Josiah becomes king at eight, born to the worst dynasty Judah ever had, and somehow turns out right. Eighteen years in, during a temple repair, the high priest Hilkiah finds a scroll — the book of the law, lost for a generation under Manasseh. Shaphan reads it aloud to the king, and Josiah tears his robes: our fathers have not hearkened. He reads it to the whole nation, renews the covenant, and tears the country apart hunting down idolatry — while the prophetess Huldah tells him it is too late to save Jerusalem, only early enough that he will not live to watch it fall.
A study in 2 Kings 22-23 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
I Have Found The Book Of The Law In The House Of The LORD
“And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. … And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.”
2 Kings 22:8-11
The nation’s Scripture had gone missing. Under Manasseh the public reading of the law had stopped, and the temple copy was mislaid in the neglect — found only because Josiah had ordered the building repaired. A generation of Judah had grown up never having heard the covenant read.
Josiah is already a reformer when the scroll turns up; what the reading does is show him how far short even his reforms have fallen. He tears his clothes not because he has been lazy but because he now hears the full weight of what his fathers ignored. The reaction to Scripture that God commends in this chapter is a broken heart, not a defensive one.
“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.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 393
Because Thine Heart Was Tender
“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 thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD … 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 thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.”
2 Kings 22:16-20
Josiah sends the highest men in the kingdom to a prophetess, Huldah, living near the temple, to ask whether the sentence can still be lifted. The answer is no. Judah has been deaf so long that even a national repentance now would not hold; spare them, and they would be back at the idols within a generation. The verdict from Manasseh’s reign stands.
But the tender heart is not wasted. Because Josiah wept, God grants him a personal mercy: he will die before the fall, gathered to his grave “in peace.” It is a strange comfort — the reformer will not live to see his reform undone — and it is real. God notices the man even when the nation is past noticing anything.
“But because the king had humbled his heart before God, the Lord would acknowledge his promptness in seeking forgiveness and mercy.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 399
All The People Stood To The Covenant
“And he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. And 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. And all the people stood to the covenant.”
2 Kings 23:2-3
Told the doom is fixed, Josiah reforms anyway. He gathers the entire population — small and great — and reads them the book, then pledges himself to it publicly, by the pillar where kings were crowned. Then comes the demolition: the vessels of Baal burned in the Kidron, the horses dedicated to the sun removed, Topheth in the valley of Hinnom defiled so no one can burn a child there again, the mediums and household idols swept out.
He does the right thing without the promise of a payoff. The sentence on Judah is not lifted by any of it, and Josiah knows that. Obedience here is not a lever to change the outcome; it is simply what the book requires, done because it is true.
“In the reformation that followed, the king turned his attention to the destruction of every vestige of idolatry that remained. … But Josiah persevered in his effort to cleanse the land.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 401
There Was No King Like Him
“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. Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath … because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel.”
2 Kings 23:25-27
Josiah keeps the greatest Passover since the days of the judges, and earns the book’s highest praise — no king turned to the LORD like him, before or after. And in the same breath: “Notwithstanding the LORD turned not.” One righteous reign, however wholehearted, could not undo generations of provocation. A nation can be reformed at the top and still be rotten through.
Josiah dies at thirty-nine, killed at Megiddo trying to stop Pharaoh Necho. All Judah mourns him; Jeremiah writes a lament. After him the throne changes hands four times in twenty-two years, every king a vassal, and the wrath deferred for Josiah’s sake comes down. His piety bought his own generation a reprieve and himself a peaceful grave. It did not save the city.
“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.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 405
