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Josiah
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jo-si'-a (the Lord burns; the fire of the Lord, whom Jehovah heals, Jehovah will support)
RELATED: Amon, Huldah, Jeremiah, Kingdom of Judah, Megiddo, Necho, Shallum, Shaphan, Zephaniah |
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Easton's Bible Dictionary
healed by Jehovah, or Jehovah will support. The son of
Amon, and his successor on the throne of Judah ( 2 Kings 22:1 ; 2 Chronicles 34:1
). His history is contained in 2 Kings 22 , 23. He stands foremost among all the
kings of the line of David for unswerving loyalty to Jehovah ( 2 Kings 23:25 ).
He "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way
of David his father." He ascended the throne at the early age of eight years,
and it appears that not till eight years afterwards did he begin "to seek after
the God of David his father." At that age he devoted himself to God. He distinguished
himself by beginning a war of extermination against the prevailing idolatry, which
had practically been the state religion for some seventy years ( 2 Chronicles
34:3 ; Compare Jeremiah 25:3 , 25:11 , 25:29 ).
In the eighteenth year of his reign he proceeded to repair and beautify the temple,
which by time and violence had become sorely dilapidated ( 2 Kings 22:3 , 22:5
, 22:6 ; 23:23 ; 2 Chronicles 34:11 ). While this work was being carried on, Hilkiah,
the high priest, discovered a roll, which was probably the original copy of the
law, the entire Pentateuch, written by Moses.
When this book was read to him, the king was alarmed by the things it contained,
and sent for Huldah, the "prophetess," for her counsel. She spoke to him words
of encouragement, telling him that he would be gathered to his fathers in peace
before the threatened days of judgment came. Josiah immediately gathered the people
together, and engaged them in a renewal of their ancient national covenant with
God. The Passover was then celebrated, as in the days of his great predecessor,
Hezekiah, with unusual magnificence. Nevertheless, "the Lord turned not from the
fierceness of his great wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah" (
2 Kings 22:3 - 20 ; 23:21 - 27 ; 2 Chronicles 35:1 - 19 ). During the progress
of this great religious revolution Jeremiah helped it on by his earnest exhortations.
Soon after this, Pharaoh-Necho II. (q.v.), king of Egypt, in an expedition against
the king of Assyria, with the view of gaining possession of Carchemish, sought
a passage through the territory of Judah for his army. This Josiah refused to
permit. He had probably entered into some new alliance with the king of Assyria,
and faithful to his word he sought to oppose the progress of Necho.
The army of Judah went out and encountered that of Egypt at Megiddo, on the verge
of the plain of Esdraelon. Josiah went into the field in disguise, and was fatally
wounded by a random arrow. His attendants conveyed him toward Jerusalem, but had
only reached Hadadrimmon, a few miles south of Megiddo, when he died ( 2 Kings
23:28 , 23:30 ; Compare 2 Chronicles 35:20 - 27 ), after a reign of thirty-one
years. He was buried with the greatest honours in fulfilment of Huldah's prophecy
( 2 Kings 22:20 ; Compare Jeremiah 34:5 ). Jeremiah composed a funeral elegy on
this the best of the kings of Israel ( Lamentations 4:20 ; 2 Chronicles 35:25
). The outburst of national grief on account of his death became proverbial (
Zechariah 12:11 ; Compare Revelation 16:16 ).
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
the Lord burns; the fire of the Lord
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(whom Jehovah heals).
(1) The son of Amon and Jedidah, succeeded his father B.C. 641, in the eighty
years of his age, and reigned 31 years. His history is contained in ( 2 Kings
22:1 ; 24:30 ; 2 Chronicles 34:1 ; 35:1 ) ... and the first twelve chapters of
Jeremiah throw much light upon the general character of the Jews in his day. He
began in the eighth year of his reign to seek the Lord; and in his twelfth year,
and for six years afterward, in a personal progress throughout all the land of
Judah and Israel, he destroyed everywhere high places, groves, images and all
outward signs and relics of idolatry. The temple was restored under a special
commission; and in the course of the repairs Hilkiah the priest found that book
of the law of the Lord which quickened so remarkably the ardent zeal of the king.
He was aided by Jeremiah the prophet in spreading through his kingdom the knowledge
and worship of Jehovah. The great day of Josiahs life was the day of the passover
in the eighteenth year of his reign. After this his endeavors to abolish every
trace of idolatry and superstition were still carried on; but the time drew near
which had been indicated by Huldah. ( 2 Kings 22:20 ) When Pharaoh-necho went
from Egypt to Carchemish to carry on his war along the seacoast. Necho reluctantly
paused and gave him battle in the valley of Esdraelon. Josiah was mortally wounded,
and died before he could reach Jerusalem. He was buried with extraordinary honors.
(2) The son of Zephaniah, at whose house took place the solemn and symbolical
crowning of Joshua the high priest. ( Zechariah 6:10 ) (B.C. about 1520.)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
(1) jo-si'-a (yo'shiyahu, "Yahweh supports him"; Ioseias; the King James Version Josias (which see)):
The name given 6 years before the death of his grandfather
Manasseh resumes the Judaic custom, suspended in the case of that king and Amon,
of compounding royal names with that of Yahweh; perhaps a hint of the time, when,
according to the Chronicler, Manasseh realized Yahweh's claim on his realm (2
Chronicles 33:12 , 13). One of the most eminent of the kings of Judah; came to
the throne at 8 years of age and reigned circa 637-608 BC.
I. SOURCES FOR HIS LIFE AND TIMES
1. Annalistic:
The earliest history is dispassionate in tone, betraying its prophetic feeling,
however, in its acknowledgment of Yahweh's wrath, still menacing in spite of Josiah's
unique piety (2 Kings 23:26 , 27). For "the rest of his acts" (to which the rather
bald account of his death is relegated as a kind of appendix), it refers to "the
book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah." In the later history (2 Chronicles
34 ; 35), written from the developed ecclesiastical point of view, he is considerably
idealized: the festal and ceremonial aspects of his reform are more fully detailed,
and the story of his campaign and death is more sympathetically told in the sense
of it as a great national calamity.
2. Prophetic:
For the spiritual atmosphere of his time and the prophetic consciousness of a
day of wrath impending, the prophet Zephaniah is illuminating, especially for
the first half of the reign. Jeremiah, born at about the same time as Josiah,
began prophesying in the 13th year of the reign (Jeremiah 1:2). His intimate connection
with state affairs, however, belongs to succeeding reigns; but some prophecies
of his, notably those revealing his attitude toward the temple misuse (Jeremiah
7:1 - 15) and toward the Deuteronomic reform (Jeremiah 11:1 - 13), throw much
light on the prevailing conditions. Nahum, writing near the end of the reign,
and from an outlying village, is less concerned with home affairs than with the
approaching end of Nineveh (fell 606 BC).
3. Memorial:
In Jesus Sirach's Praise of Famous Men there is a passage (Sirach 49:1 - 4), wholly
eulogistic of Josiah, on the score that "in the days of wicked men he made godliness
to prevail"; and along with David and Hezekiah he is one of the three who alone
did not "commit trespass." Jeremiah's lamentation for. Josiah, mentioned in 2
Chronicles 35:25, is not preserved to us; instead there is only an allusion (Jeremiah
22:10), naming his successor Shallum (Jehoahaz) as a fitter subject. The lamentations
which became "an ordinance in Israel" (2 Chronicles 35:25) are not to be referred
to the Scripture book of that name; which has no hint of Josiah, unless Lamentations
4:20 be so construed. |
II. TRAITS OF HIS REIGN
1. Situation at the Beginning:
Until his 18th year 2 Kings gives no events of Josiah's reign; 2 Chronicles, however,
relates that in his 8th year (at 16 years of age) he "began to seek after the
God of David his father," and that in the 12th year he began the purgation of
Judah and Jerusalem. The Chronicler may be mistaken in putting the completion
of this work before the finding of the law (2 Chronicles 34:8), but of his disposition
and of his beginning without documentary warrant on a work which Hezekiah had
attempted before him, there is no reason to doubt. And indeed various influences
were working together to make his procedure natural. The staunch loyalty to the
Davidic house, as emphasized by the popular movement which seated him (see under
AMON), would in itself be an influence to turn his mind to the God of David his
father. Manasseh's all-embracing idolatry had indeed reduced his aristocracy to
a people "settled on their lees, that say in their heart, Yahweh will not do good,
neither will he do evil" (Zephaniah 1:12); but these represented merely the inertia,
not the intelligence, of the people. Over against them is to be reckoned the spiritually-minded
"remnant" with which since Isaiah the prophets had been working; a remnant now
seasoned by persecution, and already committed to the virtue of meekness (Zephaniah
2:3) and the willing acceptance of affliction as their appointed lot, as against
the arrogance of the "proudly exulting ones" (Zephaniah 3:11 - 13). To such courage
and hope the redeeming element of Israel had grown in the midst of a blatant infidelity
and worldliness. Nor were they so unconnected with the established order as formerly.
The ministers of the temple-service, if not subjected to persecution, had been
ranked on a level with devotees of other cults, and so had a common cause which
would work to unite the sympathies of priests and prophets in one loyalty to Yahweh.
All this is adduced as indicating how the better elements of the nation were ripening
for a forward step in enlightened religious progress.
2. Finding of the Law:
The providential moment arrived when in the 18th year of his reign Josiah sent
Shaphan the scribe to the temple to arrange with Hilkiah the high priest for the
prescribed temple repairs. On giving his account of the funds for that purpose,
Hilkiah also delivered to Shaphan a book which he had found in the "house of Yahweh,"
that is, in the temple proper; which book, when Shaphan read therefrom to the
king, caused the latter to rend his robe in dismay and consternation. It was a
book in which were commands of Yahweh that had long been unknown or disregarded,
and along with these, fearful curses to follow the infraction of them. Such a
discovery could not be treated lightly, as one might spurn a prophet or priest;
nay, it immediately called the authority of the prophet into requisition. The
king sent a deputation to Huldah the prophetess for her verdict on the book; and
she, whether aware of its contents or not, assured him that the curses were valid,
and that for impieties against which the prophets continually warned, all the
woes written in the book were impending. One of the most voluminous discussions
of Biblical scholarship has centered round the question what this book was, what
its origin, and how it came there in the temple. The Chronicler says roundly it
was "the book of the law of Yahweh by the hand of Moses." That it was from the
nation's great first prophet and lawgiver was the implicit belief of the king
and all his contemporaries. There can be little doubt, judging from the nature
of the reforms it elicited and the fact that the curses it contained are still
extant, that this "book of the law" was virtually identical with our Book
of Deuteronomy. But is this the work of Moses, or the product of a later literary
activity? In answer, it is fair to say that it is so true to the soundest interpretation
of the spirit and power of Moses that there need be no hesitation in calling it
genuinely Mosaic, whatever adaptations and supplementations its laws received
after his time. Its highly developed style, however, and its imperfect conformity
to the nomadic conditions of Moses' time, make so remote an origin of its present
form very doubtful. It comes to us written with the matured skill of Israel's
literary prime, in a time too when, as we know (see under HEZEKIAH), men of letters
were keenly interested in rescuing and putting to present use the literary treasures
of their past. As to how it came to be left in the temple at a time so much before
its discovery that none questioned its being what it purported to be, each scholar
must answer for himself. Some have conjectured that it may have been a product
of Solomon's time, and deposited, according to immemorial custom in temple-building,
in the foundation of Solomon's temple, where it was found when certain ruins made
repairs necessary. To the present writer it seems likelier that it was one of
the literary products of Hezekiah's time, compiled from scattered statutes, precedents,
and customs long in the keeping--or neglect--of priests and judges, put into the
attractive form of oratory, and left for its providential moment.
See further, DEUTERONOMY;
WRITING.
3. The Great Reform:
Josiah's immediate procedure was to call to the temple a representative assemblage--elders,
prophets, priests, populace--and to read to them this "book of the covenant" (2
Kings 23:2). Then he made a solemn covenant before Yahweh to obey it, and all
the people stood to the covenant. So, perhaps for the first time, the people of
Judah and Jerusalem had for their guidance not only the case decisions of judges
and priests, nor only the emergency warnings and predictions of prophets, but
a written and accessible document, covering in a large and liberal way the duties
of their civic, social and religious life. One of the most momentous productions
of all history, the book became the constitution of the Jewish race; nor were
its noble provisions superseded when, centuries later, the tethers of race were
broken and a Christian civilization came into its heritage. But the book that
was destined to have so large a significance in all coming history had its immediate
significance too, and never had this been so pressing. Josiah's consternation
arose from the sense of how much of the nation's obvious duty had been left undone
and unregarded. First of all, they had through heedless years and ages drifted
into a medley of religious ideas and customs which had accumulated until all this
lumber of Manasseh's idolatry was upon them. Hezekiah had tried to clear away
some of its most crude and superstitious elements (see under HEZEKIAH), but he
was handicapped by the lack of its clear issue and objective, which now this book
supplied. Zephaniah too was showing what Yahweh's will was (Zephaniah 1:2 - 6);
there must be a clean sweep of the debasing and obscuring cults, and the purgation
must be done to stay. So Josiah's first reforming step was to break up the high
places, the numerous centers of the evil, to destroy the symbols and utensils
of the idolatrous shrines and rites, and to defile them past resuscitation. His
zeal did not stop with Jerusalem and Judah; he went on to Bethel, which had been
the chief sanctuary of the now defunct Northern Kingdom, and in his work here
was recognized the fulfillment of an old prophecy dating from the time of its
first king (2 Kings 23:17 ; compare 1 Kings 13:1 , 2). This necessitated the concentration
of public worship in the temple at Jerusalem, and in De was found the warrant
for this, in the prescript, natural to Moses' point of view, that the worship
of Israel must have a single center as it had in the wilderness. From this negative
procedure he went on to the positive measure of reviving the festival services
inseparable from a religion requiring pilgrimage, instituting a grand Passover
on a scale unheard of since the time of the Judges (2 Kings 23:21 , 22), a feature
of his reform on which the Chronicler dwells with peculiar zest (2 Chronicles
35:1 - 15). Thus both in the idolatries they must abolish and in the organized
worship that they must maintain, the people were committed to a definite and documented
issue; this it was which made Josiah's reform so momentous. That the reform seemed
after Josiah's untimely death to have been merely outward, is what might reasonably
be expected from the inveteracy of the unspirituality that it must encounter.
Jeremiah had small faith in its saving power against the stubborn perversity of
the people (Jeremiah 11:1 - 14); and the historian of 2 Kings intimates that more
than the piety of a zealous king was needed to turn away the stern decree of Yahweh's
anger (2 Kings 23:26 , 27). In spite of all hardness and apostasy, however, the
nation that had once "stood to the covenant" of Deuteronomy could never again
be at heart the nation it was before.
4. Disaster at Megiddo:
Ardent and pious as he was, there seems to have been a lack of balance in Josiah's
character. His extreme dismay and dread of the curse pronounced on the realm's
neglect of the law seems to have been followed, after his great reform had seemed
to set things right, by an excess of confidence in Yahweh's restored favor which
went beyond sound wisdom, and amounted to presumption. The power of Assyria was
weakening, and Pharaoh-necoh of Egypt, ambitious to secure control of Mesopotamia,
started on the campaign in which he was eventually to suffer defeat at Carchemish.
Josiah, whose reforming zeal had already achieved success in Northern Israel,
apparently cherished inordinate dreams of invincibility in Yahweh's name, and
went forth with a little army to withstand the Egyptian monarch on his march through
the northern provinces. At the first onset he was killed, and his expedition came
to nothing. In his untimely death the fervid hopes of the pious received a set-back
which was long lamented as one of the cardinal disasters of Israel. It was a sore
calamity, but also a stern education. Israel must learn not only the enthusiasm
but also the prudence and wisdom of its new-found faith. |
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(2) A contemporary of Zechariah (Zechariah 6:10),
at whose house in Jerusalem the prophet met some returned Jews from Babylon.
John Franklin Genung
Tags:
8 year old king, abolished idolatry, bible commentary, bible reference, bible study, define, died in battle with necho, history, huldah the prophetess, josiah, king of judah, necho, pentateuch (found), restored temple, son of amon
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