“[Josiah] did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left”(2 Kings 22:2).

Josiah was prophesied by name in 931 BC; his deeds were also specified very particularly.  In this he is unique among all the kings of Judah and Israel. 

He became king of Judah at the age of 8 years in the year 640 BC.  “And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.  And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.  And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out” (1 Kings 13:1-3.  In the year 640 BC Josiah ascended the throne according to the prophecy,

Josiah set out to repair the temple which had fallen into neglect and disrepair due to altars of other gods being built in the temple by his grandfather Manasseh and his father Amon (1 Kings 21).  In the course of repair work, a copy of the law of Moses was found in the temple of the Lord, and Shaphan the scribe took it to Josiah and read it to him. 

King Josiah was convicted and alarmed by it and, warned by the prophetess Huldah, took steps to put things right and avert the judgment of God (2 Kings 22 and 23).  Josiah made a thorough cleansing of the whole religious system in Jerusalem, rooting out every shred of idolatry, executing the pagan priests, burning the idols, desecrating the pagan holy places, burning every trace of anything that had any connection to idolatry, grinding it to powder and throwing the ashes into the brook Kidron (2 Kings 23). 

During this great work of reformation which Josiah oversaw personally, the scriptures tell us: “And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.  Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.  And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria” (2 Kings 23:16-18).  N.B.See also Jeremiah 7:29-8:3.

Here is yet another prophecy, given approximately 300 years before its fulfillment, in which a man is named and his deeds described precisely and in detail.  (See also Isaiah 44:28-45:19).  Truly, our all-knowing and all-powerful God controls all things, whether empires, nations, or individuals; and he knows the future because he has ordained all people and all events to do according to his will and purpose.    

“The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Isa 14:24).