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A pen drawing of a crowned king tearing his robe on a temple step while a seated scribe reads from a large open book to a crowd.

about 641 to 609 BC · Church history · Featured Study

Josiah's Revival

The last reforming king of Judah purged the land from Jerusalem to Bethel and died at Megiddo.

In Josiah's eighteenth year, as the money for the temple repairs was brought out, the high priest came on a book of the law.

Span
about 641 to 609 BC
Boundary
Edwin Thiele draws the span, from Amon's death to Megiddo.

Study for King Josiah Rending his Garments, James Thornhill, 1725. CC0.

2 Kings 22:11 BSB
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes

Summary

Josiah became king of Judah at eight years old, after his father Amon was killed. Chronicles says he began to seek God in the eighth year of his reign and to purge the land in the twelfth. In the eighteenth year a book of the law was read to him, and he led the people into a covenant and kept the Passover.

  • Kings and Chronicles tell the reform in two different orders.
  • Jeremiah prophesied in his reign and said Judah's turning was not whole.
  • Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo, and his sons did evil.

The Revival's Own Voice: The Book in the Temple

The writer of Kings tells how the book was found and brought to the king.

The account opens with the king's errand about the money for the repairs.

Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD!” And he gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

The high priest's words to the scribe open the reform.

2 Kings 22:8BSB

Kings names its own source as the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, and Chronicles names the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

The Five Turning Points

The turning points run from a young king's seeking to the plain of Megiddo.

The reform turns on these five moments.

  1. The eighth yearJosiah begins to seek GodChronicles starts the reform with the king himself.2 Chronicles 34:3
  2. The twelfth yearThe first purge of Judah and the northChronicles puts the breaking of the altars before the book.2 Chronicles 34:3 to 7
  3. The eighteenth yearThe Book of the Law foundBoth accounts turn on the book read to the king.2 Kings 22:8 to 20
  4. The eighteenth yearThe covenant and the PassoverThe whole people entered the covenant and kept the feast.2 Kings 23:1 to 3 and 21 to 23
  5. The thirty-first yearJosiah killed at MegiddoThe reform's king died, and his sons did evil.2 Kings 23:29 to 32

Each moment with the text that tells it.

The Story From the Boy King to Megiddo

The two accounts, from Amon's death to the lament for Josiah.

Manasseh reigned fifty-five years and rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had torn down. His son Amon reigned two years and was killed by his own servants in his palace.

The people of the land killed the conspirators and made the eight-year-old Josiah king.

And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

The writer of Kings judges the boy king at the start of his reign.

2 Kings 22:2BSB

By Chronicles' reckoning the king turned to the God of David as a youth, eight years into the reign.

In the twelfth year he began to break down the altars of the Baals and the Asherah poles in Judah, and carried the work into Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and as far as Naphtali.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images.

Chronicles gives the two years before the book was found.

2 Chronicles 34:3BSB

In the eighteenth year the king sent Shaphan to have the money in the temple counted and paid to the workmen.

The carpenters, builders and masons bought timber and dressed stone, and the king asked no account of them.

But they need not account for the money put into their hands, since they work with integrity.”

The repairs were trusted to men who worked honestly.

2 Kings 22:7BSB

Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan the scribe, who read it to the king.

While they were bringing out the money that had been taken into the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the LORD written by Moses.

Chronicles alone names the book's writer.

2 Chronicles 34:14BSB

The king sent the high priest and four of his officials to ask the LORD about the book.

So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went and spoke to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, the keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.

The king's men took the book to a prophetess for the word of the LORD.

2 Kings 22:14BSB

The king gathered the elders and all the people, small and great, and read the whole book to them in the temple.

So the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to follow the LORD and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

The reading ended in a covenant the whole people took.

2 Kings 23:3BSB

Then the purge ran through the temple and out to the land. The articles made for Baal were burned in the Kidron fields, the idolatrous priests were removed, and the high places were desecrated from Geba to Beersheba.

He burned the chariots of the sun and pulled down the altars on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz.

He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.

The reform ended the burning of children in the Valley of Ben-hinnom.

2 Kings 23:10BSB

Chronicles tells of the lambs given by the king and his officials, and of the Levites who served by their divisions.

No such Passover had been observed in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel ever observed a Passover like the one that Josiah observed with the priests, the Levites, all Judah, the Israelites who were present, and the people of Jerusalem.

Chronicles says no king of Israel had kept a Passover like it.

2 Chronicles 35:18BSB

Thirteen years after the Passover, Josiah went out to meet the army of Egypt.

Chronicles says the archers struck him and that he died after his servants brought him to Jerusalem.

At the end of Josiah’s reign, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched up to help the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went out to confront him, but Neco faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

Kings gives Josiah's death in one verse.

2 Kings 23:29BSB

All Judah and Jerusalem mourned him, and Jeremiah lamented over him. His son Jehoahaz reigned three months and did evil, and Neco took him to Egypt.

Then Jeremiah lamented over Josiah, and to this day all the choirs of men and women sing laments over Josiah. They established them as a statute for Israel, and indeed they are written in the Book of Laments.

The laments for Josiah were still sung when Chronicles was written.

2 Chronicles 35:25BSB

2 Kings 22:7, 2 Chronicles 34:14, 2 Kings 22:14, 2 Kings 23:3, 2 Kings 23:10, 2 Chronicles 35:18, 2 Kings 23:29, 2 Chronicles 35:25

The Text and the Ground

Five finds and records set beside the verses they touch.

A chronicle, two seals, a shrine and Josephus stand beside the account.

Find or recordWhere it came fromWhat it showsThe verse beside it
The Babylonian chronicleIt is a tablet of the British Museum, number 21901.In Nabopolassar's seventeenth year an army of Egypt crossed the Euphrates with the last king of Assyria against Harran.2 Kings 23:29, Neco's march to aid Assyria
Gemaryahu's sealOne of 51 clay seal impressions found by Yigal Shiloh in the City of David in 1982A clay impression bears the name Gemaryahu son of Shaphan, the name Jeremiah gives a son of Shaphan the scribe.Jeremiah 36:10, beside 2 Kings 22:3
The seal of Nathan-melechThe Givati Parking Lot excavation of Yuval Gadot and Yiftah Shalev, announced in 2019It names a servant of the king called Nathan-melech, and its tie to the man of the verse is unproved.2 Kings 23:11
The altars of the Arad shrineYohanan Aharoni's excavations of 1962 to 1965 and 1967Aharoni read the end of its altar and incense altars as two steps of reform under Hezekiah and Josiah, and Herzog dated its covering to Hezekiah's reign.2 Kings 23:8, the high places from Geba to Beersheba
Josephus on Josiah's deathAntiquities 10.74 to 77, written in the first century ADAn Egyptian arrow wounded Josiah, and he died at Jerusalem.2 Chronicles 35:23 to 24
Each find with where it came from and what it shows.

The People of the Story

Fourteen people have a role in the account.

Kings, priests, scribes and prophets stand in the account.

PersonWho he or she wasWhere they enter
AmonHe was Josiah's father, king of Judah for two years.Before the reign
JosiahHe was king of Judah for thirty-one years.Throughout
JeremiahHe was a priest's son of Anathoth, called as a prophet in Josiah's thirteenth year.From the thirteenth year
ZephaniahHe was a prophet in Josiah's days, of the line of a man named Hezekiah.In Josiah's days
Shaphan son of AzaliahHe was the scribe who read the book to the king.The book found
HilkiahHe held the chief office among Judah's priests.The book found
Ahikam son of ShaphanHe went with Hilkiah to inquire of the LORD.The inquiry
Achbor son of MicaiahHe was one of the five sent to the prophetess.The inquiry
AsaiahHe was the king's servant sent with them.The inquiry
HuldahShe was a prophetess, the wife of Shallum the keeper of the wardrobe.The inquiry
Nathan-melechHe was an official with a chamber in the temple court.The purge
Pharaoh NecoHe was the king of Egypt who killed Josiah.Megiddo
JehoahazHe was Josiah's son, king for three months.After Megiddo
Eliakim, renamed JehoiakimHe was Josiah's son, made king by Neco.After Megiddo
Listed in the order they enter the account.

Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Asaiah, Huldah, Nathan-melech, Pharaoh Neco, Jehoahaz, Eliakim, renamed Jehoiakim

Why These Years

The span is the king's reign as Thiele dates it.

Gershon Galil's chronology begins the reign a year after Thiele's, in 640, and the end is fixed by the year Egypt marched to Harran.

The Word Spoken at Bethel

A prophecy spoken at Jeroboam's altar stood until Josiah came.

Kings tells the word's fulfilment at the same altar of Bethel, in Josiah's reign.

  1. And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, “O altar, O altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”

    The man of God named Josiah at the altar Jeroboam set up at Bethel.

    1 Kings 13:2BSB

The Hard Part: The Altars of Samaria and the Wrath Not Turned

The text records what the reform cost and what it did not change.

In the cities of Samaria Josiah killed the priests of the high places on their altars and burned human bones there. The priests of Judah's high places were brought to Jerusalem and kept from the altar.

Kings closes the reform by saying that the LORD's anger over Manasseh was not turned away. After Megiddo, Neco laid a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold on Judah.

What Is Taught Elsewhere

Three parts of the story are taught on their own pages.

Huldah has her own study, the authorship of the Pentateuch its own debate, and Hezekiah's reform a century before its own revival page.

Huldah

Who Wrote the Pentateuch

Hezekiah's Revival

What the Text Leaves Unsaid

Three questions the two accounts do not answer.

Neither account says how long the book had been lost. Neither says why the king's men went to Huldah, though Jeremiah had been prophesying for five years. Kings gives no reason why Josiah went out against Neco.

What Marked It and What It Left

The ledger of the reform, with the counts and their kind.

A book read aloud marked the reform, and the Passover was its feast.

The ledgerWhat the record holds
What marked itThe book read to the whole people, the covenant at the pillar, and the purge from the temple to Bethel and Samaria marked it.
What was left standingThe Passover was kept, and the laments for Josiah were sung in Judah after his death.
What the text countsChronicles counts the animals given for the Passover, never the people who kept it.
The reform's ledger, from Kings and Chronicles.

The king gave 30,000 lambs and goats and 3,000 bulls. The temple's administrators gave the priests 2,600 Passover offerings and 300 bulls, and the Levites' officers gave 5,000 and 500.

How the Book Found Was Taught

Two writers of two centuries on 2 Kings 22.

Jerome (died 420)
Against Jovinianus 1.25

How this text has been taught

“We need not wonder that Huldah, the prophet and wife of Shallum, was consulted by Josiah, king of Judah, when the captivity was approaching and the wrath of the Lord was falling on Jerusalem: since it is the rule of Scripture, when holy men fail, to praise women to the reproach of men.”

on 2 Kings 22:14The Fathers & the Creeds

About this saying1 paragraph

Jerome, writing against Jovinianus, gave a reason why the king's men went to Huldah.

John Wesley (1703 to 1791)
Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament

How this text has been taught

“If Josiah had seen and read it before, which seems more probable, yet the great reverence which he justly bare to the original book, and the strange, and remarkable, and seasonable finding of it, had awakened and quickened him to a more serious and diligent consideration of all the passages contained in it. And what a providence was this, that it was still preserved!”

on 2 Kings 22:11The Great Awakenings

About this saying1 paragraph

John Wesley in 1765 read the king's grief as a fresh hearing of a book he may have known.

In Their Own Words

The king and the prophetess in the words the text gives them.

Go and inquire of the LORD1 verse, 1 paragraph

After he heard the book read, the king spoke these words to five of his men.

“Go and inquire of the LORD for me, for the people, and for all Judah concerning the words in this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book by doing all that is written about us.”

He took the guilt of the past generations as his own people's.

2 Kings 22:13BSB

Because your heart was tender1 verse, 1 paragraph

Huldah gave this answer after she heard the delegation.

But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, tell him that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘As for the words that you heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its people, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you,’ declares the LORD. ‘Therefore I will indeed gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the calamity that I will bring on this place.’” So they brought her answer back to the king.

The promise spared him the sight of the coming ruin.

2 Kings 22:18 to 20BSB

What is this monument I see?1 verse, 1 paragraph

Josiah spoke these words while he was defiling the high place.

Then the king asked, “What is this monument I see?” And the men of the city replied, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced these things that you have done to the altar of Bethel.” “Let him rest,” said Josiah. “Do not let anyone disturb his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

He left in peace the grave of the prophet whose word he was keeping.

2 Kings 23:17 to 18BSB

Keep the Passover1 verse, 1 paragraph

The king gave this order after he had made the covenant.

The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover of the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

The feast was set by the written law.

2 Kings 23:21BSB

Put the holy ark in the temple1 verse, 1 paragraph

The king gave this charge to the Levites before he kept the feast.

To the Levites who taught all Israel and were holy to the LORD, Josiah said: “Put the holy ark in the temple built by Solomon son of David king of Israel. It is not to be carried around on your shoulders. Now serve the LORD your God and His people Israel. Prepare yourselves by families in your divisions, according to the instructions written by David king of Israel and Solomon his son. Moreover, stand in the Holy Place by the divisions of the families of your kinsmen the lay people, and by the divisions of the families of the Levites. Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves, and make preparations for your fellow countrymen to carry out the word of the LORD given by Moses.”

The king set each priestly house to its work for the feast.

2 Chronicles 35:3 to 6BSB

I am badly wounded1 verse, 1 paragraph

Josiah said this in 609 BC, after the archers hit him.

There the archers shot King Josiah, who said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded!”

These are the king's last recorded words.

2 Chronicles 35:23BSB

Where Readers Disagree

Four questions of the reform, with the writers who answer them.

What was the book found in the temple?3 paragraphs

The traditional reading takes the book as the law of Moses, lost and found again, as Chronicles names it. C. F. Keil wrote in 1872 that it was "simply the temple copy", laid beside the ark as Deuteronomy commands and lost under Manasseh and Amon.

W. M. L. de Wette's thesis on Deuteronomy (Jena, 1805), as Wellhausen reports it, argued that the books before it know nothing of one place of worship. Julius Wellhausen held that it "was composed in the same age as that in which it was discovered", and S. R. Driver placed it under Manasseh or early in Josiah's reign.

W. H. Green answered in 1895 that the book was declared to be the law of Moses and no recent work, and James Orr wrote in 1906 that everyone concerned took it as "an old lost book".

Did the purge come before the book or after it?1 quotation, 1 paragraph

Kings tells the whole purge after the book was read in the eighteenth year. Chronicles begins it in the twelfth year and tells the book after. Matthew Henry read the two together.

“This destruction of idolatry is here said to be in his twelfth year, but it was said ( 2 Kings xxiii. 23 ) to be in his eighteenth year. Something was probably done towards it in his twelfth year; then he began to purge out idolatry, but that good work met with opposition, so that it was not thoroughly done till they had found the book of the law six years afterwards.”

Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on 2 Chronicles 34:3 to 4The Puritans & Pietists

Did Huldah's word fail when Josiah was killed?1 quotation, 1 verse, 2 paragraphs

Huldah promised that the king would be gathered to his grave in peace, and he was killed in battle. Henry read the peace as the time of his death, before the captivity in Babylon.

“This is promised to Josiah here: Thou shalt go to thy grave in peace, which refers not to the manner of his death (for he was killed in a battle), but to the time of it; it was a little before the captivity in Babylon, that great trouble, in comparison with which the rest were as nothing, so that he might be truly said to die in peace that did not live to share in that.”

Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on 2 Kings 22:20The Puritans & Pietists

Chronicles gives its own reason for the death: Josiah did not listen to the words God spoke through Neco.

But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, O king of Judah? I have not come against you today, but I am fighting another dynasty. God told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or He will destroy you!” Josiah, however, did not turn away from him; instead, in order to engage him in battle, he disguised himself. He did not listen to Neco’s words from the mouth of God, but went to fight him on the Plain of Megiddo.

The Chronicler sets Neco's message beside the king's choice.

2 Chronicles 35:21 to 22BSB

How deep did the turning go?2 paragraphs

Chronicles says the people did not turn aside from the LORD in all Josiah's days. Jeremiah heard the LORD say in Josiah's days that Judah returned only in pretense.

Richard Sibbes, preaching on Josiah's tender heart, said the king "had not their hearts at command". Zephaniah, prophesying in the same reign, named those who swore by the LORD and by Milcom.

Books to Read Next

Three free books on the reform and the book found.

The Books of the Kings
C. F. Keil · 1872

Keil reads 2 Kings 22 to 23 verse by verse and answers the case for a forged book.

Read it free online

The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, volume 6
Richard Sibbes · 1863

Two sermons on 2 Chronicles 34:27 apply the king's grief to the hearer.

Read it free online

The Problem of the Old Testament
James Orr · 1906

Orr weighs the critical dating of Deuteronomy against the account of the find.

Read it free online

What Josiah's Reform Left

Jonathan Edwards, preaching on the work of redemption in 1739, wrote that God granted "blessed revivals by remarkable outpourings of his Spirit, particularly in Hezekiah's and Josiah's time."

The line through this page

The verse first, then this page.

  1. 2 Kings 22:11

    This is the key verse of the page.

  2. This page

    Josiah's Revival

Sources

Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.

  1. The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible (read 2026)
  2. C. F. Keil, The Books of the Kings, translated by James Martin (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1872), pp. 477 to 478.
  3. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (English translation, 1885), the introduction and chapter 1.
  4. S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (International Critical Commentary, third edition, 1902), pp. xlv to xlvi.
  5. W. H. Green, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (New York: Scribner, 1895), p. 155.
  6. James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament (New York: Scribner, 1906), p. 257.
  7. Jerome, Against Jovinianus, book 1, sections 5 and 25, in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers translation.
  8. Ishodad of Merv, Books of Sessions, on 2 Kings 22:8 (ninth century), in an English translation.
  9. John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on 2 Kings 22:11.
  10. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708 to 1710), on 2 Kings 22:20 and 2 Chronicles 34:3 to 4.
  11. Richard Sibbes, Josiah's Reformation, sermon 2, The Art of Self-Humbling (printed 1629), in A. B. Grosart, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 53.
  12. Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption (preached 1739), Period I, Part V, section 16.
  13. The Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (ABC 3, British Museum 21901), year 17 of Nabopolassar, after A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975)
  14. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 10.74 to 77, translated by William Whiston.
  15. Yigal Shiloh, "A Group of Hebrew Bullae from the City of David", Israel Exploration Journal 36 (1986), p. 33.
  16. Yuval Gadot and Yiftah Shalev, the Givati Parking Lot excavation, the bulla of Nathan-melech (announced 2019)
  17. D. R. Moulis, "Hezekiah's Cultic Reforms according to the Archaeological Evidence" (2019), pp. 168 to 170, citing Aharoni (1968, 1974) and Herzog (2002)
  18. Creighton University, Arad virtual tour, introduction.
  19. Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (third edition, 1983), with Gershon Galil, The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (Brill, 1996), as their tables are reproduced.

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