Measured by the Word

KEY VERSE: “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD.” —II Kings 22:8

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: II Kings 22:10-13, 15, 16

AT THE inauguration of the Law Covenant at Sinai between Jehovah God and his typical people Israel, the Lord made an extraordinary promise to them. He said, “If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. … And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord bath spoken we will do.” Had they been faithful as a nation they would have possessed and ruled the world as a kingdom of priests.

But Jehovah knew from the start they would be unfaithful. “The Lord said to Moses, This people, when they come into the land, and live among foreigners, will go wantonly after their gods; they will abandon me and break the covenant which I have made with them. … And many terrible disasters will come upon them.” (Deut. 31:16,17, NEB) Being thus informed by God that the people would be unfaithful, “Moses commanded the Levites … saying, Take this Book of the Law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it maybe there for a witness against thee. … For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.”—Deut. 31:24-29

In our studies over the past months we have seen how accurately these forecasts of national corruption were fulfilled. When the Israelites came into the promised land they adopted the evil ways and the idolatrous worship of false gods of their neighbors, even as the Lord God had foretold. The Book of the Law seems to have been lost for a period of time, and the righteous ordinances of their covenant with God at Sinai had not been regularly brought to the attention of the people.

Today’s lesson deals with Josiah, king of Judah. He was apparently a good king, for he had undertaken to repair the Temple, during the course of which Hilkiah, the high priest, made a surprising discovery. He said to the king’s secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” When the secretary read the book to the king, he was greatly troubled and rent his clothes. The distraught king sent a delegation to Jerusalem to confer with Huldah, the prophetess, who said, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. But to the king of Judah … thus saith the Lord God of Israel. Because thine heart was tender … I have also heard thee, saith the Lord. Therefore … thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.”—II Kings 22:16-20

When King Josiah received this report he “stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.” (II Kings 22:13-20; 23:1-3) Thereupon Josiah ordered an immediate and thorough eradication of the idols and idolatrous practices that had corrupted the worship of the people and separated them from the love of God. “Like unto him was there no king before, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses.”—II Kings 23:25

But for the nation it was too late, for we read, “Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off … the house of which I said, My name shall be there.” Josiah was subsequently slain in battle against the king of Egypt, and buried in Jerusalem.—II Kings 23:26,29

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