II Kings 22, Josiah and Temple Repairs

Manasseh has desecrated the temple and devoted it to other gods. His grandson, Josiah, will be different. For a brief period of time there is revival in Judah. The date is about 640 BC.

Josiah is quite young when his 24-year-old father, Amon, is assassinated. The officials who kill his father attempt to put another ruler in place but their coup is overturned by the people and they are killed (in the previous chapter.) 

2 Kings 22: 1-2, An eight-year-old is king

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother's name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

Josiah is installed as king at the age of eight.  Unlike father and grandfather, he desires to follow YHWH.

Bozkath was probably a small town west of Jerusalem, in the Shephelah, the Judean foothills.

2 Kings 22: 3-7, Temple to be repaired

In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the LORD. He said:"Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the LORD, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the LORD-- the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are acting faithfully."

Around 835 BC, King Joash (in 2 Kings 12) begins reign as a seven year old. In his reign Joash instituted temple repairs. Now, two centuries later, another king, also installed as a child, begins temple repairs.

A age twenty-six, Josiah orders that the temple be repaired. In a parallel passage (2 Chronicles 34) we learn that this reconstruction begins with an earlier campaign to rid the land of the idols and Asherah poles. Since his grandfather Manasseh has installed some of these idols in the temple, this would have involved some temple renovation.

2 Kings 22: 8-10, Book of Law found

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple."

Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

 

During temple repairs, the Book of the Law (presumably the Torah of Moses?) is found in the temple.  It is brought out and read to the king. In previous years, possibly a century or more, that scroll had been lost, possibly even hidden for safety (suggests Hubbard.)

2 Kings 22: 11-13, Torn robes

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes.

He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: "Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us."

Josiah is distressed by what he hears.  Clearly the country has not been following the requirements of the Law. If the book of the Law here is a scroll of Deuteronomy, it includes the blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 28)  that follow from obedience/disobedience to the Law.

2 Kings 22: 14, Find the prophetess

Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.

The priests are aware of a certain prophetess, Huldah, wife of the "keeper of the wardrobe". (Apparently Shallum maintained the ritual robes of the priest.) Huldah and her husband live in the Second District, a newer development west-northwest of the palace-temple district (says Hubbard.)

Contemporaries of Huldah are Jeremiah and Zephaniah. But the priests seek out Huldah.

2 Kings 22: 15-20, Hulda speaks

She said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, `This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.'

Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, `This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.'" So they took her answer back to the king.

The news from Hulda is not good. A disaster is coming.  But it will happen after Josiah's reign, since he, like Hezekiah before him, has humbled himself before YHWH. With Assyria lurking about, these postponements of disaster, caused by the devotion of Hezekiah ahd Josiah, are certainly important for the affected generations!