to God. All the people likewise stood to the covenant, that is, they signified their consent to it and promised to abide by it. It is of good use to oblige ourselves to our duty with all possible solemnity, and this is especially seasonable after notorious backslidings to sin and decays in that which is good. He that bears an honest mind does not shrink from positive engagements: fast bind, fast find.

Josiah Reforms Judah. (b. c. 623.)

4 And 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. 5 And 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. 6 And 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. 7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord , where the women wove hangings for the grove. 8 And 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. 9 Nevertheless 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. 10 And 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. 11 And 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. 12 And 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. 13 And 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. 14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15 Moreover 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. 16 And 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. 17 Then 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. 18 And 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. 19 And 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. 20 And 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. 21 And 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. 22 Surely 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; 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. 24 Moreover 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 .

We have here an account of such a reformation as we have not met with in all the history of the kings of Judah, such thorough riddance made of all the abominable things and such foundations laid of a glorious good work; and here I cannot but wonder at two things:—1. That so many wicked things should have got in, and kept standing so long, as we find here removed. 2. That notwithstanding the removal of these wicked things, and the hopeful prospects here given of a happy settlement, yet within a few years Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, and even this did not save it; for the generality of the people, after all, hated to be reformed. The founder melteth in vain, and therefore reprobate silver shall men call them, Jer. vi. 29, 30. Let us here observe,

I. What abundance of wickedness there was, and had been, in Judah and Jerusalem. One would not have believed it possible that in Judah, where God was known—in Israel, where his name was great—in Salem, in Sion, where his dwelling place was, such abominations should be found as here we have an account of. Josiah had now reigned eighteen years, and had himself set the people a good example, and kept up religion according to law; and yet, when he came to make inquisition for idolatry, the depth and extent of the dunghill he had to carry away appeared almost incredible. 1. Even in the house of the Lord, that sacred temple which Solomon built, and dedicated to the honour and for the worship of the God of Israel, there were found vessels, all manner of utensils, for the worship of Baal, and of the grove (or Ashtaroth), and of all the host of heaven, v. 4. Though Josiah had suppressed the worship of idols, yet the utensils made for that worship were all carefully preserved, even in the temple itself, to be used again whenever the present restraint should be taken off; nay, even the grove itself, the image of it, was yet standing in the temple (v. 6); some make it the image of Venus, the same with Ashtaroth. 2. Just at the entering in of the house of the Lord was a stable for horses kept (would you think it?) for a religious use; they were holy horses, given to the sun (v. 11), as if he needed them who rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race (Ps. xix. 5), or rather they would thus represent to themselves the swiftness of his motion, which they much admired, making their religion to conform to the poetical fictions of the chariot of the sun, the follies of which even a little philosophy, without any divinity, would have exposed and made them ashamed of. Some say that those horses were to be led forth in pomp every morning to meet the rising sun, others that the worshippers of the sun rode out upon them to adore the rising sun; it should seem that they drew the chariots of the sun, which the people worshipped. Strange that ever men who had the written word of God among them should be thus vain in their imaginations! 3. Hard by the house of the Lord there were houses of the Sodomites, where all manner of lewdness and filthiness, even that which was most unnatural, was practised, and under pretence of religion too, in honour of their impure deities. Corporal and spiritual whoredom went together, and the vile affections to which the people were given up were the punishment of their vain imaginations. Those that dishonoured their God were justly left thus to dishonour themselves, Rom. i. 24, &c. There were women that wove hangings for the grove (v. 7), tents which encompassed the image of Venus, where the worshippers committed all manner of lewdness, and this in the house of the Lord. Those did ill that made our Father's house a house of merchandise; those did worse that made it a den of thieves; but those did worst of all that made it (Horrendum dictu!—Horrible to relate!) a brothel, in an impudent defiance of the holiness of God and of his temple. Well might the apostle call them abominable idolatries. 4. There were many idolatrous altars found (v. 12), some in the palace, on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz. The roofs of their houses being flat, they made them their high places, and set up altars upon them (Jer. xix. 13; Zeph. i. 5), domestic altars. The kings of Judah did so: and, though Josiah never used them, yet to this time they remained there. Manasseh had built altars for his idols in the house of the Lord. When he repented he removed them, and cast them out of the city (2 Chron. xxxiii. 15), but, not destroying them, his son Amon, it seems, had brought them again into the courts of the temple; there Josiah found them, and thence he broke them down, v. 12. 5. There was Tophet, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, very near Jerusalem, where the image of Moloch (that god of unnatural cruelty, as others were of unnatural uncleanness) was kept, to which some sacrificed their children, burning them in the fire, others dedicated them, making them to pass through the fire (v. 10), labouring in the very fire, Hab. ii. 13. It is supposed to have been called Tophet from toph, a drum, because they beat drums at the burning of the children, that their shrieks might not be heard. 6. There were high places before Jerusalem, which Solomon had built, v. 13. The altars and images on those high places, we may suppose, had been taken away by some of the preceding godly kings, or perhaps Solomon himself had removed them when he became a penitent; but the buildings, or some parts of them, remained, with other high places, till Josiah's time. Those that introduce corruptions into religion know not how far they will reach nor how long they will last. Antiquity is no certain proof of verity. There were also high places all the kingdom over, from Geba to Beer-sheba (v. 8), and high places of the gates, in the entering in of the gate of the governor. In these high places (bishop Patrick thinks) they burnt incense to those tutelar gods to whom their idolatrous kings had committed the protection of their city; and probably the governor of the city had a private altar for his penates—his household-gods. 7. There were idolatrous priests, that officiated at all those idolatrous altars (v. 5), chemarim, black men, or that wore black. See Zeph. i. 4. Those that sacrificed to Osiris, or that wept for Tammuz (Ezek. viii. 14), or that worshipped the infernal deities, put on black garments as mourners. These idolatrous priests the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places; they were, it should seem, priests of the house of Aaron, who thus profaned their dignity, and there were others also who had no right at all to the priesthood, who burnt incense to Baal. 8. There were conjurers and wizards, and such as dealt with familiar spirits, v. 24. When they worshipped the devil as their god no marvel that they consulted him as their oracle.

II. What a full destruction good Josiah made of all those relics of idolatry. Such is his zeal for the Lord of hosts, and his holy indignation against all that is displeasing to him, that nothing shall stand before him. The law was that the monuments of the Canaanites' idolatry must be all destroyed (Deut. vii. 5), much more those of the idolatry of the Israelites, in whom it was much more impious, profane, and perfidious. 1. He ordered Hilkiah, and the other priests, to clear the temple. This was their province, v. 4. Away with all the vessels that were made for Baal. They must never be employed in the service of God, no, nor reserved for any common use; they must all be burnt, and the ashes of them carried to Bethel. That place had been the common source of idolatry, for there was set up one of the calves, and, that lying next to Judah, the infection had thence spread into that kingdom, and therefore Josiah made it the lay-stall of idolatry, the dunghill to which he carried the filth and offscouring of all things, that, if possible, it might be made loathsome to those that had been fond of it. 2. The idolatrous priests were all put down. Those of them that were not of the house of Aaron, or had sacrificed to Baal or other false gods, he put to death, according to the law, v. 20. He slew them upon their own altars, the most acceptable sacrifice that ever had been offered upon them, a sacrifice to the justice of God. Those that were descendants from Aaron, and yet had burnt incense in the high places, but to the true God only, he forbade ever to approach the altar of the Lord; they had forfeited that honour (v. 9): He brought them out of the cities of Judah (v. 8), that they might not do mischief in the country by secretly keeping up their old idolatrous usages; but he allowed them to eat of the unleavened bread (the bread of the meat-offering, Lev. ii. 4, 5) among their brethren, with whom they were to reside, that being under their eye they might be kept from doing hurt and taught to do well; that bread, that unleavened bread (heavy and unpleasant as it was), was better than they deserved, and that would serve to keep them alive. But whether they were permitted to eat of all the sacrifices, as blemished priests were (Lev. xxi. 22), which is called, in general, the bread of their God, may be justly questioned. 3. All the images were broken to pieces and burnt. The image of the grove (v. 6), some goddess or other, was reduced to ashes, and the ashes cast upon the graves of the common people (v. 6), the common burying-place of the city. By the law a ceremonial uncleanness was contracted by the touch of a grave, so that in casting them here he declared them most impure, and none could touch them without thereby making themselves unclean. He cast it into the graves (so the Chaldee), intimating that he would have all idolatry buried out of his sight, as a loathsome thing, and forgotten, as dead men are out of mind, v. 14. He filled the places of the groves with the bones of men; as he carried the ashes of the images to the graves, to mingle them with dead men's bones, so he carried dead men's bones to the places where the images had been, and put them in the room of them, that, both ways, idolatry might be rendered loathsome, and the people kept both from the dust of the images and from the ruins of the places where they had been worshipped. Dead men and dead gods were much alike and fittest to go together. 4. All the wicked houses were suppressed, those nests of impiety that harboured idolaters, the houses of the Sodomites, v. 7. "Down with them, down with them, rase them to the foundations." The high places were in like manner broken down and levelled with the ground (v. 8), even that which belonged to the governor of the city; for no man's greatness or power may protect him in idolatry or profaneness. Let governors be obliged, in the first place, to reform, and then the governed will be the sooner influenced. He defiled the high places (v. 8 and again v. 13), did all he could to render them abominable, and put the people out of conceit with them, as Jehu did when he made the house of Baal a draught-house, 2 Kings x. 27. Tophet, which, contrary to other places of idolatry, was in a valley, whereas they were on hills or high places, was likewise defiled (v. 10), was made the burying-place of the city. Concerning this we have a whole sermon, Jer. xix. 1, 2, &c., where it is said, They shall bury in Tophet, and the whole city is threatened to be made like Tophet. 5. The horses that had been given to the sun were taken away and put to common use, and so were delivered from the vanity to which they were made subject; and the chariots of the sun (what a pity was it that those horses and chariots should be kept as the chariots and horsemen of Israel!) he burnt with fire; and, if the sun be a flame, they never resembled him so much as they did when they were chariots of fire. 6. The workers with familiar spirits and the wizards were put away, v. 24. Those of them that were convicted of witchcraft, it is likely, he put to death, and so deterred others from those diabolical practices. In all this he had a sincere regard to the words of the law which were written in the book lately found, v. 24. He made that law his rule and kept that in his eye throughout this reformation.

III. How his zeal extended itself to the cities of Israel that were within his reach. The ten tribes were carried captive and the Assyrian colonies did not fully people the country, so that, it is likely, many cities had put themselves under the protection of the kings of Judah, 2 Chron. xxx. 1; xxxiv. 6. These he here visits, to carry on his reformation. As far as our influence goes our endeavours should go to do good and bring the wickedness of the wicked to an end.

1. He defiled and demolished Jeroboam's altar at Bethel, with the high place and the grove that belonged to it, v. 15, 16. The golden calf, it should seem, was gone (thy calf, O Samaria! has cast thee off), but the altar was there, which those that were wedded to their old idolatries made use of still. This was, (1.) Defiled, v. 16. Josiah, in his pious zeal, was ransacking the old seats of idolatry, and spied the sepulchres in the mount, in which probably the idolatrous priests were buried, not far from the altar at which they had officiated, and which they were so fond of that they were desirous to lay their bones by it; these he opened, took out the bones, and burnt them upon the altar, to show that thus he would have done by the priests themselves if they had been alive, as he did by those whom he found alive, v. 20. Thus he polluted the altar, desecrated it, and made it odious. It is threatened against idolaters (Jer. viii. 1, 2) that their bones shall be spread before the sun; that which is there threatened and this which is here executed (bespeaking their iniquity to be upon their bones, Ezek. xxxii. 27) are an intimation of a punishment after death, reserved for those that live and die impenitent in that or any other sin; the burning of the bones, if that were all, is a small matter, but, if it signify the torment of the soul in a worse flame (Luke xvi. 24), it is very dreadful. This, as it was Josiah's act, seems to have been the result of a very sudden resolve; he would not have done it but that he happened to turn himself, and spy the sepulchres; and yet it was foretold above 350 years before, when this altar was first built by Jeroboam, 1 Kings xiii. 2. God always foresees, and has sometimes foretold as certain, that which yet to us seems most contingent. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; king Josiah's was so, and he turned it (or ever he himself was aware, Cant. vi. 12) to do this. No work of God shall fall to the ground. (2.) It was demolished. He broke down the altar and all its appurtenances (v. 15), burnt what was combustible, and, since an idol is nothing in the world, he went as far towards the annihilating of it as he could; for he stamped it small to powder and made it as dust before the wind.

2. He destroyed all the houses of the high places, all those synagogues of Satan that were in the cities of Samaria, v. 19. These the kings of Israel built, and God raised up this king of Judah to pull them down, for the honour of the ancient house of David, from which the ten tribes had revolted; the priests he justly made sacrifices upon their own altars, v. 20.

3. He carefully preserved the sepulchre of that man of God who came from Judah to foretel this, which now a king who came from Judah executed. This was that good prophet who proclaimed these things against the altar of Bethel, and yet was himself slain by a lion for disobeying the word of the Lord; but to show that God's displeasure against him went no further than his death, but ended there, God so ordered it that when all the graves about his were disturbed his was safe (v. 17, 18) and no man moved his bones. He had entered into peace, and therefore should rest in his bed, Isa. lvii. 2. The old lying prophet, who desired to be buried as near him as might be, it should seem, knew what he did; for his dust also, being mingled with that of the good prophet, was preserved for his sake; see Num. xxiii. 10.

IV. We are here told what a solemn passover Josiah and his people kept after all this. When they had cleared the country of the old leaven they then applied themselves to the keeping of the feast. When Jehu had destroyed the worship of Baal, yet he took no heed to walk in the commandments and ordinances of God; but Josiah considered that we must learn to do well, and no only cease to do evil, and that the way to keep out all abominable customs is to keep up all instituted ordinances (see Lev. xviii. 30), and therefore he commanded all the people to keep the passover, which was not only a memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt, but a token of their dedication to him that brought them out and their communion with him. This he found written in the book of the law, here called the book of the covenant; for, though the divine authority may deal with us in a way of absolute command, divine grace condescends to federal transactions, and therefore he observed it. We have not such a particular account of this passover as of that in Hezekiah's time, 2 Chron. xxx. But, in general, we are told that there was not holden such a passover in any of the foregoing reigns, no, not from the days of the judges (v. 22), which, by the way, intimates that, though the account which the book of Judges gives of the state of Israel under that dynasty looks but melancholy, yet there were then some golden days. This passover, it seems, was extraordinary for the number and devotion of the communicants, their sacrifices and offerings, and their exact observance of the laws of the feast; and it was not now as in Hezekiah's passover, when many communicated that were not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, and the Levites were permitted to do the priests' work. We have reason to think that during all the remainder of Josiah's reign religion flourished and the feasts of the Lord were very carefully observed; but in this passover the satisfaction they took in the covenant lately renewed, the reformation in pursuance of it, and the revival of an ordinance of which they had lately found the divine original in the book of the law, and which had long been neglected or carelessly kept, put them into great transports of holy joy; and God was pleased to recompense their zeal in destroying idolatry with uncommon tokens of his presence and favour. All this concurred to make it a distinguished passover.

The Death of Josiah. (b. c. 610.)

25 And 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. 26 Notwithstanding 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. 27 And 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. 28 Now 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? 29 In 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. 30 And 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.

Upon the reading of these verses we must say, Lord, though thy righteousness be as the great mountains—evident, conspicuous, and past dispute, yet thy judgments are a great deep, unfathomable and past finding out, Ps. xxxvi. 6. What shall we say to this?

I. It is here owned that Josiah was one of the best kings that ever sat upon the throne of David, v. 25. As Hezekiah was a non-such for faith and dependence upon God in straits (ch. xviii. 5), so Josiah was a non-such for sincerity and zeal in carrying on a work of reformation. For this there was none like him, 1. That he turned to the Lord from whom his fathers had revolted. It is true religion to turn to God as one we have chosen and love. He did what he could to turn his kingdom also to the Lord. 2. That he did this with his heart and soul; his affections and aims were right in what he did. Those make nothing of their religion that do not make heart-work of it. 3. That he did it with all his heart, and all his soul, and all his might—with vigour, and courage, and resolution: he could not otherwise have broken through the difficulties he had to grapple with. What great things may we bring to pass in the service of God if we be but lively and hearty in it! 4. That he did this according to all the law of Moses, in an exact observance of that law and with an actual regard to it. His zeal did not transport him into any irregularities, but, in all he did, he walked by rule.

II. Notwithstanding this he was cut off by a violent death in the midst of his days, and his kingdom was ruined within a few years after. Consequent upon such a reformation as this, one would have expected nothing but the prosperity and glory both of king and kingdom; but, quite contrary, we find both under a cloud. 1. Even the reformed kingdom continues marked for ruin. For all this (v. 26) the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath. That is certainly true, which God spoke by the prophet (Jer. xviii. 7, 8), that if a nation, doomed to destruction, turn from the evil of sin, God will repent of the evil of punishment; and therefore we must conclude that Josiah's people, though they submitted to Josiah's power, did not heartily imbibe Josiah's principles. They were turned by force, and did not voluntarily turn from their evil way, but still continued their affection for their idols; and therefore he that knows men's hearts would not recall the sentence, which was, That Judah should be removed, as Israel had been, and Jerusalem itself cast off, v. 27. Yet even this destruction was intended to be their effectual reformation; so that we must say, not only that the criminals had filled their measure and were ripe for ruin, but also that the disease had come to a crisis, and was ready for a cure; and this shall be all the fruit, even the taking away of sin. 2. As an evidence of this, even the reforming king is cut off in the midst of his usefulness—in mercy to him, that he might not see the evil which was coming upon his kingdom, but in wrath to his people, for his death was an inlet to their desolations. The king of Egypt waged war, it seems, with the king of Assyria: so the king of Babylon is now called. Josiah's kingdom lay between them. He therefore thought himself concerned to oppose the king of Egypt, and check the growing, threatening, greatness of his power; for though, at this time, he protested that he had no design against Josiah, yet, if he should prevail to unite the river of Egypt and the river Euphrates, the land of Judah would soon be overflowed between them. Therefore Josiah went against him, and was killed in the first engagement, v. 29, 30. Here, (1.) We cannot justify Josiah's conduct. He had no clear call to engage in this war, nor do we find that he asked counsel of God by urim or prophets concerning it. What had he to do to appear and act as a friend and ally to the king of Assyria? Should he help the ungodly and love those that hate the Lord? If the kings of Egypt and Assyria quarrelled, he had reason to think God would bring good out of it to him and his people, by making them instrumental to weaken one another. Some understand the promise made to him that he should come to his grave in peace in a sense in which it was not performed because, by his miscarriage in this matter, he forfeited the benefit of it. God has promised to keep us in all our ways; but, if we go out of our way, we throw ourselves out of his protection. I understand the promise so as that I believe it was fulfilled, for he died in peace with God and his own conscience, and saw not, nor had any immediate prospect of, the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; yet I understand the providence to be a rebuke to him for his rashness. (2.) We must adore God's righteousness in taking away such a jewel from an unthankful people that knew not how to value it. They greatly lamented his death (2 Chron. xxxv. 25), urged to it by Jeremiah, who told them the meaning of it, and what a threatening omen it was; but they had not made a due improvement of the mercies they enjoyed by his life, of which God taught them the worth by the want.

Reigns of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim. (b. c. 610.)

31 Jehoahaz 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. 32 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord , according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And 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 a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. 34 And 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. 35 And 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. 36 Jehoiakim 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. 37 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord , according to all that his fathers had done.

Jerusalem saw not a good day after Josiah was laid in his grave, but one trouble came after another, till within twenty-two years it was quite destroyed. Of the reign of two of his sons here is a short account; the former we find here a prisoner and the latter a tributary to the king of Egypt, and both so in the very beginning of their reign. This king of Egypt having slain Josiah, though he had not had any design upon Judah, yet, being provoked by the opposition which Josiah gave him, now, it should seem, he bent all his force against his family and kingdom. If Josiah's sons had trodden in his steps, they would have fared the better for his piety; but, deviating from them, they fared the worse for his rashness.

I. Jehoahaz, a younger son, was first made king by the people of the land, probably because he was observed to be of a more active warlike genius than his elder brother, and likely to make head against the king of Egypt and to avenge his father's death, which perhaps the people were more solicitous about, in point of honour, than the keeping up and carrying on of his father's reformation; and the issue was accordingly. 1. He did ill, v. 32. Though he had a good education and a good example given him, and many a good prayer, we may suppose, put up for him, yet he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and, it is to be feared, began to do so in his father's lifetime, for his reign was so short that he could not, in that, show much of his character. He did according to all that his wicked fathers had done. Though he had not time to do much, yet he had chosen his patterns, and showed whom he intended to follow and whose steps he resolved to tread in; and, having done this, he is here reckoned to have done according to all the evil which those did whom he proposed to imitate. It is of great consequence to young people whom they choose to take for their patterns and whom they emulate. An error in this choice is fatal. Phil. iii. 17, 18. 2. Doing ill, no wonder that he fared ill. He was but three months a prince, and was then made a prisoner, and lived and died so. The king of Egypt seized him, and put him in bands (v. 33), fearing lest he should give him disturbance, and carried him to Egypt, where he died soon after, v. 34. This Jehoahaz is that young lion whom Ezekiel speaks of in his lamentation for the princes of Israel, that learnt to catch the prey and devour men (that was the evil which he did in the sight of the Lord); but the nations heard of him, he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains into the land of Egypt, Ezek. xix. 1-4. See Jer. xxii. 10-12.

II. Eliakim, another son of Josiah, was made king by the king of Egypt, it is not said in the room of Jehoahaz (his reign was so short that it was scarcely worth taking notice of), but in the room of Josiah. The crown of Judah had hitherto always descended from a father to a son, and never, till now, from one brother to another; once the succession had so happened in the house of Ahab, but never, till now, in the house of David. The king of Egypt, having used his power in making him king, further showed it in changing his name; he called him Jehoiakim, a name that has reference to Jehovah, for he had no design to make him renounce or forget the religion of his country. "All people will walk in the name of their God, and let him do so." The king of Babylon did not do so by those whose names he changed, Dan. i. 7. Of this Jehoiakim we are here told, 1. That the king of Egypt made him poor, exacted from him a vast tribute of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold (v. 33), which, with much difficulty, he squeezed out of his subjects and gave to Pharaoh, v. 35. Formerly the Israelites had spoiled the Egyptians; now the Egyptians spoil Israel. See what woeful changes sin makes. 2. That which made him poor, yet did not make him good. Notwithstanding the rebukes of Providence he was under, by which he should have been convinced, humbled, and reformed, he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord (v. 37), and so prepared against himself greater judgments; for such God will send if less do not do the work for which they are sent.