2 Kings 23

2 Kings 23:1-3

We have here, 1. The happy continuance of ‘Jefalch’s reign, and the progress of the reformation, vers. 1—20. 2. His keeping a fulmin of power, &c. vers. 21—25. 3. His untimely death, vers. 26—4. The bad reigns of his two sons Jefalaim and Jefalaim, vers. 31—37.

AND the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah, and of Jerusalem. 2. And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people both small and great; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. 3. And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his ordinances, and his fixtures, with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant, that were written in this book: and all the people stood to the covenant.

To avert, if possible, the thus-tend words, Jofah, with earned difficulties, forks for reformations as the people.

1. In a general assembly of the clerks, the people, and people, convened as people for the covenant, to imitate, as it terms, read in their ears the words of the heirs and other house of the Lord, that it might more deeply engage that attention.

2. The book of the covenant being released, the tenor of which was, that on their fidelity, they were heard of God’s fidelity. The king, to encourage and express the people, to humbly, with the presence of God, declared his purpose, of walking over the Lord, in all the ways of his indulgent worship, and deferring all his commandments; moral, judicial, and ceremonial; and this with all simplicity and sincerity, trusting upon God to enable him for what was to planify his duty, and to greatly his desire. The people join the king in his engagement, and promising all fidelity, stand to the covenant. Net. (1.) A good and great example is very influential. (2.) Jesus our king, is our covenant-head, and covenant-faidifier: faith in him is now our security. (3.) God’s people are bound to him, not to much by bonds of vows and promises, as by better bonds of love indissoluble.

3. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD, all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the hoft of heaven: and he burnt them without Jerusalem, in the fields of Ashton, and carried the alhes of them unto Bethel. 5. And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem, them also that burnt incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the=cahle, and to all the hoft of heaven. 6. And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burnt it at the brook Kidron, and stump it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. 7. And he broke down the houses of the iodomites that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wore hangings for the grove. 8. And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense, from Geba to Beer-theba, and broke down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. 9. Nevertheless, the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unlevered bread among their brethren. 10. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Fimonon, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. 11. And he took away the heres that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the ensuing in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire. 12. And the altars that were on the top of

the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manaffeh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and broke them down from thence, and cast the duft of them into the brook Kidron. 13. And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ash-toweth the abomination of the Zidonias, and for Che-moth the abomination of the Mudabos, and for Mikraim the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14. And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15. Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down, and burnt the high place, and stump it small to powder, and burnt the grove. 16. And as Jofiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar, and polluted it according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. 17. Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, ‘It is the sepulches of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. 18. And he said, Let him alone, ’let no man move his bones: So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophets that came out of Samaria. 19. And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Jofiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel. 20. And we follow all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burnt men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. 21. ¶ And the king commanded all the people, saying, ‘Keep the pathover unto the LORD your God,’ as it is written in the book of this covenant. 22. Surely there was not holden such a pathover, from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah: 23. But in the eighteenth year of king Jofain, wherein this pathover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem. 24. ¶ Moreover, the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah, and in Jerusalem, did Jofiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law, which were written in the book: that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

2 Kings 23:4-24

In consequence of his solemn engagements, Jofiah without delay, set himself to remove all the abominations, contrary to the book of the law, which were found in the land.

1. He began with Judah and Jerusalem; where, shocking to tell the most gross and strange monuments of idolatry remained. To purge the house of the Lord was his first concern: thence he fetched all the vessels which had been confiscated to, and employed in the service of Baal and Ashteawh, and the hofts of heaven; and having burnt them, carried their alhes to Bethel, that heard beginning of idolatry, which now he would make a dunghill, and lay there the filth and off-scouring of all these abominations. The idolatrous priests, (for such there will be, when court favour follows Baal’s worship) he put down, destroying all the high places where they offered incense, which though Hezekiah had ruined, his wicked successors had refused. These were degraded from their office; and though they had a portion with the priests for their maintenance, they were no more suffered to approach the altars of the Lord. The images of their false deities he stamped to powder; and to render them more bastionary, call the duft on the graves of their worshippers, as a reproach to their memory, and in contempt to their idols, which he dug up the bones of the priests, and scattered them upon the high places, where they had died to sacrifice. The houses of the iodomites, unnatural crime: that with dire effrontery were placed near the temple, where women, as well as men, wrought all iniquity, in honour of their impure deities, he railed to the foundations. Topheth, a valley near Jerusalem, so called, from the drums they beat, to down the cries of infants burnt there in the fire to Molech, he defiled, making it a burying place. The heres which had been indicated to the sun, according to the blind usages of the heathen,

either

Before Christ either of he offered in sacrifice, or to draw the chariots sacred to that deity, he burnt with the chariots. His own house also he thoroughly purged: the altar of Altar, which was on the roof, and these Manasfeh had made; which, though once cast out of Jerusalem, 2 Clems. xxxiii. 15. Amon had brought back again; three he beat to powder, and threw the dull into the brook Kufren. Throughout Judah, he put away all wizards and workers with familiar spirits; and in short, every abomination he found, after the strictest search made, according to the word of the Lord, he utterly abolished it. Note, True conversion to God makes thorough work, calling away every weight, and the sin which doth most easily befit us.

2. He proceeded to carry the reformation he had begun in Judah, into part of the cities of Israel; several of which, and Bethsel particularly, had after the captivity, or on the full defeat of boumacheids, submitted to him, 2 Clems. xxxiv. 6. The altar at Bethsel he defiled; and, after sacrificing the idolatrous pitfalls, and burning the bones of dead men upon it, deftroyed it, with the high place and the grove adjoining; carefully preferring however the bones of the prophet, who, about 3 1/2 years’ before, had foretold what now was literally fulfilled. And as he did at Bethsel, he did in all the cities of Samaria, under his dominion, utterly rooting out every monument of idolatry. Note, Though God’s word he king ere it be fulfilled, whether it be provide, or threatening, the accomplishment is lost.

3. The land being thus chastified from idols, and the people, according to their engagements, returning in truth to the worship of God; a solemn passage is proclaimed and kept, with such exactness and conformity to the divine infatuation, with such delight and joy, that since the days of the judge’s, even under the belt of their kings, no such passage had been observed. Note, They who are faithful in the covenant, will be happy to partake of the seals of it. Neglect of the table of the Lord, is a fine mark of the continuing apostasy of the heart from God.

4. And like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. 26. ¶ Norwithstanding, the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, whereupon his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the + provocations that Manasfeh had provoked him withal. 27. And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there. 28. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 29. ¶ In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Affyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him, and he flew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him. 30. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own furniture: and the people of the land took 5 Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.

2 Kings 23:25-30

We have here,

1. A most noble character given of Josiah. As Hezekiah was distinguished for his faith in God, he was Josiah, above all his predecessors, remarkable for his sincerity and zeal in the reformation he fought. With his whole heart, in uprightness and truth, he turned to the Lord, and with all his might using his utmost influence to convert his people, and ever making God’s word the rule of his conduct. Note, (1.) God regards the heart; when that is right, then the service is acceptable. (2.) They who would please God, must give up their whole heart, and make no allowed reserves. (3.) When we have true zeal for God, much more may be done, than at full we could imagine.

2. God’s anger is not however turned away. Norwithstanding the apparent reformation, many were still hypocritical, and the former abominations of Manasfeh had fixed the Divine decree. Note, That the decree may be passed concerning a nation’s fine, yet every real penitent may be assured, whenever he returns unto God, he will turn away from his fierce anger; and though he sinks in a common calamity, his eternal safety is secured.

3. Josiah is slain in the midst of his days. Attempting to oppose the invasion which the king of Egypt made on his ally the king of Babylon, and now also of Affyria, he fell in battle at Megiddo. Whether he could be justified in this way, is uncertain; we are sure God was just in permitting his fall, as a punishment to the people, and in mercy took him away before the defoeiness threatened against his kingdom came upon them. Note, When men know not to value their mercies, and to pro-

fit under the means they enjoy, God will punish them by removing them.

31. ¶ Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done. 33. And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at Ribliah, in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. 34. And Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king, in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there. 35. And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh; he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-nechoh. 36. ¶ Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pechiah of Rumah. 37. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.

2 Kings 23:31-37

With Josiah perished all the glory of Judah. Like a man mortally wounded, the kingdom gasped a while under his fons, and then expired, as it were, under Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion.

1. Jehoahaz succeeded his father; though not the eldest son, yet set up by the people, because perhaps he formed more warlike than his brother; but his wickedness made his valour useless. Following the idolatries of his wicked forefathers, he was forsaken of God; and after a short reign of three months, taken prisoner by Pharaoh-nechoh, and died in bondage to Egypt. Note, When neither warnings will restrain, not good examples influence, destruction is near.

2. His brother is made king in his stead; his name is changed by Pharaoh, in token of his subjection, into Jehoiakim, and a tribute levied upon the land, to which every man was obliged to contribute, according to his abilities, amounting to upwards of forty thousand pounds. Yet none of these afflictions availed to admonish him; he followed the ways of his bad predecessors, and thereby hallered the ruin of the land.