2 Kings — Chapter 23

The king went up to the temple of the Lord, with all the men of Juda and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with the priests and the prophets, and all the people both small and great: and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant. Lapide: The public reading of the whole covenant before all the people — from the least to the greatest — is the model of religious instruction. Josiah did not keep the Law for himself but proclaimed it publicly to all. This is the duty of princes: to be the first hearers and the most zealous propagators of God's word among their subjects.

The king stood upon a step, and made a covenant with the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his ceremonies with all his heart and all his soul. Lapide: Josiah's public covenant renewal — standing on the royal platform before the whole people — is the greatest act of his reign. He bound himself and his people to God by solemn oath, renewing the Sinai covenant. Lapide notes that similar covenant renewals had been performed by Moses, Solomon, and Joash; Josiah's was the most thorough. The people gave their assent (v. 3): \"and the people stood to the covenant.\"

The king commanded Helcias the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven. Lapide: Josiah's reform is described in exhaustive detail. He destroyed not only the obvious idols but every instrument and accessory of idolatrous worship — vessels, groves, altars on rooftops, the Tophet in the valley of Gehinnom (where children had been burned alive to Moloch), the horses of the sun at the temple gate, and the high places built by Solomon for his foreign wives. Lapide comments that a thorough reform leaves no corner untouched.

He defiled Topheth also, which is in the valley of the son of Ennom, that no man should consecrate his son or daughter through fire to Moloch. Lapide on Topheth: The name derives from \"toph\" — a drum, beaten to drown the cries of the children burned alive. Josiah desecrated this place irreversibly by filling it with bones of the dead, rendering it perpetually impure by Jewish law. The place later became a rubbish-heap — Gehinnom, Gehenna — which Christ used as a figure of hell.

He took away the horses that the kings of Juda had given to the sun, at the entering in of the temple of the Lord, near the chamber of Nathanmelech the eunuch, who was in Pharurim; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. Lapide: The horses of the sun, given by apostate kings as a form of solar worship (the horse representing the sun's swiftness), were an innovation from the Persian and Syrian cults. Lapide cites Xenophon, Herodotus, Macrobius, and the Rabbis to explain the practice. Eucherius notes that the Israelites may have imitated the story of Elijah's fiery chariot, confusing the miracle of God with a pagan astronomical symbol.

The king commanded all the people, saying: Keep the phase to the Lord your God according as it is written in the book of this covenant. Lapide: The Passover celebrated by Josiah was the most magnificent since the days of the Judges — none before it in all the days of the kings of Israel and Judah. This is because it was done with full covenant renewal, complete reform of worship, and the whole people gathered in unity. Lapide sees it as a figure of the perfect Eucharist — the true Passover of the New Covenant — in which Christ Himself is the Lamb.

There was no phase like to this kept in Israel from the days of the judges, who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Juda. Lapide: Josiah's Passover is praised as unparalleled since the Judges — not because earlier Passovers were invalidly celebrated, but because this one was celebrated with the greatest solemnity, after complete covenant renewal, with all the people gathered in unanimity and all idolatrous worship destroyed. It is the final glory of the Davidic kingship before its collapse.

There was no king before him like him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him did there arise the like. Lapide: The superlative praise of Josiah — surpassing even Hezekiah — is because Josiah's conversion was more universal and his reform more thorough. Lapide harmonises this with the earlier praise of Hezekiah by noting the different respects in each case. The repeated phrase \"with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength\" is the Shema of Deuteronomy (vi.5) applied to a king.

In his days Pharao Nechao king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and king Josias went to meet him: and was slain at Mageddo when he had seen him. Lapide: The death of Josiah at Megiddo — killed by Pharaoh Necho on his way to fight Assyria — is a profound mystery. Josiah the most righteous king dies in battle against an Egyptian who was, Lapide notes, possibly carrying out God's own commission (cf. II Chr. xxxv.21-22). Josiah's death moved the whole people to grief, which Jeremias bewailed in his lamentations. His death at Megiddo anticipates apocalyptically the final battle described in the Apocalypse.