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This article discusses the cult reform perpetrated, according to II Kings 23, by King Josiah. It sets out by examining the reliability of the biblical description against other written sources and archaeological evidence. Josiah’s reform has hitherto been treated mainly as part of the history of the Kingdom of Judah, and only slightly in the context of reforms carried out in other kingdoms of the Ancient Near East. However, several kings who reigned in other places, separated by space and time, carried out reforms that transformed - sometimes drastically - religious conceptions and cults in their kingdoms. These reforms involved the elevation of a god to the head of the kingdom’s pantheon, radical changes in its religious customs and cults, or both.
The author presents the reformist kings who were active in the second half of the second millennium and the first half of the first millennium BCE, namely, Akhenaton in Egypt, Muwatali II and Tudhaliya IV in the Hittite kingdom, Sennacherib in Assyria, and Nebuchadnezzar I and Nabunaid in Babylonia. Most of these kings were unsuccessful in enacting cult reforms that would survive their reigns, because of their successors’ opposition to their innovations and because of the inherent conservatism adhering to religious custom and cult in these entrenched, ancient states. The reforms lasted for the reigns of the kings who perpetrated them, but thereafter the new arrangements were rescinded and the pantheons and cults largely reverted to their previous forms.
In the final part of the article, Josiah’s reform is discussed in the context of the phenomenon of the reformist king. Josiah’s reform, too, might seem to belong to this ‘ephemeral history,’ in that the measures enacted by the king were not carried forward by his successors. However, deeper examination reveals it to belong to ‘long-range history.’ Josiah’s reform proved to be a decisive stage in the consolidation of monotheistic religion in Israel.