2 Chronicles 35:25

These verses come straight after Josiah’s death in battle against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt at Megiddo (2 Chronicles 35:20–24). Josiah reigned from about 640 to 609 BC. Assyria, once the great power of the region, was collapsing, Egypt under Necho II wanted to reassert its hold on the lands around Judah, and Babylon was rising in the east. Josiah went out to meet Necho’s army, most likely to stop Egypt from helping the failing Assyrians or from gaining a strength that would threaten Judah’s independence.

In Chronicles Josiah is the last truly faithful king of Judah. His reforms fill 2 Chronicles 34: he cleansed the land of idols, repaired the temple and renewed the covenant, and he went on to keep a Passover like none since the days of Samuel the prophet (2 Chronicles 35:18). The book of Kings sets his devotion apart from that of every other king (2 Kings 23:25), and it says in the same breath that the LORD’s judgment on Judah still stood (2 Kings 23:26–27).

So Judah lost a king and an era together. With Josiah gone, the revival of his reign came to an end, the kings after him were less faithful, and the nation moved quickly toward judgment and the exile in Babylon. The grief of verse 25 is the grief of a people who felt that loss, spiritual and political at once.

Jeremiah’s ministry began in the days of Josiah (Jeremiah 1:2), so the prophet had lived through the king’s reforms and shared his concern for Judah’s faithfulness to God. The verb for his lament, qûwn, means to chant or wail at a funeral, and Strong’s describes it as striking a musical note. Jeremiah’s grief was heard aloud, as a sung dirge for the king.

That God’s own prophet led the mourning gives it great weight. Jeremiah had been sent to warn Judah of the judgment that was coming, and he understood that Josiah’s death hastened the nation toward it. His sorrow was personal, for a king he had known and respected, and it was the sorrow of a prophet who could see what lay ahead.

“All the singing men and the singing women” were most likely skilled singers who composed and performed laments, the trained mourners of their day. Their songs are called qîynâh, a noun from the same root as Jeremiah’s verb, meaning a dirge, an elegy or a funeral song. A dirge of this kind voiced sorrow, praised the one who had died and dwelt on the loss. Israel had long mourned its fallen kings and heroes this way. When Saul and Jonathan died, David “lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son” (2 Samuel 1:17–27).

“To this day” brings us to the Chronicler’s own time, long after the battle, when these laments for Josiah were still remembered and sung. The singers “made them an ordinance in Israel”, and the word is chôq, something prescribed: a law, a decree, a custom, a task or an allotted portion. Here it is a set custom of the nation, the mourning for Josiah fixed as an established practice. The word marks it as appointed, and “to this day” shows how long it held. Then the songs were “written in the lamentations”, so that later generations could read them as well as hear them.

Verse 26 opens the closing formula that Chronicles and Kings use for king after king. “The rest of the acts” uses dâbâr, a word that means a word or speech and also a matter or thing. Here it is the matters of Josiah’s reign, all that he did as king. The phrase tells us that the account has told part of the story and that more stood on record elsewhere, as verse 27 goes on to say.

Then the Chronicler adds “and his goodness”. The word is cheçed, best known for God’s lovingkindness and mercy toward his people. Used of a person it means loyal devotion, piety and kindness shown in keeping covenant. Josiah’s cheçed was his devotion to the LORD, seen in his work to restore true worship and clear the land of idols.

That goodness was “according to that which was written in the law of the LORD.” The law is tôwrâh, God’s instruction, most often the books of Moses or the whole of his revealed will, and “the LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s own name. Josiah’s goodness was measured by what God had written, and that fits the shape of his reign. While the temple was being repaired, the Book of the Law was found, probably a form of Deuteronomy (2 Chronicles 34:14–21). When Josiah heard it read, he made a covenant before the LORD to keep what was written in it (2 Chronicles 34:31), and everything that followed came from that response.

Throughout Chronicles a king’s goodness, and the well-being of his people, are tied to faithfulness to God’s law. Moses told Israel that keeping God’s commandments would be their righteousness (Deuteronomy 6:25), the psalmist calls God’s word a lamp to his feet (Psalm 119:105), and James calls believers to be doers of the word as well as hearers (James 1:22). The Chronicler wrote for Israel after the exile, a people rebuilding their life and asking who they were, and Josiah’s example told them that their future rested on the covenant and on obedience to God’s word.

People ask why the Chronicler ties Josiah’s goodness to the law when his reign ended in defeat. The answer is that God’s word is the measure of a king, and by that measure Josiah’s life was good. His goodness was defined by God and shown in his response to God’s revealed will, and Chronicles holds to that verdict even where his death is hard to reconcile with it.

“His deeds” in verse 27 is dâbâr again, the same word that the KJV renders “acts” in verse 26. “First and last” pairs riʼshôwn, meaning first or former, with ʼachărôwn, meaning last, latter or what comes after. Naming the two ends to mean everything between them is a figure called a merism, and in Hebrew both words are plural, “the first and the last”. The phrase takes in the whole reign, from the reforms Josiah began as a young king, when he set out to seek God and purge Judah and Jerusalem of idols (2 Chronicles 34:3–7), to his last day at Megiddo. The Chronicler’s own telling of that reign fills 2 Chronicles 34–35.

“Behold” (hinneh) draws attention to the record. The deeds “are written”, set down and there to be read.

Josiah’s deeds were written in a human book, and Scripture teaches that God sees and remembers every deed as well. He knows all our days (Psalm 139:16). He will bring every work into judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14), and John saw the books opened before the judgment (Revelation 20:12). Nothing is hidden from him, and he rules over all of history. Lives of faithfulness and lives of unfaithfulness both leave their mark, and in his justice righteous deeds will be remembered.

Josiah was righteous and he was mortal. His reforms were real and blessed by God, yet they were temporary, his people fell back into idolatry after him, and Judah went into exile. He points beyond himself to Jesus Christ, the true and greater Son of David. Jesus came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and he was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Josiah strove to live up to God’s standard, and Christ’s goodness is his own, whole and flawless. His obedience is what makes many righteous (Romans 5:19). He is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4), and in him we are made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), a standing Josiah’s zeal could never win for himself or his people.

Judah lamented Josiah’s death as a sign of its decline. Christ’s death brought sorrow and despair to his disciples too, and it was the very means of salvation. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), the Servant whose suffering brings healing (Isaiah 53:4–5), and his death ended in victory over sin, death and the grave (1 Corinthians 15:54–57).

Josiah’s deeds, first and last, were written in the annals of the kings. Christ’s life is written for us from his birth (Matthew 1:18–25) to his ascension (Acts 1:9–11), and he is the righteous judge before whom the books will be opened. He lives forever and always lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:23–25), and his kingdom cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28). The custom of mourning Josiah looks toward the day when God wipes away every tear, and death, sorrow and crying are gone (Revelation 21:4).

These verses give us an honest grief. A prophet wept, a nation sang its sorrow, and God kept their laments in his word, so we know that mourning a great loss has a place among his people. They also give us the measure of a good life. Josiah’s goodness was weighed “according to that which was written in the law of the LORD”, by the same word that God has given to us. And they show us a God who sees every deed from first to last and forgets none of it. What a faithful king could only begin, Christ has finished, and the day is coming when the songs of mourning give way to joy.