followHIM - 2 Kings 16-25 Part 2 • Dr. Mike Day • July 13-19 • Come, Follow Me

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Dr. Mike Day continues to examine 2 Kings 16-25–Josiah’s reforms and how the Book of Mormon may correct and illuminate what the reforms left behind, and closes with his own testimony of Jesus Christ and how scripture carried him through crisis.YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/pzsYQXMyDvAFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookBook of Mormon: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastBMBook WEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletter SOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE0:00 - Part 2 - Dr. Mike Day2:36 Hezekiah’s treasures and Isaiah’s dark prophecy4:49 Hezekiah’s tunnel 7:01 The water-drawing ceremony9:03 Manasseh and the Isaiah martyrdom legend11:33 Josiah takes the throne12:07 Finding the Book of the Law13:00 Huldah’s prophecy14:42 Josiah’s seven reforms15:52 One place of worship16:43 Is Deuteronomy a later redaction?19:27 Hosts of heaven and the secret things20:20 Moses and “You only heard a voice.”21:40 Defining the Deuteronomists24:49 1 Nephi 1 counters the reforms27:13 Origins of biblical monotheism29:13 The Book of Mormon correcting the reformers32:32 Lehi’s altars and brass plates testify of Jesus Christ34:04 Josiah’s fatal move against Egypt36:46 Josiah’s death and the editorial 40:33 The fall of Jerusalem and Zedekiah43:00 End of Kings44:16 Mulek and the Book of Mormon connection45:25 Dr Day’s testimony49:05 End of Part 2 - Dr. Mike DayThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsAmelia Kabwika: Portuguese TranscriptsHeather Barlow: Communications DirectorSydney Smith: Social Media, Graphic Design "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to Part 2 with Dr. Mike Day, 2nd King 16 to 25. Mike, wouldn't you say another message here if I was going to teach a 25-minute lesson would be how Hezekiah trusts the prophet? Do you believe the prophet when everything says not to? You're a man who's just met the missionaries. You work two jobs. They say pay tithing. But you felt the spirit.

You read the book of Mormon. You know their message is true, but you also understand economics. and you're like, how am I going to pay tithing? I'm already working two jobs. Oh, and take Sunday off? I work Sunday. What am I going to do? I'll never forget I was teaching this lady. She was on fire with the spirit. I was dreading asking her this because we were going to get to the Word of Wisdom lesson. We read the Book of Mormon, and she loved reading the Book of Mormon. We'd read with her. She felt the spirit, but she smoked. And I remember the look in her eyes when we taught her, and I held out my hand, and I said, do you trust me? And her hand was trembling as she gave me her cigarettes. And I thought, That is the same concept. The Lord is saying, I'm going to ask tough stuff of you. I was 19 and I was so nervous. I wonder if you talked to Isaiah afterwards. He's like, were you nervous?

He's like, oh, yeah. I was nervous. He didn't act it. I wish I could dramatize the way you do, Mike. The Lord's response to Ezekiah, I have heard, three words. Then he says, you have reviled who? Who have you blasphemed?

the Holy One of Israel. It's almost like someone saying, oh, you should not have done that. Syria, you are in more trouble than you realize. This would be a beautiful movie. No wonder you're quoting Tolkien here. I'll never forget Return of the King. And I just think Tolkien is channeling so much of the scriptures. I would not show clips of Tolkien in Seminary, but I would reference the story to say, close your eyes for a minute and just imagine this army outside your walls and how scary that would be. Even though we don't have that today, I don't have armies outside my wall. I have my own trials.

We all do really hard things. It's a real challenge. I'm going to pivot now. I'm not going to talk too much about this, but Hezekiah is ill and he prays and there's this thing with the shadow. The shadow moves and he's given some extra time in his life. Then it pivots to this really weird narrative in Second Kings, the end of Second kings, starting at about verse 12 to the end. This is where the king of Babylon hears that Hezekiah is sick.

There is some communication. This has just been such a weird thing for me to ponder. It says that Hezekiah shows the treasures. This is verse 13. He showed him all the precious things and the silver and golden spices and everything, the treasures of the house. What's going on here? In verse 14, it says Isaiah came to Hezekiah and he says, what said these men? What are they doing? What are you doing with this? And then he said, verse 15, what have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered all the things that are in mine house had they seen. Then he gives them this really dark prophecy that the sons, his descendants, will be taken away into captivity, that they'll be eunuchs. Then I've always puzzled over verse 19. So imagine John, the prophet of God comes to you and says, your kids are going to be captive. They're going to be made eunuchs. Would you ever say verse 19? Read verse 19. then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. And he said,

Is it not good if peace and truth be in my days? Some people look at this and say, it's Hezekiah's way of saying, okay, my kids are going to be uncaptive, but at least I'm living it up. I'm having a good life. That's one interpretation. Another interpretation is channeling that 1 Samuel 318 narrative

where Eli says the same thing, where he finds out about his kids. And he says, good are the words of the Lord, meaning he's in charge, go to the words the Lord. It reminds me also of Nephi. If you remember, Nephi has this vision where he sees his descendants get completely killed. That's a hard thing. But however you interpret verse 19, I don't know how to interpret it, I would love to hear the people there be on this podcast and explain it.

But that's a hard thing. Then there's another layer. A later redactor is inserting this after it happened, saying, hey, this is really what happened to, the seat of Hezekiah because the kingdom ends. The king is going to be held captive. But then the author throws this in here in verse 20 that says, the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might and all the cool stuff that he did. Are they not written in Chronicles?

One of the things they shout out are the pool and the conduit. And I'm sure you guys, because I know you guys have been Israel, have you walked the tunnel, Hezekiah's tunnel. Oh, yeah, absolutely. How would you describe that to your audience and what would you say its purpose is? There is hewn out of solid rock, is it like a third of a mile, I think, this tunnel that goes from outside where Jerusalem's walls would have been. It was from a spring, so you're able to cover it and brings water into the walls of Jerusalem coming out approximately at the pool of Psyloam. militarily it's brilliant because an enemy can't cut off your water supply.

But you can go walk through this and it's like, ankle deep, maybe comes up to your knees right at first. Pretty dark and if you're claustrophobic, don't do it. John, were you freaked out the first time you went in? Were you a little bit like, what am I doing? Hey, I had my energizers on my little headlamp. I was okay, but it's really cool. It's so old.

The water has been flowing for, I guess, centuries. If you go to your study helps and look at the Bible map, they have a red dotted line for Hezekiah's tunnel there. It's important enough they stuck it on the map. They found an inscription because guys started on one side and then guys start on the other side and they kind of do this. And then they come together in the middle and they left an inscription, hey, we were here, we made this tunnel.

They did that without power tools. And all of it was to preserve their lives. In the ancient world, if you have high ground, food and water and walls, if you have those four things, you could do pretty good. A lot of people say, hey, that's also why Jerusalem stayed safe, is they had access to water. It's interesting that it's right here in the text that has talked about. Just reminds me of my son Elijah who got one of our group members to pay him $50 to go through. He's like, I don't want to. And then my buddy, Brandon Hatch, he said, I'll pay you.

My son, okay. I was like, you were going to go anyway. He's like, yeah, but now I'm going to her, and I made 50 bucks. Yeah, I'll go and refuse to go. Chronologically, then, when was the tunnel built? Was it before this Assyrian siege or was it in anticipation of this Assyrian siege? In anticipation of the siege, what I do find really interesting about this tunnel is it leads to this pool. this pool was the beginning of what was called the ascent.

In the Psalms, which are the scripts for rituals, there's what's called the Psalms of Ascent. And Psalm 120 to 134 are these 15 Psalms, Psalms of degrees or Psalms of Ascent, that they would sing as they were going up the steps to the temple. But the journey, the pilgrimage, started down at the bottom, at the pool of Salome, and you could go up,

and there were certain Psalms that they would sing as they approached the throne of God at the temple. During this time period, they also had what was called the water drawing ceremony, where they would draw water and they would pour it over the altar. And the idea was that this water from this heavenly spring under the earth would touch the altar and that God would bring rains and that we would follow God, that we would drink of the water, but also follow his way, live according to Mishap,

according to the judgments and the righteousness of God, When Jesus says, I am the living water, that ties into this temple idea. What's fascinating is brand new. Last I checked, because I was there in Jerusalem when they were getting the final touches, they've opened up the old steps of ascent from the pool of Salome, the ones that probably existed during Jesus' day. And that's now accessible. To me, I find this super fascinating.

So we have Hezekiah, but then we have this pool, but it's tied into the temple. but it's also tied into Jesus. These were the things that Jesus would have known about and had part of their collective memory and part of their religion. Mike, this is a spiritual and scriptural feast. Now, the next chapter, 21, is about Manasseh. We don't want to confuse this Manasseh with the tribe

that some people have in their patriarchal blessing or they're going to be sore disappointed. Yeah, not the same. Same name, but different guy. The legend is that he's not a good guy. Tell us all about him. According to some of the legends, Isaiah is like the grandfather of Manasseh,

that King Hezekiah married Isaiah's daughter, and that from that union, Manasa was born. Now, there's legends that Manasa actually ends up killing Isaiah, which is super sad. I nerd out about some of this on talking scripture where I'll put a pin in whatever it is we're talking about, and then I'll go to this extra-biblical literature. I always go to extra-biblical literature to corroborate the Old Testament text or the text of the New Testament to give another lens.

Sometimes in the Bible there will be a story that's like half-told, and we don't have the whole story, but then the extra-biblical literature will be add light to it. There's this text, this extra-biblical piece of literature called the ascension of Isaiah. In a couple of the chapters, chapter 1 and chapter 5, Isaiah related that he and Manassah get into it. it basically and that Manasseh kills him. And the legend is that he saw it in half. Sometimes in the early Christian depictions and then later they would depict a great martyr with the symbol of his death. There's a beautiful church, St. John the Lateran where the papal throne is in Rome and these beautiful marble statues that are just ginormous. Every one of the apostles is depicted a lot of times with the implement of their death. Well, there's paintings of Isaiah.

that you can see if you go to some of these old churches where Isaiah's holding a saw in his hand. We put one of these in the slide decks. So if you ever see that image, you're like, why is Isaiah holding a saw? That's the story. Now, it's not in the Bible. I want to be careful. It's not part of our canonized text. Isaiah doesn't talk about this stuff.

That's the legend that is told, really the author of Kings does cast a major shade on Manasseh, verse 16, that he shed innocent blood very much. That's not good. verse 11 he did wickedly above all that the amorites did in the words of obi one canobi it's a dark time for the rebellion it's not that this is the rebellion but it just reminds me that star wars line in other words this is one of the dark times of jewish history in fact later after josiah does his thing the author of kings harkens back to manasse and says manassah was a really bad guy and that's partly why we're having these horrible things done to us.

In a gospel doctrine lesson, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it. As a reward for his activity, Manasseh, verse 23 of chapter 21, is killed. After this, chapter 22 is the beginning of kind of the end, but there's this high point in the text of Josiah. Josiah is portrayed as the greatest thing ever. Now, granted, he takes the throne, or it says he's eight when he began to reign, but let's be honest, do you know any eight-year-olds that are really in charge? No. Somebody else is in the cabinet there.

Yeah, somebody else is in charge. In verse three, it says, it came to pass in the 18th year of King Josiah. So 18 plus 8, 25, 26 years old, he's 26. That's 622 BC. About that time, 622, we read about this guy named Hilkaya the priest. They're cleaning up the temple. and he sends him in there to work through it and do some renovations. This is not unfounded that when they do renovations in a temple, this is not just in Israel or Judah.

This is other places in the ancient world. Remember, these temples sometimes last for millennia, especially in Egypt, some of these really old buildings. They would do some renovations. In these other cultures, they would actually find texts in the wall or in the cornerstone or in parts of the temple that they didn't know existed. this story is not out of thin air but the idea is that the priest comes and says hey we found this text called the book of the law and that's in verse 8 from there he reads it in verse 10 he rends his clothes in verse 11 and the idea is we've been doing religion wrong he does this and then the

23rd chapter is we're going to fix all the ways we're doing religion wrong and these are called Josiah's reforms. In the midst of all this, there's a little bit about this female named Holda who gives a prophecy, and that's in verses 14 through 20. Holda's prophecy to Josiah is essentially, I will bring evil upon Jerusalem. God will gather Josiah to his fathers and his grave will be in peace, and Josiah won't live to see the destruction of Jerusalem. That's kind of the bit of her prophecy there. I don't know a lot about Holda. There's just not a lot we have. But that's the idea. Verse 20 says a lot of this. Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers. Thou shall be gathered into thy grave in peace. Thon I shall not see the evil, which I shall bring upon this place.

Verse 11, he ends solar worship. The Assyrians had this idea that their God would be taken across the sky on this chariot. The Egyptians had the same thing, but it was on a boat. There are horses that would do this. And so the idea is, there were horses in the temple or around the temple complex and that stuff's being taken down. Then in verses 15 through 20, he goes on a rampage and reforms the northern area. All the land of the north, it says in verse 15, the altar that was it with Bethel in the high place, which Jeroboam set up. He breaks this stuff down. He burns at the end of verse 15, the ashore or the grove.

Then he took bones in verse 16, the bones of the dead and he put them all over these holy places. the idea was because I put bones there, now it's unclean. You can't worship there. And then he breaks down all the houses and the high places of verse 19 that were in the cities of Samaria. He takes all this away. And then in verse 20, this is the word for slew, Zavak. He slew the priests of the high places. So he kills a bunch of guys that were the priests up there in the north.

Massive reforms, really violent stuff. That's the sixth reform. In the seventh we just read. He killed the priest of service. Samaria. Those are the seven really big reforms. One of the big ideas in Deuteronomy, this is in chapter 12, this is difficult. Like, I'm not here to settle for your audience or even for myself. My opinion could change tomorrow as I learn more information. But the 12th chapter of Deuteronomy is this strict prohibition. You cannot sacrifice anywhere except for the place where Yahweh shall choose to put his name.

that place in Josiah's day was where? The temple. Yeah, the temple in Jerusalem. But it doesn't say that in the text. It doesn't say that anywhere in the text. It just says, the place where Y'alli shall choose to put his name. Now, interesting, in some of the other strains of the penitook, God is portrayed as dwelling in the temple. That's where he dwells.

Deuteronomy does not take that position. Deuteronomy's position is God's name, Hashem, his name dwells in the temple. Why? My reading of Deuteronomy is the reason why Hashem, his name dwells in the temple, is because God is non-corporial in the book of Deuteronomy. He's unseeable. You can't know him. He doesn't have a body. Mike, can I say that the Deuteronomy that we have, that we've been reading, is a product of these reforms. We don't have an earlier version, a pre-reformed Deuteronomy. I think there is a proto-Duteronomy. Deuteronomos just means the second telling of the law, I think the Jews call it the Devereem, the words.

These are the words, according to the text, that Moses spake right before he crossed over. Now, spoiler alert, go to verse one of chapter one of Deuteronomy. This is a dead giveaway that Deuteronomy has been redacted. Just look at verse one. Redacted, you mean edited. Yes, edited hardcore. These be the words. That's the title of the book.

These be the words. Which Moses spake unto Israel on this side, Jordan, in the wilderness, and the plane over against the Red Sea between those places. Well, that's not what it says in the text. In the Hebrew text, it doesn't say that. Remember, the story is Moses never crosses Jordan. He doesn't come in Israel. The Hebrew text, this is what it says in English.

It says, these are the words that Moses spake when he was on the other side of Jordan, meaning that the author writing Deuteronomy I, 1-1, is on the west side of Jordan. The first time I tell that to people, I have to say it again. Do you understand the author is telling you from verse one, Moses didn't write this. This is written later from the west side where Moses never went. Now, that's really hard to hear. The King James translators, I don't know what they were thinking, but they took that Hebrew bit and they're like, well, that can't be.

These were the words that he spake on this side, Jordan, the east side. That's not what it says. We could do a whole podcast on what next going on with Deuteronomy because we're barely scratching the surface. Jeffrey Tegay wrote the JPS commentary on it, which is stellar. He would concur with what I'm saying because it's in the text. Just read it. Like I said, I'm not here to denigrate it because I think Deuteronomy is good. Here's the deal. Guys, there's a ton of Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon. Every time in the Book of Mormon where it says, if you keep the commandments and you follow the Lord and you're humble, you're going to be blessed. That's Deuteronomy speaking. That's the Book of Mormon.

once again, I'm going to use the Book of Mormon as a lens by which to read these reforms. The first one is centralization. So centralization in Deuteronomy 12, verse 2, and it's not just in verse 2, but Deuteronomy 12 really is reflected here in 2nd Kings 23. Any place where there's an altar outside of Jerusalem, we're just going to burn it and we're going to put dead people's bones on there, so it's not holy anymore. The second reform in Deuteronomy, these are the big ones that coincide with Josiah's reforms. The second one is exclusive worship. 2 Kings 23 verse 20 he slew all the praise of the high places that were there upon the altars and burned men's bones upon them in a return to Jerusalem this is Deuteronomy 13 and 17 the third reform is hosts of heaven the hosts of heaven are denied in deuteronomy 4 verse 19

chapter 23 verse 11 is second kings this is what it says he took away the horses that the kings of judah had given to the sun so that's at solar worship at the entering in of the house of the Lord by the chamber of the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs and burn the chariots of the sun with fire. There is this idea that the divine council had different individuals on it. In this council, they called it the host of heaven. They're denied. That's reflected in the 11th verse. We mentioned the fourth one is going to be God's name dwells at the temple.

That is in Deuteronomy 12, 5, 11, and 21. Deuteronomy 2929 talks about that the secret things cannot be known. I want to read this verse because it applies to our discussion we're going to have briefly about what Nephi says. So if you go to Deuteronomy 29, this is what it says. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever that we may do all the words of the law. Translation, you don't worry about the mysteries.

You just follow the law. The law is all that matters. The mysteries belong only to God. Now there's another bit in here where the author of Deuteronomy says, To Moses, do you think you can see God? But if you go to verse 12 of chapter 4, The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire. You heard his voice of the words, but you saw no similitude, only heard a voice. It literally says in verse 12, Moses, do you remember when you said you saw me? You didn't see me. God can't be seen. You only heard a voice. That is contrary to so many other passages. We learn them on our mission. Don't Bible bash with people. If a priest comes up to you and says, Joseph Smith could not see God and they show you verses like these, you are wasting your time Bible bashing with them. If you show them a verse that says Moses saw God, you're just spinning your wheels and you're going round and round. And biblical scholarship, in my opinion, opinion unlocks why this is. The Deuteronomists have a different theological view. Deuteronomists say, you can't see God. Mike, do me a favor and define those for our audience when you say a Deuteronomist.

Is that someone from Josiah's time? Yes. So the religion shifts. There's this shift. Remember, the early prophets know the mysteries. They're brought up into the council. I mean, you've got Jacob's ladder. We're going to do Nephi to second because Nephi is a rock star. He's going to show you in Technicolor what's going on. I read Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, especially Abraham and Jacob through the lens of Nephi. But the Deuteronomists are these people that live in the 600s BC, what's called 7th century Israelite religion. There's a ship. His name is the only thing that dwells in the temple.

We're going to cut down the Asherah. This tree, which is so important as part of their religion, that Josiah takes out, is taken out in 2nd Kings 23, verse 6. and Deuteronomy 16 versus 21 through 22. These are all some reforms that coincide with Josiah's reforms. I'm not alone in this, and not all scholars agree. There's actually a couple LDS scholars that take two positions. One takes a position that Lehman and Lemuel are Deuteronomists, that they're literally following this law.

They look at Lehias, you're messed up. There's this bit in Deuteronomy that says, if there's somebody that's having visions, you've got to take them out. Hank, do you want to read verse 5 of Deuteronomy 13? Mike, let me make sure I understand. Perhaps Laman and Lemuel were in on these reforms. They're saying, no, you're turning against this religion, which these reforms brought us. If we read Laman and Lamele through this lens, we see why they're having a freak out when Lehi builds an altar.

We'll see a couple others. We're going to briefly look at First Nephi. One, I know we're in Second Kings, but I think First Nephi one is pertinent to this, discussion. Here's Deuteronomy 13.5, and that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. Mike, I was going to say the next verse, if thy brother do this,

then you can get rid of him too. Yeah, verse 8, thou shalt not consent to him. Verse 9, but thou shall surely kill him. This is certainly complicated, but on one hand, it's asking to kill a dreamer of dreams, something Lehi was. He was a dreamer of dreams. But it's also a directive against false God worship. I want to be careful.

I don't want to overplay my hand on your podcast and say that I'm 100% right. I don't know. I'm just a guy looking at stuff. I don't know. But what we're looking at is I'm stacking the cards and saying there's strong evidence that Laman and Lamele may have had this perspective. Now, what really blows me away, if you remember our conversation about Deuteronomy 2929, we had about five or six minutes ago about the mysteries or the secret things are only known to God. Don't worry about them. Go to the very first verse of First Nephi one.

Now, before I read this, I want to just say this, there's a lot of scholars, not just one or two. They're not hidden in a corner. There's a lot of biblical scholars that say, these reforms of Josiah were pretty rough. They were happening during this time period. There's a major shift in religion. There's another scholar. He wrote an article in the interpreter called Vindicating Josiah.

He takes the other position and says, Hey, Josiah is a good guy. I don't want to speak evil of the dead. I think Josiah would be great to be on your podcast. We need him, but we don't have him. All we have are these records. What blows me away is this. Joseph Smith's 23 years old. I don't think he knows a lick about the Josiah reforms. I don't think he's

done the biblical scholarship on this and realizes the political things at stake. I believe the book of Mormon is what it purports to be. Look at verse one. I neify haven't been born a goodly parent. Therefore, I was taught somewhat in the learning of my father and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days. Nevertheless, having been highly favored the Lord in all my days, yea, having a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God. Therefore, I may be. make a record of the proceedings in my days. In the very first verse, Nephi says, I am privy to the mysteries. Then he says that there are a lot of prophets that said, hey, we got to repent. Then he tells you the vision of his father. And his father, remember, there are no divine counsel. There's only one God,

monotheism. There's this no host of heaven thing going on. And what does he see? Verse eight, a numberless concourses of angels. God sitting on his throne, 12. other divine beings of some sort in verse 10, and they come down and they give him a book. He talks about, I'm going to undo some of these reforms. He is privy to the mysteries. He sees God, which counters Deuteronomy 4, which says you can't see God. Remember, Moses, Deuteronomy 412, can't see him. So we've countered that one, and we've seen the council. Three of the seven really big reforms of the Deuteronomystic reforms are tackled in that very first bit. but then later he builds an altar, which undoes the whole bit of Deuteronomy 12 is thrown out the window.

It's so interesting that a 23, 24-year-old in the early 1800s gives us this text by which we can maybe interpret the Bible. Now, all that being said, this is a lot of stuff. What you can see is some tension in the text. How do we do religion? Josiah is going to put them on a trajectory. And John Hall said this to me one time. This put them on the monotheistic track. So when Jesus comes and says, I'm God's son, they don't know what to do with that.

Their interpretation is, you're saying you're the king, which he is, but Jesus isn't just saying I'm the king, as in I'm adopted by God. No, he's like, I'm the king. I'm like God's son, literally God's son, which blows their mind because they're monotheists. There's a book called The Origins of Biblical Monotheism by Mark Smith, not LDS. I'm going to sum it up. He says, this is the beginning of monotheism. The origins of biblical monotheism are coming out of the 7th century.

His whole book makes that argument. And is very strong. And he's dealing with things outside of the Bible, extra-biblical text, the uriotic text. About when did monotheism come to be, it coincides with the book of Mormon. It coincides with at least my reading of the Josiah reforms. I know that the church has that video, that beautiful video of what a good guy, Josiah is. I'm not here to say he was a bad guy or a good guy. I don't even know if these reforms were made by him.

I wouldn't do any of this in gospel doctrine. Like when I taught gospel doctrine, I didn't even show the video. I just talked about have faith, do these good things. On podcasts or side conversations, I would have members come and say, but what do we do with this? I'm like, yeah, read the book of Mormon. If we read the book of Mormon, what the book of Mormon tells us is God can be seen. He wants you to have the mysteries.

He wants you to come to him. More than his named dwells in the temple, his presence is there. One day you will embrace him. And the very end of Ether 12 and Roni 10 is an invitation by these guys that say, I've seen them, so can you. To me, that's relevant. That's powerful. And that's what we practice in the temple.

Ritually, liturgically, we're practicing coming into the presence of God. I think that's beautiful. That was probably 10 minutes of undoing Josiah, poor guy. And I hope when I meet Josiah that he'll be nice to me. I hope that we can be friends and break bread. I'm so glad to hear your final summary there. With all of this that someday will get settled, what do we do? We focus on following as best we can.

We focus on Christ, coming to him and be perfected in him, and you're going to meet him. Nephi, Maronai, they say, I've seen him and you will too. The last bit in Maronai, where he says, you and I will be before his bar. He's a real person. So the Book of Mormon may be correct. what the reformers got wrong. I can just see Joseph Smith. He's like, by the way, I'm going to go ahead and correct everything from Second Kings

23 that had been inserted in Deuteronomy while I'm at this. This is my take. I think Nephi and the other visionaries of the Book of Mormon, they take everything that Deuteronomy has that's good and they run with it and they let go of the stuff that doesn't work, stuff that says you can't see God. You can't have altars anywhere else. God only has a name. He's non-corporial.

Or the mysteries cannot be known. They let go of that stuff and they keep the good stuff. Maybe, just maybe, that the brass plates had a different version, the cool version. Wow. Yeah. John, this is great stuff. I'm already going, I got to print these show notes out and read him again. I'll send it to you.

We're almost there. I've been asked before, how come Lehi is building altars wherever he goes? It says pretty clearly in the Bible that you can. can only worship in one spot. This explains that. That wasn't in probably in Lehigh's Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy goes against everything the patriarchs do, everything. The patriarchs, they have a tree. What's the preeminent vision of First Nephi? They go to a tree. In fact, Lehii's vision, which then becomes Nephys, they go through three-part space. They go through the lone and joy wilderness. They go past the great and spacious building. By the way, the word haecal,

which is the main house of the temple, means great and spacious. palace that's what it means he passes that and then he comes to the tree and he falls down partakes of the fruit of the tree i look at that as a holy of holy's vision there's three-part space in his vision and the tree is central to this visionary experience the tree was central in part of the early israelite religion there's so much debate on this and i know there's ldaa scholars on both sides of this i'm not dogmatic i don't know i wasn't there i'm just a guy looking at stuff but i find it fascinating because the book of Mormon, like the providence of the book of Mormon, a 23-year-old man who says,

I've seen God, gives it to us. I always like to tell my students, if the book of Mormon was found in a cave and it came out today, it would be the biggest find in archaeological history. Every Christian would be shouting, hallelujah, saying, this is proof. Jesus is the Christ, you know, it's just the providence they don't like. The message, I don't think they have an issue with that.

Wow. This has been fantastic. Mike. This is my kind of day where we go through and really become more competent in scripture. Like you said, there's not a place to do this in gospel doctrine. No, we got 25 minutes. But it sure is fun to do on your own, I'll tell you, and to talk about with your good friends, Mike and John. Mike, wouldn't you love to see the Deuteronomy on the brass plates? Yes, I would. Because here's a thing, Jacob 4, where he says all the prophets testified of Christ, what if the early versions of this stuff read more like the Book of Mormon,

that they testify of the Messiah, the one who will come down and die? I believe that Moses taught this. I believe Exodus 12 with the Passover probably came with a lecture, and Moses said this lamb we're killing is the son of man. That's not in Exodus 12, but I bet it was. Book of Mormon talks about Moses raising a brazing serpent and then testifying that this would be like the Son of God. And I'm like, that's not in numbers.

That's where it happened, but it's not in there. But it's in the book Mormon debt. And then he testified, the son of God will be raised up like this. Bill Hamblin wrote an article called Vindicating Josiah in Interpreter Magazine. I think it really is a good balance to what I'm saying because, once again, I don't know if I'm right. I know that there's different opinions on this and I don't want to be dogmatic in this. I definitely lean a certain way. That's because of what I've read, but it doesn't mean I'm right.

Hamlin's article is a really good counter to Rapley's argument about Laman and Lemuel being Deuteronomis. We'll put those out there so you can read those and get an overall view of both sides of this argument. What's going on at the end of 2nd Kings 23? What in the heck is Josiah doing there fighting the Egyptians? Big picture is this. Issyria's on their way out and Babylon's on the rise. The third empire is going to be Egypt. Babylon has chased the Assyrian warriors all the way to Huron.

they've wrecked Nineveh in 612. It's completely wrecked. In a strange, really weird twist of politics, Egypt, under Nico II, decides to march north to help their former enemies, the Assyrians. Why do they want to do this? Well, they want to buffer. They want to check Babylonian power, and by having Assyria have some more power, they can check them so that they can have power as well. Now, anybody who studies geopolitics, we see this happening even today, whether it comes with embargo, or controlling trade. There's so much going on even today when it comes to power. Every leader wants to defend their people.

Well, that's Egypt's take. What's Josiah doing? Why does he want to stop the Egyptians? He had just spent a ton of time reclaiming lands in the north from Assyrian dominance and changed their religion, as it were. And he didn't want Assyria to come back in and take it. He didn't want Assyria to have influence over the north. In Josiah's mind, we think we don't have Josiah's journal,

But in his mind, stopping Egypt would help out. But this was a fatal move. Josiah viewed Babylon as the enemy of my enemy. And there's a phrase that goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Josiah seems to think, hey, if I do this, maybe something good will happen. Well, it kind of backfires.

Babylon defeats As Syria and Niko at Huron in 609. But Niko doesn't give up. He stays at a place called Karkameshamesh on the Euphrates, and he tries to hold a slice of the pie. in Mesopotam. He tries to hold on, but he gets wrecked in 605. His army gets pushed all the way back to Egypt, and we read about that in 2nd Kings 24-7. At that point, Judah is a vassal to Egypt. Now that Babylon has power, Judah finds itself on the wrong side of power. Judah now, it's sitting in this really weak position where Babylon has risen up. They're still paying tribute to Egypt, but in this story of this war,

once again, Josiah goes up north to defend against Assyrian might. So he's attacking Egypt. Why? Well, because Egypt's running to their defense. That's the backdrop to Second Kings 23. If we read Second Kings 23, if we read verse 29, it says, in the days of Faronico, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. Josiah went against him and slew him at Megito when he had seen him. And his servants carried him in a chair. it dead from Megito. This is Josiah, dead. They bring him to Jerusalem and they bury him in a sepulchre. The people of the land took Jehoaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him king. That's the end of his reign. In my opinion, the Deuteronomistic reformers were not expecting this. They thought that he was going to be the greatest thing ever. There's these bits in kings where they

rewrite history like little editorial insertions. I want to read one of them. Now after we just read how he's killed in those verses starting in 29 30, 31. Let's go back. Go back to verse 24. In 24, it says, the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards and the images and the idols. These are all the things that Josiah quote unquote put away. That's verse 24. Then verse 25, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread verse. It says, and likened to him, meaning Josiah, there is no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. And with all his might according to the law of Moses. Neither after him arose there any like him. So in other words, from the perspective of the Deuteronomistic historian, verse 25 of 2nd Kings 23 says, there's never been a

king better before or after. Once again, I want to give a shout out to the book of Mormon. If you read Alma 13 verse 19, the author of Alma 13 says that the greatest king ever is Melchizedic. In Melchizedic, there is no record in Alma 13 of him going around killing a bunch of people. He preaches repentance and the city becomes righteous. The Book of Mormon, I think, can be read as a lens to help us understand this text. I'm okay with this history. History is messy. If the history you're reading isn't making you uncomfortable, you're probably not reading history. So this is really uncomfortable. The Book of Mormon is going to give us another lens. After it says he's the greatest thing ever,

verse 26, in my opinion, is an editorial insertion where a later editor is going to say, okay he's the greatest thing ever but then look at verse 26 not with saying the lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath wherewith his anger was kindled against judah because of the provocations that manasse did it's like well we're still going to get wrecked because of manassah the lord said in verse 27 i will remove judah out of my sight as i removed israel and will cast off the city jerusalem which i have chosen and the house of which i said here it is again hasham my name the name will be there. This is very much Deuteronomistic theology. The name of God will be there. Even after it says Josiah is the greatest thing ever, you're still going to get wrecked. In my opinion, and most scholars say, hey, this is an editorial insertion from a later redactor. I know that's a lot of stuff. Sorry if that's super boring, but it really helps you wrap your brain around this history,

like what's going on. The son of Josiah takes the throne. We get a couple more leaders after Josiah, but this is the slide downhill. I actually had that note in my scriptures. I I think from Josh Sears a few years ago after verse 25, I had written, this could be the initial ending. Sounds like you said, they added some more after that. They're like, oh, it didn't quite go the way we thought. Yeah, this is showing us, this is history, this is messy, it's written by humans, they're writing it with a certain lens. Am I bashing the Bible by saying that? No, you're showing us, there's Deuteronomus, there's, what did you call there?

Yeah, so the Yahwehs is from the south. They portray God corporeal, the Ilohis. They portray God in visions and dreams. He's accessible that way. They are representing a northern perspective. And all of them have influence on what we're reading. Yeah, everybody has a peace. Mike, we've looked at the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom.

We've looked at Hezekiah and Isaiah. We looked at Manasseh for a little bit. Then we looked at Josiah and the reforms. Wrap it up for us. What happens next? So this is where the Book of Mormon really picks up. We read in 24, Jerusalem is besieged and is taken by Nebuchadnezzar. Now, Zedekiah is put on the throne.

I'm kind of skipping a king here, but Zedekiah is put on a throne. We read about this in verse 17 of chapter 24. His name is Matanaya, but they change his name to Zetakaya, and the author says he did evil in the side of the Lord. Jeremiah tells him and warns him in the 37th and 38th chapter that you're going to get wrecked if you don't listen to this. He says these words exactly. He says, if you will surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared. This city will not be burned with fire. You and your house shall live.

That's Jeremiah 3817. For that, Jeremiah is thrown in prison. Lehi comes out and says kind of the same thing, and they want to kill him. This is the end of the monarchy, as it were. It's not good stuff. They burn the house of the Lord. They slay his sons in verse 7 of chapter, It says they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and then they put out the eyes of Zedekiah. So that's like the last thing that he sees is his sons being killed and the temple being destroyed. What's super fascinating to me is the end. If you skip to the end, and I think this is important. If you go to verse 27 of the very end, it says,

it came to pass in the 7th and 30th year of the captivity of Jehoachin, King of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 7th, 20th day of the month, that evil Merodoc, king of Babylon, this year that he began to reign to lift up the head of Jehoachin, king of Judah, out of prison. And he spake kindly to him. This king, who's a descendant of Zedekiah, who's a descendant of the Davidic line, he's freed from prison. Verse 28 says that he spake kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon. And he changed his prison garment, and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life. And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.

And I wrote this in here in my scriptures. I remember the first time I really was pondering this, and I wrote, The Book of Kings ends with a ray of hope. Jehoachin is released and allowed to live. After 37 years in prison, a Davidic king lives. This sparks, at least to some in the Jewish tradition, a hope for a return of the Davidic dynasty. This is considered by most scholars to be the Deuteronomistic redactors' addition to the story, that there is hope. I'm a Star Wars nerd at heart,

but there's this one line in Empire Strikes Back where Luke's taking off, the spirit of Obi-Wan turns to Yoda and says, that boy is our only hope. Yoda looks up and he says, no, there is another. That's this idea of a remnant shall return. The root shall grow, a new branch. This is Isaiah 11. We're going to get another tree. In my opinion, Matthew chapter 1 is

continuing 2nd Kings 25, that the Davidic line is in Jesus, even though they killed him. The tree is a symbol for the king. The tree will live. That's my conclusion to second kings. I don't want to end on the ruin, the calamity. Yeah, the temple is destroyed, but that's the trauma that David Carr is talking about. That trauma preserve the Bible. Because these people, were so traumatized, they wanted to know what do we do now, now that we've lost our land and our temple. One of the questions that sometimes comes up is, you read it, 2nd Kings 257, they slew the sons of Zatakaia. But didn't Zedekiah have a son named Mulek? Where do we figure he came from?

In the Hebrew text, it doesn't say all the sons of Zetakia. It just says Zedekia. What's interesting is that word Mulek, it's vowel differently, but the word Mellek means king. Eulik is a really cool kingly word. It has the same Hebrew stem. They just vowel it differently. Maybe Mulek was like his throne name or maybe that was a code name. But yeah, the Book of Mormon says, here's a line of David that comes to the Americas.

That's pretty cool. I think that's Omni 1, where we first hear about that group. It seems like they seem to be the ones that are the kingmen because they're claiming, hey, we came from a king. We came from Zetak. I think you're on to something. Isn't that an interesting, complex little wrinkle in the Book of Mormon? There's so many of those, aren't there?

They were claiming to be of high birth because they could claim Zedekiah. Well, you can see why it's important. This Davidic line is everything to these guys. That end of Second King's 25 feels like a bit of a post-credit scene where it's ending, and then there's just after the credits. Oh, by the way, I'm going to leave this open. We're going to leave this open for a sequel. For a sequel.

Mike, before we let you go, this has been fantastic. Speak to our listeners who have stayed with us this whole time. They've gone through this. They're loving it. At times, our listeners assume that the guests we bring on. I've not seen the difficult times they have, but you have. Your family has. Yet here you are.

You love this. You can feel it exuding from you, this excitement for Scripture. Could you speak to them for a second? What is Scripture done for you in your difficulties? The Lord, through the Scriptures. Honestly, it's literally saved my life. I didn't come from, I'm going to cry, but I didn't come from an active family. I didn't have a dad. My mom married three different men, and so I had different men in my life, but I didn't really have like a steady influence. I was not active in the church. And I remember being a 15-year-old kid reading the book of Mormon. You know when you know. That's when I had to make a decision because I wasn't living according to the stuff that I was reading. So I had to make a decision. It saved me. my life, I would be literally dead. I would be an alcoholic. My whole family on my mom's side, my mom's side was what I knew. We were all alcoholics. Alcoholism runs deep in my family.

And I know, save my life. I can talk about it all day, but I have had spiritual experiences where I'm like, Joseph Smith did not write this book. It is from heaven. It's just been everything to me. The amazing thing for me is as I've chased biblical scholarship and really gone down some of these deep rabbit holes. The Book of Mormon is prophetic midrash on the Bible. It is prophetic commentary. It is interpreting it. It is showing you ways to read Isaiah, how to read the Deuteronomystic reforms, what Isaiah is doing. There is so much in the Book of Mormon, and I think we haven't even explored it all yet. I think there's more to come, which is so exciting. But I remember after like the 10th or 12th time I read the Book of Mormon, I remember thinking,

okay, I got this, I know what it's about. Every time I read it, I walk away and go, how did I miss that? I just did a presentation two days ago on the liturgical aspects of Third Nephi. I was reading one day, like about a year ago, and I saw the liturgy of the temple in Technicolor in Third Nephi, not the stuff in the sermon on the mount that John Welch has done, but other stuff. I thought, I've read the Book of Mormon more times than I can tell you, and I was learning something.

I just thought, there's power. there. And the restoration's real. I know people have issues about different social issues or whatever, but if you get to the bare bones, come into Christ and be perfected in him, that is gold. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for spending the day with us. I love it when my hand is tired from writing. I'm trying to keep track of all the different scriptures. You know, I got fingers in different I got fingers in Deuteronomy and some in First Nephi, some in Jeremiah, and I feel so uplifted. That is the power of scripture. John, what a great day.

That last part, speaking of ending on a beautiful high note. I cannot deny what I felt. It was so powerful. It was almost like there was an angel in heaven going, look, Mike's awake. Let's get him. Yeah. Here is a Bible amazing scholar. reading this and going, I am missing stuff every time I read it that's coming out this time.

What a testimony. Thank you for that. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. With that, we want to thank Dr. Michael Day for being with us today. It has been a treat, a joy, a feast. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen. Our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode.

We remember our founding. Steve Sorensen. We hope to join us next week. We're going to do more Old Testament study on Follow Him. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we'd love to gift you the digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes.

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