2 Chronicles 34:1-13

Josiah Restores the true Worship

v. 1. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, having been elevated to the throne by the people of the country, who wanted a descendant of David as their king, and not an assassin, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.

v. 2. And he did that which was right, in strict accordance with the Law, in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David, his father, and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left. His character and manner of comporting himself throughout his reign was such as to make his rule stand out most honorably among that of the kings of David's line.

v. 3. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, about sixteen years old. he began to seek after the God of David, his father, openly showing his preference for the ancient worship; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, the wooden Asherah-pillars, and the carved images, those fashioned out of wood, and the molten images, those cast of metal.

v. 4. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence, wherever these evidences of Canaanitish idolatry were found; and the images, the sun-statues erected according to Chaldean customs, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, the wooden statues consecrated to Astarte, and the carved images and the molten images he brake in pieces and made dust of them, as Moses had done with the golden calf at Horeb, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them, thus exposing the guilt of those who were lying in those graves before all men.

v. 5. And he burned the bones of the priests upon their altars, after having taken their skeletons from their graves, thereby defiling the altars of idolatry, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

v. 6. And so, in the course of the next years, did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, the central portion of what had been the northern kingdom, and Simeon, the cities in the south of Judah, even unto Naphtali, what was later known as Upper Galilee, with their mattocks round about, or rather, in their ruins round about, in their deserted suburbs, for the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser and Sargon had devastated their territory, and the people who remained in the mountains of the north turned to Judah and expected the kings of the southern kingdom to protect them as far as possible.

v. 7. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, thus removing all evidences of idolatrous practices as far as his authority extended, he returned to Jerusalem. Note that Josiah did not attempt, to get the people of the northern part of Canaan away from their allegiance to the Assyrian kings, but confined himself strictly to the destruction of idolatry.

v. 8. Now, in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, removed the defilement of idolatry from the Temple, he sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah, the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Joahaz, the recorder, among the highest officials of the realm, to repair the house of the Lord, his God, that is, to order and to supervise the repairs.

v. 9. And when they came to Hilkiah, the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, all the members of the northern kingdom who had remained in the devastated territory and had turned back to the ancient worship of Jehovah, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem, rather, and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem. All these people brought their Temple tax to Jerusalem and the money was taken care of as provided for.

v. 10. And they, the men entrusted with this work, put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, that is, the workmasters or foremen, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord to repair and amend the house, to strengthen it wherever the walls showed signs of weakness or the floors threatened to give way;

v. 11. even to the artificers and builders gave they it to buy hewn stone and timber for couplings, for girders to carry the roof, and to floor the houses, to provide joists for the various buildings of the Temple, which the kings of Judah had destroyed, deliberately letting them go to ruin for want of proper care.

v. 12. And the men did the work faithfully, with conscientious care; and the overseers of them were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward, to direct the execution of the work with which they were charged, and other of the Levites, all that could skill of instruments of music, literally, "all who had skill in instruments of song," it being necessary to connect this phrase with the following verse.

v. 13. Also they were over the bearers of burdens, over the unskilled laborers, and were overseers of all that wrought the work in any manner of service; and of the Levites there were scribes and officers and porters. As in the case of Josiah, God still, from time to time, awakens and strengthens pious men who work for the purification of the Church.