And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherahs, and the graven images, and the molten images.
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And they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-pillars that were on high above them he cut down; and the Asherahs and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces, and made dust [of them] and strewed it upon the graves of those that had sacrificed to them;
Josiah was twenty when he began the demolition in this verse, and the idols he attacked had stood in Judah for generations. Why grind them into powder instead of just removing them, and why scatter that powder over the graves of their worshippers?
Grinding the images to dust was not going too far. It set Josiah's work apart from the half-measures of the kings before him.
At the tender age of sixteen he began to seek the Lord. At twenty he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places and the carved and metal images... So he made sure that no one could ever bring those images back into Jerusalem. Though Manasseh had taken away the images he had made before, he did not destroy them, so Amon brought them back. Josiah would allow no such thing.
Judah's idolatry reached from the stars above down into the temple itself. Where Josiah dumped the remains passed judgement on it.
Josiah removed the idolatrous priests from the high places in the cities of Judah, and all those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon and to the constellations of stars in the whole heaven. Judah had multiplied her gods beyond measure. A wooden image stood in the house of the Lord, just as many churches introduce images that look nice but are an insult to the Lord Jesus. Josiah burned the image at the brook Kidron and threw the ashes on graves, signifying that the idolatry was worthy only of the corruption of death.
Josiah tore all of this down before he knew God's law.
All this took place before Josiah even knew of God's law. He had not needed the law to tell him that idolatry was sin against God. Why not? Because the practice of idolatry is sin against God as Creator, as everyone should know, not only sin against His law.
Where had such an enormous pile of idols come from?
But, Christian reader, let us remember this: all the mischief, all the corruption and confusion, all the shame and dishonour, all the reproach and blasphemy, had its origin in the neglect of the Word of God. We can never ponder this fact deeply enough... It has always been a special aim of Satan to lead God's people away from Scripture... He will use anything and everything to get the heart and conscience away from that one golden sentence, that divine, eternal motto, "IT IS WRITTEN." All that enormous pile of error which our devoted young king was able to "grind into dust, and beat into powder" — all, all had its origin in the gross neglect of this most precious sentence. It mattered little to Josiah that all these things could claim to be ancient, backed by the authority of the fathers of the Jewish nation.
Josiah was not the only king God sent to pull down Baal's altars. Jehu did the same work, but the two men were not alike.
God commissioned each of them to destroy Baal-worship and the other horrible things that disgraced the land of Israel. But the motives of the two men were very different. With Josiah the Word of God was the governing factor... But in Jehu we see a great deal of self-seeking. Personal ambition had a large place in his mind even when he was doing what was right in the eyes of God. When he met his friend Jehonadab the son of Rechab, he said, "Come with me, and see my zeal for Jehovah." True souls do not parade their good deeds like this.
What Josiah managed across one land, Christ will one day do across the world.
No one ever rooted out idolatry as thoroughly as Josiah did across the whole land of Israel. He killed all the priests, burned their bones on their altars, and then destroyed the altars themselves, reducing them to powder. Such thoroughness God loves... The Lord Jesus will carry out a world-wide clearance when He appears. "The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
- Broken — the altars of the Baals came down in front of Josiah himself, not by orders sent from a distance.
- Ground — Josiah beat the images to dust so that no one could ever set them up again. Manasseh had only removed his, and Amon brought them back.
- Scattered — the dust landed on the graves of the worshippers. Idolatry is fit only for death and decay.
- Rooted — the whole pile Josiah destroyed grew from one habit: neglect of what God had written. Age-old custom did not impress him.
- Tested — God loves thoroughness like this, but Jehu smashed Baal's altars too. God's word governed Josiah; ambition drove Jehu.