In Second Kings, chapter twenty-three, verse twenty-five, Josiah is described as the most faithful and dedicated of all the kings who had reigned over God’s people, including David himself. In terms of personal commitment and faithfulness to God’s Word, Josiah was the greatest, as in chapter eighteen, verse five, Deuteronomy six, verse five, and Jeremiah twenty-two, verses fifteen through sixteen, respectively.
The religious strictness of the people had greatly degenerated, and even the best rulers never were so solemnly recalled to the legal regulations as Josiah was by the discovery of the temple copy of the Law. The next verse in twenty-six clarifies why there was no such good king after Josiah. The evil doings of Manasseh had corrupted the nation’s past redemption. The reforms of Josiah lasted not nearly so long. ‘The evil that men do lives after them: The good is habitually inside their bones.’
As Josiah had the Passover kept in perfect accordance with the precepts of the law, so did he also exterminate the necromancers, the teraphim, and all the abominations of idolatry throughout all Judah and Jerusalem: to set up the words of the law in the book of the law and to carry them out and bring them into force. The account of the efforts made by Josiah to restore the true worship of Jehovah closes with a general verdict concerning his true piety. Josiah turned to Jehovah with all his heart, which led him in diligent study in God’s law and his exact care, and unwearied industry, and fervent zeal, in rooting out idolaters, and all kinds and appearances of idolatry, not only in Judah, but in Israel also; and in the establishment of the true religion in all his dominions, and the conforming of his own life, and his people’s too, to the holy law of God.