Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
Judah's throne passes to a boy of eight, the son of a murdered king, when the nation's slide into idolatry is nearly complete. What can a child do about generations of evil, and why would God trust him with a kingdom?
Josiah's age is not a charming detail. Look at how the throne came to a boy that young.
"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign." (2 Chr. 34:1) This tells a tale about the condition and ways of God's people. His own servants had murdered Josiah's father, after a short and evil reign of two years, when he was twenty-four. Such things ought not to have been. They were the sad fruit of sin and folly — the humiliating proof of Judah's departure from Jehovah. But God was above all. We would never have expected to find a child of eight years old on the throne of David. Yet that child could find his sure resource in the God of his fathers. So here, as in every other case, "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." The very fact of Josiah's youth and inexperience only gave an occasion for the display of divine grace, and for showing the value and the power of the Word of God.
Josiah did not begin with a clean page.
What, then, was the condition of things when Josiah — a child of eight years old — came to the throne? As gloomy and depressing as it could be. He was surrounded, we may say, by the accumulated rubbish of ages. He had to grapple with errors and evils introduced by no less a person than Solomon himself, the very wisest of men.
The darkness reached into the palace itself. That is where God chose to work.
It is at this point, when the nation has almost completely turned away from God, that the son of Amon, a child eight years old, comes to the throne. But how wonderful are the ways of God! In the middle of these evils He has kept a remnant for Himself, people who sigh and cry before Him. And the boy king, fed on idolatry from infancy, finds grace in His eyes.
A nation in crisis needs a strong leader, not a child. Josiah's name hints at what God was doing.
Every nation needs strong and sound leadership to hold down evil and let righteousness prevail. What could a child of eight do with a restless people, far gone in wickedness and close to overwhelming judgement? What follows will show that Jehovah had mercy on the child, and also on the nation. … His name means "Given of Jehovah." This is suggestive. Such a godly and conscientious king was a priceless gift to the people of Judah at a critical moment.
Long before Josiah was born, a prophet from Judah named him and described the work he would do.
This proves that after at least three centuries the prophecy of the prophet from Judah was still fresh in people's minds. God not only lets none of His words fall to the ground. He also makes sure that in some way they are kept in the memory of those concerned in them. … How awed and encouraged king Josiah must have felt! He knew that God had named him and appointed him for the work he was doing, so many generations before.
Thirty-one years is a long reign. The chapter dates what Josiah did with them.
In the 8th year of his reign, aged 16, he began to seek the Lord. That was his starting point. … Teenagers ask themselves many questions. One of them is "what shall I do with my life?" Josiah did the only right thing: he sought God. Over the next 4 years God prepared him. In the 12th year, at 20, he began his big clean-up operation. … He also took the work to other tribes in the far north and the south, which were not strictly under his rule. This was not just arranged by delegation. He took part in the work himself.
- Ruin. A child on David's throne was never how it should be; it measured how far Judah had fallen from God.
- Grace. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Josiah's youth and inexperience only gave God an occasion to show His grace and the power of His Word.
- Gift. His name means "Given of Jehovah." A godly king was a priceless gift to a nation on the edge of judgement.
- Faithfulness. God named Josiah at least three centuries before his birth. He lets none of His words fall to the ground.
- Progression. The reign moved in stages: he sought God at sixteen, cleansed the land at twenty, and did the work himself.
And he did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand nor to the left.
Josiah came to the throne as a child of eight, after the dark reign of his father Amon. The verse is God's verdict on him: what he did, whose pattern he copied, and how steadily he held to it.
The measure of Josiah's life was not public opinion or family precedent. One writer traces all right action back to a heart marked early by the fear of the Lord:
It is a great matter, while the heart is still tender, to have it impressed with the fear of the Lord. This keeps the heart from a host of evils and errors. There is great force and value in the words, "He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD." It was not what was right in his own eyes. It was not what was right in the eyes of the people, or in the eyes of those who had gone before him. It was simply what was right in the eyes of the LORD. This is the solid foundation of all right action. Until the fear of the Lord gets its true place in the heart, there can be nothing right, nothing wise, nothing holy.
Josiah's record stands out against the reigns that surrounded it. Commentators note how rare this exact commendation is:
The darkness of Amon's reign is the background that makes the reign of his famous son Josiah shine. It was a time of great weakness... It is therefore refreshing to read that Josiah "did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (2 Chr. 34:1-2). This is a commendation from God given to no other occupant of the throne of David.
Another writer marks how late in Judah's story this good reign came:
What a contrast he was to his father Amon!... Indeed, he was the last king in Judah with a good record. This shows us that even when the people as a whole have sunk to a low ebb, there may still be bright exceptions to the general trend.
Josiah's model was not the last king, or the last few kings, but the man at the start of the line. The choice of pattern matters:
Scripture says of both Hezekiah and Josiah that David their father was their model. David was the man after God's own heart... It is the often-repeated truth that to see what God's mind is, we must go back to the beginning... Even believers today fall into the same mistake. They make their parents' walk their standard, or the walk of other Christians they especially admire, instead of the walk of the only perfect Example. (See 1 John 2:6.)
The same principle reaches Christian practice today:
Josiah began to reign at eight years of age. His reign was faithful and godly, because he walked in the ways of David, the first of Israel's godly kings (v. 2). In the same way, we should take our instructions today from the first days of Christianity, not from men who have followed through the years.
The last clause describes a man who would not be moved off course. One writer longs for the same plain decision, and names what it brings:
What a testimony for the Holy Spirit to bear concerning a young man! How we do long for this plain decision!... It imparts great peace of mind. A wavering man is never peaceful; he is always tossed to and fro. He tries to please everybody, and in the end pleases nobody. The decided man, on the contrary, is he who feels he has "to please but One."
Another writer weighs God's approval against the opinion of others, and the cost of the smallest departure:
Some in the kingdom might think him too bound to the letter of what was written. But he would have God's approval, and that was quite enough. No one can say where a deliberate departure of a hair's breadth may lead in the end.
One writer compares Josiah with an earlier king, and traces every good thing back to God:
There is no mention of any spiritual helper for Josiah as in the case of Joash more than a century earlier... With Josiah there were probably more direct dealings with God. That would account for his sturdy faith and his amazing energy in serving God. But whether Joash or Josiah, or the writer of this and his readers, all is grace. Every scrap of good that has ever appeared in any of us is the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Standard. Right meant right in the eyes of the LORD — not in his own eyes, not in the people's eyes, not in the eyes of the kings before him.
- Pattern. He skipped his father and copied David, because to see God's mind you must go back to the beginning.
- Steadiness. Turning neither right nor left is plain decision, and it brings peace: the decided man has only One to please.
- Source. Scripture names no mentor for Josiah; every scrap of good in him, or in us, is the Holy Spirit's work.
- Setting. No other king on David's throne received this verdict. It came at the lowest ebb — proof that bright exceptions are still possible.