Yoshiyahu's Repentance

Found 5 Search results

1. Navot's Vineyard (Part 6)

   The Significance of Ahav's Submission

   Rabbi Elchanan Samet

   While the text explicitly states that God mitigates Ahav’s punishment as a result of his repentance, various opinions exist as to the depth of the repentance. His repentance is evaluated in the actual description of his humbled reaction, in God’s response to Eliyahu and in Ahav’s behavior in the subsequent chapter.

2. Yoshiyahu and the Return to God

   Rabbi Alex Israel

   Despite who is father and grandfather were, Yoshiyahu is unsurpassed as a champion of God worship, cleansing the kingdom of its idolatry and returning the nation to God. A process that begins in his youth, it further intensifies with the shocking discovery of the Sefer Torah. The precise identification of this Sefer Torah and its ramifications are debated amongst commentaries. However, the aftermath of this discovery is a purging of idolatry on an unprecedented scope including in the territories of the non-existent Northern kingdom that culminated in a mass celebration of Pessah in Jerusalem.  

3. The Tragedy of Yoshiyahu

   Rabbi Alex Israel

   Yoshiyahu's dramatic religious revolution led him to two erroneous conclusions, giving him the confidence to confront Pharaoh Nekho who lead his army through Israel in order to confront the emerging Babylonian empire. Firstly, he believed that the religious level that was achieved was one that would make God support him against an idolatrous king. Secondly, he believed that the revolution was sincere and accepted among the people, when in fact in the short amount of time since the major change it was imposiible to uproot norms and beliefs that had set in over such a long period. This folly decision led to his death by the archers' arrows ending abruptly the reign of a righteous king. The lack of real change among the people means that wheels of Hurban that were set in motion by Menashe were not stopped - though they might have had the chage been sincere.

   Modern Biblical scholars claim that Devarim was the Sefer Torah that Yoshiyahu discovered and it was written in his time and not by Moshe. The claim of the 7th century authorship is refuted by a series of simple proofs.

4. Can the People Keep the Covenant?

   Rabbi David Sabato

5. Historical Introduction, Part III - Josiah’s Death

   Shiur #04

   Dr. Yael Ziegler

   תאריך פרסום: 5778 |

   The reign of Ashurbanipal, the last powerful king of the mighty Assyrian Empire, marked both the pinnacle of the Assyrian Empire’s power and the beginning of its decline. Josiah reigned as king of Judah during the period of Assyria’s deterioration and downfall. Significantly, biblical accounts describing Josiah’s reign focus primarily on his personal religious transformation and the way in which it affected his national policies. The nation likely concluded that the two were connected. To understand the repercussions of this, we will examine Josiah’s life and reign.

   Rabbinic sources suggest that the kernel of the book of Eikha begins to emerge in the aftermath of Josiah’s death, which is devastating to the nation. Various ways of dealing with the problem of theodicy ensue, and some different approaches can be found in the book of Eikha. Josiah’s death marks the beginning of the theological crisis and the first attempts to struggle with the complex questions that arise in the wake of unexplained human suffering.