2 Kings 23
So last week (remember way back then?) we looked at the reign of king Josiah of Judah. His father Amon and his grandfather Manasseh had made a mess of the kingdom, and so, at the age of 26, Josiah decided to renovate the Temple. He wanted to get things back in order.
To recap:
- Josiah renovated the Temple of YHWH
- During renos Hilkiah the High Priest found the long-lost Word of God (The Torah)
- Josiah, after reading God’s Word, led his people to return to YHWH as their One and Only God
As a result, in 2 Kings 23:
- Josiah called every citizen in Jerusalem (from the least to the greatest) to the Temple.
- Then he read, to everyone, the long-lost book. It’s like storytime with the king! Note that Josiah didn’t pass this duty on to one of the priests, no! He read it to his people, so they would all know how serious this was!
- After the reading was over, Josiah called on everyone to renew their Covenant Relationship with YHWH
- And then… King Josiah takes idolatry down!
2 Kings 23:4
Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of YHWH all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven.
Baal: The most prominent pagan god in the Bible. He was a storm & fertility god worshipped widely across Canaan and Phoenicia
Asherah: mother goddess in many Semitic religions. She was considered to be the consort of El the high god of Phoenicia & Canaan. Later the Israelites tried to make her the wife of YHWH. Why? Because in pagan religions the gods were married and they wanted to fit YHWH into that mold, so they made Asherah the consort of YHWH. Archaeology has found inscriptions that say, “YHWH and His Asherah” and because of that, you’ll find, all over the dredges of the internet, people who still claim that YHWH had a wife named Asherah. The Bible, however, rejected that notion completely. God is the Creator of the Universe. He needs no spouse and has no spouse. Ever.
The Host of Heaven: In most ancient civilizations there was a consistent worshipping of the sun, moon, and stars. The night sky seemed to be alive, and so these celestial twinkling lights were understood to be gods watching over the earth, changing the tides, and helping crops grow, and so people worshiped them. The Bible clearly pointed out that this mindset was wrong.
Deuteronomy 4:19
When you look to the heavens and see the sun and moon and stars—all the host of heaven—do not be enticed to bow down and worship what YHWH your God has given to all the nations under heaven.
Don’t thank the gift, thank the Giver. Don’t praise the gift, you praise the One who gave you the gift. The sun, moon, and stars are a gift from God… you worship God, you don’t worship the stars that He made.
2 Kings 23:5-6
Josiah also did away with the idolatrous priests ordained by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem—those who had burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. He brought the Asherah pole from the house of YHWH to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.
Why throw it on the graves?… Josiah is basically saying, these gods you worship are just as dead and lifeless as your long-passed ancestors! There’s no breath in them. The Spirit of God does not live in them. They are worthless, lifeless, and they give you no freedom. He’s also giving back, to the long-dead pagan worshippers, the very thing they worshipped. This is what you all wanted… have it back. It’s all yours.
2 Kings 23:5-6
He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of YHWH, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.
Yes, there were male shrine prostitutes working their trade inside the Jewish Temple. Josiah said, “no more”!
2 Kings 23:10 He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom…
What was topheth? It was a sacred meeting place where the priests would ritually murder the children in order to give sacrifice to the gods… most notably the god Molech. Ben-Hinnom (or Gehenna in Greek) was known as the Valley of Slaughter in Jerusalem where child sacrifices took place. Jesus referred to it as a kind of hell-space on earth. In Jesus’ day it was also where you threw your trash…the first century garbage heap.
2 Kings 23:10
He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.
Molech was primarily worshipped by the Canaanites and the Ammonites, and He was usually depicted in the form of a bull…and child sacrifice was high on his list of demands.
Leviticus 18:21
You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am YHWH.
Rarely do we get such a strong word as hate in the Bible, but according to the text, YHWH hated child sacrifice. YHWH is the God of Life and Creation. Child sacrifice was about death and de-creation. It was against everything that YHWH stood for.
2 Kings 23:11-12
And he removed from the entrance to the house of YHWH the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun… And Josiah burned up the chariots of the sun. He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of YHWH. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.
Why the Kidron Valley? That’s where all the tombs were. These things were all about death and dying, so to the tombs they would go.
2 Kings 23:13
The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Corruption, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians…
Ashtoreth was the goddess of fertility, sex, love and war. She was also known as Astarte or Ishtar.
2 Kings 23:13
The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem… which King Solomon of Israel had built for… Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites…
Chemosh was a god of war and chaos, and was the chief god of the Moabites.
2 Kings 23:13
The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem… which King Solomon of Israel had built for… Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
Milcom was the warrior protector god of the Ammonites.
2 Kings 23:24
Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of YHWH.
Josiah does a clean sweep! But why bother?… why not just let the people believe what they want to believe?
Why?… because Josiah was their leader and he wanted to save his people. He also had just read this new-found book, and in it he came across (what we commonly call) The Ten Commandments. And what was the number one commandment?
“I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me”
So I was going to go into more depth on what this commandment means but the BibleProject did such a good job explaining this verse that I think I’ll let them take this…
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGI8nNVkZpA
I appreciate how the Bible Project explains this… that the Ten Commandments is the ethic of the free. They are 10 sets of words telling us how to live as a Free People. The gods of the nations were enslavers. Everyone spent their entire lives trying to appease the gods… even going so far as sacrificing their children to them! And so Josiah took extreme measures to relieve his people from their captivity to these gods of death and destruction.
The question is: what’s holding you captive?… Addictions? Depression? Technology? The endless pursuit of wealth or power? A hyper-focus on yourself? God says, don’t place these gods before Me… in front of Me, beside Me, or instead of Me… God does not want these things in His Presence… but He does want you. He wants to walk alongside you, just as you are… addicted, depressed, focusing on the wrong things. He knows you’re not perfect, but He wants you to know that those things don’t define you. You are free and forgiven… Jesus paid the price to set you free from all the powers that want to hold you captive.
If you admit their hold over you, hand them over to God, and seek help, you, too, can experience freedom!
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he said this in the Synagogue of his hometown, in Nazareth:
Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
God has always intended us to be a Free People… Jesus came to release the captives! Don’t let the lower-case gods hold you down in life! They are heavy chains that don’t belong on you.
And so Josiah tore it all down to set his people free…even though he knew, in the end, that Jerusalem would fall. And it would fall to the Babylonians! It was only 36 years after Josiah’s clean sweep, that Babylon marched in, smashed the walls, tore down the Temple, and dragged them all into captivity.
By sending idolatry to the grave, Josiah was fighting for his people’s hearts. He wanted to reclaim their allegiance to YHWH so they had a strong foundation of belief to hold onto. So that in the dark days that were about to come upon them, they would still have hope…
…hope that God would proclaim liberty on their captivity and release them (one day) from their oppressors.
We can have that same hope! Holding onto our belief in God will set us free from our fears and give us hope that the days of darkness won’t win in the end. We can rise up and face the darkness, knowing that God is always on our side.
In the 1960’s one of the civil rights and social justice champions who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr was Minister John Lewis. He preached these words:
“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone — any person or any force — dampen, dim or diminish your light … Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won.” (John Lewis, Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America)
We’re not to worship the sun, because WE are the light. We are made to reflect God’s glory! The battle between good and evil, light and dark, is already won… but we have to do our part to get the story of the Bible to its end point. To do that, we are to be the face of what God really looks like to the people… a face of love and kindness, acceptance and compassion. Bitterness, division, revenge… those are the qualities of the powers and people who oppose God. We cannot look like that!
We should not be living like we are chained by the gods of this world. By the Spirit of God, darkness has no claim on our souls. We have been set free by the One and Only God who created us, loves us, and awaits our return. It’s the best news and it’s worth sharing! You are FREE!… Amen? Amen!
Next week: Animals
