The period that followed the failed siege of Jerusalem was marked by
the last gasp and then final decline of Assyria, and the subsequent rise of
Babylonia; and by the continuing ebb and flow between nationalist and
accommodationist impulses. Hezekiah’s successor, Menasseh, was forced by
the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal I to pay homage in the form
of tribute and to erect altars to Assyrian deities, even in the Temple. He also
reinstituted local worship of Yahweh. This marked a complete reversal of his
father’s program of religious reform, and it continued during the reign of
Menasseh’s successor, Amon.
During the reign of Josiah, the situation inverted again. In 627, the death
of Ashurbanipal, the last strong king of Assyria, marked the final decline of
Assyria, which would collapse for good in 610. The power vacuum that fol-
lowed the death of Ashurbanipal allowed Josiah to reassert the independence
and authority of Judah in the region. Beginning in 627, Josiah reconquered
much of northern Israel, including Samaria and the Galilee.
Emboldened by military victory, he undertook a series of internal reforms
that reinstated and expanded those of Hezekiah. The precise background to
these reforms is recorded in II Kings 22. Josiah sent a team of craftsmen to
refurbish the Temple under the leadership of Hilkiyahu the priest, who dis-
covered a scroll, Sefer ha-Torah (literally, the Book of Laws). At this point,
Josiah undertook a series of religious and social reforms: a purge of foreign
cults and practices; execution of foreign priests and eunuchs; suppression of
magic and divination; desecration of local altars and cultic centers in
Northern Israel, including the temple at Bethel; and the centralization of all
public worship in the City of Jerusalem.
The parallels between these reforms and the law code found in the book of
Deuteronomy has led historians to conclude that the scroll discovered in the
Temple was part of the book of Deuteronomy, and to attribute this book and its
inclusion in the Pentateuch to a scribe of Josiah. Other historians have sug-
gested that these reforms were not prompted by the discovery of Deuteronomy,
but reflected three broader trends: the resurgent Israelite nationalism in the
wake of the Assyrian collapse; a general return to ancient tradition in the Near
East that combined anxiety regarding the future with a nostalgic longing for
the past; and the resurgence of Israelite prophecy, which had been relatively
quiet since Isaiah – in particular, the appearance of the prophet Jeremiah.
In some ways, Jeremiah’s prophetic mission had aims similar to those of
Josiah’s reforms: both aimed at reviving a commitment to the obligations artic-
ulated by the Sinaitic covenant in order to insure the survival of the Israelite
people. At the same time, Jeremiah criticized the popular overconfidence that
Josiah’s military victories had reinforced. In one of his most profound oracles,
Jeremiah derided the exaggerated faith in the inviolability of Jerusalem (“Do
not believe those who falsely claim that ... this is the sanctuary of God”).
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