Because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy garments and weep before me, I also have heard [thee], saith Jehovah.
God had already announced judgment on Jerusalem, and nothing Josiah did could call it back. Yet He sent the king a personal message through the prophetess Huldah, and the reason He gives for hearing him is the state of his heart: tender, humbled, weeping.
The verse names tenderness as the reason God listened. One writer points out that this is not how hearts naturally are, and traces where Josiah's came from.
The heart of man is naturally hard toward God. The Apostle writes in Ephesians 4:18 that people are "alienated from the life of God… due to their hardness of heart." The Lord Jesus, in His parable of the Sower, spoke of the good seed of the Word falling along the path (Matthew 13:4). What could be harder, or less likely to be productive? In contrast with this, Josiah's heart was impressionable — surely the gracious work of the Holy Spirit of God. Jeremiah 23:29 compares the divine Word to a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. The Philippian jailer needed the hammer when Paul and Silas first dealt with him: not so King Josiah. His heart was already tender.
God had just told Josiah the sentence would fall anyway. He could have decided that grief was pointless.
Josiah might have thought the case hopeless. He could have reasoned that nothing would hold back the mighty tide of wrath and judgment about to roll over the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Any move of his must prove useless; the divine purpose was settled and the decree had gone out. In short, he had only to stand by and let things take their course. But Josiah did not reason that way. No; he bowed before the divine testimony. He humbled himself, tore his clothes, and wept. God took knowledge of this. Josiah's tears of repentance were precious to the Lord. The terrible judgment had to run its course, yet the penitent escaped… He did not give himself over to a harmful fatalism. With a broken spirit and an earnest heart he cast himself upon God, confessing his own sins and the sins of his people.
God's answer reached beyond Josiah himself. Another writer compares him with an earlier king who also humbled himself.
Through Huldah the king learned that there was no turning back of the divine judgment. But God had taken account of his tender heart, of his repentance and his weeping, and the judgment would not take place in his day. God, in His mercy, delayed the judgment because of the faithfulness of good king Josiah. Hezekiah also delayed the coming judgment when he "humbled himself for the pride of his heart" (2 Chronicles 32:26). Yet Hezekiah's answer does not compare with Josiah's. Hezekiah seemed more concerned with himself. Of the judgment his folly would bring on his house he said, "The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good… if there will be peace and security in my days" (2 Kings 20:19).
The same writer treats these words as the foundation of everything Josiah later did.
Here we have the moral basis of Josiah's remarkable career, and there was certainly nothing of presumption in it. A contrite heart, weeping eyes, and torn garments do not go with presumption or self-confidence. No; they are the precious results of the Word of God acting on the heart and conscience, leading to a life of deep personal devotion.
Mackintosh applies this to anyone who wants others to feel what they have felt.
It is impossible for a man to feel the weight and seriousness of truth and not seek to bring others under its action. A man may hold a quantity of truth in the mind — hold it on the surface, hold it in a merely theoretical way. But this has no practical effect… we may be sure that the best way to make others feel deeply is to feel deeply ourselves.
Fereday turns the verse into a question for the reader.
Josiah felt the weight of Israel's disobedience through nine centuries. How should we feel as we look back over our own history in the nineteen centuries since Pentecost? What a record of departure from the Word of God! And what is the condition of things around us at this moment? Are our hearts tender? Do we know anything of holy trembling at the Word of God?
- Softened first. Hearts are hard toward God by nature. Josiah's tenderness was the Spirit's work before it was his own.
- Softened, so he bowed. Told the sentence stood, he refused fatalism and wept anyway — and God took knowledge of it.
- He bowed, so God heard. Tenderness, not achievement, is the reason given; his grief bought a delay for the whole nation.
- God heard, so others gain. Truth held only in the mind moves no one. Truth that is felt carries.
- The same question stands. Josiah trembled at the Word of God. The test now is whether our hearts still do.
Behold, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof. And they brought the king word again.
God's reply through the prophetess Huldah falls into two parts. He will bring disaster on the city and its people. But He has a separate word for the king who wept over the book of the law: not rescue from death, but shelter from what is coming. So what does "peace" mean for a man who later fell in battle?
God's reason for hearing Josiah is his heart, not his reforms. One writer shows how rare that softness is, and where it came from:
The human heart is hard toward God by nature. Note the Apostle's words in Ephesians 4:18: "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart." ... Josiah's heart was different. It was easily moved — a gracious work of the Holy Spirit of God. Jeremiah 23:29 compares God's Word to a hammer: "Is not My word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" The Philippian jailer needed the hammer when Paul and Silas first had to do with him: not so King Josiah. His heart was already tender.
Huldah had just told Josiah that nothing could turn back the judgment on Jerusalem. He could have concluded that tears were pointless.
Josiah might have thought the case hopeless. He could have said that nothing would turn back the great tide of wrath and judgment about to roll over Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Any move of his must prove useless. God's purpose was settled, the decree had gone out, and he had only to stand by and let things take their course. But Josiah did not reason that way. He bowed before the divine testimony. He humbled himself, tore his clothes, and wept. God took notice of this. Josiah's tears of repentance were precious to the Lord. The dreadful judgment still had to run its course, but the penitent escaped.
The mercy is stated as something he will never see. One writer reads it alongside a line in Isaiah:
Josiah's heart was tender. He humbled himself before God at the words of the book of the law, tore his clothes and wept before Him. So the Lord responded kindly. He would let Josiah die before the threatened judgment fell on Judah, so that he would not see all the disaster that Judah's sin brought on. Isaiah describes the same thing: "The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity."
What comforts the king costs the kingdom:
The people did not deserve such a godly ruler. Their wickedness, despite the outward reform, called for judgment. So the righteous man was taken away from the evil to come. Seen this way, it was a mercy to the man himself. But for the nation, as people would see it, it was a terrible loss.
Josiah later died at Pharaoh Necho's hand. One writer holds together both the promise and the way Josiah died:
For another detail of God's government, look at the case of Josiah. He fell by the hand of Pharaoh Necho, even though God had said, "You shall be gathered to your grave in peace." But he was taken from the evil to come. The circumstances were painful, for it seems he should have listened to Pharaoh. God disciplined Josiah himself, yet Josiah did not see, as Daniel did, all that came upon Jerusalem. What a sparing from sorrow that was!
That promise also put a weight on Josiah's own life:
God had promised him that the judgments would not fall while he lived. He was twenty-six years old when Huldah spoke. Humanly speaking, many years of rule lay before him. Oh, why did he not walk carefully, knowing that so much depended on his life?
Knowing he would be spared did not make Josiah passive. One writer applies this to us:
Josiah heard that nothing could reverse the sentence against Jerusalem and Judah, and that he himself would be spared. That is when he humbled himself still further before the Lord. He set about a reformation with no parallel until then in the nation's history. ... Our comfort is not the promise of being gathered to the grave in peace, but the hope of being gathered to meet the Lord in the air. Yet surely the effect of such a hope is not to make the heart indifferent to the dishonour cast on Christ's name.
- Tender — God points to the heart, not the achievement, as His reason for hearing. A heart soft under His Word is His own work in a person.
- Heard — God never reversed the sentence on Jerusalem, yet He counted one man's tears. The judgment ran its course, and God still heard the penitent.
- Spared — the gift is what his eyes will never see, the pattern of the righteous taken away before the evil arrives.
- Costly — one man's shelter was the nation's loss; his life was the only thing standing between Judah and the outpouring, so his careless risk against Pharaoh cost far more than it looked.
- Stirred — knowing he would be spared, Josiah humbled himself further and pressed the reform on. A hope of rescue that leaves the heart cold to God's dishonour has missed the point.