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(The views expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
2 Chronicles 34:1–7, “Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. For 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 groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.”
Josiah’s reign had been prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam 1 in Israel. Jeroboam reigned from 930-913 while Josiah reigned from 640-609. This means that the Lord knew about Josiah at least 290 years before he became king in Judah. (see 1 Kings 13:2, “And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.”) On the other hand, the Lord told Isaiah the prophet, “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” (Isaiah 46:9–10) That is, the Lord knew about Josiah before the first day of creation. Even though Josiah was only eight years old when he began his reign, it seems as though the priests took their position seriously and taught him what they could about the true God of heaven and earth. By the time he reached the eighth year of his reign he decided to follow the Lord in everything that he did. He started his campaign after another four years by doing everything he could to remove any sign of false religion from the Land of Judah. He tore down all the idols and the fertility groves wherever they could be found. He ground the idols into dust and threw the dust onto graves to make it completely unclean. He even went outside Judah’s territory and took away any evidence of false religion in the former territory of Israel as well.
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