Josiah - The Word of God Recovered: 2 Chronicles 34

2 Chronicles 34  •  7 min. read  •  grade level: 12
 
2 Chronicles 34
At last we come to the reign of Josiah, the final light cast by a candle-end about to flicker out, followed by a deep night until the time when day breaks anew with the appearance of the true King according to God's counsels. Yet by grace this lamp of David shines with an outstanding burst of light before disappearing, making us anticipate future blessings. The Word tells us: Josiah "did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand nor to the left" (2 Chron. 34:22And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. (2 Chronicles 34:2)). "The ways of David his father" — this same thing had been said of his two great predecessors, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah (2 Chron. 17:3; 29:23And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim; (2 Chronicles 17:3)
2And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. (2 Chronicles 29:2)). God's Word is not bountiful in its use of this praise which relates the ways of faithful kings back to the glorious beginnings of the kingdom of Israel. But even if this was so with the king, the people did not merit the same praise. Under the kings in a general way the nation corrupted itself more and more, awakening momentarily under the influence of an energetic and faithful king, but after him falling back quickly into the idolatry which, in fact, they had never abandoned since they came out of Egypt. Jeremiah, who began to prophesy in the days of Josiah, says, precisely in reference to this reign: "Treacherous... Judah hash not returned unto Me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith Jehovah" (Jer. 3:1010And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:10)). This quotation, among many others, suffices to reveal Judah's moral state, even in the best days of the kingdom.
2 Chron. 34:3-73For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. 4And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 5And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. 7And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 34:3‑7) of our chapter describe Josiah's activity of cleansing Judah and Jerusalem from idolatry, and this dated from the beginning of his kingdom when he was still a young boy. Second Kings (2 Kings 23:4-20,24-274And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. 5And he put down 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 round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. 6And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. 7And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. 8And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city. 9Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. 10And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. 11And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. 13And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. 16And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. 17Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. 18And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria. 19And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. 20And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:4‑20)
24Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. 25And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. 26Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. 27And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there. (2 Kings 23:24‑27)) describes Josiah's activity of cleansing the temple after he had reigned eighteen years. These two accounts give us two equally interesting instructions. The account in Kings connects the cleansing of the temple and of the city (and afterward the destruction of the altar at Bethel) to the discovery of the book of the law in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (2 Kings 22:33And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying, (2 Kings 22:3)). The reading of the "book of the covenant" (2 Kings 23:22And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. (2 Kings 23:2)) incited the king to undertake this work (Jer. 11:1-81The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; 3And say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, 4Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God: 5That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord. 6Then the Lord said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them. 7For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. 8Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not. (Jeremiah 11:1‑8)). The account in Chronicles has a bearing different from this. In accord with the account in Kings, the book of the law was found in the temple in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign; in accord with this same account the discovery of the book of the law led to the renewing of the covenant between the king and all his people with God. Only, following this covenant, Chronicles does not mention the abolition of idolatry in the temple and at Jerusalem, but rather, the celebration of the Passover. This latter is mentioned only in passing in 2 Kings 23:21-2321And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. 22Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; 23But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:21‑23), whereas it occupies all of chapter 35 of 2 Chronicles.
Thus an incident common to both accounts, the discovery of the book of the law, in Kings resulted in the complete rejection of idolatry, beginning at the temple and its surroundings, and in Chronicles, in the solemnity of the Passover. This difference is simple when we consider the character of the book we are studying. Everything that treats of worship and the priesthood is inseparable, as we have already often noted, from the institution of the kingdom according to God's counsels. For the last time God gives an example in Judah and shows, as we shall see in the next chapter, what blessings are associated with the celebration of the Passover.
But the fact is that discovering and bringing to light the Scriptures, buried in the dust of a sanctuary abandoned for so long, brings with it these two capital features of the testimony in Israel: the rejection of idolatry and the feast of redemption. So likewise in our days for the Christian testimony it brings separation from the world and from evil, and the gathering of God's children around their passover, Christ, and around the memorial of His work.
As we have seen (2 Chron. 34:3-73For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. 4And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 5And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. 7And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 34:3‑7)), devotion to the Lord had begun at a very early age in Josiah: between his sixteenth and twentieth years. He was still very ignorant of God's thoughts and the consequences of the people's guilt, but he had an ardent desire to see Jehovah's land and city cleansed from so much uncleanness. The blessings granted to his ancestors' faith and the restoration of his grandfather Manasseh doubtless served as powerful motivations for him to walk in their ways. Added to this were the horror caused by the wretched example of his father Amon and the terrible fate which he had consequently suffered.
God blesses Josiah's zeal, causing him to discover His Word. If, as we see here, having Israel's cleansing at heart, he had limited himself to that alone, without feeling the need to repair the breaches of the house of God and giving it back its importance, the discovery of the book of the law would never have taken place. In our times the same thing has happened over and over again to Christians, full of zeal against the idolatrous practices of the Roman Church. Their efforts have not been crowned with success, however, because they did not have at heart the Church, the true Assembly of Christ.
The reading of this book works powerfully upon Josiah's conscience: "And it came to pass when the king heard the words of the law, that he rent his garments" (2 Chron. 34:1919And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes. (2 Chronicles 34:19)). He immediately feels the need to consult the Lord, for he recognizes his own guilt and that of "them that are left in Israel and in Judah." He declares that the evil goes back to "our fathers [who] have not kept the word of Jehovah." It is the confession of the complete ruin of all, the fruit of a common disobedience. Does any hope remain? When the prophetess Huldah is consulted, she gives the final answer: All the curses pronounced by the law cannot be revoked. Jehovah's wrath will overtake Jerusalem like an unquenchable fire, but as for the king, he will be the object of grace, for — the prophetess insists on this twice — he humbled himself before God (2 Chron. 34:2727Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord. (2 Chronicles 34:27)), rent his garments as a sign of mourning and distress, and wept tears of repentance. Because of this, he would be taken away before the evil, as it is said in Isaiah: "The righteous perisheth, and no man layette it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from before the evil. He entereth into peace: they rest in their beds, each one that hath walked in his uprightness" (Isa. 57:1-21The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. 2He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. (Isaiah 57:1‑2)).
It might seem in the face of this explicit declaration on God's part that Josiah had nothing to do but to wait for deliverance without troubling himself about what would follow. Exactly the opposite effect is produced in this man of God. The understanding that he had received through the Word, "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord," impels him to shield the people while there is still time. He makes a covenant with Jehovah and "caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it" (2 Chron. 34:3232And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. (2 Chronicles 34:32)), the only means of returning to God under the law as long as a new covenant involving God alone had not yet been established. Josiah "made to serve, all that were found in Israel — to serve Jehovah their God" (2 Chron. 34:3333And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers. (2 Chronicles 34:33)). It was zeal for these souls, fear of the coming judgment for them, that made him act in this way. Josiah carried out the word spoken by the master to his bondservant: "Compel [them] to come in" (Luke. 14:23). What impelled him to this activity was the knowledge of grace for himself, announced by the word of the prophetess, and the revelation of the judgments which, while sparing the king, would overtake the people. Why should there not also be grace for others, he might ask himself — he who had realized through the reading of the book of the law that this judgment ought to have overtaken him as well?