JOSIAH, the last but four of the kings of Judah, was the son of Amon, whom he succeeded when only eight years old, the people having declared in his favour against the conspirators who had murdered his unworthy father. The circumstances of the regency which must have existed during his minority are not recorded; it is not until his eighteenth year (for 2 Chr. xxxiv. 3 cannot be set against the explicit testimony of 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.) that he emerges into the light of history, when we find him interested in the repair of the temple at Jerusalem. The religious movement of which this was a symptom took more definite shape with the finding by Hilkiah the high priest of a copy of “the book of the law.” The reasons for believing this to have been (substantially at least) the book of Deuteronomy cannot be detailed here. They were already appreciated by Jerome and Chrysostom, and no very careful examination is required to show that the effect of its perusal was to bring about a religious reformation, which in all its features was in accordance with the prescriptions and exhortations of that remarkable composition. The main features of the movement (which extended into the adjoining kingdom of Samaria, at that time a loosely governed Assyrian dependency) have already been sketched in the article Israel. On the secular aspects of the reign of Josiah Scripture is almost wholly silent. Thus nothing is related of the great Scythian invasion, which as we know from Herodotus (i. 105) took place at this period, and must have approached Judah, being probably alluded to by Zephaniah and Jeremiah. The storm which shook the great world powers was favourable to the peace of Josiah’s kingdom; the power of Assyria was practically broken, and that of the Chaldeans had not yet ...

king of Judah, deserves particular mention on account of his wisdom and piety, and some memorable events that occurred in the course of his reign. He succeeded to the throne, upon the assassination of his father Amon, at the age of eight years, B. C. 640; and at a period when idolatry and wickedness, encouraged by his father’s profligate example, very generally prevailed. Josiah, who manifested the influence of pious and virtuous principles at a very early age, began, in his sixteenth year, to project the reformation of the kingdom, and to adopt means for restoring the worship of the true God. At the age of twenty years he vigorously pursued the execution of the plans which he had meditated. He began with abolishing idolatry, first at Jerusalem, and then through different parts of the kingdom; destroying the altars which had been erected, and the idols which had been the objects of veneration and worship. He then proceeded, in his twenty-sixth year, to a complete restoration of the worship of God, and the regular service of the temple. While he was prosecuting this pious work, and repairing the temple, which had been long neglected, and which had sunk into a state of dilapidation, the book of the law, which had been concealed in the temple, was happily discovered. This was, probably, a copy of the the Pentateuch, which had been lodged there for security by some pious priest in the reign of Ahaz or Manasseh. Josiah, desirous of averting from himself and the kingdom threatened judgments, determined to adhere to the directions of the law, in the business of reformation which he had undertaken; and to observe the festivals enjoined by Moses, which had been shamefully neglected. With this view he assembled all the elders of the people in the temple at Jerusalem; and, ...