What You Don’t Know
Can Hurt You
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Key Verse: “Because thine 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 clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.” Lesson Scripture: |
JOSIAH WAS A CHILD WHEN he inherited the throne of Judah. His father Amon had become king when Manasseh died, but he did evil. Amon’s father before him had done much evil and had desecrated the Temple and converted Israel to the worship of Baal. However, after being punished, he humbled himself and repented, removing Baal worship. Somehow his son, Amon, did not follow his father’s conversion and repentance and his servants conspired against him and slew him.—II Chron. 33:24
Josiah, on the other hand, as a lad of eight years, started to do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and in the eighth year of his reign, as a lad of sixteen, “He began to seek after the God of David his father” and by the time he was twenty years old he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the Baal worship left undone by Manesseh and restored by Amon. (II Chron. 34:2-7) This was a remarkable work done by a twenty-year-old king and it took several years to accomplish. His reforms went beyond Judah into Ephraim, Manesseh, Simeon, and Naphtali of the ten-tribe kingdom. When completed, Josiah was ready for the next task of repairing and restoring the Temple which had been desecrated and neglected. The Levites were able to get money for financing this restoration from Judah and many of the other tribes of Israel.
It was during this restoration work that Hilkiah the priest found the book of the Law in the house of the Lord. He had it delivered to the king. When Shaphan the scribe had delivered and read the book to Josiah, he was so moved by its message that he rent his clothes, for he recognized Judah’s and Israel’s failure to keep the words of the book. He assembled the priests, scribes, and servants and said to them, "Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book.”—vs. 21
Josiah first sought to inquire of the Lord through the prophetess, Huldah, who confirmed that the Lord would indeed punish Judah and Israel for their sins. Josiah, however, would be spared seeing these punishments inflicted. He then gathered all the elders, the priests, Levites, and people great and small to the Temple. Josiah read the words of the book to all those assembled. He made a covenant with the Lord, “to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.”—vs. 31
What a remarkable example was this child king, who sought to walk after the ways of his ancestor, David.