Chapter 34
This starts off about like 2Ki 22 did. Will only mention "new information" from these chapters.
Josiah's "cleansing" the land of idols extended far into Israel also. It was not just confined to Judah. Josiah turned to God in the eighth year of his reign, so when he was 16, and he began purging the land in the 12th year, when he was 20.
2024 - Was Josiah after Assyria took the northern kingdom? I think t was. This would explain why Josiah was able to go all the way to the land of Naphtali and not get cross-ways with a King in Israel. Thee simply wasn't one there, and when Josiah went to clean up, he cleaned it all up. There is corroboration of this in vs. 33 where Josiah removed all the idols from ALL the sons of Israel. That would include the north.
2024 - Note at the end of vs 7, it says THEN he returned to Israel. Josiah when out personally to oversee the deconstruction of all these idols and images and altars. He did it to make sure it was done. Only after it was completed did he go home.
vs 6-13 describe in more detail the repairs that were being made. That they were quite extensive tells us that the previous Kings of Judah had let the Temple fall into a terrible, neglected state. During these repairs, they find this book of the law as it was given to Moses. Could it be that at that time, there was one and only one extant copy of the Pentateuch? That preservation of this one copy through all the neglect and idolatry gave the only detailed description of God's commands to Israel in Sinai?
2021 - 25 Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched. [2Ch 34:25 ESV]. I think this may mean that this particular Jerusalem will never be restored. The Temple of Ezekiel will be built in another place, just as Ezekiel says, and the Dome of the Rock will not matter because the Temple is not to be built there anyway. God repents of putting his name on Jerusalem, he levels it twice, first with Babylon and then with Rome, and it has not to this day been wholly possessed by Israel again. It is not the place.
2022 - Here is an interesting thought. Josiah hears the words of the book, and repents. He asks God what is going to happen, and God tells him outright that this place is going to be leveled. It is all over for Jerusalem and Israel. But God says it won't be in Josiah's time. So nothing Josiah or the people then in Jerusalem could do was going to avert forever this disaster that God had decreed for them, because of the accumulated violations of His Law. They were beyond the line. Judgment was mandated. No going back. Even in this, Josiah calls all Israel together, reads the book to them, makes a public commitment to follow the words of this book and to keep its Laws, and demands that all his subjects do likewise, EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS it will not avert what is coming.
It is the same for us. I hear so many saying that if God does not bring down the US he will owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah. I hear this one a lot. And you know what? It might very well be true that the end of our country is just around the corner. But that does not excuse us, those of us who confess Christ, from continuing to do the things God's word requires of us. The standard for us does not go down because others are plumbing ever greater depths of depravity. And this is not a time to hide! The light ought to shine brighter and brighter as the world gets darker. We all need to renew our covenant with God and walk in all His ways.
Good FB post.
2026 - I asked this question of Claude: In 2 Chronicles 34:31 the verse contains the phrase "cut a covenant". I have seen this phrase in several places in these OT books of the history of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Try to find some description of that ceremony that helps me picture what that looked like, along with a list of the places where that phrase is used. And here is the very interesting answer: Your translation is rendering the Hebrew idiom literally. The Hebrew is karath berith — "to cut a covenant." Most English versions (KJV, NASB, ESV, NIV) smooth it to "made a covenant," so if you're seeing "cut," you're in a more literal translation. The underlying phrase is the same one used in Genesis 15:18.
I. What the ceremony looked like
The picture comes from Genesis 15:9-18. Abram is told to bring a heifer, a female goat, and a ram — each three years old — plus a turtledove and a pigeon. He splits the animals down the middle and lays the halves facing each other in two rows, forming an aisle. The birds he leaves whole. Blood is everywhere; the birds of prey come down and he has to drive them off. At sundown a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass down the aisle between the pieces.
II. What it meant
Jeremiah 34:18-19 is the only text that spells out the logic, and it's from Zedekiah's reign. The officials of Judah cut a calf in two and walked between the halves. God's judgment on them for breaking that covenant is that they will be handed over to their enemies — the implication being that they had invoked the calf's fate on themselves. It's a self-maledictory oath: may I be butchered like this animal if I break my word.
The same logic shows up outside Israel. An eighth-century BC Aramaic treaty from Sefire, near Aleppo, carries a curse comparing the cutting of a calf to the fate of King Mati'el and his nobles if the treaty is violated. Those steles record treaties that list curses and rites taking effect on violation. So this wasn't a peculiarly Israelite rite — it was the regional way of executing a binding agreement.
Note the theological weight of Genesis 15: only God passes between the pieces. Abram is asleep. God alone takes the curse on Himself.
III. The catch on 2 Chronicles 34:31
By Josiah's day the phrase is largely idiomatic — like "signing" a contract you actually click through. Josiah stands in his place, swears to keep the words of the book, and the people join. No animals are described. Same with the parallel in 2 Kings 23:3. The butchery is the etymology behind the phrase, not necessarily the procedure in the room. I'd be overreaching to tell you Josiah cut a calf. Nothing in the text says so.
IV. Occurrences in the historical books
1 Samuel 11:1; 18:3; 23:18
2 Samuel 3:12, 13, 21; 5:3
1 Kings 5:12; 8:21; 20:34
2 Kings 11:4, 17; 17:15, 35, 38; 23:3
1 Chronicles 11:3
2 Chronicles 6:11; 21:7; 23:3, 16; 29:10; 34:31
Also directly relevant: Genesis 15:18; 21:27, 32; 26:28; 31:44; Exodus 24:8; Joshua 24:25; Jeremiah 34:8, 13, 15, 18.
One caution on the list: the standard count is about 77 occurrences of karath berith, but a handful of verses (1 Sam 20:16; 1 Kings 8:9) use karath with "covenant" elided from the Hebrew, so different sources count slightly differently. Treat my list as the solid core, not an exhaustive concordance.
Full verse list with text: preceptaustin.org/covenant_definition. Background on the Sefire treaties: Wikipedia — Sefire steles.
2024 - And this also:
24 Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king of Judah. [2Ch 34:24 ESV]...27 because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. 28 Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.'" And they brought back word to the king. [2Ch 34:27-28 ESV]. So a lot of text. Make the comments short...Here is another of those places where the decree has gone out and will not be recalled. God is bringing disaster, and there is no stopping it. But God is willing to delay it. He gives good King Josiah a pass. He has done the same with other kings, who were told that they cold live out there lives before disaster came. He did this with Hezekiah during his last 15 years, and he did it with Manasseh(?) after he was taken away in captivity...and there was another really bad king that repented and he lived until the end. I never could understand why God did this, and then brought judgment on some later generation that wasn't even there when he pronounced judgment. And today it hit me. What is the New Covenant but God saying that because we repented, and turned back from our evil ways, he will send his own Son to pay the price so that we don't even have to worry about what we've done to the next generation. We all get it wrong, just as the evil Kings got it wrong. But when we repent, instead of just a delay in judgment, our judgment is removed and Jesus is substituted for what should have been our punishment. And the bad guys we see who die peacefully in their beds, unrepentant, still defiant...Well like these evil Kings, there judgment is also sometimes delayed. But Jesus does not substitute for them. Theirs will finally come.
Possible FB post