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.
and he burned the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem.
Josiah is twenty, and his clean-up of the land has now reached the graves: he burns the bones of the idol-priests on the altars where those men once served. Commentators see three things at once — an old prophecy settled, a verdict on false worship, and a clearing that had to come before true worship could start.
This was not Josiah's own idea.
At last, after more than three hundred years, the prophecy of "the man of God out of Judah" comes true. He had said: "Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you" — the idol altar at Bethel — "the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you" (1 Kings 13:2).
One writer sets out the dates and the reach of this work.
In the 12th year, at 20, he began his big clean-up operation. He destroyed idols of every kind. He dug up the remains of idolatrous priests and burned the bones on the altars where they had sacrificed… He also took his mission to other tribes, far north to Naphtali and south to Simeon. These were not strictly under his rule, since Assyria had already carried the ten tribes away. This was not just arranged by delegation. He took part in the work himself.
Why burn the bones of men long dead?
Josiah smashed images, broke down altars, and burned the bones of idolatrous priests on their altars. So the young king showed his hatred of evil practices and of the men who led the way in them.
Another writer notes when all this happened.
Josiah also burned the bones of the idolatrous priests on their altars. It seems these were the bones of men who had died earlier… 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 idolatry is sin against God as Creator, and everyone should know that. It is not just sin against His law.
Why was there so much to destroy? One writer traces it all to one root.
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… It has ever been a special design of Satan to lead God's people away from Scripture. He will use anything and everything for this end: tradition, the church so-called, expediency, human reason, popular opinion, reputation and influence, character, position, and usefulness. He will use all of these to pull the heart and conscience away from that one golden sentence — that divine, eternal motto, "IT IS WRITTEN." It mattered little to Josiah that these things could claim to be ancient, or that the fathers of the Jewish nation had approved them. If they were not based on "Thus says the LORD," he had only one thing to do with them: "beat them into powder."
The order of events in Josiah's reign is not accidental.
The good work began with the judgment of what was evil in God's sight. They firmly cleared Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the groves, and the carved and cast images. They broke down the altars of the Baals, and other things like them. Then they turned to repairing the house of the LORD. There they "found a book of the law of the LORD given by Moses," and Shaphan read it before the king. With godly fear and a broken spirit, the king and others set out to act on it.
Why did the clearing take so long?
The king was right to feel that the LORD must be worshipped in clean surroundings… In Josiah's day the land was full of detestable things. There were the idols themselves, and also the filthy practices that always go with idolatry. It seems this took eight years of energetic work to clear away.
The same writer is careful about how this applies to us.
Today we are not called to be image-breakers. It is not our duty to go round with axes and hammers and destroy images and other things which we know to be hateful to God. The Lord Jesus will deal with all this when He shows Himself from heaven in Kingdom-power and majesty. Our present duty has two parts. First, to get our own souls right by testing all our ways and associations by the written Word. Second, to use our influence to help others return to the "old paths."
- Word spoken. A prophet gave Josiah's name, and described this act, three hundred years before it happened. God's word waits, but it never fails.
- Word neglected. Every altar Josiah destroyed grew from one root: God's people drifting from Scripture. Tradition, human reason and popular opinion helped that drift along.
- Word obeyed. Josiah burned the bones to show his hatred of those practices, and of the men who led others into them. He did this before the law book was even found.
- Word applied. Cleansing came first, then the repair of God's house, then the Passover. Separation before worship, in that order.
- Word today. Not axes and hammers now, but testing our own ways by what is written, and helping others back to the old paths.
And [so did he] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about;
Josiah's reform did not stop at his own border. It pushed north into lands no king of Judah had ruled for generations. Why tear down altars in territory he did not govern, among people who were no longer even Israelites?
The movement of this verse is outward. One commentator marks the shift in a single line:
For, you notice, he goes beyond his own sphere. He goes out into "the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali."
The cleansing began where he lived and then widened, and the reason lay in what he understood the land to be:
When he reached the age of twenty, Josiah became very active in his zeal for the God of Israel. He started at his very doors. He "began to purge Judah and Jerusalem" of everything connected with idolatry. Then he carried the same cleansing work into "the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali," cutting down the idols throughout the land of Israel (verses 3-7). God gave the young king wisdom to see that every trace of idolatry had to go — not from his own kingdom only, but from the whole inheritance of God, which the kings of Israel had defiled.
Josiah was not the first king of Judah to reach north. And by his day the people in those ruined cities were strangers to Israel. One writer raises the objection, then answers it:
Both kings are known for zeal, but they showed it in different ways. Hezekiah sends to Ephraim and to Manasseh and to others to come and keep the Passover. Josiah sends to destroy all the visible traces of idolatry, both in Judah and in the cities of Manasseh. That is the land of the tribe of Manasseh, for by that time the Assyrian had carried Israel away into captivity. Why should Josiah interfere with people who are strangers to Israel? It was enough for Josiah to know that these strangers were living in God's land, and the land must be purged.
The cities he entered held a religious mixture:
The kings of Assyria removed large numbers of the ten tribes from the land. They replaced them with settlers from Babylon and other provinces, who brought their pagan gods with them. 2 Kings 17 describes this sorry mixture. From that time the land held a strange blend of Israelites and Gentiles, and of paganism and Judaism. It was the land the Lord loved, and the land where His beloved Son will yet reign in glory. What confusion as the result of disobedience to God!
Josiah was not alone in looking past his own borders. One writer sees in him a rule that held for every faithful king of Judah:
He was no exception to the general rule. All the pious kings of Judah had regard to the unity of the nation of Israel. They never let their thoughts, their sympathies, or their work shrink to anything narrower than "our twelve tribes." The twelve loaves on the pure table were always before the eye of God and always before the eye of faith. This was no mere theory, no dead letter. In every case it was a great practical, influential truth. "Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel."
Other kings had struck at idolatry too. This one is weighed and found clean:
The earnest young king swept through the land from the territory of Simeon in the south to the territory of Naphtali in the north (2 Chron. 34:6). He smashed up and burned everything that he knew was detestable in the sight of the Holy One of Israel. It was the book of the law, and nothing else, that shaped his movements. The Spirit's report of what he did shows no false motives. With Jehu, as we have seen, it was otherwise. He did a useful work, but his motives were not pure.
Notably, all this northern demolition happened before the lost book of the law turned up in the temple. Commentators differ on what drove him — one credits the book itself, while another presses the timing:
He did not stop with cleansing Judah and Jerusalem. He did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and Naphtali, for those tribes had been so reduced that they had no king (v. 5). He broke down the altars and images and ground them almost to powder. He cut down all the incense altars throughout the land. Then he returned to Jerusalem (vv. 6-7), which means "the foundation of peace." 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? The practice of idolatry is sin against God as Creator, as everyone should know, and not only sin against His law.
- Doorstep first. The purge started in Judah and Jerusalem, then moved outward — cleansing begins where you live.
- Whole inheritance. Josiah went past his own border because the northern cities were still God's land, defiled by the kings of Israel.
- Even strangers. Foreign settlers filled those cities. That changed nothing. They were living in God's land, and the land had to be purged.
- Twelve, not two. Faith never counted less than "our twelve tribes." Israel's unity was a working truth, not a dead letter.
- Before the law. Josiah did not need the book of the law to know that idolatry was sin against the Creator. His motives were pure — unlike Jehu's.
and he broke down the altars, and beat the Asherahs and the graven images into powder, and cut down all the sun-pillars throughout the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.