Josiah and the Lost Book

Workmen are busy in the temple. Dust in the air, the knock of hammers, piles of timber and stone. And then the high priest finds something nobody expected. A scroll. The book of the law. A young king is about to hear words that will change everything.

Josiah became king of Judah when he was only eight years old. His grandfather Manasseh and his father Amon had filled the land with idols, even inside the temple of the Lord. But Second Kings says that Josiah did what was right, and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he is about twenty-six, Josiah sends Shaphan, his secretary, to the temple. The money people have given is to be handed over to the carpenters, builders and masons who are repairing it. The workers are honest, so no one needs to check their accounts.

At the temple, Hilkiah the high priest meets Shaphan with astonishing news. “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” He hands it over, and Shaphan reads it. Then Shaphan goes back to the palace. He reports on the building work first, and then he adds, almost in passing, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And he reads it aloud to the king.

As Josiah listens, something breaks inside him. He tears his royal robes. These are God’s own words, and his people have ignored them for years. Josiah turns to his officials. “Go and ask the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, about what is written in this book. The Lord must be very angry, because our ancestors have not listened to its words.”

So the officials go to Huldah, a prophetess who lives in Jerusalem, in the newer part of the city. Her husband Shallum looks after the royal wardrobe. Huldah’s message is hard, and it is also kind. Trouble will come on Jerusalem, because the people have turned away from God. But to the king she says this. “Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard these words, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I have heard you, says the Lord.” Josiah will be laid to rest in peace, and he will not see the disaster.

Josiah does not keep the book to himself. He gathers the leaders of Judah and goes up to the temple with the priests, the prophets and all the people, from the youngest to the oldest. And he reads to them every word of the book of the covenant. Then he stands by the pillar and makes a promise before the Lord, to follow him and keep his commands with all his heart and all his soul. And all the people join in the covenant.

Then comes a great clean-out. Everything made for Baal and the other false gods is carried out of the temple and burned in the fields of the Kidron Valley. Shrines are torn down from one end of the land to the other. And then Josiah gives a command. “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.” Second Kings says no Passover like it had been held since the days of the judges. And it says this about Josiah. There was no king before him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, and all his soul, and all his might.

What was the book that Hilkiah found? The Bible calls it the book of the law and the book of the covenant, and does not give it any other name. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, think it was the book of Deuteronomy, or an early form of it. They point out that Josiah’s reforms match Deuteronomy closely: worship gathered to the one place God chooses, the removal of shrines and idols, a covenant read aloud to all the people, and a Passover kept at that chosen place.

Josiah’s story is told in Second Kings, chapters twenty-two and twenty-three. A king heard God’s word, and he let it change him first, before he asked anyone else to change. So here is something to think about. When you hear God’s word, is your heart tender, and what is one thing it might be asking you to change?