08. josiah’s reforms

key Text:
“Now before him there
was no king like him, who
turned to the Lord with all
his heart, with all his soul,
and with all his might,
according to all the Law of
Moses; nor after him did
any arise like him”
(2 Kings 23:25

Parents know just
how hard it is to see
their children, espe-
cially when they are
older and out of the
parents’ control,
make choices that
they know will hurt
them. Of course, this
heartache doesn’t
apply only to parents
and children: Who hasn’t at some point seen friends or relatives or
anyone make choices that you knew would be detrimental to
them? This is an unfortunate aspect of what it means to have free
will. Free will, especially moral free will, means nothing if we don’t
have the freedom to make wrong choices. A “free” being who can
choose only the right is not truly free, or even truly moral.

Thus, much of Scrip-
ture is the story of
God warning His peo-
ple about not making
wrong choices.
This has been a major
part of what the book
of Jeremiah is about
too: the pleadings of
God, who respects free choice and free will, to His chosen
nation. And though, unfortunately, most of the stories are
not good, this week we will get to see a glimmer of hope;
that is, we see one of the few kings who, using free will,
chose to do what “was right in the sight of the Lord.”

“But they paid no attention, and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the
nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.” (2 Kings 21:9)
“And he [Amon] did not humble himself before the Lord, as his father Manasseh
had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more.” (2 Chronicles 33:23)
“Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled
himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He
received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem
into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13)
Since King Hezekiah died, Judah began
to plunge into destruction.
1. Manasseh spread the most abominable
sins including the ritual killing of his own
children.
2. Manasseh repented, but the people had
already known “the depths of Satan.”
(Rev. 2:24)
3. Amon repealed the reforms of Manasseh
with his acts. He brought the apostasy
back.

The Reigns of Manasseh and Amon
However much we like to talk about
objectivity, about viewing things as
they really are, as human beings we
are hopelessly subjective. We see
the world, not so much as the world
really is but as we really are. And be-
cause we are fallen and corrupted
beings, this corruption is going to
impact our perceptions and interpre-
tation of the world around us.
How else, for instance, can we explain someone like King Manasseh
of Judah (about 686–643 b.c.), especially those early years of his
terrible apostasy? One can hardly imagine how he justified in his own
mind the horrific abominations he allowed to flourish in Judah.

Read 2 Chronicles 33. What
does this story tell us about
just how corrupt a king
Manasseh was? More
important, what does this
teach us about the
willingness of God to
forgive?
No question, being hauled off to
Babylon with nose hooks and
bronze fetters was certain to get a
man to rethink his life. Neverthe-
less, the text is clear: Manasseh
truly repented of his ways and, when restored to the throne, sought
to repair the damage that he had done. Unfortunately, the damage
was greater than he might have imagined.

“But this repentance, remarkable
though it was, came too late to
save the kingdom from the corrupting
influence of years of idolatrous
practices. Many had stumbled and
fallen, never again to rise.
And, even more unfortunate,
among those who had been terribly
impacted by Manasseh’s apostasy
was his son, Amon, who took the
Throne after his father died and who
“did evil in the sight of the Lord, as
his father Manasseh had done; for Amon sacrificed to all the carved
images which his father Manasseh had made, and served them” (2
Chron. 33:22, NKJV). Worse, unlike his father, Amon never repented
of his ways.

Who doesn’t know personally the terrible
consequences that can come even from sin that
has been forgiven?
What promises can you claim for the victory over
sin? Why not claim them now before the sin brings
its doleful consequences?
REFLECTION

“Yet those evil times were not without witnesses for God
and the right. The trying experiences through which Judah
had safely passed during Hezekiah’s reign had developed, in
the hearts of many, a sturdiness of character that now
served as a bulwark against the prevailing iniquity. Their
testimony in behalf of truth and righteousness aroused the
anger of Manasseh and his associates in authority, who
endeavored to establish themselves in evil-doing by
silencing every voice of disapproval…
Faithfully the prophets continued their warnings and their
exhortations; fearlessly they spoke to Manasseh and to his
people; but the messages were scorned; backsliding Judah
would not heed…
Among those whose life experience had been shaped beyond
recall by the fatal apostasy of Manasseh, was his own son…
The wicked king was not permitted to reign long. In the
midst of his daring impiety, only two years from the time he
ascended the throne, he was slain in the palace by his own
servants.” E.G.W. (Prophets and Kings, cp. 32, pg. 381-383)

“But the people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King
Amon. Then the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.”
(2 Chronicles 33:25)
Amon sowed violence and harvested
violence. Those who killed him also
harvested violence.
The people’s reaction to the murder of the
king was not any kind of “people’s
democracy”, but a terrible lynching.
They crowned a 8-year-old boy as a
“puppet monarch” so they could
perpetuate evil.
Many wondered why God didn’t stop all
that evil. The prophet Habakkuk was the
audible voice of that group.
God had already touched Josiah’s young
heart.

A New King
A preacher once said, “Be careful
what you pray for. You just might
get it.” Israel asked for and longed
for a king, just like the nations
around it. The people got what
they asked for, and so much of
Israelite history after the era of
the judges was the story of how
these kings corrupted themselves
on the throne and, as a result,
corrupted the nation, as well.
Nevertheless, there were always
exceptions, such as King Josiah,
who ascended the throne in 639
b.c. and ruled until 608 b.c.

What was the context in which the
new king had come to the throne?
(See 2 Chron. 33:25.)
Though democracy is supposed to be
rulership by the people, it generally
wasn’t conceived of functioning as it
did in this case. Nevertheless, the peo-
ple made their will known, and it was
done according to their will. The young
king came to the throne at a time of
great turmoil, apostasy, and violence,
even at the highest levels of government.
Seeing what was going on, many faithful in the land had wondered
whether God’s promises to ancient Israel could ever be fulfilled.
“From a human point of view the divine purpose for the chosen
nation seemed almost impossible of accomplishment.”

The anxiety of the faithful
ones was expressed in the
words of the prophet
Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:2–
4. What is the prophet
saying?
Unfortunately, the answer to the problems of iniquity, violence,
strife, and lawlessness would come, but from the north, from the
Babylonians, whom God would use to bring judgment upon His
wayward people. As we have seen all along, it didn’t have to be
that way; however, because of their refusal to repent, they faced
the punishment that their sins brought upon them.

“For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young,
he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the
twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the
high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the
molded images.” (2 Chronicles 34:3)
Josiah sought God when he was 16.
He began a movement of revival
and reformation in Judah when he
was 20.
Six years after that, he focused his
efforts on restoring the temple—
the heart of Judah’s devotion to
God.
The reform had had an effect. For
example, the people who repaired
the temple became very honest:
“there need be no accounting
made with them of the money
delivered into their hand, because
they deal faithfully.” (2 Kings 22:7)

The Bible doesn’t give us
any explanation for this
remarkable young man
who, considering the
circumstances, was most
likely destined to be as
corrupt and wicked as his
father before him. That,
however, wasn’t the case.
For whatever reasons, he
chose a different course,
and that was to have a
positive, though
ultimately limited, impact
on the nation.

Second Kings 22 mentions what Josiah did in regard to the temple.
From the dedication of the temple by Solomon, long centuries had
passed until Josiah’s reforms (622 b.c.). The kings had not really
taken care of the temple. Time had eroded the building, which had
once been beautiful. The young king saw that the temple was no
longer suitable for worship as a result of long years of neglect.

“Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, ‘Hilkiah the
priest has given me a book.’ And Shaphan read it before the
king. Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the
Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes.” (2 Kings 22:10-11)
A true reform is more than superficial changes like
smashing idols, renovating the temple or other
external changes. More deep and lasting changes must
come, and the Bible must always be the foundation.
When Josiah found “the book
of the law” (the Pentateuch or
part of it) at the temple, he was
profoundly touched.
He understood the final
consequences of their sins.
He sent some people to visit
the prophetess Huldah and ask
God how to avoid the
destruction of Judah
(2 Kings 22:13-20).

“Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the
Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His
testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul,
to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this
book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.” (2 Kings 23:3)
God said that Judah was going to be inevitably
destroyed, so was there any point on going on
with revival and reformation?
That’s was Josiah asked. Huldah’s answer is
still valid today; humanity is condemned, but
each one of us can accept salvation in an
individual way.
Therefore, Josiah decided to help as many
people in his kingdom as possible to accept
salvation.

Which were the reforms
that Josiah carried out
(2 Kings 23:4-24)?
“Now before him there was no king like him, who turned
to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with
all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor
after him did any arise like him.” (2 Kings 23:25)
He took the idolatrous articles out of the temple.
He removed the idolatrous priests from the high places.
He took the Asherah image out of the temple.
He tore down the ritual booths in the temple.
He defiled the high places and broke down the altars
at the city gates.
He defiled Tophet, so no one could sacrifice
his own son to Molech.
He removed the carts and horses made
to worship the Sun.
He broke down the pagan altars in the temple.
He broke down the statues and images of Asherah.
He destroyed the golden calf at Bethel.
He killed the pagan priests.
He celebrated the Passover.

“To be a reader of the Book of the law, containing a ‘Thus saith the
Lord,’ Josiah regarded as the highest position that he could occupy....
The highest work of princes in Israel,—of physicians, of teachers in
our schools, as well as of ministers and those who are in positions of
trust in the Lord’s institutions,—is to fulfill the responsibility
resting upon them to fasten the Scriptures in the minds of the people
as a nail in a sure place, to use their God-given talent of influence to
impress the truth that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom.’ For the leaders in Israel to extend a knowledge of the
Scriptures in all their borders is to promote spiritual health; for
God’s Word is a leaf from the tree of life.”
SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 2. Ellen G. White notes on 2 Kings 23:2

Further Thought:
As the lesson stated, the depth of corruption that had befallen
Israel can be seen in the kind of reforms that Josiah had to
undertake. How, though, could the nation have fallen so far? In
one sense, the answer is easy: it’s because humanity has fallen so
far. Just how far humanity has degraded
was revealed in a famous experiment conducted at Yale University
in the 1960s.

Participants were brought
in arbitrarily through news-
paper ads and told that
they were to administer
electric shocks to people
tied down to chairs in
another room.
The switches that administered the shocks were mar-
ked from “Slight Shock” to “Danger: Severe Shock,”
including two more ominously marked “XXX.” Partici-
pants were told to administer the shocks according to
the orders of the scientist leading the experiment.

As they did, the participants
would hear the people in the
other room scream and plead
for mercy. In reality, the peo-
ple in the other room were
just acting; they were not get-
ting shocked at all. The point of
the study was to see how far
these “normal” participants
would go in inflicting what they
thought was pain on those
whom they didn’t know, simply because they had been ordered to
do it. The results were frightening. Though many participants got
anxious, distraught, and even angry, that didn’t stop a stunning 65
percent from administering the severest “shocks” to these people,
believing that they were truly hurting them.

“Ordinary people,”
wrote the scientist
who conducted the
experiment,
“simply doing their
jobs, and without
any particular hos-
tility on their part,
can become agents in a terrible destructive
process.” How many “ordinary” people have done
terrible things throughout history, or even today?
Too many have, for sure. Why? Christians know the
answer. We are sinners, plain and simple.

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08. josiah’s reforms

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08. josiah’s reforms