MORNING MESSAGE: John Cline
2 Chronicles 34:19-35:27
Reader: Linda Adutwum
Josiah, went he came to the throne of Judah in 640 B.C., lived in a volatile political landscape. Assyria, to Judah’s north, had, for a couple of hundred years, been the regional superpower but its power was waning as other nations were getting stronger. When Assyria’s last great king, Ashurbanipal, died, the Assyrian empire was unable to fend off those rising nations, such as in 626 B.C. when Babylon asserted its independence from Assyria, and made a political alliance with the Medes from the far east. The Medes and Babylonians then took Assyrian territory, including its capital city of Nineveh, which resulted in Assyria calling Egypt, its ally, to help fight the Babylonians/Medes. But on their way to help their Assyrian allies, the Egyptians were waylaid on the Plains of Megiddo in Israel by the army of King Josiah of Judah. The army of Judah would lose that battle and King Josiah would be killed in it, but the Egyptians were somewhat weakened by that battle. The weakened Assyrian/Egyptian army would go on to lose the Battle of Carchemish and Babylon took over as the regional power.
Project map of the Battle of Carchemish. https://ferrelljenkins.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/map_neco-at-carchemish.jpg
Deciding to go to war against Egypt had been a mistake by Josiah, and we will look at it a little later in the sermon. The Babylonians, meanwhile, fresh from their victory at Carchemish, knowing that Judah had been a vassal state of Assyria and thus were used to paying tribute taxes to their rulers and knowing that Judah as a nation was much weakened without Josiah as king, decided to attack Judah and besiege Jerusalem. When the Babylonians left Jerusalem in 605 B.C., they left with the first of three groups of exiles who they took to Babylon. That group of exiles were of the finest young men, the “princes” of Jerusalem, including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That exile of the best of Jerusalem may not have happened if Josiah had simply minded his own business and not attempted to interfere in the war between Assyria and Babylon. But the impact Josiah had made on their lives fortified them to be faithful to God while in their Babylonian exile. Josiah was Judah’s best king ever.
Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. (2 Kings 23:33)
There had been other good kings of Judah: Jehoshaphat, Joash, and Hezekiah, e.g., but Josiah was the only king who consistently honoured God with his life. Josiah is the only person in the entire bible about whom it was said, he “kept that greatest of all the commandments” (as Jesus would later call that commandment), the commandment just mentioned, “to love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind, and strength”. One of the proofs of Josiah’s love for God was seen is that, alone of all the kings, he went throughout the lands of Judah and Israel and destroyed every altar erected for the worship of foreign gods. We read last week that, in a divine and fitting irony, that just as the priests of those false gods had ordered the Israelites and Jews to sacrifice their children by throwing them into the fiery pits below the altars of those gods, when Josiah destroyed those altars he did just as those priests had done – but to them – in that he ordered the death of the priests of those false gods and that their bones be boned in the fiery pit below the altar. Now, early in this sermon series, we heard a fascinating prophecy that concerned King Josiah’s actions. The prophecy was given when Israel’s first king, Jeroboam, erected a golden calf in Bethel for the people to worship.
By the word of the Lord a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” (1 Kings 13:1,2)
That prophecy had been given 300 years before Josiah’s birth. Josiah had no knowledge of it but when he destroyed that altar in Bethel and burned up the bones of those priests, he did exactly what had been prophesied about him. Notably, Josiah and the later Persian king Cyrus are the only two people to have been prophesied about by name.
Once he had done that crucial deed of spiritually cleansing the entire land, Josiah set to repairing the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem for it had become dilapidated and in disrepair following Josiah’s father Amon and grandfather Manasseh ransacking and closing it. In the repairing of the Temple, some of Josiah’s workers found hidden away in a dark, dusty, closed-up corner of the Temple a copy of the Law of Moses, which we call the “Pentateuch”, the first five books of the Bible, and the books in which were written commandments to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Shaphan, the king’s secretary, took the Book of the Law from the workers who had found it to King Josiah and read it out loud to him.
When the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the remnant in Israel and Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that is poured out on us because those who have gone before us have not kept the word of the Lord; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written in this book.” (2 Chronicles 34:19-21)
Psalm 36:9 reads, “In Your light do we see light.” That’s exactly what God’s Word does for us – gives us light. It reveals righteousness – both God’s righteousness and the righteousness He expects of us. We sang today about the holiness of God, as well as about His call to us to be holy, righteous, and faithful. Before I became a Christian at age 19, I spent one year reading the Bible and when I read about things God wanted me to do – or, more precisely, stop doing – I was absolutely floored, as Josiah had been. Reading God’s Word changed my life and I committed my life to following Jesus shortly after reading the Bible for the first time. I wish for all of us that we could go back and “recover our first love” by uncovering the wonder of reading God’s Word for the first time, which would blow away the casualness of our responses now. After having heard God’s Word read out loud to him, King Josiah, knowing that there were prophets in Jerusalem to whom God spoke, wanted to hear more, so he sent his servants to seek a word from God from one of the prophets.
Hilkiah and those the king had sent with him went to speak to the prophet Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter. She said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people—all the curses written in the book that has been read in the presence of the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all that their hands have made, my anger will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched.’ (2 Chron 34:22-25)
Eighty years before Josiah, God had brought an end to the northern kingdom because of their continued rebellion against Him and the idolatrous practices that had pervaded their land, and they were sent into exile in Assyria. You would think that such a stunning outcome would sober the remaining remnant of the Hebrew people – the residents of Judah. God had warned the Israelites through His prophets, but they paid no attention. Similarly, the people of Judah paid little heed to God’s words through prophets such as Jeremiah, the “Weeping Prophet” who gave God’s words to His people. Thus, Josiah had inherited a kingdom where moral anarchy and rampant idolatry were common. The citizens of Jerusalem and Judah had forsaken God, worshipped other gods, and committed so many sins that judgment would come on them in the form of exile to Babylon, despite them now having a righteous king. As author Ralph Davis put it, “Judgment has been announced. It’s now a matter of timing. At this juncture of history, Judah, strangely enough, finds herself with a righteous king. Josiah is a king long awaited. He is the best of all kings. But he is a king come too late.” However, as for King Josiah himself, mercy would be his, according to the prophet Huldah.
Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Now I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place and on those who live here.’” So, they took her answer back to the king. (2 Chronicles 34:26-28)
Author D. A. Carson defines the Christianity of our times: “We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” We don’t need to be like that. We can be like King Josiah. He was fully devoted to God and responded thus to the prophet Huldah’s words…
Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book. Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors. Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors. (2 Chronicles 34:29-33)
After having cleansed the Temple, Josiah then called for the Passover that he had heard read about in the Book of the Law to be celebrated.
Josiah celebrated the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem, and the Passover lamb was slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the first month. He appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the Lord’s temple. He said to the Levites, who instructed all Israel and who had been consecrated to the Lord: “Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of Israel built. It is not to be carried about on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel. Prepare yourselves by families in your divisions, according to the instructions written by David king of Israel and by his son Solomon. “Stand in the holy place with a group of Levites for each subdivision of the families of your fellow Israelites, the lay people. Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves and prepare the lambs for your fellow Israelites, doing what the Lord commanded through Moses.” Josiah provided for all the lay people who were there a total of thirty thousand lambs and goats for the Passover offerings, and also three thousand cattle—all from the king’s own possessions. His officials also contributed voluntarily to the people and the priests and Levites. (2 Chronicles 35:1-8a)
Josiah knew that the Passover should be celebrated and he showed the people how things were to be done, and then – because he knew that the people did not have livestock for the Feast – Josiah and his officials, from their own herds and flocks, provided the necessary livestock for their sacrifices, so they could all celebrate together.
The service was arranged, and the priests stood in their places with the Levites in their divisions as the king had ordered. The Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests splashed against the altar the blood handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals. They set aside the burnt offerings to give them to the subdivisions of the families of the people to offer to the Lord, as it is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle. They roasted the Passover animals over the fire as prescribed, and boiled the holy offerings in pots, caldrons and pans and served them quickly to all the people. After this, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were sacrificing the burnt offerings and the fat portions until nightfall. So, the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the Aaronic priests. (2 Chronicles 35:10-14)
Josiah and the priests had read in the Book of the Law that cleansing before coming into God’s presence to offer prayers and sacrifices was necessary for the Levites and the Aaronic priests, a lesson for us to consider in our own lives, the lesson being to not be too casual in our approaching God.
So, at that time the entire service of the Lord was carried out for the celebration of the Passover and the offering of burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, as King Josiah had ordered. The Israelites who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days. The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem. This Passover was celebrated in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. (2 Chronicles 35:16-19)
Truly, Josiah was a faithful servant of the Lord! But Josiah did make that one fatal mistake near the end of his life which we mentioned earlier, that of going out to the Plains of Megiddo to bewilderingly take on the army of Egyptian. That wasn’t his fight, nor that of his nation’s soldiers. You see, what happened was this: Josaih’s relationship with God was so intense that he simply couldn’t comprehend that God would be speak to a leader of another nation or intervene in the affairs of another nation. Yet, God had spoken to the king of Egypt and was leading the Egyptian army north to help Assyria. Josiah simply couldn’t believe it. We tend to believe a similar thing today, that God might have worked in the past in nations such as Judah or Israel, but we have trouble believing that God works in nations today. Is God at work in Canada? I believe so. Does he install and overthrow leaders? He does! We simply have to understand that it is so. Thus, we read,
After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Necho king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Necho sent messengers to him, saying, “What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you.” Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo. Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, “Take me away; I am badly wounded.” So, they took him out of his chariot, put him in his other chariot and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died. He was buried in the tombs of his ancestors, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him. Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers commemorate Josiah in the laments. These became a tradition in Israel and are written in the Laments. (2 Chronicles 35:20-25)
Josiah’s death was a bit of a jaw dropper, I must say! Certainly, he was mourned by the people of Judah. I love that the Biblical authors did not shy away from talking about the heroes of the faith, warts and all. Josiah was a faithful hero of the faith, even though he made one terrible mistake. His death crushed the people of Judah. Certainly, Jeremiah the prophet, in fact, was so overcome by Josiah’s death that he wrote laments for Josiah to be sung at his funeral, and the male and female singers in later Temple worship services sang those laments for centuries to come.
Now to the aftermath…Josiah’s faithful witness for YHWH God and devotion to Him, had an impact on his people that cannot be overstated. When Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were taken away into Babylonian exile in that first deportation of the citizens of Jerusalem, think about this question: which king had they grown up with? Only Josiah. As a result of Josiah’s faithfulness, those four young men were similarly spiritually strong and pure and thus it was natural for them to not give in and worship the gods of Babylon, no matter how much pressure was laid upon them. They had seen Josiah being strong and faithful, and so they could be, as well. The later refining of Jewish faith while the people were in Babylonian exile was due to the people simply following the lead of their faithful king, Josiah, and then of their faithful leaders in exile, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Think about this: it was the faithfulness of King Josiah, the one who loved the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength that propelled the Jewish people in Babylonian exile to remain true to God, and it was in Babylonian exile that Judaism became its purest and strongest. Thus, it can be said that it was Josiah’s faith that saw the Jews through 70 years of Babylonian exile, restored the people to Jerusalem, and saw them through to the time of Jesus. How’s that for a legacy?
The other events of Josiah’s reign and his acts of devotion in accordance with what is written in the Law of the Lord— all the events, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. (2 Chronicles 35:26,27)
Josiah didn’t take his spiritual cues from his father or grandfather as to how to reign as king in Judah. He probably took his spiritual cues from his mother Jedidah, but then his spiritual zeal came alive upon hearing the Word of God read out loud. He made a choice to set his eyes on God and to live and lead in such a way that everyone around him would be impacted. He realized how weak and ineffective he was without God and the following of His commands. But once he realized the importance of YHWH God and His commandments in his life, what a king Josiah became – the best ever king of Judah! Let us read the Bible, the Word of God, with such attentiveness and vigour! Amen.
