Who was King Josiah in the Bible?
Josiah ruled Judah in its final good years, a king who came to the throne as a child and set about tearing down the idolatry his fathers had built. His story turns on a lost book found in a neglected temple — and it ends with a battle he was never told to fight.
A child on the throne
He inherited a corrupt kingdom from a wicked father, and his own record broke sharply with it. One summary of his life sets out the bare facts:
Morrish Bible DictionarySon and successor of Amon king of Judah: he reigned thirty-one years. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He began to reign when he was eight years old, and at the age of sixteen he sought after God. When he was about twenty years old he began to destroy all the high places, and groves, and images, and altars.
Named three centuries early
Long before Josiah existed, a prophet stood at the rival altar in Bethel and announced the man who would destroy it — by name.
An Outline of Sound WordsMore than three hundred years before Josiah was born, while king Jeroboam was standing to burn incense before his idolatrous altar at Bethel, a man of God from Judah "cried against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, 'O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you'" (1 Kings 13:1-2). This prophecy was literally fulfilled, as is seen in 2 Kings 23:15-18. God can name His servants long years before they are born, as in the case of Josiah, or as seen in Cyrus, whom God used for the help of His people after the captivity.
The great purge
The clean-up was enormous, physical, and often done under his own eye. It also ran ahead of the nation's heart.
C KnappWhen he was only twenty years old he began the huge task of cleansing his kingdom of its detestable practices. There were "vessels that were made for Baal," and "for all the host of heaven," to be brought out of the temple; there were "idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained," to be put down… He seems to have had few sympathisers, or supporters, in his reforms, and supervised some of the work personally. He could not be blamed if the mass of the people were hypocritical and unreal.
The book nobody had
Repairing the temple was what uncovered the scroll — the two were linked, not coincidental.
H. L. RossierIf Josiah had not had the restoration of the temple at heart, the book of the law, which was kept there, would not have come to light again. This is the special character of Josiah's revival… under Josiah we find what amounts to a totally new revelation of the written Word, and in this case of the books of Moses. In this revival the Holy Scriptures, neglected and forgotten during the preceding reigns, suddenly occupy their place of importance again.
The loss was not innocent. A king was supposed to own a copy of that very book:
Leslie M. GrantIn that book it was written that when one ruled as king over Israel he should write a copy of this law in a book and read it all the days of his life (Deut. 17:18-19). But by the time Josiah took the throne, he did not even know that this book existed! Who was to blame for this? No doubt both earlier kings and priests.
A tender heart, and a delayed judgment
He tore his clothes at what he heard and sent to ask God what it meant. The prophetess Huldah answered that the sentence on Judah stood — but that he himself would be spared the sight of it.
Leslie M. GrantBecause his heart was tender, and so he had humbled himself before the Lord when he heard the Word of God, he had torn his clothes in self-judgment and had wept before the Lord, the Lord had taken full account of his repentance. For this reason the Lord assured Josiah that he himself would be taken away by death before the time of Judah's solemn calamity… How often God takes away a godly person before some great trouble that would be most painful for him to witness!
He then gathered the nation, read the book aloud, and kept a Passover unmatched since the days of the judges.
"After all this"
The record turns with those three words. Egypt's king marched north, told Josiah plainly that he had no quarrel with him, and Josiah rode out anyway — and died of his wounds at Megiddo.
J. N. DarbyIt was this message which should have made him act with less haste, and with a more exercised heart than he showed when he went up against the king of Egypt. The knowledge that their well-deserved judgment was soon to overwhelm Israel, and that there was no remedy for their sins (although Josiah himself was spared), should have prevented his going up against Pharaoh, when Pharaoh did not attack him, and even warned him to hold back; but he would not listen, and was lost through a boldness which was not of God.
Summary
- Named. God announced Josiah by name over three hundred years before his birth, and the boy king grew up to smash the exact altar the prophecy had condemned.
- Found. His care for God's house uncovered God's book; the Scriptures had been so neglected that a king of David's line had never seen them.
- Bowed. He tore his clothes rather than argue, and God answered that tender, humbled heart by sparing him the disaster he had just read about.
- Cleansed. He purged idolatry with rare thoroughness and kept the greatest Passover since the judges — yet commentators note the people themselves stayed largely unreal.
- Lost. "After all this," he went to war unbidden and ignored a warning God sent through a foreign king. A life shaped by the word ended where he stopped consulting it.