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1 Dusting Off the Bible for the 21 st Century Mennonite Church Canada Assembly, July 2012 Sheila Klassen-Wiebe Discovering God’s Word Anew A Bible Study on 2 Kings 22:1 23:30 Introduction My parents live in Southern Alberta, and last summer when we visited them, I dug through a box of old papers and mementos that they’d kept from when their parents were alive. Among those treasures I found some of my grandfather’s old record books. Although I didn’t uncover any skeletons in the closet, it was fascinating to turn those yellowed pages and glimpse something of my family history in them. Those old papers were a small reminder that I am part of a much bigger story and that who I am today is shaped by events and people that existed even before I was born. This is also true of the Bible. What’s inside these covers are not just dead words on a page but windows into our past. Granted, the stories in these pages took place a long, long time ago in a culture very foreign to our own. But the Bible is our memory book; it reminds us of who we are as God’s people and how we got to where we are. The biblical story is our story. When I told a Lutheran friend that the theme for our assembly is “Dusting Off the Bible for the 21 st Century,” he wondered, “Do Mennonites need their Bibles dusted off?” I don’t know, do we? Part of me wants to say “no,” the Bible is our authority for faith and practice, and we regularly read our Bibles both in worship services and in personal devotions. At the same time, I know that youth today are much less familiar with their Bibles than the youth of a generation ago. And adult education classes that discuss a hot topic or current issue are more popular than boringold Bible studies. Do we really think of the Bible as our story, a window into our past, as much as a grandparent’s old diary? Our Bible study for today is literally about “dusting off the Bible”. It’s a story about how our ancestors in faith discovered anew that the Scriptures were their story and spoke a fresh and challenging word for their time. Perhaps we’ll find the same to be true today as we dust off this story for our time.

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Dusting Off the Bible for the 21st Century

Mennonite Church Canada Assembly, July 2012

Sheila Klassen-Wiebe

Discovering God’s Word Anew

A Bible Study on 2 Kings 22:1 – 23:30

Introduction

My parents live in Southern Alberta, and last summer when we visited them, I dug through a box

of old papers and mementos that they’d kept from when their parents were alive. Among those

treasures I found some of my grandfather’s old record books. Although I didn’t uncover any skeletons in

the closet, it was fascinating to turn those yellowed pages and glimpse something of my family history in

them. Those old papers were a small reminder that I am part of a much bigger story and that who I am

today is shaped by events and people that existed even before I was born.

This is also true of the Bible. What’s inside these covers are not just dead words on a page but

windows into our past. Granted, the stories in these pages took place a long, long time ago in a culture

very foreign to our own. But the Bible is our memory book; it reminds us of who we are as God’s people

and how we got to where we are. The biblical story is our story.

When I told a Lutheran friend that the theme for our assembly is “Dusting Off the Bible for the

21st Century,” he wondered, “Do Mennonites need their Bibles dusted off?” I don’t know, do we? Part of

me wants to say “no,” the Bible is our authority for faith and practice, and we regularly read our Bibles

both in worship services and in personal devotions. At the same time, I know that youth today are much

less familiar with their Bibles than the youth of a generation ago. And adult education classes that

discuss a hot topic or current issue are more popular than “boring” old Bible studies. Do we really think

of the Bible as our story, a window into our past, as much as a grandparent’s old diary?

Our Bible study for today is literally about “dusting off the Bible”. It’s a story about how our

ancestors in faith discovered anew that the Scriptures were their story and spoke a fresh and

challenging word for their time. Perhaps we’ll find the same to be true today as we dust off this story for

our time.

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Historical and Literary Context

In order to understand what’s going on in this text, and before we can ask how it speaks to us

today, we need to consider where it appears in the Bible and what was going on in history at the time.

Our story appears at the end of a long section of Scripture called the Deuteronomistic History.

The Deuteronomistic History extends from Joshua to the end of 2 Kings. It begins with the people of

Israel entering the land of Canaan and ends with them going into exile in Babylon. It begins with God

making a covenant with them and giving them land and ends with God taking away the land, because of

their failure to keep the covenant. The Deuteronomistic History is history with an agenda, history seen

through a particular theological lens. It was probably put together during the exile, and the people

writing this history were asking a question: How is it that we lost the land that God gave to us as a gift?

How did we end up here in exile? Has God forgotten the covenant God made with us? The answer that

the Deuteronomistic History gives is no, God is faithful; it’s God’s people who have failed to live

according to the covenant.

On what basis do the writers of this history arrive at this conclusion? They are reading their

history through the lens of Deuteronomy. After delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt God made a

covenant with them, promising to be their God and forming them into a people. The laws outlined in the

book of Deuteronomy describe the people’s part in the covenant relationship. Keeping the law is their

“yes” to God’s gracious acts on their behalf. The covenant laws recognize the seductive allure of idolatry

and the temptation to slide into unjust treatment of neighbour, and so also prescribe consequences for

failure to keep the covenant. The book of Deuteronomy, then, is governed by a theology of blessing and

curse. If the people obey the commandments of God, they will experience blessing. If they turn from the

way God laid out in the covenant, they will experience disaster. It’s this theological perspective that

shapes how the whole history from Joshua to 2 Kings is told. Although the rest of the Bible nuances this

rewards and punishment theology, Deuteronomy’s answer to the question of why Israel lost the land

and went into exile is that they were unfaithful to God’s covenant.

In 2 Kings 22 and 23, Josiah is ruling over the southern kingdom of Judah. Josiah apparently

became king when he was 8 years old and reigned for 31 years in all, from 640 to 609 BCE. The Old

Testament is really only interested in what happened in the 18th year of his reign, in the year 622. About

100 years before this the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the mighty Assyrian empire.

By the time Josiah became king, Assyria’s power had weakened and another empire, Babylon, was

gaining strength. That new empire would conquer the nation of Judah in 587, a mere 22 years after

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Josiah died. In that year Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, all the brightest and best leaders

were carted off to Babylon, and the Israelites were left without temple and land, wondering what had

happened to the covenant God had made with them. Although this still lies in the future at the time of

our text, that reality impinges on it.

One other important thing to note before we turn to 2 Kings 22 is that throughout the

Deuteronomistic History, the kings are evaluated on the basis of how well they lead the nation in

covenant-keeping. Unfortunately, almost every king fails miserably, with only two kings after David

receiving high praise (Hezekiah and Josiah). The kings that ruled right before Josiah were especially

atrocious. Worst of all the Davidic kings was Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, who ruled for a long time

(55 years). Because of all the wicked things Manasseh did, God says, “I am bringing upon Jerusalem and

Judah such evil that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. . . . I will wipe Jerusalem as one

wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.” (2 Kg 21:11ff) What was so terrible about

Manasseh? He led the nation away from worship of the one true God and into worship of Canaanite

deities. He built up the high places, that is, the worship sites for the foreign gods, and he set up altars to

Baal, as well as images and sacred poles.

Baal was one of the main gods in the Canaanite pantheon and one of the chief rivals of Yahweh,

the Israelite God. Because Baal was the storm god, responsible for sending rain, he was also the god of

fertility. Sometimes sacred prostitution was practiced at the Canaanite sacred places to encourage the

gods to bring fertility to the land. Because the Israelites were living among the Canaanites in a land that

depended on scarce rains for survival, the pull to worship Baal would have been strong. So it was that

kings like Manasseh led the people of Israel further and further away from the covenant obligations

outlined in Deuteronomy, and especially the commandment “you shall have no other gods before me”

(Deut. 5:6-9).

This is the situation when Josiah becomes king in 2 Kings 22.

Structure of text

Although we’ve heard the story already, let’s review it in outline form.

A. Verses 1 and 2 introduce Josiah as a righteous king like his ancestor David.

B. In 22:3-7 Josiah orders money from the temple treasury to be given to workers for repairs of the

temple.

C. The book of the law is then found and read, first by Hilkiah, the high priest, then by Shaphan,

and finally Josiah, the king (22:8-13).

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D. In 22:14-20 the prophetess Huldah is consulted. First she speaks a word from God about

Jerusalem and then about King Josiah.

E. Chapter 23 begins with Josiah gathering the nation for a renewal of the covenant (vv. 1-3).

F. Most of ch. 23 consists of Josiah’s actions against the idolatry of the nation (23:4-20).

G. Josiah then leads the nation in the observance of the Passover in vv. 21-23.

H. The chapter winds down with another positive evaluation of Josiah and with another

pronouncement of divine judgment on Judah (vv. 24-27).

I. It ends with the sudden death of Josiah (vv. 28-30).

We’ll be looking at each section of the text in turn, so you may want to open your Bibles to 2 Kings 22

and 23 if you haven’t already. There are also a few photocopies on each table, with the text arranged

according to this outline.

Studying the Text

Introduction of Josiah (22:1-2)

Our text begins by identifying Josiah – his age, the length of his reign, his mother’s name. This is

a typical way for the book of Kings to introduce each new king. We may wonder how someone can be

king at the tender age of 8. We may wonder why the king’s mother is named, especially in such a

patriarchal society. But these are not the questions this text wants to answer. The most important thing

about this introduction is how Josiah is characterized in v. 2. Josiah is another David, who “did what was

right in the sight of the Lord.” The language of not turning aside to the right or left appears throughout

Deuteronomy and is explicitly directed to the king in Deut. 17. A glowing assessment of Josiah appears

also at the end of our text and thus functions as bookends framing the whole narrative.

Josiah orders money from the temple treasury to be given to workers for repairs of the temple

(22:3-7)

In the 18th year of Josiah’s reign he initiated a renovation project in the temple. We all know

how that goes; when you start renovating your house, one thing always leads to another and before you

know it everything is turned upside down. That’s kind of what happens with Josiah.

Now, we should note that this project in and of itself is not so remarkable. About 200 years

earlier another king by the name of Jehoash also ordered repairs on the temple. In fact, 2 Kings 12

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describes that renovation project in words very similar to those in our own text. Maybe such public

works projects were just something kings did occasionally. On the other hand, in light of the narrator’s

characterization of Josiah as one who did “what was right in the sight of the Lord,” the fact that he

undertook this temple renovation adds to his image as a God-fearing king. We don’t hear any concrete

details about the repairs themselves, though, and find out quite quickly that they are only a backdrop

for what is really important, the discovery of a scroll.

The book of the law is found and read (22:8-13)

In this section we meet two other significant characters in the story. Hilkiah is the high priest in

the temple, and Shaphan is a prominent royal official. The NRSV calls Shaphan a “secretary” but that

really doesn’t get at the significance of his role unless you think of a modern day “secretary of state.”

Contrary to the previous section, where the details of the temple repair are just skipped over, here we

get a blow by blow account of how Josiah learns about the discovery of a scroll and how it affects him.

First Hilkiah tells Shaphan that he has found a book of the law in the house of the Lord. At this point we

are not told anything about the contents of the book but most scholars think that it contained part or all

of Deuteronomy. Shaphan receives the book from Hilkiah and reads it. He then goes to report to the

king. But he doesn’t even tell him about the discovery right away. First he reports that the temple

money has been delivered to the construction workers for the temple repair work. Finally he says, “The

priest Hilkiah has given me a book.” Notice that he doesn’t tell him what the book is or what’s in it. He

simply reads it aloud to the king. Do you see how time slows down in this section of the text, creating

more drama, more suspense? The dramatic delay gives the response of the king added impact: “When

the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes” (v. 11). Josiah’s immediate

“reaction is physical not verbal”1 and it’s strong compared to the rather flat responses of Hilkiah and

Shaphan. Tearing one’s robes in the ancient world was a dramatic act of repentance. At this point we as

readers still don’t know what the book of the law said, but we do know, on the basis of Josiah’s actions,

that it is deeply unsettling.

A couple of interesting things to note about Josiah’s response. First of all, he’s immediately

repentant. That is, he doesn’t wonder if he’s interpreting the scroll correctly; he doesn’t get defensive or

resort to self-justification. The word of the Lord immediately grabs hold of him and convicts him, and he

1 Robert L. Cohn, 2 Kings, Berit Olam series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000): 153.

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instinctively knows what the appropriate response is. The people have not been doing what the book

says and as a result God’s anger has been kindled. One reason Josiah’s response is so interesting is that

it’s such a drastic contrast to the actions of a later king, who is also presented with a scroll intended to

elicit repentance. In Jeremiah 36 the king on the throne is Josiah’s son (Jehoiakim). The scribe Baruch

reads a scroll containing words that God gave to the prophet Jeremiah, warning of impending disaster

and urging the king to repent. Whereas Josiah responds to the scroll with remorse, king Jehoiakim

responds to the scroll by defiantly tearing it up. As each portion of the scroll is read, he tears it off – the

same word used for Josiah tearing his robes – and throws it into the fire. Two very different responses to

the hearing of God’s word!

Josiah’s second reaction is to seek more information about the implications of these words, so

he sends a delegation of five to “go inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all of Judah.”

Notice that the king doesn’t ask just on his own behalf; he is a representative of the people, and this

matter concerns the whole people of God. He also sends a group, not just one ambassador. We might

expect the delegation to include the high priest and the secretary of state, but it also includes three

others, Ahikam, Achbor, and Asaiah. The size of the committee is an indication of the gravity of the

situation and the far-reaching implications of the scroll.

The prophetess Huldah is consulted (22:14-20)

The royal commission pays a visit to a prophet by the name of Huldah. Not much is known about

Huldah apart from what we learn from this text. She is apparently married to a court official who is in

charge of the wardrobe, and her husband’s lineage is properly noted. She seems to be well connected,

with a position of some authority, and yes, she is a female prophet. The Old Testament does name

prophets who were women – Miriam, Deborah, Isaiah’s wife – but we don’t know all that much about

the tradition of female prophets in ancient Israel.2 The fact that Huldah is simply mentioned matter-of-

factly suggests that it was not particularly unusual or noteworthy for the king’s delegation to consult a

female prophet. Apparently women could also speak the word of the Lord in that patriarchal society!

Huldah’s words constitute a key part of this text, for it’s here that we finally learn more about

what’s in the scroll and why Josiah reacted as he did. She begins in the typical manner of prophets: “thus

says the Lord, the God of Israel. . . .” Her prophecy then falls into two main parts; the first concerns

2 T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1985): 327.

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Jerusalem (vv. 15b-17), the second concerns the king (vv 18-20). Notice that the prophecy begins and

ends with the word “disaster” (vv. 16, 20), framing and giving shape to the content in between. Another

recurring phrase in Huldah’s prophecy is “this place” (note vv. 16, 17, 19, 20) and each time dire words

are spoken against “this place”. “This place” refers to Jerusalem, with the temple, and beyond that, the

whole land of Judah. When I was studying this text I was struck by the recurrence of that phrase. Maybe

it’s because it seemed to make this prophecy so concrete and immediate. God’s words of impending

disaster are not vague, generic prophecies. They come to specific communities in concrete physical

places. Place is important in the Bible; land has profound theological significance. In the Old Testament

the land is a physical sign of God’s covenant with the people; but it is a gift that can be lost through

mismanagement and abuse. That’s why “this place” is emphasized in Huldah’s prophecy: disaster in this

place, God’s wrath kindled against this place, God’s word spoken against this place. It sounds pretty

grim.

The first half of Huldah’s speech concerns Jerusalem and Judah. It begins with articulating what

is going to happen and then spells out why. Here we finally learn something of the contents of the scroll.

The reason God is so angry and is going to bring disaster upon them is that they have abandoned

worship of the one true God and have followed after other gods, making offerings to these gods and

creating idols with their own hands. The charges are extremely serious. One of the reasons that scholars

think the book discovered in the temple was Deuteronomy is that the basis of Deuteronomy’s many

laws is precisely this – that Yahweh alone is God and that the people are to love the Lord their God with

all their heart, soul, and mind. Deuteronomy 28 and 29 outline the consequences of failure to keep

God’s covenant. Read it sometime and you’ll see why Josiah tore his clothes when he heard those

words. In this first part of Huldah’s prophecy there is no call for repentance, no escape clause; it seems

judgment is a done deal.

The second half of Huldah’s prophecy concerns the king. In reverse order from the first half, it

begins with the “why” of the action and then moves to “what”. King Josiah has been both inwardly and

outwardly penitential. He has humbled himself before God and has demonstrated his remorse by

weeping and rending his clothes. He has “heard” the words of the Lord. “Hearing” in the OT is not just

about sounds hitting the eardrum. When Deut 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One,” for

example, more is required than passive listening. Rather, hearing “implies obedience, readiness to act

on what one hears.”3 Josiah “hears” the word of the Lord and repents. Therefore, says God, Josiah will

3 Walter Brueggemann, 1 & 2 Kings (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2000): 546.

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be buried in peace, before disaster comes upon Judah. This is interesting for a number of reasons and

we’ll come back to this again. In the OT the kings are responsible for keeping God’s people on the

straight and narrow; the kings are to rule on behalf of God, with justice and mercy. Thus, the kings are

held responsible when the nation does not keep covenant with God. Yet in this oracle the fate of the

king and the fate of the nation part ways. Huldah prophesies destruction for Judah but reassures its king

that he personally will not see the disaster.

One more comment about Huldah. Notice what she is doing in response to the delegation’s

request for more information. As any good interpreter of Scripture she is making connections between

an ancient text and the lives of her listeners. She is contemporizing the message of the scroll so that it is

no longer just a dusty book pulled out of the rubble, but a word from the Lord that speaks to present

listeners and grips them anew with the power of that word.

The delegation returns to King Josiah with the message from Huldah. 2 Kings 23 outlines in

considerable detail how Josiah responds to the word of the Lord. Essentially, his response consists of

three major initiatives: (1) a covenant renewal ceremony for the nation, (2) a comprehensive purging of

syncretistic Canaanite worship from the land, and (3) the institution of a national Passover. The book of

the covenant is mentioned prominently in the first and third of these projects, like bookends around the

whole reform program. Let’s look at each in turn and consider their significance.

The king gathers the nation for a renewal of the covenant (23:1-3)

What do you notice about the first 3 verses? Josiah gathers ALL the people together at the

house of the Lord – all the elders, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, all the priests and

prophets, all the people both small and great. The covenant described in the book of the law is not just

for the leaders, the educated, the mature but for the whole people of God. All are called to be in a

covenant relationship with God, all are recipients of God’s grace, and all must live as that called out

people. Earlier Shaphan read the book of the law himself and then he read it to the king. Now the king

reads the book to his people. The NRSV says the people “joined” in the covenant, but the word is

actually “stood” – they stand with the king and participate in this renewal of the covenant God made

with them at Sinai.

We still don’t hear the actual words on the scroll but in 23:3 we get a better sense of its content.

A person steeped in Scripture would immediately hear echoes of Deuteronomy in the following words:

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“[Josiah] ‘cut’ a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, keeping his commandments, his decrees,

and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were

written in this book.” Josiah is following in the path of devout leaders before him. Moses commanded

that the law be read every seventh year to an assembly of all the people (Deut 31:12). At the end of the

book of Joshua, after they entered the promised land, all the people gathered at Shechem to renew the

covenant (Josh. 24:1-28). And after the Babylonian exile Ezra will again lead the people in a covenant

renewal ceremony (Neh. 8:1-12). Why is it so important that the people of God periodically have these

covenant renewal ceremonies? Because renewing the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai is a

profound, people-making, people-shaping event. It is a ritual that involves the whole community and

reminds them of who they are. The fact is that over many years of carelessness and indifference, they

had forgotten who they were.4 They had lost sight of their identity as a special people called out by God

and forgotten their vocation to live as a light to the nations around them. This public, covenant renewal

ceremony was a corporate meaning-making activity that reminded them of who they were and how

they were to live.

Josiah takes action against the idolatry of the nation (23:4-20)

This next section of our text was not read in full earlier. I can understand why – it goes on and

on about all the things Josiah did to rid the nation of idolatry. He took all the vessels made for Baal and

Asherah out of the temple and burned them. He deposed the priests who made offerings to foreign

gods and destroyed the dwellings of male prostitutes. He not only burned images of the gods, but also

beat the remnants to dust and threw the dust on gravesites. He tore down altars and high places, broke

down sacred poles, desecrated idolatrous worship sites with ritually unclean bones, defiled the place

where child sacrifices were made to the god Molech, and on and on and on. What do you think is the

point of all the detail and repetition? This long litany effectively communicates that Josiah’s reforms

were comprehensive, thorough, and ruthless. He seems to leave no stone unturned and seems to

encounter no opposition. Notice also who is the subject of all the verbs – Josiah.5 He commands, he

burns, he deposes, he tears down, he defiles. . . . You get the feeling that Josiah single-handedly went on

a rampage through the country tearing down altars and idols, burning and defiling and even killing

4 Brueggemann, 554.

5 Cohn, 156-57.

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people. Even if in actuality Josiah enlisted the aid of his troops, the writer wants us to come away with

the impression that Josiah is the driving force behind all that happens. As one commentator said,

“Idolatry in all its forms is spewed out.”6 Maybe Josiah was reclaiming the land for God just as Jesus was

reclaiming the temple for God many centuries later. Now, you might be thinking that maybe Josiah had

some political or economic motivations for his actions; but the biblical writer is not interested in those

pragmatic aspects at all. He simply wants us to see Josiah’s actions as a comprehensive religious reform

growing out of a renewed commitment to keep the covenant and to love Yahweh alone with heart, soul,

and mind.

Another thing to notice about 23:4-20 is that the writer does a fair bit of name-dropping,

especially in vv. 12-15. Jeroboam I was the Israelite king who built altars with golden calves in Bethel to

rival the temple in Jerusalem. Ahaz is criticized in 2 Kings 16 for not doing what is right in the sight of

God, following the ways of the nations and making sacrifices on the high places. We’ve already talked

about Manasseh, who has the reputation for being the worst of all Judah’s kings because of his idolatry.

Even Solomon does not escape criticism, for he married many foreign wives and set up altars to their

gods. The whole period of kingship seems tainted with impure worship. Notice that the text doesn’t

blame oppressor nations like Assyria for bringing in foreign gods; it blames the kings of Israel and Judah

themselves!

In 23:16-18 there’s a break in the action. Josiah sees the grave of a man of God, who lived some

300 years earlier, and orders that this grave not be disturbed. 1 Kings 13 tells the story of this man of

God, and you can read that on your own sometime. What’s significant is that the man of God in 1 Kings

13 prophesied that Josiah would do exactly this – that he would burn the bones of the unfaithful priests

on the rival altar that Jeroboam built. Our story in 2 Kings 23 is the fulfillment of a prophecy made three

centuries earlier. What is the point the writer wants to make? That Josiah is a righteous king about

whom prophecies are fulfilled. God’s word is sure. And if these ancient prophet’s words about Josiah are

fulfilled to the letter, you can bet on it that Huldah’s words about Judah will also be fulfilled.

To sum up, then, over the centuries the nation of Judah, under a series of unfaithful kings,

seriously jeopardized its loyalty to Yahweh, who delivered them from slavery in Egypt, made a covenant

with them, and gave them laws to help them live in right relationship with God and neighbour. Josiah’s

zealous reform is an effort to restore the spiritual well-being of the community, by getting rid of all

6 Cohn, 157

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those things that represent religious compromise. Josiah’s religious reform was a case of extreme

national house-cleaning. No, it was more than that. Josiah’s effort to rid the land of idolatry was like the

clean up required by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 or like the decontamination of the site

of a nuclear accident.

Josiah leads the nation in observance of the Passover (23:21-23)

The last major component of Josiah’s reform was the celebration of Passover by all the people.

Although Deuteronomy 16 gives instructions for an annual Passover festival, nowhere in the long history

of kingship do we read that such a national Passover was kept.7 There may have been family

celebrations in homes or villages, but Josiah apparently made the Passover a public festival centralized

in Jerusalem and celebrated by all.

In order to appreciate the significance of this event for Josiah’s reform, we have to remember

what the Passover was all about. The Passover recalled and re-enacted God’s dramatic liberation of

Israel from slavery in Egypt. Because of the exodus, Israel knew Yahweh to be a redeeming, saving God.

It was the exodus and subsequent making of a covenant at Sinai that defined them as a community of

faith, bound together by their common worship of Yahweh and by their commitment to the law, given

to them by a gracious God. When I would leave the house as a teenager to go out with friends, my

mother’s parting words were often, “Remember who you are.” That was what the Passover was for

Israel; it was a “remember who you are” event. But the people had forgotten who they were and had

allowed themselves to be seduced into worshipping the gods of the nations around them. Like the

covenant renewal ceremony, this national celebration of Passover was crucial to Josiah’s reform

because it was an embodied reminder of who they were and whose they were. The only other time that

the Deuteronomistic History describes such a national Passover celebration is in Joshua 5, when Israel

crosses over the Jordan into Canaan. A community-defining act of worship thus frames the entire

Deuteronomistic History – at the beginning with Joshua as they enter the land and at the end with

Josiah just before they lose the land.

Evaluation of Josiah and God’s verdict against Judah (23:24-27)

The death of Josiah (23:28-30)

7 This is true for the Deuteronomistic History, but the book of Chronicles does mention a Passover under Hezekiah.

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The last two sections of our text bring this story of Josiah’s reform to its unhappy conclusion.

Verses 24-27 have two main thrusts: a glowing evaluation of Josiah as the most faithful king Judah ever

had – and the verdict that this makes no difference whatsoever to the fate of the nation. Verse 24

reminds us that Josiah’s thorough religious housecleaning was all in accordance with the lawbook found

in the temple. This results in undoubtedly the highest commendation for any king after David: “Before

him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all

his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.” In other words, Josiah

embodies the words of Deut. 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love

the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

You would think that this would be enough to avert God’s wrath. Isn’t this what Deuteronomy

promises – God will prosper you when you turn to him? But no. All of Josiah’s faithfulness does not

cancel out Manasseh’s wickedness, and the verdict comes down with grim finality. It is just as Huldah

predicted, disaster is inevitable.

But what about Huldah’s assurance to King Josiah personally, that because of his penitence he

would go to his grave in peace? In 2 Kings 23:28-30 we hear only a bare bones account of Josiah’s

demise: his life ends violently in a battle at Megiddo, where he is killed by the Pharaoh of Egypt. Josiah

does not live to a ripe old age, dying peaceably in his sleep. To be sure, he is brought back to Jerusalem

in state and given a proper burial in his own tomb. And his premature death does prevent him from

witnessing the tragic destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon 35 years later. But overall this is

not a feel good story where everything turns out alright.

That brings us to the end of our text, but it’s not the end of our task. Careful study of the Bible

remains only an academic exercise if one doesn’t also ask “so what?” Just as Josiah dusted off the Bible

in the 7th century BCE, so we need to dust off this text for the 21st century. I want to suggest five things

that this text invites us to think about in our time.

So What?

1. Disaster falls on nation despite an individual’s repentance; sin has consequences

Perhaps the first issue to tackle is the question we’re left with at the end of this study: How is it

that all the good Josiah does cannot cancel out the infidelity of former kings and avert God’s judgment?

Is God not a forgiving God, who honours sincere repentance? Or is the message of this text, “It doesn’t

matter what you do; in the end God will get you anyway”?

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This text raises questions about the relationship between human action and divine response; it

suggests that the line between them is not always straight. God’s actions can’t be controlled or exactly

predicted by what we do, as though it were a simple cause and effect relationship. 2 Kings 22-23

undercuts a neat and tidy theology that says righteousness leads inevitably to success8 and calls into

question a simplistic punishment and rewards theology. In the end Josiah presents only a brief hiatus in

Judah’s downward slide.

Perhaps, then, this text also says something about the consequences of sin. There may come a

time when the cumulative weight of sin is so great that its negative consequences cannot be averted.

Like a train in full motion or an avalanche that picks up speed, sin’s harmful effects sometimes cannot be

stopped – even if one is sorry. In this case, Josiah’s faithfulness could not change the direction that the

entire nation had inexorably been moving for hundreds of years. Sin inevitably harms individuals,

communities, the earth – as God said it would. I was thinking about what this might look like today,

what might be some of the harsh consequences of our corporate, longterm systemic sin. I wonder, for

example, if human abuse and degradation of God’s creation won’t have some irreversible consequences

that will become the judgment on our sin, despite our best individual efforts to reduce, reuse, recycle.

Does that mean we should throw up our hands in despair and say there’s no point in trying to change

things? No – which leads me to my second point.

2. Josiah is faithful despite no guarantee of outcome

It’s fascinating to me that even though Huldah says God’s judgment on the nation is

unavoidable, Josiah still carries through with a sweeping reform. Why? For one thing, the future isn’t set

in stone; maybe God will yet change God’s mind. It happens elsewhere in the Bible. God changes God’s

mind about Nineveh even though he tells Jonah he will destroy the city. God changes God’s mind about

Sodom and Gomorrah in response to Abraham’s pleas. The prophet Joel urges God’s people to repent

before the Day of the Lord, for “Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing

behind him” (Joel 2:14). Human repentance and obedience do matter in the divine-human relationship,

and God does respond. But God is still God – and God cannot be controlled by human strategies nor is

the relationship with the living God a commercial arrangement9 governed by simplistic cause and effect

8 Richard D. Nelson, First and Second Kings, Interpretation Commentary (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987): 260.

9 Ibid.

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rules. When we earnestly repent and change our ways, who knows whether God might not reverse the

course of history.

Josiah responded to the covenant claims even though he didn’t know what difference it would

make for the future; his obedience did not depend on the promise of reward. Rather, he did what was

right because of who God is and because being in relationship with this God means living as God’s

people. If God was indeed Lord of creation and history, then the syncretistic, idolatrous practices of the

nation were simply wrong. In some ways, whether Assyria or Babylon or another superpower conquered

them was irrelevant; political disaster is not the worst thing that can happen to a people. What

mattered most was that they begin to live again as God’s own people, loving God with all their heart and

soul and might. Remember that 2 Kings was written during the time of exile, after the people had lost

their land to the Babylonians. For them the message of this text must have been especially poignant:

“obey God’s law and keep the faith, even if you can see no hope of reward.”10

Although the circumstances of this text are very different from our own, Josiah’s repentance

and obedience, without insurance of divine blessing, can be an important reminder to us of what it

means to be the people of God in uncertain times. A simplistic, caricaturized view of Christianity is that

people obey God and live moral lives so that they can go to heaven when they die. If we’re “good,” we

get a reward at the end. According to our text in 2 Kings, that’s not exactly it. In the words of one

scholar, “these words are the words of life even when obedience provides no insurance of divine

blessing. Beyond rewards and punishment God calls us to a particular way of life.”11 We follow Jesus as

the prince of peace even when the way is difficult not because we know we will be successful in the end

or because everything will always turn out well. We take up the cross and follow Jesus because he first

loved us, because we know him to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It’s not the promise of reward

that motivates us, it’s the life Jesus gives us on the journey.

3. The temptation to idolatry is subtle and seductive

The grave sin in this text is idolatry. From our vantage point it’s easy to be critical of the

Israelites for succumbing to the cultural and religious influences of surrounding pagan nations.

Worshipping idols seems not only wrong but foolish and we know better. But imagine for a minute what

10

Ibid.

11 Patrick Willson, Interpretation 54 (October 2000): 415.

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might have prompted God’s people to fall into such obviously disloyal behaviour. Maybe it was simply a

desire to be economically secure and culturally relevant in a precarious environment. Yahweh had led

them out of slavery and guided them through the wilderness, but in a more settled agricultural

economy, how would Yahweh fare in comparison to the local gods who controlled the cycles of nature.

Remember that Baal was the god who controlled the rain and ensured fertility of the soil. To ignore all

rites that honoured Baal might be impractical and even reckless. Maybe Baalism and Yahweh worship

didn’t have to be mutually exclusive; Yahweh could be lord in the sphere of history and Baal could be

lord in the sphere of fertility.

When we consider the impulses encouraging syncretistic worship in Judah, it should give us

pause. How might our own desire to be economically secure compromise our faithfulness to God? How

might the temptation to be culturally relevant water down our loyalty to Jesus? I don’t mean to say that

economic security is inherently sinful, nor do I think that we shouldn’t articulate our faith in culturally

sensitive ways. But we are kidding ourselves if we think the economic and cultural forces of our time are

any less seductive than the gods of the nations around Judah. At what point do our safe investments for

the future and our craving to maintain our current standard of living become idolatrous? Have we slid so

far into cultural conformity that our God is no longer distinguishable from the gods of the rest of

society? Before we get too critical of those wicked idol-worshipping people of Judah, let’s look at the

compromises we make, at idols we have. Perhaps we’ll find we too need to repent and clean house.

4. The people of God have a corporate identity, shaped by Scripture, rituals, and covenants.

This text speaks to the corporate nature of the people of God. Huldah’s oracle distinguishes

between the fate of the nation and the fate of an individual king. It implies that the people of God are

not just a bunch of individuals but a corporate identity that is more than the sum of its parts. That’s not

to say that the faithfulness of individuals like Josiah isn’t important. It simply recognizes that God’s word

shapes and orders the life of a body. The reformation Josiah initiated consisted of community shaping

rituals. He called together all the people, great and small, to hear the reading of God’s word. He led the

people in a corporate recommitment to the covenant. He initiated a corporate celebration of Passover,

a ritual remembering of what formed them into a peoplehood.

We are here as individuals, with our own stories of faithfulness and failure, each committed to

love God and neighbour. But we are also meeting here these days as Mennonite Church Canada, a

corporate body that is more than a collection of individuals. And so this text prompts me to consider

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how we are called to be faithful not only as individuals, but as a church. Perhaps that’s what the “Being

a Faithful Church” process is all about. How will our study of Scripture in the months ahead shape us as a

body? What are the rituals and covenant ceremonies that remind us collectively of who we are? What is

the corporate witness of Mennonite Church Canada in our country and around the world? We are an

increasingly diverse body – culturally, ethnically, maybe even theologically. How do we live faithfully as

the one body of Christ while welcoming diversity? I realize that I’m asking more questions than giving

answers. But I think that’s what Scripture does for us – it prompts us to ask questions about who we are

and how we can live faithfully as God’s people. Which leads me to my final point.

5. God’s word makes a compelling claim on God’s people.

One of the things that struck me the most about this text is the claim that God’s word makes on

God’s people. I suspect that’s why the conference planners chose this text for an Assembly focussed on

Scripture and discernment. Josiah literally dusted off the Bible for his century. When he heard the words

of Scripture they grabbed him, shook him up, and turned him upside down. They had a transforming

effect not only on the king but on the entire people of God. Scripture has a way of doing that when you

take it seriously. Although there would be many things to reflect on with regards to this point, I want to

briefly lift out three.

(a) Being attentive to the claims of Scripture requires a certain receptivity from the start. I suspect

Josiah responded to the discovery of the law book the way he did because he was a person of integrity

and righteousness to begin with. When the seed of the word of God was planted, it fell in fertile soil.

So also hearing the word of God today requires a certain receptivity and openness on our part, a

willingness to submit to a voice different from our own, a trust in Scripture. Before the words of

Scripture can make a claim on us and transform us, we have to be willing to read it and be willing to

change!

(b) Being attentive to the claims of Scripture requires interpretation and discernment in

community. On the one hand, Josiah understood immediately the grave import of the words that were

read to him. There are times when Scripture functions that way for us too. We know in our gut when

something is true and it will not do to squirm out of the claims the text is making on us. Many times,

however – and sometimes even when the claims of scripture seem clear – we need others in the

community to help us discern the implications of what we are reading. That’s what Huldah did for

Josiah. We need the diverse voices of biblical interpreters across cultures and through time to give us

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insight into what we are reading. Sometimes we need others to speak out loud the words we are afraid

to hear. Community discernment and interpretation is an integral part of being attentive to the Word of

God.

(c) Being attentive to the claims of Scripture demands a lived response that is both personal and

corporate. To hear the word of God is to do it. Josiah not only expressed remorse, but he purged the

land of idolatry, gathered the nation for a covenant renewal, and celebrated the Passover. Talking about

the importance of Scripture and its claims on our lives is simply not good enough. It must shape who we

are and how we live as the people of God. By this I don’t mean to imply that the Bible is just a rule book

that tells us what to do. That would be far too narrow. The Bible is the written word of God that

becomes lived as it is enfleshed. Above all the word of God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. As the

church acts as the Body of Christ, forgiving, loving, sharing, caring for the least, welcoming the lost,

witnessing to the world, healing brokenness, it enfleshes that living word of God anew. Sometimes that

lived response to the claims of Scripture will be radical and will feel like a tornado blowing through the

land, as did Josiah’s reforms. Sometimes that lived response will be more hidden and quietly powerful as

water washing against a rock for hundreds of years. What matters is that it is lived and animated by the

living word of God in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Josiah dusted off the book of the law that was found in the temple and contemporized it for his

own time. In response to my Lutheran friend who asked whether Mennonites need their Bibles dusted

off, I would say yes. Yes, if that means committing ourselves to hearing anew the word of God; yes, if

that means being grabbed and shaken up by what we read; yes, if that means rediscovering who we are

as the people of God; yes, if that means falling in love with the Scripture all over again. I pray that this

Assembly be a time for that to happen.