2 Kings 23:1

1 The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

2 Kings 23:1 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:1

And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the
elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
] Josiah sent messengers throughout the land, and convened all the principal men in it at Jerusalem.

2 Kings 23:1 In-Context

1 The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

2 Then the king proceeded to The Temple of God, bringing everyone in his train - priests and prophets and people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of God.

3 The king stood by the pillar and before God solemnly committed them all to the covenant: to follow God believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the book. The people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous.

4 Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, his associate priest, and The Temple sentries to clean house - to get rid of everything in The Temple of God that had been made for worshiping Baal and Asherah and the cosmic powers. He had them burned outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and then disposed of the ashes in Bethel

5 He fired the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had hired to supervise the local sex-and-religion shrines in the towns of Judah and neighborhoods of Jerusalem. In a stroke he swept the country clean of the polluting stench of the round-the-clock worship of Baal, sun and moon, stars - all the so-called cosmic powers.