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Royalty and Ruin
Three centuries had passed. Josiah the king found himself in
Bethel, where this ancient altar stood. The prophecy spoken so many
years before was now to be literally fulfilled.
“The altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar
and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and
crushed it to powder. ... As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that
were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out
of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according
to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who
proclaimed these words.”
2 Kings 23:15, 16
.
On the southern slopes of Olivet, opposite the beautiful temple
of Jehovah on Mount Moriah, Solomon had placed shrines and
images to please his idol-worshiping wives. See
1 Kings 11:6-8
.
For upwards of three centuries the great, misshapen images had
stood, silent witnesses to the apostasy of Israel’s wisest king. Josiah
destroyed these, too.
The king set about further to establish the faith of Judah by
holding a great Passover in harmony with the instructions in the
book of the law. “Such a Passover surely had never been held since
the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the
kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.”
2 Kings 23:22
. But the zeal
of Josiah could not atone for the sins of past generations, nor could
the piety of the king’s followers bring a change of heart in many who
stubbornly refused to turn from idolatry to worship the true God.
Josiah continued to reign for more than a decade following the
Passover. At thirty-nine he was mortally wounded in battle with
the forces of Egypt. “All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.
Jeremiah also lamented” for him.
2 Chronicles 35:24, 25
.
The time was rapidly approaching when Jerusalem was to be
completely destroyed and the inhabitants of the land carried captive
to Babylon. There they would learn lessons they had refused to learn
under more favorable circumstances.
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