2 Chronicles 34:29

The account of Josiah in 2 Chronicles 34 shows a king who sought the LORD while he was young and was already clearing idols out of Judah, Jerusalem and the lands beyond them before the book was found (2 Chronicles 34:3–7). During the repair of the temple, Hilkiah the priest found “the book of the law of the LORD given by Moses” (2 Chronicles 34:14). When its words were read to him, Josiah tore his clothes in repentance and sent to inquire of the LORD through Huldah. Her answer was that judgment would fall on Judah for its long disobedience, and that Josiah himself would have peace, because his heart was humble and contrite (2 Chronicles 34:19–28).

That judgment had been earned over generations. Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh and his father Amon had led Judah deep into idolatry, with Baal worship, Asherah poles, the worship of the stars and even the sacrifice of children, and Manasseh had defiled the temple itself (2 Chronicles 33:1–9). Josiah reigned from about 640 to 609 BC, while the Assyrian empire that had long dominated the region was in decline, and that gave Judah room to put its worship right without interference from outside.

Huldah’s word gave the king peace for his own lifetime. “Then the king sent” shows him acting at once for the whole nation.

“And the king went up into the house of the LORD.” The word for house, bayith, is used in the widest range of ways, often of a family, and here it is the temple, God’s dwelling place among his people and the centre of Israel’s worship. The book had been found there, and it was the fitting place to hear it read.

The list of those who came is long on purpose: “all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small.” The leaders and the humblest, old and young, the prominent and the unknown stood together, because the covenant belonged to all of them, and its demands and its blessings reached every one. The same event is told in 2 Kings 23:2.

Then the king himself read. He could have handed the reading to a priest or a scribe, and he took it on himself as an example to his people. “In their ears” means the words were read aloud, so that everyone present heard them for himself. He read “all the words”, and the word for words, dâbâr, means a word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. Here it is the commands, statutes and warnings of the book, the whole of what it contained.

Reading the covenant aloud was an old practice in Israel. At Sinai, Moses “took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people” (Exodus 24:7). The law also required Israel’s kings to keep their own copy of it and read it (Deuteronomy 17:18–20), and Josiah does what a king of Israel was meant to do, standing among his people under the same law. A psalm praises the law of the LORD as perfect (Psalm 19:7–11), and here we watch it do its work on a whole nation.

“And the king stood in his place.” The verb is ʿâmad, to stand, and his place, ʻômed, is a fixed spot. He took his appointed position, probably a raised platform in the temple courts, where a king leading a solemn national ceremony would stand. From there he led his people before God, and everyone could see the commitment he made.

“Made a covenant” uses the verb kârath, which means to cut, so Hebrew speaks of cutting a covenant, a phrase tied to old covenant ceremonies in which animals were sometimes cut. The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a covenant, alliance, treaty or league. Here it is the covenant between the LORD and Israel made at Sinai, with God’s promises and faithfulness on one side and Israel’s obedience on the other. Josiah made it “before the LORD”, so his vow was spoken to God himself, who witnessed it and would hold king and nation to it, as much as to the people watching.

The covenant has one aim, “to walk after the LORD”, a whole life spent following where he leads. It then names “his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes.” A commandment, mitsvâh, is a command, and the word can stand for the whole law. A testimony, ʻêdûwth, is God’s witness, his declarations and warnings. A statute, chôq, is an enactment, a fixed decree. Together the three words cover the whole breadth of God’s revealed will, and Josiah promises to keep all of it.

“And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it.” The verb is ʿâmad again, the same word used for the king standing in his place in verse 31. He stood, and he had his people stand with him. To stand to the covenant was to agree to it publicly and bind themselves to its terms, much as someone today takes an oath of office or makes a public vow. Josiah commanded it, and their standing turned their listening into a pledge. Benjamin was the tribal land beside Jerusalem, and with Judah it formed the heart of the kingdom.

“And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant.” “Did” is ʿâsâh, the same broad word for doing that stands behind “perform” in verse 31. Their pledge was followed by obedience in their life together.

They kept “the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.” This was the covenant God had made with their ancestors, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to the nation gathered at Sinai, where all Israel entered it together as one people (Exodus 19). Moses made it with all Israel (Deuteronomy 29:10–15), and Josiah’s people take it up again as one people. Judah had turned back to God before, under Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29), and fallen away again under Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33), and still God opened the way back. In Josiah’s day the people came home to the faith God had given their fathers.

“And Josiah took away all the abominations.” The word tôwʻêbah means an abomination, something utterly wrong and detestable, and it can also mean an idol. Here it covers the idols, altars, high places and pagan rites that the law of Moses forbade (Deuteronomy 12:29–31), the very things Manasseh had brought in. “Took away” is çûwr, to turn off or turn aside, and the verse ends with the same verb: Josiah turned the abominations away, and the people did not turn away from following the LORD.

He did this “out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel”, which carried his work beyond Judah into the lands of the old northern kingdom (2 Chronicles 34:6), out of a desire to see all God’s people return to him. Earlier good kings had left work undone. Asa served the LORD faithfully and still left the high places standing (1 Kings 15:14). Josiah’s reform was the most thorough in Judah’s history, and it was the last great revival before the exile to Babylon.

Then he “made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the LORD their God.” The verb ʻâbad means to work, labour, serve, till and worship. The repeated “to serve” fixes the nation’s service on the LORD their God alone. Josiah removed what was evil and then set the people to the work of worship and obedience.

“And all his days they departed not from following the LORD, the God of their fathers.” “Following” translates ʼachar, after, the same word as in “to walk after the LORD” in verse 31, so the people did what the king had vowed. For the length of his reign the nation as a whole stayed faithful, and the great Passover of 2 Chronicles 35 follows.

Josiah was a righteous king who led his people back to God, and in that he points to Jesus, the true King. Jesus fulfilled the law in every detail (Matthew 5:17), and he is himself the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Josiah read a written law that convicted his people, and Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom and calling people to repent and believe (Mark 1:14–15). He is the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Josiah vowed to keep the covenant with all his heart and soul, and the law could show how far people fall short of that, because it was weak through the flesh (Romans 8:3). Jesus kept it wholly, tempted in every way as we are and yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Through him God made the new covenant he promised by Jeremiah, writing his law on the hearts of his people (Jeremiah 31:31–34), a better covenant with Christ as its mediator (Hebrews 8:6–13). God gives his people a new heart and puts his Spirit within them, so that they walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Josiah took the idols out of the land, and Christ deals with sin at its root. He saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), and his blood purges the conscience to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14), the willing service that Josiah’s decree could only point toward. The Son makes free those who were the servants of sin (John 8:34–36), so that they obey from the heart and become servants of righteousness (Romans 6:17–18) and walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). Josiah’s people followed the LORD all his days. Christ is head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:22), his reign has no end, and the people he gathers from every nation follow him for ever.

God’s word keeps its power through generations of neglect. A book lost in the temple was found and read aloud, and it brought a king to repentance and a nation back to its covenant. The LORD heard Josiah’s humble heart and gave him peace, and he gave Judah years of faithfulness all his days. He is the God of their fathers, keeping covenant with the children of those he first called, and still opening the way back after long rebellion.

The scene also shows how God means his word to be heard: by everyone together, the great and the small, read aloud in full, and answered with a pledge that becomes obedience. One leader who heard it first brought many others with him. And what Josiah’s covenant asked, all the heart and all the soul, God himself gives in Christ, who writes his law on the hearts of his people.