After King Menashe comes Yoshiyahu ben Amon. He was 8 years old when he became king and ruled for 31 years (640-609 BCE)
King Yoshiyahu did a lot to help make the nation stronger religiously/spiritually. He refurbished the Beis HaMikdash, putting a lot of time, effort, and money into it. According to the Radak, during the reign of Menashe, the torah had been neglected and abused. During the restoration of the Beis HaMikdash, A sefer torah was found between two stones open to a pasuk in Devarim that said that there would be a time that the King and the nation would both do Avodah Zarah. Yoshiyahu went to Chulda (the prophetess before Yirmiyahu came) to ask her what it meant. When Chulda the prophetess told him that everything would be destroyed if the people don't repent, he made a covenant like the one at Har Sinai. All of the Avodah Zarah and the Kohanim that were a part of it, were removed from the Beis HaMikdash.
Even though Yoshiyahu was doing so much to try to make the nation repent, the people still followed in the evil ways of Menashe. HaShem said that even with all that Yoshiyahu had done, it was still not enough to remove the decree. This must have been like a last chance. HaShem pushed off the decree for Menashe, but the people continued to do bad so they blew their final chance.
At the very end, Assyria is attacked. Babylonia is to the north of Assyria and Egypt is to the south. Egypt is afraid of Assyria and so they try to defend it against Babylonia instead of making it their enemy. Egypt has to go through Israel to get to Babylonia, though, and Yoshiyahu takez his army to go fight in Meggido. He gets killed fighting there. It says in Divrei HaYamim that Yoshiyahu was able to be killed because he did not believe a message that HaShem sent him through Paro Neco. Therefore, he died.
Well I think it is terribly sad that he had to die because he wouldn't listen to the message sent through a PHAROAH!
ReplyDeleteThink of all the good he did. Wouldn't it be punishment enough for the B"H to be destroyed? Poor man... he did such good things...
I feel like it's a real shame that he had to die. He seemed like one of the better kings, yet he still faced a horrible end. He did have a real religious revival going on and was sincere in his acts of love towards G-d. HE did all that he could to stop the nation from sinning, and he himself was a very religious man. Obviously he was really trying to change the people, but if Yirmiyahu can't influence them, how is he supposed to? I'm just saying, he's done everything he could to change the people, and he was a good person, so why did he deserve this end? What if he thought that the messenger was a navi sheker? How was he supposed to know otherwise? And what a huge punishment for just one mistake. For someone who was a good guy... It doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeletezahava-
ReplyDeleteyou said that it should have been punishment enough for him that the beis hamikdash was destroyed. It actually didn't happen during his lifetime. Of course, even the idea would have been terrible, but BECAUSE he did all those good things, he merited that the desruction of the beis hamikdash would not happen until after his death.
I agree with racheli that he might have thought that paro neco was a navi sheker. That might have given him an excuse not to listen to him. Maybe then it wasn't fair of HaShem to punish him with death just because he was making sure that he was not listening to a false prophet. zThen again, like i just said, He merited that the destruction would not happen until after his death. maybe he needed to die now so that everything that needed to happen before the destruction could happen right then because the time for the destruction was getting very close.