2 Chronicles 34:2-4
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
2 He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, walking in the way of David his father, not turning right or left. 3 (A)In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, he began to seek after the God of David his father. Then in his twelfth year[a] he began to purify Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the asherahs, and the carved and molten images. 4 In his presence, the altars of the Baals were torn down; the incense stands erected above them he broke down; the asherahs and the carved and molten images he smashed and beat into dust, which he scattered over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to them;
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- 34:3 In his twelfth year: ca. 628 B.C., i.e., around the time of the Assyrian emperor Asshurbanipal’s death, which enabled Judah to free itself from Assyrian domination. On the basis of 2 Kgs 22:1–23:25 alone, one might suppose that Josiah’s reform began only after and as a result of the discovery of the book of the law in the Temple, in the eighteenth year of his reign (622 B.C.). But the Chronicler is no doubt right in placing the beginning of the reform at an earlier period. The repair of the Temple itself, which led to the finding of the book of the law, was likely part of a cultic reform initiated by Josiah.
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