Josiah's loving heart from doing his best. He collected his people, and
renewed the Covenant, he rooted out every trace of idolatry, even more
thoroughly than Hezekiah had done, overthrowing even Solomon's idol
temples; and he went to Bethel, which he seems to have held under the
King of Assyria, and defiled the old altar there by burning bones on it,
as the disobedient prophet had foretold of him by name, when that altar
was first set up. He likewise caused copies of the Law to be made, so
that it might never be lost again; and the Jews have a story, that
knowing the Temple was to be destroyed, he saved the Ark of the
Covenant, Aaron's rod, and the pot of manna, from sacrilege, by hiding
them away in the hollow of Mount Nebo, where they have never since been
found; but this is quite uncertain.

Josiah lived between two mighty powers; the King of Babylon, who had
newly taken Nineveh, and Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt, a very bold and
able man, who hired Phoenician ships to sail round Africa, and then did
not believe the crews when they came back, because they said they had
seen the sun to the north at noon, and wool growing on trees. He tried
to cut a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea; and wishing to check the
power of Babylon, he brought an army by sea to make war upon Assyria,
landing at Acre under Mount Carmel, and intending to march through
Gilead. Josiah, being a tributary of Babylon, thought it his duty to
endeavour to stop him, and going out to battle with him at Megiddo, was
there mortally wounded, and died on his way home, in the year 611. The
mourning of the Jews over their good king was so bitter, that it was a
proverb long after; and they had indeed reason to lament, for he was the
last who stood between them and their sin and their punishment.

Jehoahaz, or Shallum, his third son, a wicked young man, only reigned
while Necho was fighting a battle with the Babylonians on the Euphrates,