Worship By the Word – 2 Kings 23:1-20

A trip through any part of India shows what it must have looked like in Israel when she was in idolatry. There are shrines and temples everywhere throughout the cities and villages. They are usually very colorful and range in size from small and personal to something covering 14 acres (the temple in Madurai). But Josiah is ready to lead his people in a revival of Yahweh worship as commanded in the Book of the Covenant, the law of Moses.

Then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him. And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens. And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beersheba. And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one’s left at the gate of the city. However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech. And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, he pulled down and broke in pieces and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.

Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” And the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” And he said, “Let him be; let no man move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel. And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:1-20, ESV)

This passage is fascinating because of the amount of description given of how the worship of Judah looked in Josiah’s day. Josiah makes covenant again with Yahweh and the people join in with him, a wise leadership move since Josiah is about to turn everyone’s life upside down. It helps to have their buy-in as he takes the radical religious steps he is about to take. For here we see in the Temple itself all kinds of worship articles being used devoted to Baal, Asherah and the sun, moon and stars. Male cult prostitutes are given a place in the Temple precincts to re-enact and thus persuade the gods to fertilize the land and the community and bear fruit. High places abound throughout Judah and Israel where shrines are set up, some undoubtedly to Yahweh, but some also to other gods. The legitimate Levitical priests at these altars are not allowed to serve at the Temple but they are allowed back into fellowship in the feasts of Israel. Shrines exist also to Chemosh and Milcom (or Molech) where children were offered as sacrifices.

Josiah not only destroys these objects of false worship but finds ways to defile them, mostly with the bones of dead people, making it difficult to ever use these objects or places again. And he does not stop in Judah but travels into Israel in the north as well, tearing down the altars at Bethel and Samaria that Jereboam set up, thus fulfilling prophecy:

And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the LORD to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’” (1 Kings 13:1-2, ESV)

Josiah becomes aware of this prophecy by asking about the monument that was set up to this prophet.

When it comes to the worship of God, doing what is right is crucial and there can be no substitutes for doing what is right. Right worship must come from a right heart, so covenant renewal is essential, not just the outward reformation. The removal of idolatry from our lives must be complete. Every religion that seeks the hearts of men, and in our day every “restoration movement” that seeks to suggest that the church has failed to hold to the original gospel, comes up with rituals to compete against the others, the Latter Day Saints being a most obvious form of this. But just as Josiah followed the book of the Law found in the Temple, so we must follow the canon of Scripture found in the Old and New Testaments. This alone is our guide to true worship.