2 Kings 22:2

"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign." This tells a tale about the condition and ways of God's people... Such things ought not to have been. They were the sad fruit of sin and folly — the humbling proof of Judah's departure from the LORD. But God was above it all. We would never have expected to find a child of eight on the throne of David. Yet that child could find his sure resource in the God of his fathers... His youth and inexperience only gave an occasion to display divine grace, and to show the value and the power of the Word of God.

It is a great matter, while the heart is still tender, to have it impressed with the fear of the LORD. That fear taught this young man to know what was "right," and to hold to it with unswerving purpose. 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, nor in the eyes of the people, nor 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... We may do many things out of fear of man, many things by force of habit, many things because of the influences around us. But we can never do what is truly right in the eyes of the LORD until our hearts are brought to understand the fear of His holy name.

God traces Hezekiah's faithfulness back to the example given by David. That is all the more remarkable because it is not said of the kings before him. Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, following all that his father Uzziah had done. Uzziah followed all that his father Amaziah had done. Amaziah followed all that Joash his father had done. The Word of God makes the same remarks about Josiah as about Hezekiah. This confirms that these two kings returned to what was there at the beginning. You cannot today call a revival a true revival if it does not have this character.

He walked in the ways of David, the first of Israel's godly kings (v.2). In the same way, we today should take our instructions from the first days of Christianity, not from men who have followed through the years.

How we long for this plain decision! It is priceless at all times, but especially in a day of laxity and easy tolerance... It brings great peace of mind. A wavering man is never peaceful; he is always tossed about. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." He tries to please everybody, and in the end pleases nobody. The decided man, by contrast, is the one who feels he has "only One to please."

There is no mention of any spiritual helper for Josiah, as there was for Joash more than a century earlier. Joash had his godly uncle Jehoiada with him for many years. With Josiah there was probably more direct dealing with God. This would account for his sturdy faith and his amazing energy in service for God. But whether it were Joash or Josiah, or the present writer and his readers, all is grace. Every scrap of good that has ever been seen in any of us is the work of the Holy Spirit.

He was the last king in Judah to have a good record. This shows us that even when the condition of the people has sunk to a low ebb, there may still be bright exceptions to the general trend.