After the death of Manasseh, his son Amon reigned for two years. He was only twenty-two years old, but he walked in all the evil of his father's earlier life. A conspiracy was organized against Amon which resulted in his murder, but the people of the land slew the conspirators, and put Josiah, the son of Amon, on the throne at the age of eight years. He reigned for thirty-one years, and was one of the best kings that Judah ever had. "He...walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left." (2 Kings 22:2)
This disposition became especially marked in him when he was sixteen years old, and during the rest of his life it was steadfastly maintained. "And 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." (2 Kings 23:25)
A Discovered Treasure
In his eighteenth year, Josiah instructed Hilkiah, the high priest, who was father to Jeremiah the prophet, to apply the temple contributions to restoration of the sacred building. This work was put in hand and, in the course of it, an important discovery was made. The book of the law, which God had directed should be kept with the ark of the covenant, was brought to light. Hilkiah showed the book to Shaphan, the scribe, who read it himself, and then took it to Josiah. "And Shaphan read it before the king." (2 Kings 22:10)
A Grievous Famine
It is impossible for us to conceive now the feelings with which this recovered treasure would be regarded. The Word of God is so easy of access that men have come to regard it as a common thing, and often show it scant reverence. But no greater calamity could befall the world than to be deprived of the Bible. Because we are so accustomed to it, and to enjoying the results of its influence, we seldom think how everything that makes life worth living, yea, even life itself, we owe to this Word. The prophet Amos tells how the loss of the Word will affect men: "Behold, the days come, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst." (Amos 8:11-13)
Choosing Darkness
The Lord is not to blame for such a famine. Men will not endure sound doctrine, "[Men] will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
Having rejected the counsel of God against themselves, and chosen pleasing error rather than sanctifying truth, they have only themselves to blame when "false Christs, and false prophets." (Matthew 24:24) ensnare their souls. Rejecting the Word that would save them, there is no other way of escape.
A Modern Inconsistency
Occasionally some fragment of ancient manuscript is brought to light, purporting to bear some mutilated portion of the "Sayings of Jesus," but it is strange that while these discoveries cause great excitement, men can calmly ignore the authentic sayings that all possess in the Scriptures. The high estimation in which the fragments are held should be much more bestowed on the Word which God's goodness has preserved for us in such perfect form.
When we remember that it is the Word of the Creator of the universe to us, bringing infinite treasures of wisdom and knowledge, manifesting unsearchable love in an everlasting salvation, we will honor the precious revelation by implicit confidence and unquestioning obedience.
Slow to Anger
When the book of the law was read before Josiah, he rent his clothes. He knew that the nation had pursued a course very different from the one commanded by God in the discovered document, and had justly incurred the judgments therein denounced against the disobedient.
Josiah sent messengers to enquire of the Lord by Huldah the prophetess, whether the evils of which Moses wrote were indeed to fall upon Judah. The answer was returned that the Lord would certainly fulfill His word, but in that reply evidence was given that the judgments of God were only directed against the stubbornly impenitent. To Josiah, because his heart was tender and he had humbled himself before the Lord, the promise was given that his eyes should not see the evil, but that he should end his days in peace.
The same heart-felt repentance on the part of others would have secured the same degree of favor. It was because the people would not be turned from their own ways that the judgment could not be averted. The Lord was trying to purify His people by suffering, but they were so joined to their sins that the people were melted entirely away before they would allow themselves to be separated from their iniquities. "They are all grievous revolters,...they are all corrupters. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melts in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away." (Jeremiah 6:28-29)
Ready to Forgive
The compassionate Judge of all the earth, who had inspired Abraham's pleading for the cities of the plain, and himself wept over Jerusalem, was not at this time less desirous of finding some reason to spare the guilty nation. Before the city was finally destroyed He proclaimed, "Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man, if there be any that executes judgment, that seeks the truth; and I will pardon it." (Jeremiah 5:1)
Long after Josiah enquired of the Lord, a promise was given that if the people would fear God and give glory to Him, by keeping the Sabbath which He had sanctified, the city should stand for ever. (Jeremiah 17:20-27) So in the last days, the test of the fourth commandment reveals who will follow the Lord and be saved, and who will choose his own way and be destroyed.
A Transient Reformation
For a time after the discovery of the Book of the Law, the people returned to the Lord. Many of those who were left in the cities of Israel joined Judah in observing the Passover. Never before since the days of Samuel had there been such a gathering. It was in his time that Israel rejected the Lord from being King over them, and the evil effects of kingly rule upon the nation may be judged from the fact that the sacred historian has to go back before the time of the kings to find a parallel to the Passover which was kept in Josiah's eighteenth year.
Before the Passover, there was a thorough destruction of all idols throughout the land. In the country of Israel, where the fast decaying power of Assyria no longer bore sway, the altars set up by Jeroboam were now destroyed. In Bethel for three hundred and fifty years there had been preserved the prophecy uttered in Jeroboam's day, that a king named Josiah should defile the altar and offer upon it the dead bodies of its priests. "And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon you shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon you, and men's bones shall be burnt upon you." (1 Kings 13:2)
Josiah saw the tomb of the prophet who had uttered this prediction, and gave orders for its preservation, after the prophecy had been repeated to him by the men of the city.
Josiah's Death
The iniquity of Assyria was now filled up, and the mighty empire was tottering to the fall which its pride had provoked. Egypt, Babylon and Media, were encompassing it with their armies, and Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, came through the land of Judah to attack the Assyrian stronghold, Carchemish. It was in God's plan that the king of Egypt should do this, and when Josiah thought to arrest the progress of his army, Pharaoh-Necho sent him a warning message from God, saying that he was not come against Josiah, and had no desire to meet him in battle, "for God commanded me to make haste: forbear yourself from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy you not." (2 Chronicles 35:21)
Notwithstanding this warning, Josiah persisted in his attempt to stop the king of Egypt, and was fatally wounded in the battle that followed. There was great lamentation at his death in all Judah and Jerusalem. Yet he was taken away from the evil to come, and the words of Christ to the weeping women of Judea were indeed applicable to those whom Josiah left behind him: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." (Luke 23:28)--Present Truth, November 24, 1898--Notes on the International Sunday-School Lessons, December 4--2 Kings 22:8-20
E.J. Waggoner