Sun Worship in 2 Kings 23:5: Josiah's Reforms
Short answer: Sun worship in 2 Kings 23:5 refers to the organized practice of burning incense to the sun, moon, planets, and the army of the sky, carried out by priests the kings of Judah had ordained. King Josiah removed these priests as part of his reform. The verse names sun worship as one item in a list of idolatries that had taken root in Judah's high places and around Jerusalem. It was not a fringe practice but a state-supported religion that had grown up alongside the worship of Yahweh. Josiah's action shows that God does not tolerate the blending of true worship with the worship of created things. The passage also shows that sun worship was not merely a private superstition; it was institutional, funded, and led by official clergy.
The plain meaning of 2 Kings 23:5
The verse sits in the account of King Josiah's sweeping religious reform. The writer tells us, as 2 Kings 23:5 says, "He got rid of the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky." This is a careful list. It names Baal first, then the sun, then the moon, then the planets, then all the army of the sky. The writer is not describing one cult but a whole network of them.
The word translated idolatrous priests is significant. These were not rogue individuals acting on their own. The text says the kings of Judah had ordained them. That means the kings had appointed and likely paid them. Sun worship in Judah was a royal project. Whoever sat on the throne could authorize worship, and several kings had used that power to authorize the worship of created lights rather than the Creator. Josiah reverses that by removing them. His reform is not just a personal decision; it is a public stripping away of an official institution.
Notice also the geography. The priests burned incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem. Sun worship was not confined to the capital. It had spread through the towns and into the countryside around the holy city. The phrase places around Jerusalem suggests the corruption had come right up to the edge of the temple's city. What began as tolerated foreign practice had become a near neighbor to the house of Yahweh. This is a warning about how far syncretism can travel when it is left unchallenged.
The verse ends with the broadest category of all: all the army of the sky. That phrase means the host of heavenly bodies, the stars and everything visible in the night sky. The list moves from Baal, a deity worshiped in many forms, to specific lights, then to the entire heavenly host. It is as if the writer wants no reader to miss the point. Anything in the sky could become an object of incense. The created thing was being treated as divine, and Josiah had to put a stop to it.
Why the sun was so attractive to ancient worshipers
The sun is the most obvious object in the sky. It rises and sets with regularity, gives light, warmth, and life, and governs the seasons. For an ancient agricultural people, the sun was not abstract. A failed harvest could mean hunger or death. It was natural, in a fallen world, to look at the sun and ask who controls it. The answer of faith is that Yahweh controls it. The answer of idolatry is that the sun itself is a god to be appeased. That is why the prophets treat sun worship as a betrayal, not merely a mistake.
The very regularity of the sun makes it a tempting substitute for the God who made it. Yahweh is invisible and speaks through prophets, but the sun can be seen every day. It requires no faith to notice. In the ancient Near East, many peoples worshiped the sun under various names, and Israel was surrounded by these cultures. Deuteronomy 4:19 warns Israel not to be drawn away by what they see in the sky, because those lights are things Yahweh has allotted to all the peoples. The temptation was constant and close at hand.
We should be careful not to treat the ancients as naive. They understood the sun's power as well as we do, perhaps better in practical terms. Their error was not ignorance of astronomy but a failure of worship. They looked at the gift and served it instead of the Giver. Paul makes the same point in Romans 1:25, where he describes people who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served the creature rather than the Creator. Sun worship is one of the oldest and clearest examples of that exchange.
This also explains why the reform of Josiah was so thorough. You cannot negotiate with sun worship or blend it with the worship of Yahweh without distorting both. The sun is a creature. To offer it incense is to give to a creature what belongs to God alone. That is why the removal of the priests was necessary and not merely a matter of preference. The issue was not style of worship but the identity of the one being worshiped.
Josiah's wider reform and the horses of the sun
2 Kings 23:5 is only one verse in a much larger campaign. Later in the same chapter, 2 Kings 23:11 says, "He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of Yahweh's house, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire." This is remarkable. The kings of Judah had actually given horses to the sun, and there were chariots of the sun near the temple itself.
These horses and chariots were likely used in processions or as symbolic dedications to the sun deity. The fact that they stood at the entrance of Yahweh's house shows how deeply the two worship systems had been intertwined. The temple of Yahweh had become a staging ground for the worship of a created light. Josiah did not merely rebuke this; he removed the horses and burned the chariots. Fire, the element of the sun, was used to destroy the instruments of sun worship. The reform was public and visible.
This detail also tells us something about how idolatry works. It rarely announces itself as a replacement for God. It comes alongside, borrows the language and the space of true worship, and slowly reshapes the practice. The horses of the sun were not hidden in a back room; they were at the entrance of the temple. The people had grown used to them. What should have been shocking had become normal. Josiah's reform was, in part, a restoration of the ability to be shocked again.
Later in 2 Kings 23, Josiah also defiled the high places and broke down the altars. He removed the mediums and spiritists and the household gods. Verse 5 is not an isolated act but the beginning of a systematic cleansing. The writer presents Josiah as a king who did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh and did not turn aside. The removal of the sun priests was an act of covenant faithfulness, not merely religious policy. It was a return to the first commandment.
Sun worship as a violation of the first commandment
The first commandment is, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). Sun worship violates that command directly. But it also violates it in a subtle way, because the sun is not a foreign invention. It is part of the good creation that God made. Genesis 1 tells us God made the sun and moon and stars, and they are called lights, not gods. To worship them is to take something God made for human benefit and give it the honor that belongs to God alone.
Deuteronomy 4:19 states the boundary clearly: "and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky." The verse does not deny that the sun shines on all peoples. It denies that the sun is therefore divine. God has allotted these lights to all nations as gifts, not as objects of worship.
This is why the biblical writers treat sun worship as especially offensive. It is not the worship of a rival deity from a distant land; it is the worship of something everyone can see and benefit from. It turns a gift into a god. That pattern repeats whenever we take something good, whether a relationship, a career, a nation, or a pleasure, and give it the trust and devotion that belong to God. The sun is only the clearest ancient example of a universal human tendency.
Josiah's reform shows that faithfulness to the first commandment sometimes requires removal, not merely addition. It is not enough to add worship of Yahweh alongside worship of the sun. The two cannot share the incense. The command is exclusive because God is exclusive. He will not be one among many. The reform of 2 Kings 23 is a picture of what repentance looks like when it touches the institutions and habits that have grown up around a divided heart.
The inner-court vision of Ezekiel 8:16
Ezekiel 8:16 gives us a window into how deeply sun worship had penetrated the temple. The prophet says, as Ezekiel 8:16 says, "He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh's house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh's temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh's temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east." The men are in the inner court, the holiest area open to worshipers, and they are facing the wrong way.
Their posture is the point. They have their backs toward Yahweh's temple and their faces toward the east. The temple, where God's presence dwells, is behind them. The rising sun is in front of them. This is not a minor detail; it is a visual summary of apostasy. The worshipers have turned away from the God who is present with them and toward the light he created. Ezekiel sees this as one of the abominations that provoke God's judgment and eventually the departure of his glory from the temple.
The number twenty-five and the location between the porch and the altar add weight. These are not outsiders but leaders, likely elders or priests, worshiping in the very center of Israel's religious life. The corruption is not at the margins; it is at the heart. This is why the prophets speak so sharply about sun worship. It was not a harmless custom. It was a repudiation of the covenant at the place where the covenant was supposed to be most visible.
Ezekiel's vision should make us ask where our own backs are turned. It is possible to stand in a place of worship while facing something else entirely. The men in the vision were physically present at the temple, but their hearts were oriented toward the sun. The same can happen in a church service, a quiet time, or a ministry. External position is not the same as inward orientation. God sees which way we are facing.
Sun worship and the judgment of Jeremiah 8:2
Jeremiah 8:2 describes the fate of those who worshiped the heavenly host: Jeremiah 8:2 says, "They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth." The verse lists five verbs of devotion: loved, served, walked after, sought, worshiped. The language is comprehensive. This was not casual interest but a full-hearted allegiance.
The judgment is that the bones of these worshipers will be spread out before the very objects they served. The sun and moon and stars will look down on the exposed remains. There will be no burial, no gathering, no honor. In ancient Israel, to be unburied was a great shame. The verse uses that shame to make a theological point: those who gave their devotion to the sky will be given over to the sky in death. What they loved will witness their disgrace.
The phrase like dung on the surface of the earth is deliberately shocking. It is meant to strip away any romanticism about idolatry. The prophets do not present sun worship as a beautiful alternative spirituality. They present it as a betrayal that ends in humiliation. The contrast between the shining sun and the unburied bones is the contrast between the false promise of idolatry and its real end. The created light cannot save; it can only shine on the wreckage.
This is why the reform of Josiah mattered so much. He was not merely tidying up the religious landscape. He was pulling people back from a path that led to judgment. The removal of the idolatrous priests was an act of mercy as well as obedience. It closed a door that led to death. In the same way, repentance today is not God being harsh; it is God redirecting us away from what cannot save toward the one who can.
What sun worship teaches us about modern idolatry
We are unlikely to burn incense to the sun in the twenty-first century, but the pattern of sun worship is not extinct. Any created thing that receives our ultimate trust, devotion, or identity functions as a sun. The sun was attractive because it was visible, regular, and life-giving. Our modern equivalents are often equally visible and equally regular. We can organize our lives around productivity, approval, comfort, or a political cause, and give them the love, service, and seeking that Jeremiah lists.
The lesson of 2 Kings 23:5 is that idolatry often becomes institutional. The kings of Judah had ordained the priests. Whole structures of worship had grown up around the sun. In the same way, idolatry in our lives rarely stays private. It shapes our calendars, our budgets, our conversations, and our churches. A divided heart produces divided institutions. Josiah's reform had to tear down structures, not just change opinions. That is uncomfortable but necessary.
At the same time, we should be careful not to turn this into a tool for accusing others. The reform of Josiah began with a king who ordered it, but the underlying issue was the heart of the people. The goal of confronting idolatry is not to win arguments but to return to God. Paul's words in Romans 1:25 are not a weapon against outsiders but a diagnosis for all of us, including believers. We are all prone to serve the creature rather than the Creator.
The positive hope in this passage is that reform is possible. Josiah removed the priests, burned the chariots, and tore down the high places. A nation that had drifted into sun worship could be called back. The same God who sent the prophets and the reforming kings still calls his people to turn. Sun worship is a serious matter, but it is not beyond the reach of grace. The first step is to see which way we are facing and to turn back toward the temple.
Biblical fidelity check
2 Kings 23:5 establishes that idolatrous priests existed in Judah, that the kings had ordained them, that they burned incense in the high places and around Jerusalem, and that they burned incense to Baal, the sun, the moon, the planets, and the army of the sky. It also establishes that Josiah removed them. It does not tell us how long this practice had continued, how many priests there were, or what specific liturgies they used. It is a historical statement within a reform account, not a complete treatise on ancient sun cults.
A common misreading is to treat this verse as if sun worship were the only idolatry in Judah, or as if it were a trivial add-on. The verse itself corrects that by listing Baal and the heavenly host together. Another misreading is to think the reform was merely personal or symbolic. The text says Josiah got rid of the priests, which means real people lost real positions. The passage does not establish that all Judah repented, nor does it claim that the reform changed every heart. It records what Josiah did, and it leaves the reader to see that outward reform and inward renewal are not the same thing.
Other passages that speak to 2 Kings 23:5
The reform of 2 Kings 23 follows a long history of Israelite kings, and those accounts help us see why Josiah's actions were necessary. The books of Kings trace how royal leadership shaped worship, for good or for ill. Four studies give useful context. 1 Kings 1: David Acts as Adonijah Rebels shows the transition of power that set the stage for later kings. 1 Kings 10: Solomon's Wisdom and Wealth Tested describes Solomon's reign and the warning signs of compromise. 1 Kings 11: Solomon's Heart Turns and Kingdom Divides explains how Solomon's foreign wives and their gods led Israel away. 1 Kings 12: Rehoboam's Folly and Jeroboam's Idols shows how idolatry became official policy in the northern kingdom. Together these passages show that the sun worship Josiah confronted was the fruit of generations of compromise.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly did the idolatrous priests do in 2 Kings 23:5?
They burned incense. The verse says they burned incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, and that they burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the army of the sky. Burning incense was an act of worship and petition, normally offered to God alone. These priests offered it to created things. They were not merely offering sacrifices in the wrong place; they were directing worship to the wrong object. Josiah removed them because their ministry was fundamentally idolatrous.
Was sun worship common in ancient Israel, or was it a rare exception?
The Bible presents it as a recurring and serious problem, not a rare exception. Deuteronomy 4:19 warns Israel against it before they even enter the land. Kings and prophets repeatedly confront it. Ezekiel 8:16 shows men worshiping the sun in the inner court of the temple. Jeremiah 8:2 describes widespread devotion to the sun, moon, and starry host. It was common enough to require national reform. That does not mean every Israelite practiced it, but it does mean the temptation was persistent and the corruption ran deep.
How should Christians today apply a passage about sun worship?
We should apply the underlying principle: worship belongs to God alone. Created things are gifts to be received with thanksgiving, not gods to be served. The sun was a particularly attractive idol because it was visible and life-giving. Our idols are often just as visible and just as useful. The application is to examine what we love, serve, walk after, seek, and worship, and to turn back to God. It is also to support reform in our own lives and churches when we find that something created has taken God's place.
