King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 11 notes
1And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2And 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.
3And 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 testimonies and his statutes 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.
By cutting covenants with the Lord, he was setting himself up to be helped greatly. His covenant was not mere empty words; Josiah stuck to his words and did well for his people and his reign.
4And 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 host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el.
5And 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 burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
7And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
Really, such rot in the house of God. Even sodomites and idolaters affiliated with the house of God.
8And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba, and brake 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.
9Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
10And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
11And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
All these had become an abomination and a reproach to Israel.
Now I ask, the pagan nations that practiced these things, did these things become a reproach to them, since God was not their God?
Did it matter to God?
Yes, it did, as we see in the many times God used Israel to destroy other nations and their evil practices.
And when Israel itself went into apostasy, the Lord used the other nations against them.
So in all lands all over the world, when the fulness of the wrath of God comes, he destroys those nations from under the earth.
So now I ask, how about nations outside the Middle East Palestine area?
We do not have written records of these, but I believe God, being God, did this same thing all over the world.
When the sins of the people reached its peak (sometimes it takes centuries), the Lord will finally bring an end to their whoredoms and wickedness.
Sadly, all who worshipped demons always have practices inimical to human life and benefit.
It seems only the worship of Jehovah preserved life and advanced humanity in all aspects.
I am yet to study other religions to see if there are any that bring out the best in man in all aspects.
But the point remains, God is God over all lands and punishes and rewards accordingly.
Indeed, come to think of it, even where God does not directly intervene, the natural laws of good governance determine if a nation prospers or deteriorates.
God has already set the laws in motion to ensure cause and effects. So we determine what happens to us in the long run by our actions or inactions.
12And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
13And 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 Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
The legacy of even Solomon in his sins lived on. After all these years, they had not completely rid the nation of ancient evil altars.
No wonder Paul in his epistles encourages us to pray for leaders of nations.
14And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, 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 brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
After all these centuries, nobody had broken down this altar of abomination, of Jeroboam? Maybe it was waiting to fulfill the prophecy spoken by the Lord concerning it.
And God watched over an over-500-year prophecy to fulfill it, yet today we have prophets whose words don't even last for a week and it gets debunked on the spot.
They are no prophets, just charlatans.
16And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
As he turned, he knew not that there was a divine hand of providence, centuries waiting for this moment, to ensure that every word spoken was going to be fulfilled.
Josiah was anointed for this purpose. He was fulfilling and being helped greatly to do this work of God. And God helped him indeed.
Oh, I can imagine the presence and power of God in that place at that time, moving to ensure that every prophetic word spoken all those centuries ago to Jeroboam and penned out will be fulfilled without fail, for God's word never fails and never returns to Him empty.
As I pen down these thoughts, I am seeing a picture of the book of the law being brought to Josiah, as well as the Chronicles of the kings, and he reading about the prophecy of Jeroboam concerning his very life.
That one shall arise as him and shall do the Lord's work.
I see Josiah rising up in humility and marching on to do the Lord's work as written about him.
Oh, in the volume of the books it is written of me, I have come to do thy will, O God.
Psalms 40:7-9 KJV
Then said I, Lo, I come: In the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: Yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
17Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el.
18And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
19And 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, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el.
This was outside Judah territory, unless Judah had taken back some land of Israel, or the strength of Judah permitted them to do as they pleased since they were the dominant force.
20And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
21And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
22Surely there was not holden such a passover 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;
23But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24Moreover 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 Josiah 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.
The political power of the day easily overpowered the wizards 🧙♂️ and witches 🧙♀️ of the time and ended their craft.
Yet I am sure if it had come to using spiritual power, like what we do in our days where we kill witches in prayers, it would take a lifetime.
Sometimes I wonder, all the witches we kill in prayer... How come they all don't die 🎲 and we keep having to kill them?
Something does not add up.
25And like unto him was there 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.
26Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.
Maybe this was why God permitted Josiah to lose this war; Judah's time was up, there was no more extension of days.
It was time for Judah also to go. The death of Josiah this way must have been more an act of mercy than vengeance on him for the sins of Israel.
God saved him from being the one in whose time Judah went into captivity.
27And 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.
Nothing could reverse it; it was the ordination of the Lord and it was established. At best it could be deferred in the era of the righteous ruler, but it was bent on happening, and so it did.
Something peculiar: that because Josiah did well and walked uprightly as the ruler of the people, his nation was spared the punishment in his time.
However, after he died the punishment was unleashed, and here is the unique catch: there were other righteous people and rulers, but so long as the king, the one who carried the great power of the nation, was evil, justice could not be tempered or deferred with mercy,
so we see great men and prophets like Daniel and the three Hebrew boys taken to captivity, as righteous as they were.
Why? Because the sin of the people was great and the rulers were wicked, so the presence of the righteous, even among the royals and in the corridors of power, could not sway the judgement of the LORD.
28Now 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?
29In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.
Why did the Lord not save him, and why did he go into this battle in the first place?
A man with such a strong testimony to be killed this way is not good.
30And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.
31Jehoahaz 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.
32And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
33And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at Riblah 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.
34And 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.
35And 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.
36Jehoiakim 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 Pedaiah of Rumah.
37And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.