Josiah continues to carry out religious reforms after he and the people have rededicated themselves to the covenant of the Lord. He began by having everything removed from inside the temple that had anything to do with idolatry and now he branches out from there.
"Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests." (2 Kings 23:8-9) Josiah desecrates the high places from border to border.
"He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek." (2 Kings 23:10) Josiah's grandfather, King Manasseh, sacrificed some of his own children to Molek. The author of 2 Kings stated that he sacrificed his son and the author of 2 Chronicles used the plural word "children", indicating that in addition to sacrificing a son he also sacrificed one or more daughters.
It's interesting to note that the Greek word later used in reference to the valley where the sacrifices took place---"Gehenna"---is the word used by Jesus in the New Testament as a euphemism for "hell". By His day the area was used as a landfill and all manner of unclean refuse was dumped there. Fires burned to reduce the waste to ashes. Maggots crawled in the rotting food and in the remains of dead farm animals. This is why, when referring to the place of eternal torment as "Gehenna", the Lord Jesus said it was a place where worms never die and fires are never quenched. (Mark 9:48)
Does this mean that hell is a place of fire and brimstone and crawling maggots? We don't know whether Jesus was speaking literally or figuratively. Some scholars believe He was using the word "Gehenna" to indicate a place of destruction, waste, and utter hopelessness---not necessarily that the occupants of hell are going to be tormented by flames for all eternity. On the other hand, in His parable of the poor beggar and the rich man, the rich man who rejected God all his life said, "I am in agony in this fire." (Luke 16:24b) We don't know the exact nature of hell but we know enough about it that we should want to avoid going there! Even if there are no physical feelings of torment, being separated for all eternity from the goodness and mercy of our Creator should be enough to keep us from ever wanting to experience it.
Some of the idolatrous kings of Judah had dedicated horses to a god of the sun. These horses were corralled near the temple entrance. Josiah moves them from that location and burns the chariots, which I assume had idolatrous images carved or painted on them. "He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun." (2 Kings 23:11)
"He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption---the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth and the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones." (2 Kings 23:12-14) The sinful altars Solomon built for his pagan wives were still standing, perhaps because the people still held Solomon in high esteem, but allowing these altars to remain had caused people to use them for abominable heathen religious practices. Josiah tears these sites down and scatters bones on them to defile the sites.
Tomorrow he continues to expand outward with his reforms as he travels to the chief religious site in the northern kingdom of Israel to desecrate the sinful altar at Bethel.
No comments:
Post a Comment