King Josiah, upon finding the lost book of the law, desecrated and destroyed every shrine and high place belonging to a foreign god and began following the law again as it was written. He also got rid of all the priests who had been put in their positions by kings instead of by God and went through a ceremony renewing the covenant with God. This wasn’t enough in itself to turn God’s rage completely away though. Egypt comes in and conquers Judah, subjugating Jerusalem and eventually killing Josiah. God has seen so many times how we can be so devout for a short burst and then so quickly fall back into disobedience.
And, sure enough, Josiah’s son falls right back into the old routine of Manasseh and the kings of the past, worshiping other gods and failing to acknowledge the lord. God allows him to rule for less than a year, and all the while as a vassal of the Pharaoh.
It seems like a really big deal that Josiah found the book of the law. It certainly changed the way he saw God. It’s interesting though that we never heard anything about it having been lost. How long has it been gone for and exactly what have the priests been doing all this time?
Judah was then taken from Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. He completely destroyed the nation. He took everyone with him to Babylon except the poorest people around, who he left to work the land some. There was a little bit of politics among Judahites surrounding who got to be in charge of Judah, but they were ultimately just fighting over Nebucadnezzer’s scraps. After he laid siege to Jerusalem, the king dismantled the entire temple and carted all the valuable metals off back to Babylon. Solomon had built the temple during a pretty lush time and there was gold, silver and more bronze than could be measured.
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