The Greatest Reformation Arc Ever.
2 Kings 23 — The GOAT king goes scorched earth on every idol and it still isn't enough
13 min read
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2 Kings 23 — The GOAT king goes scorched earth on every idol and it still isn't enough
13 min read
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wasn't messing around. After finding buried in the — a scroll the nation had literally forgotten existed — he didn't just read it and feel bad. He read it and chose violence against every single in the country. What follows is the most intense spiritual cleanup has ever seen.
We're talking burned , demolished shrines, fired , and a celebration that hadn't happened at this level in centuries. Josiah went full scorched earth on . And yet — even his couldn't undo the damage that came before him.
called a full assembly — every , every , every , every citizen of . Small and great. Nobody was optional for this meeting.
He went up to the house of the Lord and read the entire Book of the out loud to every single person. Then he stood by the pillar and made a Covenant before God — committing to walk after the Lord, keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul. Not halfway. Not when it was convenient. All in.
And the people? They all joined in the covenant. The whole nation said bet. 💯
Now came the part where started taking out the trash — and there was A of trash.
He ordered the to remove every single vessel made for , for , and for the stars of — all of it, out of God's . He burned them outside in the fields and carried the ashes to . He fired every fake that previous kings had appointed to burn incense to Baal, the sun, the moon, and the constellations. He dragged the Asherah pole out of the Lord's house, burned it at the brook Kidron, ground it to dust, and scattered that dust on the graves of common people. Then he demolished the houses of the cult prostitutes that were literally inside the Temple, where women wove hangings for the Asherah.
The fact that all of this was happening inside God's house tells you how far things had fallen. Josiah wasn't just doing spring cleaning — he was doing an exorcism on the entire system. 😤
didn't stop at . He brought in all the from every city in and defiled the where they'd been making unauthorized — from in the north all the way down to Beersheba in the south. He tore down the shrines at the city gates too. Every. Single. One.
(Quick context: The priests from these high places weren't allowed to serve at God's altar in Jerusalem after this, but they could still eat unleavened bread with their fellow priests. They lost their platform but not their .)
Then he defiled Topheth in the — the place where people had been burning their own children as offerings to Molech. He made sure nobody could ever use that site for child again. No cap, this is one of the darkest things in the entire Old Testament, and the fact that it was happening in God's nation shows how deeply had corrupted everything.
The previous kings of had dedicated horses and chariots to the sun god — parked right at the entrance of the Lord's house. removed the horses and burned the chariots with . The rooftop altars that King had built, the altars that had put in the two courts of the — Josiah pulled them all down, smashed them to pieces, and dumped the rubble into the brook .
Then he went after the high places east of , near the Mount of Corruption — the ones that himself had built for the false gods of the Sidonians, Moabites, and . Yes, THAT Solomon. Even the wisest king in history had fumbled, and his idolatrous shrines had been standing for over 300 years. Josiah shattered the pillars, cut down the Asherim poles, and filled their spots with human bones to make sure they could never be used for worship again.
That's not just reform — that's making sure the problem can never come back. 🪨
This is where things get wild. The altar at — the one son of Nebat built, the one that made sin for generations — pulled it down, burned it, and reduced the whole thing to dust.
Then he noticed some tombs on the hillside. He sent men to pull the bones out and burn them on the defiled altar — and this was the exact fulfillment of a spoken centuries earlier by a man of God who had predicted that a king named Josiah would do this very thing. (Quick context: This prophecy was given in 1 Kings 13, over 300 years before Josiah was even born. The fact that it names him by name is unreal.)
"What is that monument I see?"
The men of the city told him it was the tomb of the from who had predicted everything Josiah just did.
"Let him rest. Don't move his bones."
So they left that prophet's bones alone, along with the bones of the prophet from . Josiah respected the man who had spoken truth centuries before he was born. That's honoring the . 📖
didn't stop at borders. He crossed into — which was technically the territory of the fallen northern — and removed every single shrine the kings of had built to provoke the Lord.
He did to them exactly what he'd done at . He executed the of the high places on their own altars and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to .
This man was on a and he was NOT taking side quests. Complete obliteration of idolatry, no exceptions, no compromises. ⚡
After all the destruction, turned to . He commanded the entire nation:
"Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant."
And this wasn't just any . The text says no Passover like this had been celebrated since the days of the — not during any king of , not during any king of . Centuries of neglect, and Josiah brought it all the way back.
In the eighteenth year of his reign, this Passover was kept to the Lord in . The nation remembered who they were and whose they were. That hits different. ✨
also cleaned out the mediums, the necromancers, the household gods, and every in the land — all so that The found in the could actually be followed.
And here's the verdict the Bible gives him: Before him there was no king like him — who turned to the Lord with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might, according to all of . And no king like him arose after him either.
That's the highest honor any king of ever received. Josiah was — literally the best to ever do it. 👑
But here's the part that makes this story heartbreaking. Even after everything did — every altar smashed, every idol burned, every shrine demolished — God did not turn from His wrath against .
The damage had done was too deep. The provocations had gone too far. And God said:
"I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel. And I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, 'My name shall be there.'"
This is heavy. One man's faithfulness — even the greatest faithfulness any king ever showed — couldn't undo generations of rebellion. The consequences of don't always disappear just because someone finally gets it right. was still coming.
The rest of acts were recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of . But his ending came suddenly and tragically.
king of was marching north to the to help the king of . Josiah went out to confront him — and Neco killed him at as soon as he saw him.
His servants carried his body back to in a chariot and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took his son , him, and made him king in his place.
Just like that, the greatest reformer Judah ever had was gone. No . No miraculous rescue. Sometimes the most faithful people still face devastating endings in this world. 😔
was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he lasted exactly three months in . His mother was Hamutal, daughter of of Libnah.
And he did what was in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. Three months, and he'd already gone back to the old ways. renewal didn't even survive one generation.
Neco put in chains at Riblah and imposed a massive tribute on the land — a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Then Pharaoh installed Eliakim, another son of Josiah, as a puppet king and changed his name to . got dragged to , where he died.
Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Neco's bill by taxing every person in the land according to their wealth. The nation that had just been spiritually restored was now financially drained and politically controlled by Egypt. Massive L.
was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in . His mother was Zebidah, daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
And he did what was in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
That line hits like a gut punch after everything accomplished. The greatest reformation in history, and within a single generation, both of his sons went right back to evil. The cycle of rebellion wasn't broken — it was just paused. And was still on its way.