The Good Book
When you pick up a good book, you never want to put it down. Page after page, you find yourself more engrossed in the story. Time seems lost when you are in the middle of a good read; this is precisely what happened to King Josiah in our biblical narrative.
We find ourselves deep in the middle of the time of kings in the nation of Judah, with King Josiah and his good book. During this time, like most times in the history of God’s people, they would do well when they followed and kept the covenant made to Moses on Mount Sinai. (Exodus 19.18-25). When the leaders and followers did not preserve the commands of God, struggle and hardships were close behind.
We will look at King Josiah and his discovery of the lost book. Before diving into the implications of finding the book, we first need to understand what book we are discussing in this context.
“When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. ”
Most scholars agree the Book of the Law mentioned in this section of scripture refers to the Deuteronomy scroll.[1] The scroll says the Book of the Law is supposed to be kept with the ark of the covenant.
“It came about, when Moses finished writing the words of this Law in a book until they were complete, that Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, so that it may remain there as a witness against you. ”
Moses is clear in his direction to the people. They were to keep the word of the Lord close and read it often to be transformed. But we can see from the text, he is worried because of their propensity towards rebellion and stubbornness.
“For I know your rebellion and your stubbornness; behold, as long as I have been alive with you until today, you have been rebellious against the Lord; how much more, then, after my death? ”
Moses was saying he knew the people. They were rebellious and stubborn when he was around. He feared it would only get worse after he was gone.
How much worse is it going to get?
Moses was right. It was going to get worse for the people, and we see in our anchor text with King Josiah a nation that had lost its relationship with God; they had forgotten the covenant relationship.
Today we will briefly discuss the covenant relationship between God and his people and focus on how the word of the Lord can guide our lives. Part of the word of the Lord came to Moses in the form of the ten commandments and beyond. (Exodus 20-24) Once he had the word of the Lord, he brought it to the people.
“Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordnances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!””
In the original Hebrew, “word” what Moses recounted to the people is a simple translation of speech or saying; there is nothing special about the translation of “word.” Until you get to the next part of the scripture, where it says the word of the Lord, the significance is increased once God is involved with the words. The people at that moment knew the importance of the word because they had perceived the glory of the Lord on the mountain. The word is heightened when you see the God of creation come and occupy a mountain.
“Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked violently.”
Even after seeing God’s power on display over this mountain, the people fall victim to idol worship and again enter the pattern of obeying and disobeying God.
This brings us to our section of scripture today in Second Kings. The nation of Judah, the line of David, has had a run of terrible kings who were focused on everything but the Lord; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord. (2 Kings 21.20)
Mainly the people were concentrated on worshiping other gods. They had worshiped Baal and Asherah, gods from different cultures who had been invited into the nation by the kings. The country is riddled with strife, and before we get to our anchor text, we get a narrative straight out of the writing room for a movie.
“The servants of Amon (king of Judah at the time) conspired against him and killed the king in his own house. Then the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against king Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place. ”
Straight drama in the kingdom, you have a coup conspired by the king’s servants to seize power. Only to see the people take back control by killing all the servants who killed the king and placing his eight-year-old son on the throne as the new king.
“Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned for thirty-one years in Jerusalem; ”
Thrust into leadership at such a young age, Josiah was tasked with cleaning up the kingdom. Josiah is considered the best king from Judah or Israel because of how he turned the nation back to the Lord. No one from the split kingdom walked in favor of the Lord the way Josiah did; most scholars would agree that he was more righteous than even King David.[2]
Through the process of cleaning up the temple and city, the lost book is found and brought to King Josiah. When he reads the word of the Lord, his only reaction is grief and shame, so much so that he tears his clothes. The act of ripping or tearing one’s clothes is found throughout the scriptures and is associated with mourning or repentance. In this moment of hearing the word of the Lord, the king is overrun with emotion about the state of his kingdom. He knew then how far the nation had turned from the covenant of God.
The word opens our eyes.
The function of the word is to enlighten our minds toward God and his standard of a covenant relationship. Josiah, in his disbelief of the state of the nation, began to bring back the standard of living towards God, doing away with anything that resembled idol worship. The first audience to whom the Scroll of Kings was written would have been exiled to Babylon with no hope of returning to their land, but the message would have been clear to them from Josiah.
Obedience to the word leads to trust in Jesus.
Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, soul, and might, even if you cannot see any hope of reward; this is the same message today as believers in Christ. If we have lost hope in our circumstances around us, we can have hope in Jesus because of who he is and what he did on the cross.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ”
In this scripture section, John tells us two important details about Jesus. The first, Jesus is the word of God, who came to life in flesh and bone to be our example; which leads to the second detail of importance, Jesus is bringing the new creation.
“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ”
Notice the connection to the creation narrative in Genesis; it says, “in the beginning.” Jesus is ushering in a new creation that will open our eyes to God’s love.
Just like in the garden where God’s word spoke into existence life, Jesus is before all creation speaking into life God’s new creation. Jesus was our living example of following God with all of our heart, mind, and soul because the word became flesh. Most people in the time of Jesus rejected him, the word.
“He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him. ”
The people did not receive the word. Jesus was in the world, and the people did not open their eyes to him to have a relationship. We have the gift of time and reflection to see that Jesus on the cross came for our sins. The word became flesh so it could be broken; the word became flesh so his blood could be spilled.
I do not know where you are in relationship with the word, but I pray when you see the word, you have the same reaction as King Josiah, one of repentance and mourning, to see the need for Jesus.
Jesus is the culmination of the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament; everything in God’s word points to Jesus. The word guides us and strengthens us to help us on our path of holiness toward righteousness.
For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Hebrews 4.12
[1] “The identity of the book is no mystery. The narrator and the first readers knew it to be Deuteronomy” Richard D. Nelson, First and Second Kings: (Louisville: John Knox, 1987), Logos Software.
[2] “In this, Josiah is the Old Testament’s best example of Deuteronomy’s call, not just to fear God or obey God, but to love God with heart and soul and might” Nelson, First and Second Kings:.
