Person · 3277–3316 AM · 484 BCE — 445 BCE

Josiah יאשיהו המלך

the last righteous king of Judah, a reformer

Yoshiyahu was born in 3277 and became king at eight, after his father's murder. By eighteen he had turned the country round: he tore down altars, cut the sacred trees, defiled the Tofet in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, destroyed cults standing since Solomon's day, and went as far as Beit-El to smash Yarovam's altar.

During repairs to the Temple the High Priest Chilkiyahu found a Torah scroll. When the curses of Deuteronomy were read to him the king tore his garments. The prophetess Chuldah answered that the verdict on the land stood, but the disaster would not come in his lifetime. Yoshiyahu gathered the people into a covenant and kept a Passover unlike any since the days of the judges.

Knowing what was coming, he ordered the Ark, the jar of manna and Aharon's staff hidden; the Talmud holds they lie beneath the Temple Mount.

In 3316 Pharaoh Necho marched through the country against Assyria. Yoshiyahu met him at Megiddo and was mortally wounded. Yirmeyahu composed a lament for him. Judah lasted only twenty-two more years.

On the timeline

3303 · 458 BCEThe Torah Scroll Found in Josiah's Days, His Reform and the Hiding of the Ark 3316 · 445 BCEThe Battle of Megiddo and the Death of Josiah 3298 · 463 BCEThe Prophet Jeremiah and His Warnings 3228 · 533 BCEManasseh: Fifty-Five Years and Repentance 3338 · 423 BCEThe Destruction of the First Temple, 9 Av 3338 3316 · 445 BCEThe Last Four Kings of Judah

Places

Jerusalem Temple Mount Beit El

Jeremiah Hezekiah Avodah zarah—idolatry

Sources

Tanakh

Melachim II 22–23 — the scroll that was found, the cleansing of the land, the death at Megiddo
Divrei HaYamim II 34–35 — the great Pesach and the details of the reform

Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar

Yoma 52b — the scroll opened at the verse of the tochachah
Horayot 12a — Yoshiyahu hid away the Ark and the jar of manna
Seder Olam Rabbah 24 — the chronology of his years

Basis: stated in the Tanakh.