Today’s reading: 2 Kings 23; Hebrews 1-2
Reading 2 Kings 23 this morning, I couldn’t help but be astounded at just how far gone Judah was spiritually, and that evidently without knowing it…
It is easy to forget that they would have had very little access, if any, to the written Scriptures back then. While God had commanded that each king was supposed to write out their own copy of the law to make sure they knew it and could lead the people in righteousness and faithfulness, that evidently was not happening. When they found the copy of the law in the temple in 2 Kings 22, it wasn’t just one of many copies, but was evidently the first time the king or his retinue had seen or read it.
Even without physical copies of the law though, you would think they would still have at least the broad strokes down, right? I mean, these are Yahweh’s people after all. God miraculously brought them out of Egypt and displaced the Canaanites before them. Certainly they would be concerned enough with what He wanted from them to remember the basics, wouldn’t they? As it turns out, evidently not…
The amazing thing to me about this chapter is that it doesn’t seem like anybody had questioned all these things they had done in clear violation of God’s commands for Israel. Not only had they gone after other gods, but they brought the worship of all those other gods into Yahweh’s temple. The list of things Josiah had them remove from the temple is honestly mind boggling. The vessels for worshipping Baal and Asherah, the Asherah itself, the houses of the male cult prostitutes, the places where women wove hangings for Asherah, extra altars, etc. There is a lot more around Judah and Israel that Josiah tears down and destroys, but even just the extra stuff in Yahweh’s temple is baffling.
To me at least, building new temples and or setting up other places of worship makes a lot more sense than filling Yahweh’s temple with all these other gods. I say that because, even if they had lost the instruction not to worship other gods, they didn’t have to desecrate Yahweh’s temple with the worship of those other gods. I think it speaks to just how far gone Judah was spiritually that they weren’t just worshipping other gods, but had filled the temple with their worship.
It was normal for nations to have multiple gods they worshipped, so it doesn’t surprise me that, having lost the law, they would default to the religious practices of the nations around them, but how could they not keep Yahweh supreme? They cared more about Baal and Asherah than they did the God who gave them their nation. And based on Josiah’s reaction to reading the law, I’m pretty they saw nothing at all wrong with any of it.
Reading about how much Josiah had to reform makes is just so crystal clear why God would be so upset with His people. It’s awesome to see Josiah’s humility and repentance as soon as he realized how far they had turned from God, but the fact that it could get that bad in the first place is really telling.
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