"Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin---even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also." (2 Kings 23:15) We have seen Josiah cleansing the temple and Jerusalem and other cities of Judah of idolatrous objects. Now we find him going into the northern kingdom of Israel---now fallen to Assyria---and tearing down the religious center of worship set up by the late King Jeroboam I.
You'll recall that when Jeroboam became the first king of the ten northern tribes, he set up a golden calf at Bethel and he set up a golden calf at Dan. He ordered his people to bring their offerings and sacrifices to those altars because he didn't want any of his subjects traveling to the temple in Jerusalem for fear they might transfer their allegiance from him to King Rehoboam of Judah. He made the religious site at Bethel the primary religious site because it was closest to his palace and it was where he made his own offerings and sacrifices. In verse 15 above Josiah tears down this high place of Jeroboam's.
In 1 Kings we found Jeroboam at the altar in Bethel, preparing to make his offering, when an unnamed prophet from Judah came and made this pronouncement against the sinful altar: "Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: 'A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.'" (1 Kings 13:2) The prophet foretold---three hundred years before Josiah was born---that Josiah would come and desecrate the sinful altar of Jeroboam.
Jeroboam must have thought there was no way such a thing could come to pass. Why would a king of Israel allow a king from Judah to come and do such a thing? Wouldn't the forces of the king of Israel prevent such a thing from happening? But in our text today, three centuries later, there is no king or army of Israel present to prevent this from happening.
Assyria has conquered Israel and is in the process of deporting most of the Israelites and resettling the land with conquered people from other nations. The Assyrian presence in the region of Bethel is either too weak to prevent Josiah and his forces from desecrating the religious site or the Assyrians couldn't care less if the king of Judah comes and carries out actions that the Assyrians may have viewed as a religious dispute between the northern and southern kingdoms. The Assyrians could hardly be expected to care about or defend the altars of foreign gods. As long as the king of Judah and his men are doing nothing but tearing down Israelite altars and digging up the bones of dead Israelites (which we will find taking place momentarily), the Assyrians are not alarmed. Only if Josiah had launched an attack on the Assyrians or on the people they were bringing into Israel would they have responded with force.
"Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things." (2 Kings 23:16) Just as the man of God said, bones were burned on Jeroboam's sinful altar in order to defile it from further use. Was Josiah aware of this prophecy? It does not appear so, for when he spots a particular tombstone he asks who is buried there and the story of the man of God is told to him.
"The king asked, 'What is that tombstone I see?' The people of the city said, 'It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.' 'Leave it alone,' he said. 'Don't let anyone disturb his bones.' So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria." (2 Kings 23:17-18)
In 1 Kings 13 the man of God from Judah made a mistake on his way home. An elderly prophet of Samaria (the capitol city of the northern kingdom) told him a lie and convinced him to go back with his house with him for supper, in contradiction to what the Lord had previously told the man of Judah. The Lord had strictly ordered the man of Judah not to eat or drink anything while in the northern kingdom. But the old prophet deceived him by claiming the Lord changed His mind and sent word that the two men were to eat together that day, so the younger man went home with him for supper, after which he was killed by a lion on his way home to Judah. Upon hearing this news, the elderly prophet of Samaria ordered the younger prophet's body placed in his own tomb and he commanded his sons that when he himself died they were to place his own remains by the younger prophet's. When Josiah asks whose tomb this is, the people of Bethel inform him that it contains the bones of the prophet from Judah who spoke of him and the bones of the old prophet from Samaria. Josiah tells them to leave this tomb undisturbed.
I do not believe Josiah had any inkling that anyone had ever prophesied anything about him. If he had ever heard of this prophecy I think he would have wanted to know more about the man of God from Judah. I think he would have wanted to know where the man was buried. I do not believe he would have been ignorant of whose tomb this was when he saw it. I also do not believe that anyone in Josiah's family did anything to cause the prophecy to come true. His idolatrous father Amon would certainly not have chosen a name for him that had been mentioned in a godly prophecy. When his name was chosen for him, it was chosen without any knowledge that it had ever been involved in a prophecy about the altar at Bethel. Josiah himself did not know about his link with the altar at Bethel until he had already torn the altar down.
As he fulfills the remainder of the prophecy, we do not know whether he had originally intended to slaughter the idolatrous priests of the northern kingdom. But the prophecy certainly gives him permission to do so now. "Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the Lord's anger. Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem." (2 Kings 23:19-20)
The man of God from Judah had predicted that Josiah would sacrifice the priests of the high places and burn their bones on the sinful altars. As we close our study session for today we find Josiah doing just that. Not only did the Lord give him permission through the prophecy to execute these priests, but the word of God from even farther back in the Old Testament gave him permission to do this. The law that the Lord gave to the people through Moses said that a priest or prophet or any citizen of the nation who spoke in the name of other gods was to be put to death. Engaging in occult practices was a capital offense. Encouraging others to serve heathen gods was a capital offense. Making offerings and sacrifices to other gods was a capital offense. Josiah is obeying the law of God when he executes the idolatrous priests of Israel.
In tomorrow's text we will find him back in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
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