King josiah

During his reign over the kingdom of Judah that lasted thirty-one years, he was renowned by many as the supreme hope for national redemption; one that would return the crumbled glories of the house of Israel. In light of the astounding discovery of "the book of the law," Josiah began to understand that his mission would be to redeem his nation that had sinned against God. The Bible tells that during the restoration of the temple in 622 B.C., the High Priest Hilkiah found a book of the law, identified by most scholars as an initial form of the book of Deuteronomy. Hilkiah then gave the book to the king's secretary Shaphan, who then brought it before Josiah and read it to him. As Shaphan was reading the book, Josiah tore his clothes in grief and remorse. Josiah was certain that God was enraged with Judah, for now it had been exposed that his nation had long been living in sin, revealed by the words of the book of law. This book impacted Josiah enormously and inspired him to cleanse his land of all other idolatrous practices that were not in accordance to the law of the cult of YHWH. .
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             First, he congregated the whole of Judah and everyone in Jerusalem and read aloud to the masses the entire book of the covenant which had been found in the temple. He invited all the people of Judah to swear a solemn oath to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the covenant and divine commandments detailed in the newly discovered book, and they did. Next, Josiah toured Israel and Judah on the most passionate puritan reform that Judah had ever seen. He destroyed shrines of pagan worship and set forth to cleanse his land of the sins committed on behalf of idols. One only has to look toward 2 Kings, chapter 23 to see the list of shrines, towns, and idols to see the dedication of Josiah and the lengths of his labors at renewal. Sites of temple prostitution and human sacrifice were among the many shrines that he decimated.