The great work of destruction to which Josiah committed himself in faith must have occupied considerable time. The earnest young king swept through the land from the territory of Simeon in the south to the territory of Naphtali in the north (2 Chron. 34:6), destroying everything that he knew was detestable in the sight of the Holy One of Israel. Nothing but the book of the law influenced his movements.
It may surprise some that Josiah was able to act so freely in northern Palestine, seeing that it had been for about one hundred years a province of the kingdom of Assyria. The explanation is that Assyria was declining; its day was drawing to a close. Israel’s unfaithfulness was now causing God to hand over supreme power to the Gentiles, but it was not to Assyria that He intended to give it. Babylon was the destined head of the great image which set forth symbolically Gentile imperialism as a whole, and in Josiah’s day Assyria’s destruction was near.
In the goodness of God, no external complications arose while Josiah was engaged in his good work. The movements of nations are under divine control. Elihu said truly, “When He giveth quietness, who can make trouble?” and he added that this applies to nations as well as to individual men (Job 34:29). Is it not better to confide in God than to seek safety in treaties and alliances? Useful work, even of a social character, is hindered by the waste and turmoil of war. Even God’s saints find their important service hampered by the world’s strife, although in their case God graciously overrules the circumstances to send the gospel where otherwise it might not have gone. Josiah had thirty-one years of peace in which to serve God in Israel. Alas, it was his own folly which brought the peace to an end!
The Significance of Bethel
Among the many idolatrous centers which were visited by Josiah, Bethel is specially mentioned, and some remarkable incidents are noted. Bethel had an important place in the ways of Jehovah, and it had tender associations for the hearts of the godly in Israel. Nearby was Abraham’s first camping-ground when he entered the land. In that neighborhood he pitched his tent and built his altar (Gen. 12:8). After his mistaken journey into Egypt, Abram returned to the place where he built his altar at the first (Gen. 13:3-4). Communion with God was thus restored. It was at Bethel where Jacob rested for the night on his journey from Beersheba to Haran. The vision of the ladder set up from earth to heaven, with the angels ascending and descending upon it and Jehovah speaking to his poor, wayward servant from the top of it, is familiar to us all. Early in the morning Jacob “took the stone which he had put for his pillows and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of the place Bethel” (Gen. 28:18-19). Bethel means “house of God.” After years of wandering, Jacob returned thither and learned precious lessons concerning the God with whom he had to do (Gen. 35:1-15).
Several centuries later Jehovah referred very touchingly to Jacob’s second visit to Bethel: “There he spake with us, even the Lord God of hosts; Jehovah is his memorial” (Hos. 12:4-5). Notice how God appreciated the fact that “there he [Jacob] spake with us [God in trinity].” But Bethel became one of Jeroboam’s chief seats of idolatry; he did his utmost to prevent the people from speaking with their God. Indeed the proximity of Bethel to Jerusalem seems to indicate that Jeroboam deliberately established Bethel as a religious center in order to obstruct the way of the people to the sanctuary of Jehovah.
The Center of Iniquity
Bethel was a hotbed of iniquity from the time of Jeroboam to the days of Josiah. In Amos 4:4, Jehovah says sarcastically to His wayward people, “Come to Bethel and transgress.” But in the next chapter of the same prophet we hear a pleading voice: “Thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and you shall live: but seek not Bethel. ... Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it; and there be none to quench it in Bethel” (Amos 5:4-5). When Jeroboam was granted dominion over the ten tribes because of the unfaithfulness of Solomon, Jehovah told him that if he would hearken unto His commandments and walk in His ways and do that which is right in His sight, He would be with him and build him “a sure house” (1 Kings 11:38). But as Solomon was unfaithful, so likewise was Jeroboam. When the latter fled into Egypt (a type of the world in its independence of God) to escape the wrath of Solomon, he saw the people there worshipping the god Apis; this probably suggested to him the golden calves that he set up in Bethel and in Dan. From the same source Aaron and the children of Israel got the idea of the golden calf (Ex. 32).
The general condition of the northern districts of Palestine was deplorable when Josiah marched through on his mission of judgment. When the kings of Assyria removed considerable numbers of the ten tribes from the land, they replaced them with colonists from Babylon and other provinces, who brought with them their heathen gods. This sorry admixture is described in 2 Kings 17. From that time there was a strange blend of Israelites and Gentiles, and of paganism and Judaism, in the land which Jehovah loved. What confusion as the result of disobedience to God!
Idolatry Extirpated
Never was idolatry so thoroughly extirpated (completely destroyed) anywhere as by Josiah throughout the land of Israel. He slew all the priests, burnt their bones upon their altars, and then destroyed the altars themselves, reducing them to powder. When looking around the sepulchers in Bethel, one in particular attracted Josiah’s attention. “What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulcher of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things which thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria” (2 Kings 23:17-18). A remarkable story is here recalled. The men of Bethel were speaking of a visit to their city three and a half centuries earlier. The memory of it lingered in the district, and the people recognized the fulfillment of the words of the man of God in the terrible actions of Josiah.
Prophetic Testimony
The modern mind rejects the idea of prophecy, but the Scriptures are full of prophecy. That which has been already fulfilled constitutes a great accumulation of divine testimony. Concerning Christ Himself, events such as His birth (the fact and the place of it), His ministry and miracles, His rejection by Israel, His sufferings at the hands of men and of God, His death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and His present session in manhood at the right hand of God were all put into writing by the Holy Spirit centuries before He came into the world. Concerning Israel and the nations in general, their downfall and sufferings were predicted while they were at the height of their prosperity, and in some instances long before they rose to power at all. If so much has been fulfilled to the letter, faith confidently expects the full accomplishment of all that yet remains.
Man is incapable of forecasting the future, but God, on the contrary, “calleth those things which be not, as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). Men who in their pride reject the prophetic lamp must of necessity grope in darkness, but light from God, which cheers the spirit and guides the steps, is not far away. Never was the word of prophecy more necessary for the people of God than in this twenty-first century of the Christian era, with its manifold complications and perplexities (2 Peter 1:19).
W. W. Fereday (adapted)