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2 Kings Chapter
Twenty-two
2 Kings 22
Chapter Contents
Josiah's good reign, His care for repairing the temple,
The book of the law found. (1-10) Josiah consults Huldah the prophetess.
(11-20)
Commentary on 2 Kings 22:1-10
(Read 2 Kings 22:1-10)
The different event of Josiah's early succession from
that of Manasseh, must be ascribed to the distinguishing grace of God; yet
probably the persons that trained him up were instruments in producing this
difference. His character was most excellent. Had the people joined in the
reformation as heartily as he persevered in it, blessed effects would have
followed. But they were wicked, and had become fools in idolatry. We do not
obtain full knowledge of the state of Judah from the historical records, unless
we refer to the writings of the prophets who lived at the time. In repairing
the temple, the book of the law was found, and brought to the king. It seems,
this book of the law was lost and missing; carelessly mislaid and neglected, as
some throw their Bibles into corners, or maliciously concealed by some of the
idolaters. God's care of the Bible plainly shows his interest in it. Whether
this was the only copy in being or not, the things contained in it were new,
both to the king and to the high priest. No summaries, extracts, or collections
out of the Bible, can convey and preserve the knowledge of God and his will,
like the Bible itself. It was no marvel that the people were so corrupt, when
the book of the law was so scarce; they that corrupted them, no doubt, used
arts to get that book out of their hands. The abundance of Bibles we possess
aggravates our national sins; for what greater contempt of God can we show,
than to refuse to read his word when put into our hands, or, reading it, not to
believe and obey it? By the holy law is the knowledge of sin, and by the
blessed gospel is the knowledge of salvation. When the former is understood in
its strictness and excellence, the sinner begins to inquire, What must I do to
be saved? And the ministers of the gospel point out to him Jesus Christ, as the
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Commentary on 2 Kings 22:11-20
(Read 2 Kings 22:11-20)
The book of the law is read before the king. Those best
honour their Bibles, who study them; daily feed on that bread, and walk by that
light. Convictions of sin and wrath should put us upon this inquiry, What shall
we do to be saved? Also, what we may expect, and must provide for. Those who
are truly apprehensive of the weight of God's wrath, cannot but be very anxious
how they may be saved. Huldah let Josiah know what judgments God had in store
for Judah and Jerusalem. The generality of the people were hardened, and their
hearts unhumbled, but Josiah's heart was tender. This is tenderness of heart,
and thus he humbled himself before the Lord. Those who most fear God's wrath,
are least likely to feel it. Though Josiah was mortally wounded in battle, yet
he died in peace with God, and went to glory. Whatever such persons suffer or witness,
they are gathered to the grave in peace, and shall enter into the rest which
remaineth for the people of God.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 2 Kings》
2 Kings 22
Verse 3
[3] And
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,
The scribe —
The secretary of state.
Verse 8
[8] 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.
The book —
That original book of the law of the Lord, given or written by the hand of
Moses, as it is expressed, 2 Chronicles 34:14, which by God's command was
put beside the ark, Deuteronomy 31:26, and probably taken from
thence and hid, by the care of some godly priest, when some of the idolatrous
kings of Judah persecuted the true religion, and defaced the temple, and (which
the Jewish writers affirm) burnt all the copies of God's law which they could
find. It was now found among the rubbish, or in some secret place.
Verse 11
[11] And
it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that
he rent his clothes.
The words —
The dreadful comminations against them for the sins still reigning among the
people. If Josiah had seen and read it before, which seems more probable, yet
the great reverence which he justly bare to the original book, and the strange,
and remarkable, and seasonable finding of it, had awakened and quickened him to
a more serious and diligent consideration of all the passages contained in it.
And what a providence was this, that it was still preserved! Yea, what a
providence, that the whole book of God is preserved to us. If the holy
scriptures had not been of God, they had not been in being at this day. God's
care of the bible, is a plain proof of his interest in it. It was a great
instance of God's favour, that the book of the law was thus seasonably brought
to light, to direct and quicken that blessed reformation, which Joash had
begun. And it is observable, they were about a good work, repairing the temple,
when it was found. They that do their duty according to their knowledge, shall
have their knowledge increased.
Verse 13
[13] Go
ye, enquire 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.
Enquire —
What we shall do to appease his wrath, and whether the curses here threatened
must come upon us without remedy, or whether there be hope in Israel concerning
the prevention of them.
Verse 14
[14] So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah,
went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son
of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;)
and they communed with her.
Huldah —
The king's earnest affection required great haste; and she was in Jerusalem,
which is therefore noted in the following part of the verse, when Jeremiah
might at this time be at Anathoth, or in some more remote part of the kingdom;
and the like may be said of Zephaniah, who also might not be a prophet at this
time, though he was afterward, in the days of Josiah.
College —
Where the sons of the prophets, or others, who devoted themselves to the study
of God's word, used to meet and discourse of the things of God, and receive the
instructions of their teachers.
Verse 15
[15] And
she said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Tell the man that sent
you to me,
The man —
She uses no compliments.
Tell the man that sent you — Even kings, though gods to us, are men to God, and shall be so dealt
with: for with him there is no respect of persons.
Verse 17
[17]
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.
The works —
Gods made with hands.
Verse 19
[19]
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.
Tender — He
trembled at God's word. He was grieved for the dishonour done to God by the
sins of his people. He was afraid of the judgments of God, which he saw coming
on Jerusalem. This is tenderness of heart.
Verse 20
[20]
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. And they brought the king word again.
In peace —
That is, in a time of public peace: for otherwise he died in battle. Besides,
he died in peace with God, and was by death translated to everlasting peace.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 2 Kings》
22 Chapter 22
Verses 1-20
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.
A monarch of rare virtue, and a God of retributive justice
I. A monarch of
rare virtue. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.” In this
monarch we discover four distinguished merits.
1. Religiousness of action. “He did that which was right in the sight
of the Lord.” We discover in Josiah--
2. Docility of mind. “It came to pass when the king had heard the
words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.” In Josiah we see--
3. Tenderness of heart. See how the discovery of the book affected
him. “He rent his clothes.”
4. Actualisation of conviction. When this discovered document came
under Josiah’s attention, and its import was realised, he was seized with a
conviction that he, his fathers, and his people, had disregarded, and even
outraged, the written precepts of heaven.
II. A God of
retributive justice. Such a God the prophetess here reveals. “Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to Me, 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.” The
government over us, and to which we are bound with chains stronger than
adamant, is retributive, it never allows evil to go unpunished. It links in
indissoluble bonds sufferings to sin. Sorrows follow sin by a law as immutable
and resistless as the waves follow the moon. “Whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap.” In this retribution
Josiah and the Book of the Law
This lesson gives us the account of a remarkable revival of
religion which took place something over six hundred years before the Christian
era, under the good reign of the boy-king Josiah. The history of the progress
of the kingdom of God on earth is the history of revivals. Like the ebb and flow of the tides
has his kingdom apparently advanced and receded, but with this difference, that
each spiritual flood-tide has marked a substantial advance upon any previous
flood-tide. Every revival has left the Church mightier than it ever was before,
and has been a prophecy to the world of the time when “the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” In matters of
religion it had been a period of ebb-tide for many years before our lesson
opens.
I. We learn that
the agency God uses in a revival of religion is the agency of men, and often of
a single man. Some one torch must first be kindled. Some one soul must be
quickened. In some one closet the voice of prevailing prayer must be heard.
There was but one voice crying in the wilderness, but it inaugurated the first
Christian revival. There was but one Jonathan Edwards in America, and one John
Wesley in England, when the great revivals in which they were instrumental
began; but thousands were warmed at their fires, and lighted by their torches.
Nor is it always a great man intellectually, or one who wields a wide
influence, whom God uses to inaugurate the revival: it may be some praying
mother, some unknown Christian, some uninfluential brother. As the majestic
river rolls onward to the sea, we do not think much of its source, but only of
the broad meadows which it waters, and the whirring factories which it has set
in motion, and the bustling cities to which it bears the white wings of
commerce; but, after all, away back in the hills is a little rivulet which is
its source, and back of the rivulet perhaps a hidden spring on the
mountain-side, which no eye has ever seen. Back of every revival is some hidden
spring which has made it possible; and that spring, as likely as not, is in the
chamber of some very humble Christian. That God uses such instrumentalities,
our lesson plainly tells us, for Josiah was but a boy of sixteen when this
revival began. He might well have objected that he was too young and
inexperienced to be the leader in such a reformation. Very likely he had many
struggles and misgivings which are not recorded, but it was God’s way to revive
his work under the leadership of a boy. What, now, let us ask, are the
characteristics of a true revival? We must take the parallel account of this
revival which is given in Second Chronicles, as well as the one given in Kings,
into consideration.
1. Taking the two stories together, we learn that one remarkable
characteristic was the destruction of idolatry. When the king was twenty years
old, four years after he “began to seek after God,” we read that “he began to
purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved
images, and the molten images.” Idols of all descriptions were cut down and
ground to dust, and strewn upon the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
This work of destruction must be well done before the work of construction can
be begun. So, very often, is it in the Church and the individual heart, before
the reviving work of the Holy Spirit can be accomplished. There are false gods
which must be deposed; there are sins of long standing, with deep roots and
wide-spreading branches, which must be cut down. There we have a suggestion of
the reason why in many a heart and many a church the revival work is only
partial and incomplete. The uglier idols are cut down, the grosser sins are
abandoned, nevertheless there is some high place especially dear which is not
removed--nevertheless there is a pet sin of envy, jealousy or ill-will, or
self-indulgence, which is spared; and because no thorough work of reform is
accomplished, because the account must needs be qualified by a “nevertheless,”
the soul remains unsaved, the revival fails to come.
2. Another characteristic of this ancient revival and of every true
revival was liberality on the part of the people. There was evidently a large
sum of silver collected for the repair of the temple, for large repairs were
needed. True liberality is both a cause and an effect of a true revival. The
beginning of this century was a time of dearth and languishing in the churches.
Infidelity was rampant, and threatened to sweep everything before it. But, at
the same time, the cause of missions, home and foreign, began to assume
proportions they had never known before; the purse-strings of Christian people were
loosened; a revival of charity and money-giving spread over the land, and
revivals of religion, pure and undefiled, followed in quick and glorious
succession. “Is his purse converted?” was frequently a question of one of John
Wesley’s co-labourers when he heard of a rich man who had become a Christian.
It is a question which might be appropriately asked in every revival
season--“Have the purses been converted?”
3. Another characteristic of this ancient revival in Judah seems to
have been the honesty and faithfulness of the people, which extended even to
the small details of life. Money was given, we are told, to the carpenters and
builders and masons; “howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the
money that was put into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.” That is the
legitimate effect, always and everywhere, of a revival of religion; and every
revival is spurious that does not tend to produce this result. The merchant
feels it as he measures every yard of cloth, and weighs every pound of sugar.
The carpenter feels its influence as he drives his plane, the housewife as she
wields her broom, the banker as he counts his money, the schoolboy as he
studies his lesson. “Is such and such a man a Christian?”--“I don’t know; go
home and ask his wife,” used to be the answer of a famous religious teacher.
4. Another characteristic of this old revival about which we are
studying to-day was honour for the
house of God. Every true revival has just this characteristic--reverence,
honour for the house of God.
5. Once more: the most striking characteristic of this revival of
Josiah’s reign was honour for the word of God. It hardly seems possible that
the “Book of the Law” could have been utterly lost for years, and that the very
remembrance of it should have become a dim tradition. Then the king gathers
together all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and reads in their ears all the
words which have so awakened him. He renews his covenant with God; he carries
out more completely the work of reformation which he had begun, destroying
every idol, and restoring the worship of the true God in every part of his
domain. It was a wonderful revival; and no characteristic is so striking as the
king’s reverence for, and ready obedience to, the word of God. But King Josiah
is not the only one who has lost the word of God, not the only one from whom it
is buried out of sight, under the dust of years. Though copies of the law are
dropping from the printing press by the million every year, though it lies in
all our houses and is read in all our churches, it is a lost book to-day to
thousands, as it was in Josiah’s time, Our very familiarity with it hides it
from our eyes as
effectually as the rubbish of the temple hid it from the Jews; and only a
powerful revival of religion can bring it from its hiding-place, and put it in
our hands and in our hearts. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Josiah’s reformation
Josiah was only twenty years of age when he set about a national
reformation of religion as radical and as complete as anything that Martin Luther
or John Knox themselves ever undertook. But with this immense difference. Both
Luther and Knox had the whole Word of God in their hands both to inspire them
and to guide them and to sustain them and to support ‘them in their tremendous
task. But Josiah had not one single book or chapter or verse even of the Word
of God in his heathen day. The five Books of Moses were as completely lost out
of the whole land long before Josiah’s day as much so as if Moses had never
lifted a pen. And thus it was that Josiah’s reformation had a creativeness
about it: an
originality, an enterprise, and a boldness about it, such that in all these
respects it has completely eclipsed all subsequent reformations and
revivals--the greatest and the best. The truth is, the whole of that immense
movement that resulted in the religious regeneration of Jerusalem and Judah in
Josiah day, it all sprang originally and immediately out of nothing else but
Josiah’s extraordinary tenderness of heart. The Light that lighteth every man
that cometh into the world shone with extraordinary clearness in Josiah’s
tender heart and open mind. And Josiah walked in that light and obeyed it, till
it became within him an overmastering sense of Divine duty and an irresistible
direction and drawing of the Divine hand. And till he performed a work for God
and for Israel second to no work that has ever been performed under the
greatest and the best of the prophets and kings of Israel combined. It is a
very noble spectacle. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
Verses 1-20
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.
A monarch of rare virtue, and a God of retributive justice
I. A monarch of
rare virtue. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.” In this
monarch we discover four distinguished merits.
1. Religiousness of action. “He did that which was right in the sight
of the Lord.” We discover in Josiah--
2. Docility of mind. “It came to pass when the king had heard the words
of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.” In Josiah we see--
3. Tenderness of heart. See how the discovery of the book affected
him. “He rent his clothes.”
4. Actualisation of conviction. When this discovered document came
under Josiah’s attention, and its import was realised, he was seized with a
conviction that he, his fathers, and his people, had disregarded, and even
outraged, the written precepts of heaven.
II. A God of
retributive justice. Such a God the prophetess here reveals. “Thus saith the
Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to Me, 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.” The
government over us, and to which we are bound with chains stronger than
adamant, is retributive, it never allows evil to go unpunished. It links in
indissoluble bonds sufferings to sin. Sorrows follow sin by a law as immutable
and resistless as the waves follow the moon. “Whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap.” In this retribution
Josiah and the Book of the Law
This lesson gives us the account of a remarkable revival of
religion which took place something over six hundred years before the Christian
era, under the good reign of the boy-king Josiah. The history of the progress
of the kingdom of God on earth is the history of revivals. Like the ebb and flow of the tides
has his kingdom apparently advanced and receded, but with this difference, that
each spiritual flood-tide has marked a substantial advance upon any previous
flood-tide. Every revival has left the Church mightier than it ever was before,
and has been a prophecy to the world of the time when “the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” In matters of
religion it had been a period of ebb-tide for many years before our lesson
opens.
I. We learn that
the agency God uses in a revival of religion is the agency of men, and often of
a single man. Some one torch must first be kindled. Some one soul must be
quickened. In some one closet the voice of prevailing prayer must be heard.
There was but one voice crying in the wilderness, but it inaugurated the first
Christian revival. There was but one Jonathan Edwards in America, and one John
Wesley in England, when the great revivals in which they were instrumental
began; but thousands were warmed at their fires, and lighted by their torches.
Nor is it always a great man intellectually, or one who wields a wide
influence, whom God uses to inaugurate the revival: it may be some praying
mother, some unknown Christian, some uninfluential brother. As the majestic
river rolls onward to the sea, we do not think much of its source, but only of
the broad meadows which it waters, and the whirring factories which it has set
in motion, and the bustling cities to which it bears the white wings of
commerce; but, after all, away back in the hills is a little rivulet which is
its source, and back of the rivulet perhaps a hidden spring on the
mountain-side, which no eye has ever seen. Back of every revival is some hidden
spring which has made it possible; and that spring, as likely as not, is in the
chamber of some very humble Christian. That God uses such instrumentalities,
our lesson plainly tells us, for Josiah was but a boy of sixteen when this
revival began. He might well have objected that he was too young and
inexperienced to be the leader in such a reformation. Very likely he had many
struggles and misgivings which are not recorded, but it was God’s way to revive
his work under the leadership of a boy. What, now, let us ask, are the
characteristics of a true revival? We must take the parallel account of this
revival which is given in Second Chronicles, as well as the one given in Kings,
into consideration.
1. Taking the two stories together, we learn that one remarkable
characteristic was the destruction of idolatry. When the king was twenty years
old, four years after he “began to seek after God,” we read that “he began to
purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved
images, and the molten images.” Idols of all descriptions were cut down and
ground to dust, and strewn upon the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
This work of destruction must be well done before the work of construction can
be begun. So, very often, is it in the Church and the individual heart, before
the reviving work of the Holy Spirit can be accomplished. There are false gods
which must be deposed; there are sins of long standing, with deep roots and
wide-spreading branches, which must be cut down. There we have a suggestion of
the reason why in many a heart and many a church the revival work is only
partial and incomplete. The uglier idols are cut down, the grosser sins are
abandoned, nevertheless there is some high place especially dear which is not
removed--nevertheless there is a pet sin of envy, jealousy or ill-will, or
self-indulgence, which is spared; and because no thorough work of reform is
accomplished, because the account must needs be qualified by a “nevertheless,”
the soul remains unsaved, the revival fails to come.
2. Another characteristic of this ancient revival and of every true
revival was liberality on the part of the people. There was evidently a large
sum of silver collected for the repair of the temple, for large repairs were
needed. True liberality is both a cause and an effect of a true revival. The
beginning of this century was a time of dearth and languishing in the churches.
Infidelity was rampant, and threatened to sweep everything before it. But, at
the same time, the cause of missions, home and foreign, began to assume
proportions they had never known before; the purse-strings of Christian people
were loosened; a revival of charity and money-giving spread over the land, and
revivals of religion, pure and undefiled, followed in quick and glorious
succession. “Is his purse converted?” was frequently a question of one of John
Wesley’s co-labourers when he heard of a rich man who had become a Christian.
It is a question which might be appropriately asked in every revival
season--“Have the purses been converted?”
3. Another characteristic of this ancient revival in Judah seems to
have been the honesty and faithfulness of the people, which extended even to
the small details of life. Money was given, we are told, to the carpenters and
builders and masons; “howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the
money that was put into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.” That is the
legitimate effect, always and everywhere, of a revival of religion; and every
revival is spurious that does not tend to produce this result. The merchant
feels it as he measures every yard of cloth, and weighs every pound of sugar.
The carpenter feels its influence as he drives his plane, the housewife as she
wields her broom, the banker as he counts his money, the schoolboy as he
studies his lesson. “Is such and such a man a Christian?”--“I don’t know; go
home and ask his wife,” used to be the answer of a famous religious teacher.
4. Another characteristic of this old revival about which we are
studying to-day was honour for the
house of God. Every true revival has just this characteristic--reverence,
honour for the house of God.
5. Once more: the most striking characteristic of this revival of
Josiah’s reign was honour for the word of God. It hardly seems possible that
the “Book of the Law” could have been utterly lost for years, and that the very
remembrance of it should have become a dim tradition. Then the king gathers
together all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and reads in their ears all the
words which have so awakened him. He renews his covenant with God; he carries
out more completely the work of reformation which he had begun, destroying
every idol, and restoring the worship of the true God in every part of his
domain. It was a wonderful revival; and no characteristic is so striking as the
king’s reverence for, and ready obedience to, the word of God. But King Josiah
is not the only one who has lost the word of God, not the only one from whom it
is buried out of sight, under the dust of years. Though copies of the law are
dropping from the printing press by the million every year, though it lies in
all our houses and is read in all our churches, it is a lost book to-day to
thousands, as it was in Josiah’s time, Our very familiarity with it hides it
from our eyes as
effectually as the rubbish of the temple hid it from the Jews; and only a
powerful revival of religion can bring it from its hiding-place, and put it in
our hands and in our hearts. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Josiah’s reformation
Josiah was only twenty years of age when he set about a national
reformation of religion as radical and as complete as anything that Martin
Luther or John Knox themselves ever undertook. But with this immense difference.
Both Luther and Knox had the whole Word of God in their hands both to inspire
them and to guide them and to sustain them and to support ‘them in their
tremendous task. But Josiah had not one single book or chapter or verse even of
the Word of God in his heathen day. The five Books of Moses were as completely
lost out of the whole land long before Josiah’s day as much so as if Moses had
never lifted a pen. And thus it was that Josiah’s reformation had a
creativeness about it:
an originality, an enterprise, and a boldness about it, such that in all these
respects it has completely eclipsed all subsequent reformations and
revivals--the greatest and the best. The truth is, the whole of that immense
movement that resulted in the religious regeneration of Jerusalem and Judah in
Josiah day, it all sprang originally and immediately out of nothing else but
Josiah’s extraordinary tenderness of heart. The Light that lighteth every man
that cometh into the world shone with extraordinary clearness in Josiah’s tender
heart and open mind. And Josiah walked in that light and obeyed it, till it
became within him an overmastering sense of Divine duty and an irresistible
direction and drawing of the Divine hand. And till he performed a work for God
and for Israel second to no work that has ever been performed under the
greatest and the best of the prophets and kings of Israel combined. It is a
very noble spectacle. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
Verse 2
And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
Josiah an example for young men
Of the young king, whose piety is thus described, it is also said
in another place (2 Kings 23:25), “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.
I. The piety of
Josiah as illustrative of the power of a good example. “He walked in all the
ways of David his father.” Few influences are more powerful than that of
example. The child imitates his parent; the schoolboy his classmate; the youth
his playfellows; and so on through every stage of life. Note in what recorded
actions of Josiah there were marks of an imitation of David’s example.
1. The first of these in order of time was his attachment to God’s
house, and his devotion to God’s service.
2. His love to the. Word of God. Turn to the narrative in 2 Chronicles 34:14-21. David said of
the man who is blessed, that “his delight is in the law of the Lord.” There is
no book more valuable to the young,
3. His reverence for godly men (2 Kings 23:15-18). We know enough of
David’s life to recognise in this respect for a man of God an imitation of his
example. The servants are to be revered; to be “esteemed very highly for their
works’ sake.” Goodness is always worthy of regard; and he who does not respect
it tells us that he has no goodness in himself to be respected.
II. The piety of
Josiah as illustrative of the strict integrity of godliness. “He turned not
aside to the right hand, nor to the left. The man of the world may turn his
creed and shape his course according to the fashion of the varying hour”; but
not the Christian. He must bear in mind the words of wisdom: “Let thine eyes
look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.”
1. Josiah was not influenced by the force of ancient custom, when
that custom ran counter to the course pointed out by conscience.
2. He was not influenced by any feeling of false shame. When the book
of the law was found and read before him, he rent his clothes, feeling that he
was a sinner.
III. The piety of
Josiah illustrates the course of life that ensures Divine approval. “He did
that which was right in the sight of the Lord.” It is comparatively easy to
pursue a course that seems right to ourselves, or that may secure the applause
of the world. It is a widely different matter so to live as to ensure the
approval and commendation of God.
1. By far the greater part of men seem to live for self. They have no
care or consideration for others. Selfishness is the vilest principle that ever
spread in this world.
2. Others care most about the approval of the world. These are
selfish coo. It is because that applause is gratifying to their selfish vanity.
The man who would lick the dust to secure the favour of a fellow-mortal would
sacrifice his dearest friend to
gain.
3. They only are godlike who do and love that which is holy and true;
who live not for themselves, but for others and for God. Application--Have an
object in life! Live! Do not be content with mere existence. Remember, there is
but one unfailing condition of true greatness and that is goodness. (Frederic
Walstaff.)
Example for Royalty
There is at the top of the Queen’s staircase in Windsor Castle a
statue from the studio of Baron Triqueti, of Edward VI. marking with his
sceptre a passage in the Bible, which he holds in his left hand, and upon which
he earnestly looks. The passage is that concerning Josiah: “Josiah was eight
years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in
Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked
in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or
to the left.” The statue was erected by the will of the late prince, who
intended it to convey to his son the Divine principles by which the future
governor of England should mould his life and reign on the throne of Great
Britain. (T. Hughes.)
Traits of youthful religion
1. Josiah began to reign when he was eight years old, and he reigned
thirty and one years in Jerusalem. He ascended the throne when vice had taken
deep root in the people, and national faults had become stereotyped in the
Jewish character. His character and his conduct are exactly those which,
judging from reason or historical experience, we should expect from the
freshness and energy of a religious boy. That character is thus briefly summed,
up by Huldah the prophetess: His heart was tender, his humility was great, he
had given a quick and childlike credit to God’s threats against the sins of the
people, and had yielded a ready sympathy with penitential acts for sins in
which he had taken no part, for under God’s threats he had shed tears, and rent
his garments and done his utmost to avert Divine anger. The acts which
illustrate this character are seven in number, and inasmuch as they have a
natural coherence and agreement with each other, I will sum them up. His first
work was to repair the temple, his second to read attentively the newly
discovered Scriptures, till alarmed at the threats against sin, he, thirdly,
abased himself openly. He then commanded the destruction of the idols and
priests of Baal, and the professed profligates of the land. He, fifthly,
ordered the public reading of the Scriptures, he brought out to public notice
the remains of God’s saints, and lastly, proclaimed a public celebration of the
Passover. Now these are just the acts of a fresh and rumple mind, and while
many of them are the features of the early days of religion, which we would
fain frequently copy, they are at the same time marks of the earlier stages of
religion, and cannot be expected to exist in its later day. But while this is
the case with regard to the individual character, these will be signs of the
early days of a great religious revival, and will speak as much of the zeal of
the social body as they do of the individual.
2. To reduce these reflections to some practical bearing, the
following character is not uncommon amongst us. A child, a boy, a youth at
home, at school, or the university is under the influence of religious
principles; he studies attentively the Scriptures of God as they are presented
to him through the received translations and interpretations of his day; he
follows with earnestness and alacrity a pathway which he strikes out himself in
which he has received his impetus from the wonderful coincidences of prophecy
or the theological questions raised on the subject of faith and works; he is
startled by the mention of the Judgment, and is so keenly sensitive to the
subject, that the sublime awfulness of a thunderstorm, or the congregational
singing of a hymn about the “day of wonders” will awaken the most sensible
alarm in his mind, doter him from a fault, or drive him to an act of devotion
and holiness; he will be so anxious lest he should be guilty of mixing too
indiscriminately with the wicked and those that know not God that he will be
inclined to draw far too rigidly the limits between good and evil, and will be
inclined to decide on certain shibboleths of the world and the worldly minded,
which will neither stand the tests of reason, scripture, or experience. Certain
modes of amusement will be rapidly denounced as sinful which are merely made so
by the unguarded or ungracious mind of him who uses them; and certain places
and people are placed under bar and ban, which have in them no essential evil
whatever. In proportion as the mind of such a youth is fresh in his religious
career, he will be painfully conscious of the weight of a committed sin, and
will find the flow of penitential tears spontaneous and natural Such will be
the features of youthful religion, and such wore the features of the religion
of Josiah. There are points in the earlier religion of the child which are ever
to be kept in view through after life; lovely echoes of the sweet voice
associated with the first can of God still sounding round us; as fresh water
drops sprinkled with the kindly hand over the dim and dusty picture of the
past; dreams of fresh and happy childhood rousing us to renewed vigour when we
wake to the daily strife of life.
Early piety
King Josiah, it is said, at eight years feared the Lord. Polycarp,
martyred at the age of ninety-five, declared that he had served God eighty-six
years, showing that he was converted at nine years. It is commonly held that
Jeremiah and John the Baptist, who are spoken of in Scripture as sanctified
from their birth, were early children of grace. Coming down to more modern
times it is easy to name many eminent servants of God who began to serve him in
childhood, as Baxter, for instance, who said he did not remember the time when
he did not love God and all that was good. Matthew Henry was converted before
eleven. Mrs. Isabel Graham at ten. President Edwards probably at seven. Dr.
Watts at nine. Bishop Hall and Robert Hall at eleven or twelve. (H. C. Fish)
Verses 8-20
Verse 8
I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.
The finding of the book
Following two of the most notoriously wicked rulers, Josiah, the
boy king of Judah, was a remarkable instance of independence of character and
the differentiating influence of the grace of God. His individuality made a deep
and lasting impress upon the history of the nation. One of the chief tasks he
set himself was the repair of the temple--not done since the time of Joash, two
hundred and fifty years before. It was during the progress of this work that
the Book of the
Law was discovered, a circumstance which was so powerfully to affect the action
of the king and the future of his people.
I. The finding of
the book constituted in itself a literary resurrection of the most remarkable
description. There has been no lack of dogmatic opinions as to what the book
was which was thus found. In the passages referred to above it is simply styled
“a book” and “the book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses”; language
perfectly consistent with the theory that it was the survivor of several, it
may be many, previously existing copies but one doughty champion of the
Reformation does not hesitate to identify it with the copy of the law that was
preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, and others, as, for instance, the
Fathers, and Wellhausen and his Scottish disciple, Robertson Smith, hold that
it was none other than the Book of Deuteronomy. How significant the
circumstances of this discovery! Are we to pronounce it a “happy accident”? or
to refer it to some “Intelligent Cause”? We can recall similar incidents in the
history of non-religious or (so-called) profane literature. The Nicomachean
Ethics are said to have lain in the cellars of Scepsis, the king of Pergamos,
for nearly two centuries after Aristotle had ceased to teach, when, rediscovered
by men who loved philosophy, they were conveyed to Athens and then to Rome in
the days of Cicero. Their publication stirred afresh the dormant spirit of the
schools, and broke like a new morning upon the intellectual life of Europe. I
have read, too, an even more romantic tale concerning a book of modern poetry
familiar to most of us. Its author had occasionally quoted stanzas in the
hearing of his friends, which he said belonged to poems he once had written,
but never intended to publish. At last they prevailed upon him to divulge their
secret. Years before he had lost the wife of-his youth, in whose praise they
had been written, and he had vowed that they should be buried with her.
Searching in her coffin they found the MS. pillowing her head, the golden
tresses of which were so intertwined with its leaves that it was with the
greatest difficulty they were separated and restored to a condition that
admitted of their being printed. Instances of a similar character might be
multiplied, and it may be asserted that the problem is essentially the same in
any case; that the intrinsic character of the writings can have no bearing upon
the interpretation to be put upon their rescue from oblivion. But surely the
respective circumstances must be taken into account, and the relation of the
writings to the spiritual life of mankind? The loss of the “Ethics” would have
been a great loss, in some respects an irretrievable one; and had Rosetti’s House
of Life still lain beneath the cerements of the tomb, English
literature to-day would have been distinctly poorer, and the development of our
poetry less perfect than it has been. But who will say that such works as these
are essential to the higher life, the spiritual progress of humanity? Apart
from its own solemn claim to immortality, the Word of the Lord is too closely
and causatively associated with the future of the race, and it has outlived too
many antagonistic influences, too many ages of unbelief and indifference, for
us to conclude hastily that its presence amongst us now is but a lucky
survival, to be accounted for by a theory of chances.
II. The discovery
was connected with a great awakening of religious life. The story of its
reception by the young king and his subjects, simply as it is told, thrills us
as we read it. The great high-priestly penitence of the one for the general sin
and the heroic resolution of the others as they “stood by the covenant” have in
them not a little of the “moral sublime.” But we must not fail to lay to heart
the enduring lessons it teaches us.
1. Look at the light which it throws upon the question of a
“book-religion.” The history of that age illustrated the difference there is
between being with a Bible and being without one. Of course it is allowed that
the sense the expression “book-religion” often bears is false and mischievous
enough. When Chillingworth shouted that “the Bible, and the Bible alone, was
the religion of Protestants,” he probably attached a very different
signification to “religion” than the term generally conveys; if he did not his
error was not much less than that which he sought to overturn. Religion is of
the heart--an inward and spiritual influence--a communion with God. But it is
not independent of external standards, nor does it spring into existence
unprovoked or unassisted. This, at any rate, is the teaching of history and of
individual experience. Without the authoritative medium of Scripture Judah
failed to advance upon
the religion of the Fathers, in fact, fell further and further behind it. The
beliefs of the people wanted fixity; their pious emotions were without
definiteness or moral force; and they became a prey to the plausible falsehoods
of heathenism. With the reappearance of the Book of the Law the religious
spirit of the nation recovered itself, and the forward movement towards the
great fulfilment was resumed. But it would be a mistake to suppose that a
truth, even an important truth, is as such immortal. As John Stuart Mill has
remarked, there are too
many instances to the contrary for us to entertain such a comfortable belief.
Not once only, but many times, have great religious or moral movements perished
untimely for lack of a Scripture that could give their principles authoritative
expression and permanence. On the other hand, the “book-religions” of the world
have been the only persistent or widely influential ones, as witness the faiths
of China, India, Persia, or Palestine. Once fixed in literary form, the creed
of a people is open to general reference, becomes a public standard of opinion
and of conduct, and in conjunction with the spiritual experience to which it is
related, it of necessity advances and refines upon itself. In Fetichism alone
have we a religion (if religion it can be called) without a book, which at the
same time continues and reproduces itself! Proteus, like it springs up, a rank
but stunted growth of diseased imaginations, wild vagaries, and sexual
excesses. Yes, in the superstition that haunts the dark places of the earth,
that either opposes morality or lies wholly outside of it, and that brands with
such unmistakable inferiority its devotees, we have, par excellence, the
religion without a book!
2. How independent Divine revelation is of the moral and intellectual
conditions amidst which it appears. It is impossible for any candid inquirer to
suppose that the dust-covered MS. so seasonably brought forth from its age-long
rest was the product of forgery. Apart from the transparent self-contradiction
of such a conception, there was no man of that day who could have achieved such
a tour de force in literature or morals. How is the problem to be explained,
that in an epoch of decadence and apostasy, there should have appeared at once
so marvellous a transformation in public and private conduct? Evolution,
however it may be manipulated, cannot solve the difficulty. Revelation, that
glorious “anticipation of reason,” as Lessing conceived it to be, was in that
instance, at any rate, no child of the Zeit-geist. The truth that could so
regenerate a people must have had its origin in the supernatural and Divine.
3. Vital contact with Holy Scripture is essential to the enjoyment of
its advantages. So commonplace are our notions of God’s ways that we are
startled at the thought of His permitting such an utter and appalling ignorance
of Divine things. It is a great mystery; yet we can see certain disciplinary
reasons for it. To have a Bible is of little use if we do not read it; to read
it, if it be not laid to heart. Of how many might it still be said, “The word
of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them
that heard.” Only when in penitence and faith we “read, mark, learn, and
inwardly digest” the teachings of the Bible, can it become a means of grace, a
source of spiritual life and power. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
The book that finds me
The striking fact in the incident is the reversal of the
statement, is the deeper truth: the book found them. This stamped it as Divine.
This is always the great fact concerning the Bible--it finds me.
I. In my deepest
thought--to know God. The questions of sin and destiny and immortality, &c.
The greatest minds have here found the answer. The ordinary man can know for
himself. Every man can know for himself whether the Bible is the revelation of
God. Give it his best thought.
II. In my deepest
desire--to serve God, to do His will. “If any man wills to do my will he shall
know truth”--must be lived to be realised. It costs something to live it.
Obedience is the pathway to knowledge.
III. In my deepest
need--to have God--my God--my Father. His love and mercy and care. Experience
is the great teacher. Sorrows test. So personal--every line for each man.
Reality of promises. (C. Meyers, D. D.)
Preservation of the Word of God
Wondrously has the Spirit of God watched over and preserved the
Scriptures. The original copy of Magna Charta, on which hung all the greatest
liberties of the British people, was once nearly destroyed. Sir Richard Cotton
was in a tailor’s shop, and the great scissors were opened to cut it in pieces.
The man into whose hands it had fallen knew nothing either of its nature or
value. But it was rescued and remains to-day in the nation’s keeping as the
priceless charter of its liberty. The Bible is the charter of the soul’s
freedom, and many and many a time its enemies have sought to exterminate it,
but God has watched over it, preserved it by many a miracle, and to-day it is
declaring liberty to spiritual captives all over the world. (H. O. Mackey.)
The reviving word
John Stuart Mill tells how that at one time he had lost all
interest in life, every blossom of joy and hope withered, but the charm and
thrill of life were restored to him by the reading of Wordsworth’s poems. The
gifted singer revived the weary, despondent philosopher. How much more shall
the words of God which are “spirit and life” revive and gladden our souls! (Helps
for Speakers.)
Discovery of truth
To take an old diamond out of the casket in which it has lain
forgotten, is as good as to find a new diamond. So with truth. To strike men’s
eyes with an old maxim, is as good as to think out a fresh one--nay, better;
for the best truths are old. (Charles Buxton.)
Preservation of the Book
Just as Dr. Judson had finished translating the New Testament into
Burmese he was cast into prison. His wife took the precious manuscript and
buried it in the ground. But if left there it would soon decay, while to reveal
its existence to its foes would surely lead to its destruction. So it was
arranged that she should put it within a roll of cotton and bring it to him in
the form of a pillow, so hard and poor that even the keeper of the prison did
not discover it. After seven months this pillow, so uninviting externally, so
precious to him, was taken away, and then his wife redeemed it by giving a
better one in exchange. Some time after that he was hurried off to another
prison, leaving everything behind him, and his old pillow was thrown into the
prison yard, to be trodden underfoot as worthless cotton; but after a few hours
one of the native Christians discovered the roll and took it home as a relic of
the prisoner, and there, long afterwards, the manuscript was found within the
cotton, complete and uninjured. Surely the hand of the Lord was interposed to
save from destruction the fruit of years of toil, so important for those who
were to read the Burmese Bible.
Chance literature
Many of the greatest discoveries in the era of the revival of
learning were characterised by the merest chance. Cicero’s important treatise, De
Republica, was discovered concealed beneath some monastic writing. Part
of Livy was found between the leaves of a Bible, and a missing page in a
battledore. Quintilian was picked out of an old coffer full of rubbish. The one
copy of Tacitus which survived the general destruction of Roman libraries was
found in a Westphalian monastery. An original Magna Charts, with all its seals
and signatures was found by Cotton about to be cut up by a tailor into
measures. Thurloe’s State papers fell out of a ceiling in Lincoln’s Inn. Many
of Lady Montague’s letters were discovered by Disraeli in the office of an
attorney, where they might have remained till this day but for the chance visit
of the great bibliophile. And undoubtedly many hundreds of rare books and
manuscripts and papers lie hidden away in the presses and cupboards of old
manor houses, whence gradually they may be dragged into the light of day, to be
destroyed, or to awaken universal interest.
Finding the Sinaitic manuscript
Dr. Tischendorf describes as follows the finding of the remarkable
manuscript on Mount Sinai: “On the afternoon of the 4th February 1859, I was
taking a walk with the steward of the convent in the neighbourhood, and as we
returned, towards sunset, he begged me to take some refreshment with him in his
cell. Scarcely had we entered the room, when he said: ‘And I, too, have read a Septuagint’--that is,
a copy of the Greek translation made by the Seventy. And so saying, he took
down from the corner of the room a bulky kind of volume, wrapped up in red
cloth, and laid it before me. I unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great
surprise, not only those very fragments which fifteen years before I had taken
out of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament
complete, and, in addition, the Epistle of Barnabas, and a part of the Pastor
of Hermas. Full of joy which this time I had the self-command to conceal from
the steward, I asked, as if in a careless way, for permission to taker the
manuscript into my sleeping-chamber, to look over it more at leisure. There by
myself I could give way to the transport of joy which I felt. I knew that I
held in my hand the most precious Biblical treasure in existence, a document
whose age and importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever
examined during twenty years’ study of the subject. I cannot now, I confess,
recall all the emotions which I felt in that exciting moment with such a
diamond in my
possession. Though my lamp was dim, and the night was cold, I sat down at once
to transcribe the Epistle of Barnabas.”
Verse 19
Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself
before the Lord.
The tender heart
I. The
circumstances in which such a character may be placed and tried.
1. It may often have to contend with great difficulties. Observe the
illustration of this in the history before us.
2. It may sometimes be surrounded by external difficulties.
3. A tender heart may sometimes misunderstand, and therefore
misinterpret, the follies and frailties of other Christians. There must be the
knowledge of evil as well as of good in the Christian as in the common life.
Stumbling-blocks will be found, though deeply to be deplored, in every section
of the Christian Church.
II. Some of the
indications of a tender heart. All life reveals itself. The tiniest herb or
flower that drinks the morning dew reveals itself. Life cannot be hid, and that
because it is life. Not always in the same manner, but always in some manner;
for as external life is full of variety, from the “cedar of Lebanon to the
hyssop that groweth on the wall,” so inward religious life has its manifold
phases, full of variety, full of beauty, and all significant of their Divine
origin. Let us notice some--
1. There will be thoughtful interest in religious truth. We cannot
conceive of the commencement, much less of the continuation, of a religious
life in connection with thoughtlessness.
2. There will be practical co-operation in works of religious
activity. Religious life has ever holy work to do, as holy words to say. The
commencement of this new life starts with the question, “Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do?”
3. There will be devout interest in religious assemblies. The object
of Christian assemblies is one--the worship of God and the edification of the
Church. In proportion as our heart is penetrated with the ideas proper to, and
regulated by the principles of, the Christian life, there will not only be the
desire but the determination to avail ourselves of seasons of religious worship
for purposes of spiritual improvement.
4. There will be also personal determination to secure religious
progress. First the blade, but afterwards, if the blade is healthy, there will
be the ear: lovely is the blade in all its tenderness and vigour, so in its
season is the maturing ear, that gives promise of the fully ripened and
perfectly developed corn in the ear.
III. The blessedness
of having a tender heart. Because,
1. It is the disposition produced by the influences of God’s Spirit.
It is God” who worketh in us both to will and to do.” “Every good and perfect
gift cometh down from above”
2. Because it will prevent great irregularity if not sinfulness of
life. Religion subtracts nothing from the real enjoyment of life. The happiest
transaction of life is the hour of consecration to God.
3. Because a tender heart is the sure sign of a regenerate one. “And
whom He did,” etc. (Romans 8:29.) (W. G. Barrett.)
Humility the grace of graces
“I was always exceedingly pleased with that saying of Chrysostom,”
says Calvin, “‘The foundation of our philosophy is humility.’ And yet more
pleased with that of Augustine. ‘As,’ says he, ‘the rhetorican being asked was
what the first thing in the rules of eloquence, he answered, Pronunciation.
What was the second, Pronunciation. What was the third, still he answered,
Pronunciation So if you ask me concerning the graces of the Christian
character, I would answer, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, and for ever,
humility.’” And thus it is that God sets open His school for teaching us
humility every day. Humility is the grace of graces for us sinners to learn.
There is nothing again like it, and we must have a continual training and
exercise in it. You learn to pronounce by your clients complaining that they
cannot hear you, and that they must carry their cases to another advocate
unless you learn to speak better. And, as you must either please your patrons
or die of starvation, you put pebbles in your month and you go out to recite by
yourself by the riverside till your rhetoric is fit for a Greek judge and jury
to sit and hear. And so with humility, which is harder to learn than the best
Greek accent. You must go to all the schools, and put yourself under all the
disciplines that the great experts practise, if you would put on this humility.
And the schools of God to which He puts His great saints are such as these. You
will be set second to other men every day. Other men will be put over your head
everyday. Rude men will ride roughshod over your head every day. God will set
His rudest men, of whom He has whole armies, upon you every day to judge you,
and to find fault with you, and to correct you, and to blame you, and to take
their business away from you to a better--to a better than you can ever be with
all the pebbles that ever river rolled. Ay, He will take you in hand Himself,
and He will set you and will keep you in a low place. (Alex. Whyte, D.
D.)
Humbleness the work of true Christian
John Newton wrote a book about grace in the blade, and grace in
the ear, and grace in the full corn in the ear. A very talkative body said to
him, “I have been reading your valuable book, Mr. Newton; it is a splendid
work; and when I came to that part, ‘the full corn in the ear’ I thought how
wonderfully you had described me.” “Oh,” replied Mr. Newton, “but you could not
have read the book rightly, for it is one of the marks of the full corn in the
ear, that it hangs its head very low.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》