270 \ J O S 
habitants. He now applied himfelf to obtain a furvey of 
the land by proper perfons; to divide it among the tribes 
according to their refpeclive lots; to appoint three cities 
of refuge on this fide Jordan ; and to determine which 
cities were to be allotted to the priefts anti Levites. At 
this time Jofinia gave permifiion to the forces belonging 
to the two tribes and a half feated on the other fide Jor¬ 
dan, and who had aflifted their brethren in the conqueft 
of Canaan, to return to their own homes. 
After this, Jofhua governed Ifrael in peace for feven- 
teen years, when he was fenfible that his end was at no 
great diftance. Upon this, he fummoned all the tribes of 
Ifrael to Shechem, and, having called for their elders, their 
heads, their judges, and their officers, he enumerated to 
them, in a pathetic l'peech, the wonders which God had 
wrought in their favour; reminded them how much it was 
their intereft, as well as duty, to continue ftedfaft in 
their obedience to him ; and exhorted them to renew the 
covenant which they had formerly entered into, to wor- 
fhip and ferve him alone. When the afl'embly had rea¬ 
dily complied with his exhortation, Jofhua caufed the fa ft 
to be folemnly regiftered, and a monument to be erefted 
in memory of it near a great oak which was in Shechem. 
Soon after this Jofinia died, at the age of one hundred 
and ten, and in the year 1426 B. C. 
JOSI'AH, [Heb. the fire of the Lord.] A man's name. 
JOSI'AH, king of Judah, a pious and excellent prince, 
fucceeded to the throne when only eight years of age, 
upon the affaffmation of his father Aunon, in the year 640 
B. C. Amon, during his fhort reign of iefs than two years, 
had fct before his fubjefts an example of every kind of 
wickednefs and idolatry; which had foinfefted the whole 
kingdom, that at the time of his death the licentioufnefs 
and irreligion of all ranks had arrived at an enormous 
height. In thefe circumftances the young monarch came 
to the crown, and gave very early proofs of his pious in¬ 
clinations. When he w r as only fixteen years of age, and 
had juft taken on himfelf the administration of affairs, he 
began publicly to difplay his zeal for the worfliip of the 
true God, and projected the reformation not only of the 
kingdom of Judah, but of the remnants of the Ifraelitifli 
tribes. When he was twenty years old he entered on 
this tafk, and purfued it with an aftonifhing degree of di¬ 
ligence, intrepidity, and fuccefs. He began his pious 
work at Jerufalem, and proceeded thence throughout the 
whole kingdom of Judah; caufing the idols, altars, groves, 
and other idolatrous monuments, and the high places, to 
be univerfally demolifiied; ordering the fcenes of heathen 
rites to be polluted with dead men’s-bones; and directing 
that the priefts who had affifted at idolatrous worfliip 
fiiould be for ever excluded from facerdotal functions, 
and from the privilege of eating any holy things. After¬ 
wards he marched to Bethel, where Jeroboam had let up 
one of his golden calves; which he deftroyed, together 
with the groves, idols, and altars, caufing the bodies of 
the idolatrous priefts to be dug up and burnt upon them. 
Taking notice in this place of an infcription upon one of 
the tombs, he was informed that it was that of the pro¬ 
phet who came from Judah, to denounce to Jeroboam that 
deftraftion of idolatry which he was now fulfilling; upon 
which Joliah ordered that, a particular regard fhould be 
paid not to difturb his afhes. After this he continued his 
progrefs through the whole Ifraelitilh territory, deltroying 
every where the altars and idols which either the Ifrael- 
ites or the Affyrian coloriifts had let up; putting the idol¬ 
atrous priefts to death; and then returned to Jerufalem. 
Having thus deftroyed the monuments of idol-worlhip 
throughout both kingdoms, Jcfiah, in the twenty-fixth 
year of his age, let about the complete rettoration of the 
worlhip of God, and the regular fervice of the temple. 
That facred edifice had fullered great dilapidations ; to 
repair which he appropriated the poll-money and the free¬ 
will offerings, appointing faithful oVerfeers to conduft 
the bufinels, moil probably under the fuperintendence of 
the high-prieft. While this work was carrying on, the 
J O s 
high-prieft fent word to the king that lie had found the 
book of the law, which had been concealed in the temple. 
This was rnoft probably a copy of the complete Penta¬ 
teuch, if not the archetype written by Moles, and appears 
to have been the only perfelft one then left '; which had 
been hidden by fome pious prieft, in the reign of Ahaz or 
Manaffeh, to prevent its being deftroyed with all the other 
copies which the agents of thofe idolatrous princes could 
meet with. When the king had read this book of the 
law, and reflected on the dreadful judgments which were 
denounced in it on thofe abominations with which he had 
found the whole kingdom over-run at his coming to the 
crown, he expreffed the moll lively tokens of grief, ap- 
prehenfive that he and his people might Toon be made to 
fuffer the heaviell calamities. Under this impreffion, he 
fent the high-prieft, and fome of his principal officers, to 
the prophetefs Huldah, who then lived in one of the col¬ 
leges at Jerufalem, to enquire of her concerning the fu¬ 
ture fate of himfelf and his kingdom. She fent him word; 
that God would certainly inflifl the threatened judgments 
on his wicked and faithlefs fubjefls; but that he himfelf, 
on account of the good difpofitions which he had difco- 
vered, and his pious and zealous efforts for promoting 
their reformation, fiiould be gathered to his fathers before 
thefe evils fiiould kill on them. 
To avert, if poffible, the impending judgments, and 
from a fincere zeal to rellore the worlhip of God through¬ 
out his dominions in its genuine purity, Joliah deter¬ 
mined to adhere clofely to the direflions of the law, and 
to obferve the feftivals enjoined by Moles, which had been 
(hamefully neglefled. In order to engage the people to 
follow his example, he fummoned all their elders to af- 
femble in the Temple at Jerufalem, where, having mounted 
his throne, he read in their hearing the recovered book of 
the Mofaic law, and then entered into a folemn covenant 
to keep the ftatutes and ordinances which were enjoined 
in it. To this covenant the whole afl’embly gave their 
confent; and, as the time for obferving the feltival of the 
paffover w'as approaching, Jofiah iffued a proclamation, in 
which he commanded the people to prepare for its folem- 
nities. He alfo gave inllruitions to the high-prieft to 
put the ark in the moil holy place, which had probably 
been removed while the necelfary repairs were carrying on ; 
and thoroughly to purify the temple, by removing from it 
all the veffels and utenfils which had been made ufe of in 
the rites of idolatrous worfliip, and to replace, in their 
proper form and order, fuch as had been removed from it 
in fome former reigns. When all the necelfary prepara¬ 
tions had been made, the paffover was oblerved ; and the 
king difplayed on the occafion a greater degree of zeal 
and magnificence than had been fliown from the time of 
Solomon. This celebrated obfervation of the paffover took 
place in the eighteenth year of Jofiah’s reign. Afterwards 
he appears to have made a fecond progrefs through the 
kingdom, in which he abolilhed all the fecret idolatry of 
which he had received information ; expelled all the pre¬ 
tended wizards and enchanters from the land; and fettled 
courts of judicature wherever they were wanting, giving 
a Uriel charge to the magiilrates, as well as the priefts, to 
fee that the people were in ft rutted in, and kept obedient 
to, the law of Moles. “Like unto him,” fays the facred 
hiftory, “ was there no king before him, that turned to 
the Lord with all his heart, and with all his foul, and with 
all his might, according to the law of Mofes; neither af¬ 
ter him arofe there any like him.” But, notwithftanding 
all his zeal, and all his efforts, fo thoroughly were the 
Ifraelites corrupted, that the reformation which Jofiah in¬ 
troduced, and to which they outwardly conformed, pro¬ 
duced no real change in their incorrigible hearts. God 
was therefore provoked to deprive them of their excellent 
prince, and to bring on them the dreadful calamities which 
he had threatened by the prophetefs Huldah, and which 
were alfo denounced by the prophet Zephaniali. In the 
thirty-fecond year of Jofiah’s reign, the whole of which 
had been Ibent in uninterrupted peace, Pharaoh Necho 
