Josiah and the fall of kingdom Judah

We don’t know much about the internal politics of the kingdom of Judah.
But when we read between the lines, in the history of the later kingdom, we can see some of the effects of religious tensions upon political life.
After the downfall of Athaliah, the kings had to decide what to do about the power of the Temple priesthood.
Hezekiah chose to take their side, wholeheartedly.
Kings like Uzziah and Ahaz looked to assert their own authority in public worship.
When this was not permitted, kings like Manasseh and Amon might join with the idolaters and treat the priesthood as a rival power.

The servants of Amon made a conspiracy against him and killed him. They were slain in turn by the people of the land.
Nevertheless, the reign of Josiah saw another swing of the pendulum, back to working in close partnership with the Temple.
The decisive moment came in the eighteenth year of his reign, when the king sent Shaphan the secretary to help count the money for the Temple repairs.
The high priest Hilkiah showed him “the book of the law”, which had just been found in the Temple. Modern scholars would identify this with Deuteronomy, or at least the first draft of Deuteronomy.
The effect of this book was to condemn the widespread idolatry which Manasseh and Amon had been permitting.
It was already too late (said the prophetess Huldah) to change the Lord’s mind about the fate of the kingdom, but the repentant king himself would be “gathered to his fathers and go to his grave in peace” with his God.

There was another great cleansing of the Temple and the land from the altars of other gods. The altars of the Sidonian, Moabite, and Ammonite gods established by Solomon. The personal altars of Ahaz and Manasseh. The horse and chariot images dedicated to the sun. The “high places” where priests had been burning incense to Baal, and the sun and the moon and “all the host of heaven”. The location Topheth was defiled, in order to stop the sacrifice of children to Molech. Josiah was even in a position to defile the schismatic altar of Bethel.

But he went further. In the interests of the Temple, rather than the campaign against idolatry, he also shut down all the other “high places” where priests had been legitimately offering incense to the Lord. Once the priesthood and the worship had been centralised in this way, it was possible to celebrate the first of a new, more national, kind of Passover, “no such Passover since the time of the judges” (2 Kings chs21-23).

But the kingdom was not united in renouncing other gods.
Zephaniah prophesied at the time “I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire” (Zephaniah ch1 v8). “Foreign attire” implies being receptive to foreign gods, and the inclusion of the royal family is ominous for the future.

We are not told that Josiah’s radical attack on all these vested interests provoked an undercurrent of resentment and hostility, but this must have been the case.
That would help to explain something which has puzzled me for some time.
What exactly possessed Josiah to take his army to intercept the Egyptians and fight against hopeless odds at Megiddo?
It occurs to me now that he would have been under considerable pressure from the “religious opposition” among his princes to prove the value of the God whose cause he had undertaken.
It would have been a challenge to test God, akin to “throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple”, and he fell for it.

After the king’s death at Megiddo, everything went downhill.
He left three sons that we know about; Eliakim, Shallum, and Mattaniah.
In the emergency, Shallum was made king by the people in Jerusalem and took the throne-name Jehoahaz.

I have a theory about Eliakim. I think he was taken captive at Megiddo and then swore allegiance to Pharaoh.
If he was in captivity, that would explain why his younger brother was chosen as the new king.
If he was now an Egyptian client, that would explain why Pharaoh decided to come up to Jerusalem and enthrone him in his brother’s place.
Pharaoh gave him the new name Jehoiakim (just to show that he could). He also imposed a large tribute, which Jehoiakim recovered later by taxing the people.

Shallum was taken into exile in Egypt.
At least one party in the state must have been hoping that another revolution would bring him back, for Jeremiah told them to forget it;
“For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father and went away from this place; He shall return here no more, but in the place where they have carried him captive there shall he die” (Jeremiah ch22 vv11-12).

The party loyal to the Lord must have been crushed and demoralised. People would have begun making the kind of complaint which was later heard after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians; “Everything went well as long as we served the queen of heaven”.
While the followers of other gods were getting bolder again.
Ezekiel’s vision (ch8) reports continued idolatry close to the Temple, including worship of Tammuz, of the sun, and of “the image of jealousy”.
The leadership of the Temple were no longer pursuing the “Deuteronomic “ reforms which they had set in motion, leaving Jeremiah to pick up the ball.
They also supported the anti-Babylonian policy of the royal house. I’m not sure why. Their independence would not have been any greater under Egyptian suzerainty.

Jehoiakim was a reluctant tributary of Babylon from the eighth year of his reign, and then decided to rebel. Big mistake. By the time the king of Babylon got to the scene, Jehoiakim was already dead, probably the best move he ever made in his life.
He was succeeded by his eighteen-year old son Jehoiachin, also known as Coniah.
Coniah paid the price for his father’s policy.
Jeremiah predicted that he would not last very long.
“As I live, says the Lord, though Coniah were the signet ring on my right hand, yet would I tear you off… I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country… like a despised, broken pot, a vessel no-one cares for” (Jeremiah ch22 vv24-28).
Nebuchadnezzar took half the city into exile, including the new king, and installed the king’s uncle Mattaniah in his place. He changed Mattaniah’s name to Zedekiah (just to show that he could).

Zedekiah was not a confident king. He was only three years older than his nephew.
And it is easy to guess at his political difficulties.
A substantial party among his princes would regard his exiled nephew as the real king.
He would also be under pressure to resume his predecessors’ defiance of Babylon. So he had the choice between being deposed and killed by the Babylonians, if he renounced obedience to Nebuchadnezzar, or being deposed and killed by his own people if he did not.
His case was that of the hapless, though fictional, politician Jim Hacker; “I am their leader, and I must follow them”.
He could not stop the rebellion, though he could send to ask Jeremiah if they had done the right thing.
Nor did he feel able to protect Jeremiah from the vengeance of his enemies.
He resembled another “last king” –the last Byzantine, Constantine XI Palaeologus- in that neither of them had the full support of the city they were supposed to be defending.

Finally Nebuchadnezzar came back and wound up the affairs of the bankrupt kingdom.
This was the effect of detaching the governance of Judah from their relationship with their God.

2 Chronicles muddles up the story of the first Babylonian exile, partly through an understandable confusion between Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin (Coniah). So in that version, Nebuchadnezzar arrives twice, taking away Jehoiakim the first time, then coming back a little later and taking away the son.
The age of Coniah is given as eight instead of eighteen, while Mattaniah is identified as Coniah’s brother instead of his uncle. But if those two kings had both been sons of Jehoiakim, how plausible is it that the eight year old boy would have been chosen before the “elder brother” of twenty-one? This anomaly seem to confirm that the account found in Chronicles is the one that is erroneous.

I had been wondering when your next thread would post.

Keeping you in prayer.

a reply to: ChesterJohn
Thank you. At the moment, I've got the Friday night habit.

a reply to: DISRAELI

yeah, but there is more than Friday night study going into this study of yours.

Josiah was a scumbag.

So controlling and fanatically patriarchal he banished Asherah worship from the Temple and removed the Brazen Serpent.

Denying the Israelites the right to worship the Goddess consort of Yahweh and the right to honor the Mosaic Brazen Serpent because he was a ****.

Of course if you hate women and are a contol freak about God then you probably admire what he did.

Blessed be Asherah, the Goddess consort of God, and blessed be the Brazen Serpent.

Accursed be Josiah for banishing the rightful Goddess, the Shekinah of today's Kabbalah has been restored to Her former glory.

Asherah is Wisdom (Chockma) and Binah (Understanding).

Josiah deserves no respect.

a reply to: DISRAELI


I noticed you mentioned in a negative light the worship of Tammuz.

Did you know that Tammuz is the source of the tradition of Christmas, the original ressurected God?

Nimrod dies and is ressurected as Tammuz, this is the original Christmas and also the source of the death and resurrection myth of Jesus.

It's been par for the course for people to borrow old religious traditions and make them their own, Israel did it with Babylon, Persia and Greece (to a lesser extent).

From a historical perspective it's more than obvious that Christ is but a reboot of Tammuz in Christian tradition.

However as a man he was a good man, and I admire him.

But there is no doubt that the myth of virgin birth and death and resurrection comes from Semiramis/Isis and Tammuz/Horus, more so with the Babylonian version Tammuz.

The OT women "wept for Tammuz" and the NT women ''wept for Jesus."

Also, Christ is a sun god in Christianity, disguised as the Son of God it is plain to see from all the imagery and the assigned date of birth that Christ is a Pagan sun god disguised as the Jewish Messiah.

I don't mean to be a downer, but these are facts that can only be disbelieved but not made untrue.

Another interesting but little known fact is that Molech is the same as Melech, meaning King in Hebrew which didn't have vowels.

So if you think about infant sacrifice to Molech one must be reminded of Abraham and Isaac, who in our Bibles is saved at the last minute.

Afterwards Abraham goes to war with Nimrod/Amraphel and others and upon his return he is greeted by Melchizedek or MLCH-ZDK. They partake of ''bread and wine" and the Righteous Molech blesses Abraham who tithes the High Priest of El Elyon.

Could it be that Melchizedek is so mysterious because of the truth about him, that he was actually Molech and thought to be righteous? Israelites have a sordid history of infant sacrifice even proscribing the ''legal" way to sacrifice a child to Molech in the Talmud.

Clearly the worship of Molech is alive and well today (Bohemian Grove) and likely the practice of child sacrifice too (see: Jon benet Ramsey).

I have to wonder if Abraham truly let Isaac go free in the autograph of Genesis, and if the mysterious Melchizedek was actually Molech, called righteous and King of Peace because he grants peace upon the sacrifice of a child, as did Molech.

Food for thought is all. Bread and wine...or flesh and blood called bread and wine.

Body of Christ anyone?

a reply to: DISRAELI

Hey buddy, I didn't mean to kill your thread I was just telling the people what I know and think.

I take it since you didn't bother to respond to my question you are upset or offended in some way, not my intention at all.

I was just sharing what I thought people may find interesting and wondering if you even knew that Nimrod and Tammuz were the first to be honored with the traditions we use still today at Christmas.

The Christ as a masked Babylonian sun god comment is mere fact, it can only be denied in the absence of historical knowledge and knowledge of paganism.

The true Messianic Judaism in the first century did not worship Jesus or believe most of what our Roman Bibles spout as truth.

Look into it, you will find that Paul was not an Apostle or liked by them and created his own ''gospel" as he himself says he received it from ''no man."

Jesus warned the disciples not to believe anyone claiming secret Revelations in Matthew 24.

I wonder why people choose to ignore this warning and believe Paul who clearly started a pagan from of the Apostolic Church to appease pagan Rome.

I guess though you don't find my comments worth responding to, probably because you are aware of this and like Paul regardless of him being an obvious liar and false prophet, which is fine.

But you are the OP and your thread is not getting a lot of hits, so I have to say that you should not make threads if you aren't going to respond to questions that put your religion under the microscope and see its flaws.

I didn't say anything rude or trollish and was only trying to help the thread gain some interest, lets be honest you haven't gotten many hits because ita boring topic.

I thought maybe I could help. No problem though, I don't really need you to respond. Just find it a touch rude that you didn't.

originally posted by: Malocchio
I take it since you didn't bother to respond to my question you are upset or offended in some way, not my intention at all.

Buen dia, Tommy.
You have posted to some of my previous threads under some of your previous identities (including a few which haven't been banned yet), and I told you on those occasions why I would not waste my time by engaging in discussion with you.

Just find it a touch rude that you didn't.

Glad to hear it.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I have no clue who Tommy is, and to claim that I am he is nothing short of a lie, plain and simple.

You turn a meaningful contribution and potentially conversation into a personal beef with this Tommy.

I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish but you are being foolish.

All I did was make your thread more interesting.

Why so mad Pete?

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: Malocchio
I take it since you didn't bother to respond to my question you are upset or offended in some way, not my intention at all.

Buen dia, Tommy.
You have posted to some of my previous threads under some of your previous identities (including a few which haven't been banned yet), and I told you on those occasions why I would not waste my time by engaging in discussion with you.

Just find it a touch rude that you didn't.

Glad to hear it.

So... anyone who doesn't see things your way is "Tommy" and not worth having a discussion with.

That's some serious b.s.

I have to say besides dishonest it's also paranoia to assume that everyone who posts in one of your threads anything that doesn't jive with your philosophy is the same person.

I have to laugh at that and say it's a poor way to represent yourself if you desire any type of respect.

To stay on topic I will also add that the traditions of Christmas are spoken of in Jeremiah, negatively, and Christians don't realize it generally speaking.

Celebrating Christmas is pagan, as is Easter (Ishtar) and both are celebrated in idolatrous fashion by Christians having nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with the sun.

You sir, are just making up things because you have no way of denying that I know what I am talking about.

And that is just sad. I actually prefer that you don't respond because I can't stand people lying about me, you should feel foolish.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Still on page one?

You should find a more interesting topic that will generate a discussion because besides a few short comments I'm the only one who has been contributing to your thread anything of substance.

I thought it might help. That you decided to confuse me with your imaginary arch nemesis was silly, I was only trying to help.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The high priest Hilkiah showed him “the book of the law”, which had just been found in the Temple.

Thank you DISRAELI for that great work. Your teaching is always the best.

Question - What is your understanding of this book of the law which was discovered in about 476 BCE by this reign of this child king? Was this the same book that was placed in the ark of Moses? My understanding is that it was Torah. ???

a reply to: Seede
If it was the book placed in the ark, they would have known that it was there, so it isn't easy to imagine what would have caused them to re-discover it. Hilkiah just says "I have found it in the house of the Lord".
I am very attracted to the more modern idea that this was specifically the book Deuteronomy (which is Greek for "second law"). That is why in modern histories of ancient Israel the reforms made in Josiah's time are usually called the "Deuteronomic" reforms, in the belief that they were inspired by this book.
For example, Jeremiah quotes the Deuteronomy divorce law (a divorced woman who has married another man can't return to her first husband). He also complains that they have ignored the law about releasing slaves, which can be found in Deuteronomy.

a reply to: Seede

According to 1 Kings 8:9

There was nothing in the Ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed there at Horeb,...

Stone tablets could only contain a limited amount of information, possibly the Ten Commandments and maybe the Law of Moses but two tablets of stone, that was the contents.

So it wasn't books or the Torah because it would not fit on two pages or four, stone pages.

a reply to: Seede

Also it has been acknowledged for a very long time even by the Catholic Church that the old tradition of Moses authoring the Torah is ''untenable."

Modern scholarship is for the most part saying since at least the 60's that the Torah has several authors/sources called E (Elohist) J/Y (Yahwist) P (Priestly) and D (Deuteronomist) whose traditions combined make up the Torah.

So that and it's late authorship, after Babylon during the Persian period, make it impossible for Moses to have placed the unwritten Torah inside of the Arc of the Covenant, which only contained two stone tablets.

I can't understand why you thought it was a mystery, the contents of the Arc, but I figured I would help show you what the Bible states of their contents so you needn't wonder.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Another way if looking at it, the Deuteronomists were attempting a religious reform that was against the prevailing "orthodoxy" of the day which included Asherah as the consort of El and the priest king as their son.

They were trying to create a new religion, one their fathers didn't know.

The ark of the covenant with their cherubim throne. The bronze serpent. The Oak of Mamre. Reading the stars. Jacobs pillar of stone. David setting the ark in shilo and going in front of it. The ephod of gideon.

All of these are quite pagan and quite well ok with the God of the patriarchs. But all these things are outlawed by the deuteronimic law.

a reply to: zardust
Alternatively, the more idolatrous elements in the cult were not original features, but had been picked up from the indigenous cults of the land after the Israelites entered into it. In some cases, like the serpent and the stone of Jacob, this process included getting them incorporated into the traditional story.
Jeremiah thinks this applies even to animal sacrifice; he says God did not demand these things at Sinai, and I'm inclined to believe him.
In that case, the Deuteronomic reformers were following the policy of all true reformers; they were attempting to restore the Sinai cult to its original state by removing intrusive elements.

A good parallel would be the way the early church took local deities and converted them into patron saints, and the Protestant reformers insisted on removing them as an intrusive element in New Testament religion.

a reply to: zardust

The reform of Josiah is when the Serpent and Asherah were banished from the Temple and that is a long time after the events in Deuteronomy.

If Deuteronomy forbids it, it must have been written after that period, until the interaction with the Persians the Hebrews were polytheistic even in Israel.

All the Monotheism was a departure from what the Hebrews were used to and the old gods and goddesses, the Goddess Asherah from Canaanite mythology and wife of El/God were turned into demons and a more intricate angelology was developed in the Persian fashion.

I think Deuteronomy was written during Ezras time and probably most of the Torah itself.