The last good king of Judah (reigned c. 640–609 BC) — crowned at eight, who purged the idols and, when the lost scroll of the Law was found in the temple during his repairs (2 Kings 22), tore his robes and led the deepest reform in Judah's history. Jeremiah's ministry began in his thirteenth year (Jeremiah 1:2), and it is Josiah the prophet holds up in this chapter as the yardstick for his own sons: 'Your father — did he not eat and drink, AND do justice and righteousness? … He judged the cause of the poor and needy … Is that not to know me?' (22:15-16). His death was the hinge of the age: he rode out to stop Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo and was killed (609 BC), and within a generation everything he had built came down. He is the 'dead' of 22:10, mourned — while his sons are the ones to weep over.