And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. (2 Kings 23:3).As Josiah was the most righteous King since David, he restored what had been torn down in God’s Covenant with David. David, instructed by God, made Israel great. Hezekiah reformed Judah, but not Israel, but Josiah included Israel in his reforms. As such, Josiah united Israel and Judah for the first time since Jeroboam (I) divided it; as he was not a rightful king, and did evil in the sight of the Lord. Josiah made the Kingdom of David great again!
Few understood that all the Covenants promised prosperity, but it was not in the sense of property or riches; it was and still is prosperity in the Kingdom of God of which the Kingdom of David is the visible realm. Prosperity is eternal salvation, and in the Kingdom of God on Earth/in earth, Christians live in safety.
First off, the parties of the second part in the Covenants were Christians in that they knew God’s Plan of salvation. Serious worshipers understood the resurrection, and the Way to it. The Greatest Commandment is the Way to salvation:
And
he (Jesus) answering said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” (Luke 10:27)
Jesus merely repeated his Covenant made with Josiah, to wit; “To keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.” All the Law of the Book of the Covenant is summarized in the “Ten Words,” or “Ten Prescriptions, which are translated as the “Ten Commandments.” They are the Ten Prescriptions for eternal health, and the doses cannot be forced, but must be willingly consumed.
Josiah stood by “a pillar” when he made the Covenant. That “pillar” represented Jesus on the Holy Cross. The Covenant made him one of the pillars of the Lord’s Temple – the Church: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God” (Rev 3:12). Pillars are straight and narrow; straight to keep from buckling and narrow to support heavy loads. The Holy Cross is a Pillar which supported the agony of God’s Flesh dying for mankind. Josiah seemed to understand what he was doing, then did it with all his strength as he had his heart in it!
Josiah included the northern kingdom in his reforms. He not only made Judah Great again but the entire Kingdom of David which had at one time been greater Israel. Hezekiah depended on prophets whereas Josiah had the Book of the Law, or the very Word of God. From John 1, we know that the Word read by Josiah was the Word – Jesus. (When Christians read the Old Testament, where it is in quotes as the “Word of the Lord,” God’s speech is Jesus manifested. Josiah listened to Jesus. Josiah not only restored the Kingdom of David, but the Kingdom of God in that he restored worship of the One True God in all of Samaria and Judea, as they were called in Jesus’s day. The chapter on Josiah making Israel Great Again is 2 Kings 23. However, it was more than great in riches, but prosperous again in righteousness, as Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He even tore down the high places. The New Testament refers to “high places” as “strongholds.” They were always the hardest things for the Hebrew people to give up.
“High places” were not only places of false worship as we found out with the Tower of Babel, but the proclivity for sexual worship. In the New Testament, the high places were much like the churches wherein there was the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans whose doctrine God hated (Rev 2:6). Asherah, or Venus, was the goddess they worshiped. The mons Venus is the pubic mound of females. They worshiped on Venus’s mountains, so to speak, and the phallus was their idol. Disgusting perversions were included in the worship on high places. They were Sodoms and Gomorrahs revived.
Josiah tore down those strongholds. They were not only in high places but the Highest Place: The House of the Lord: “And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.” (2 Kings 23:7). The NKJV renders those “sins” perversions and the “hangings” as wooden images. The idols were likely phalluses which they worshiped, and still do! In effect, Josiah drained Manasseh’s “swamp” and made Israel great again, not only in prosperity but righteousness!
Josiah restored the Passover. That was the religiosity of the people, but Josiah knew that it was more than ritual, but a picture of Jesus Christ and the Death Angel passing-over those born of the Spirit. To save the nation and its people from perishing to the Assyrians, Josiah demanded that the people celebrate the Passover feast. That celebration was a foreshadowing of the Last Supper eaten on the eve of Jesus’s sacrifice of himself. The Passover celebration ended with sacrifices to the Lord, and when Jesus died on the final day of the Passover, it was God sacrificing for the people.
Just as Josiah, King of Judah, sacrificed on behalf of the Jews in his nation, he also sacrificed for the Hebrews in Israel. Just as Jesus’s death was for “whosoever” (John 3:16), the great sinners in Israel who came to the Lord were included, as were all foreigners in the land.
Josiah saw New Jerusalem on which the extant walls of Jerusalem were only a facsimile. He rebuilt that great city in preparation for those who would return to God. Not by coincidence, God will rebuild Jerusalem as a great city – New Jerusalem – in whose walls will be many mansions with rooms for all who call on His Name. “The Name” is the Old Testament form of Jesus. Jesus is the Way to the “prosperity” (reward in Heaven), and the Column by which Josiah stood, is the Cross; with both pointing upward toward Heaven.
Now for some political commentary. Like it or not, President Trump is endeavoring to revive America again, just as Josiah through God revived the Kingdom of David again. Trump is a “crooked stick” for sure, but he seems to be on the right path to prosperity. America has been just one tributary nation to the Kingdom of God, and America as great again is God’s Will. Just as God used the "crooked stick" - David - to build Jerusalem, he can use the "crooked stick" - Trump - to rebuild America.
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