The silent yet powerful influences set in operation by
the messages of the prophets regarding the Babylonian
Captivity did much to prepare the way for a reformation
that took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign. This
reform movement, by which threatened judgments were
averted for a season, was brought about in a wholly
unexpected manner through the discovery and study of a portion
of Holy Scripture that for many years had been strangely
misplaced and lost.
Nearly a century before, during the first Passover
celebrated by Hezekiah, provision had been made for the daily
public reading of the book of the law to the people by teaching
priests. It was the observance of the statutes recorded
by Moses, especially those given in the book of the covenant,
which forms a part of Deuteronomy, that had made the
reign of Hezekiah so prosperous. But Manasseh had dared
set aside these statutes; and during his reign the temple
copy of the book of the law, through careless neglect, had
become lost. Thus for many years the people generally
were deprived of its instruction.
The long-lost manuscript was found in the temple by
Hilkiah, the high priest, while the building was undergoing
extensive repairs in harmony with King Josiah's plan
for the preservation of the sacred structure. The high priest
handed the precious volume to Shaphan, a learned scribe,
who read it and then took it to the king with the story of
its discovery.
Josiah was deeply stirred as he heard read for the first
time the exhortations and warnings recorded in this ancient
manuscript. Never before had he realized so fully the plainness
with which God had set before Israel "life and death,
blessing and cursing" (Deuteronomy 30:19): and how
repeatedly they had been urged to choose the way of life,
that they might become a praise in the earth, a blessing to
all nations. "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor
be afraid," Israel had been exhorted through Moses; "for
the Lord thy God. He it is that doth go with thee; He will
not fail thee, not forsake thee." Deuteronomy 31:6.
The book abounded in assurances of God's willingness
to save to the uttermost those who should place their trust
fully in Him. As He had wrought in their deliverance from
Egyptian bondage, so would He work mightily in
establishing them in the Land of Promise and in placing them
at the head of the nations of earth.
The encouragements offered as the reward of obedience
were accompanied by prophecies of judgments against the
disobedient; and as the king heard the inspired words, he
recognized, in the picture set before him, conditions that
were similar to those actually existing in his kingdom. In
connection with these prophetic portrayals of departure
from God, he was startled to find plain statements to the
effect that the day of calamity would follow swiftly and
that there would be no remedy. The language was plain;
there could be no mistaking the meaning of the words.
And at the close of the volume, in a summary of God's
dealings with Israel and a rehearsal of the events of the
future, these matters were made doubly plain. In the hearing
of all Israel, Moses had declared:
"Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak;
And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
My speech shall distill as the dew,
As the small rain upon the tender herb,
And as the showers upon the grass:
Because I will publish the name of the Lord:
Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
He is the Rock, His work is perfect:
For all His ways are judgment:
A God of truth and without iniquity,
Just and right is He."
Deuteronomy 32:1-4.
"Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations:
Ask thy father, and he will show thee;
Thy elders, and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided to the nations their
inheritance,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the bounds of the people
According to the number of the children of Israel.
For the Lord's portion is His people;
Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.
He found him in a desert land,
And in the waste howling wilderness;
He led him about, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye."
Verses 7-10.
But Israel "forsook God which made him,
And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods,
With abominations provoked they Him to anger.
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God;
To gods whom they knew not,
To new gods that came newly up,
Whom your fathers feared not.
Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,
And hast forgotten God that formed thee.
"And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them,
Because of the provoking of His sons, and of
His daughters.
And He said, I will hide My face from them,
I will see what their end shall be:
For they are a very froward generation,
Children in whom is no faith.
They have moved Me to jealousy with that which
is not God;
They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities:
And I will move them to jealousy with those which
are not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation."
"I will heap mischiefs upon them;
I will spend Mine arrows upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with
burning heat,
And with bitter destruction."
"For they are a nation void of counsel,
Neither is there any understanding in them.
O that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they would consider their latter end!
How should one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their rock had sold them,
And the Lord had shut them up?
For their rock is not as our Rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges."
"Is not this laid up in store with Me,
And sealed up among My treasures?
To Me belongeth vengeance, and recompense;
Their foot shall slide in due time:
For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things that shall come upon them make haste."
Verses 15:21, 23, 24, 28-31, 34, 35.
These and similar passages revealed to Josiah God's love
for His people and His abhorrence of sin. As the king read
the prophecies of swift judgment upon those who should
persist in rebellion, he trembled for the future. The
perversity of Judah had been great; what was to be the
outcome of their continued apostasy?
In former years the king had not been indifferent to the
prevailing idolatry. "In the eighth year of his reign, while
he was yet young," he had consecrated himself fully to the
service of God. Four years later, at the age of twenty, he
had made an earnest effort to remove temptation from his
subjects by purging "Judah and Jerusalem from the high
places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten
images." "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. And he burnt the bones of the priests
upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem." 2
Chronicles 34:3-5.
Not content with doing thorough work in the land of
Judah, the youthful ruler had extended his efforts to the
portions of Palestine formerly occupied by the ten tribes
of Israel, only a feeble remnant of which now remained.
"So did he," the record reads, "in the cities of Manasseh,
and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali." Not until
he had traversed the length and breadth of this region of
ruined homes, and "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,"
did he return to Jerusalem. Verses 6,7.
Thus Josiah, from his earliest manhood, had endeavored
to take advantage of his position as king to exalt to principles
of God's holy law. And now, while Shaphan the
scribe was reading to him out of the book of the law, the
king discerned in this volume a treasure of knowledge, a
powerful ally, in the work of reform he so much desired to
see wrought in the land. He resolved to walk in the light of
its counsels, and also to do all in his power to acquaint his
people with its teachings and to lead them, if possible, to
cultivate reverence and love for the law of heaven.
But was it possible to bring about the needed reform?
Israel had almost reached the limit of divine forbearance;
soon God would arise to punish those who had brought
dishonor upon His name. Already the anger of the Lord
was kindled against the people. Overwhelmed with sorrow
and dismay, Josiah rent his garments and bowed before
God in agony of spirit, seeking pardon for the sins of an
impenitent nation.
At that time the prophetess Huldah was living in
Jerusalem, near the temple. The mind of the king, filled with
anxious foreboding, reverted to her, and he determined
to inquire of the Lord through this chosen messenger to
learn, if possible, whether by any means within his power
he might save erring Judah, now on the verge of ruin.
The gravity of the situation and the respect in which he
held the prophetess led him to choose as his messengers to
her the first men of the kingdom. "Go ye," he bade them,
"inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for
all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found:
for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against
us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words
of this book, to do according unto all that which is written
concerning us." 2 Kings 22:13.
Through Huldah the Lord sent Josiah word that
Jerusalem's ruin could not be averted. Even should the people
now humble themselves before God, they could not escape
their punishment. So long had their senses been deadened
by wrongdoing that, if judgment should not come upon
them, they would soon return to the same sinful course.
"Tell the man that sent you to me," the prophetess declared,
"Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this
place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words
of the book which the king of Judah hath read: because
they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other
gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the
works of their hands; therefore My wrath shall be kindled
against this place, and shall not be quenched." Verses 15-17.
But because the king had humbled his heart before God,
the Lord would acknowledge his promptness in seeking
forgiveness and mercy. To him was sent the message:
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled
thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake
against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that
they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent
thy clothes, and wept before Me; I also have heard thee,
saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto
thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in
peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will
bring upon this place." Verses 19, 20.
The king must leave with God the events of the future;
he could not alter the eternal decrees of Jehovah. But in
announcing the retributive judgments of Heaven, the Lord
had not withdrawn opportunity for repentance and
reformation; and Josiah, discerning in this a willingness on the
part of God to temper His judgments with mercy, determined
to do all in his power to bring about decided reforms.
He arranged at once for a great convocation, to which
were invited the elders and magistrates in Jerusalem and
Judah, together with the common people. These, with
the priests and Levites, met the king in the court of the
temple.
To this vast assembly the king himself read "all the
words of the book of the covenant which was found in
the house of the Lord." 2 Kings 23:2. The royal reader
was deeply affected, and he delivered his message with the
pathos of a broken heart. His hearers were profoundly
moved. The intensity of feeling revealed in the countenance
of the king, the solemnity of the message itself, the warning
of judgments impending--all these had their effect, and
many determined to join with the king in seeking
forgiveness.
Josiah now proposed that those highest in authority unite
with the people in solemnly covenanting before God to
co-operate with one another in an effort to institute decided
changes. "The king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant
before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His
commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with
all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of
this covenant that were written in this book." The response
was more hearty than the king had dared hope for: "All
the people stood to the covenant." Verse 3.
In the reformation that followed, the king turned his
attention to the destruction of every vestige of idolatry that
remained. So long had the inhabitants of the land followed
the customs of the surrounding nations in bowing down
to images of wood and stone, that it seemed almost beyond
the power of man to remove every trace of these evils. But
Josiah persevered in his effort to cleanse the land. Sternly
he met idolatry by slaying "all the priests of the high places;"
"moreover 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." Verses 20, 24.
In the days of the rending of the kingdom, centuries
before, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat, in bold defiance
of the God whom Israel had served, was endeavoring to
turn the hearts of the people away from the services of the
temple in Jerusalem to new forms of worship, he had set
up an unconsecrated altar at Bethel. During the dedication
of this altar, where many in years to come were to be
seduced into idolatrous practices, there had suddenly
appeared a man of God from Judea, with words of
condemnation for the sacrilegious proceedings. He had "cried
against the altar," declaring:
"O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall
be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and
upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that
burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon
thee." 1 Kings 13:2. This announcement had been
accompanied by a sign that the word spoken was of the Lord.
Three centuries had passed. During the reformation
wrought by Josiah, the king found himself in Bethel, where
stood this ancient altar. The prophecy uttered so many years
before in the presence of Jeroboam, was now to be literally
fulfilled.
"The altar that was at Bethel, 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.
"And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchers
that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones
out of the sepulchers, 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.
"Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the
men of the city told him, It is the sepulcher of the man of
God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things
that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. And 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." 2 Kings 23:15-18.
On the southern slopes of Olivet, opposite the beautiful
temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah, were the shrines and
images that had been placed there by Solomon to please
his idolatrous wives. See 1 Kings 11:6-8. For upwards
of three centuries the great, misshapen images had stood
on the "Mount of Offense," mute witnesses to the apostasy
of Israel's wisest king. These, too, were removed and
destroyed by Josiah.
The king sought further to establish the faith of Judah
in the God of their fathers by holding a great Passover
feast, in harmony with the provisions made in the book
of the law. Preparation was made by those having the
sacred services in charge, and on the great day of the feast,
offerings were freely made. "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." 2 Kings 23:22. But the zeal of Josiah, acceptable
though it was to God, could not atone for the sins of past
generations; nor could the piety displayed by the king's
followers effect a change of heart in many who stubbornly
refused to turn from idolatry to the worship of the true God.
For more than a decade following the celebration of
the Passover, Josiah continued to reign. At the age of
thirty-nine he met death in battle with the forces of Egypt,
"and was buried in one of the sepulchers of his fathers."
"All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah
lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and
the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations
to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and,
behold, they are written in the lamentations." 2 Chronicles
35:24, 25. Like unto Josiah "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.
Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of
His great wrath, . . . because of all the provocations that
Manasseh had provoked Him withal." 2 Kings 23:25, 26.
The time was rapidly approaching when Jerusalem was
to be utterly destroyed and the inhabitants of the land
carried captive to Babylon, there to learn the lessons they had
refused to learn under circumstances more favorable.