Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 23 | Sabbath: March 22, 2025
Memory Verse: 2 Kings 22:11
2 Kings 22:11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.
Weekly Proverb: Proverbs 21:16
Proverbs 21:16 The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.
Introduction: Josiah was a young king following years of traditional idolatry. This idolatry lasted hundreds of years. It was ordained by his fathers and the kings of Israel and Judah. His story, his rebellion against his fathers, is a lesson for everyone today.

1. Solomon built temples to strange gods. He was followed by his servant and king of Israel Jeroboam, who ordained his own worship separate from Jerusalem. The kings of Israel had started to rebel. What is prophesied for the future? 1 Kings 13:2, (1-5).
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.
2. Who came to the throne many years later? 2 Kings 21:23-26.
2 Kings 21:23 And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house.
2 Kings 21:24 And the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.
2 Kings 21:25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
2 Kings 21:26 And he was buried in his sepulchre in the garden of Uzza: and Josiah his son reigned in his stead.
3. Josiah follows his father. Not his father Amon, not Jeroboam, and not Solomon. Who before him was not corrupt? 2 Kings 22:1, 2.
2 Kings 22:1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath.
2 Kings 22:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
4. Josiah followed David. Then what was found? v 8, 10, 11.
2 Kings 22:8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
2 Kings 22:10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.
2 Kings 22:11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.
5. The king is spiritually moved by the book. Whom does he call together? What is this book? What are these commandments? What is this covenant? Who agreed to the words of the book? 2 Kings 23:1-3.
2 Kings 23:1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 Kings 23:2 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.
2 Kings 23:3 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 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.
6. The king starts to enforce the words of the book. What had to be taken out of the temple and out of Jerusalem? v 4.
2 Kings 23:4 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 host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
7. What had to be destroyed from around Jerusalem? What did the kings of Judah have to do with these idols and their priests? v 5, (6).
2 Kings 23:5 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 burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
8. Sodomites eat and sleep in the same types of houses as everyone else, so what were these “houses of the sodomites?” Where were these special houses located? v 7.
2 Kings 23:7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
9. What can be said of the governor of the city? v 8.
2 Kings 23:8 And 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 Beersheba, 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.
10. What did he end in the valley of Topheth? Who is Molech? v 10.
2 Kings 23:10 And 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.
11. What group of men are responsible for these abominations? v 11.
2 Kings 23:11 And 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 Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12. We are told to honor our fathers and mothers. How does Josiah honor his fathers (and kings of Judah and Israel), Ahaz, Manasseh, Solomon, and Jeroboam? Ephesians 6:1, 2 Kings 23:12-15.
Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Kings 23:12 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 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.
2 Kings 23:13 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 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.
2 Kings 23:14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
2 Kings 23:15 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 brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
13. Do you remember that book? What ordinance was forgotten for hundreds of years? What did Josiah command? 2 Kings 23:21-23.
2 Kings 23:21 And 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.
2 Kings 23:22 Surely 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;
2 Kings 23:23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem.
14. How wicked were all the kings before Josiah? Were his righteous acts sufficient to turn away God’s wrath from the wicked nation? What was ordained for Israel? v 26-28.
2 Kings 23:26 Notwithstanding 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.
2 Kings 23:27 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.
2 Kings 23:28 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?
Conclusion: We must honor our parents. This commandment is clarified by Paul: we must honor our parents in the Lord. Traditions should be followed, those traditions defined by the Lawgiver. Josiah broke with tradition; he broke the pattern ordained by the kings before him, and he followed the traditions he found in the book.