II kings resume tracing the decline of Israel and Judah. The book may be divided into three parts. The 1st part (1 ki 1-11) is focused on the kingdom under Solomon. The second part of the book consist the narration of the divided kingdom. The third major portion of the book focuses on the kingdom of Judah the northern kingdom. It record two great calamities that brought about the dissolution of kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The background of Israel during that period was in a greater instability. It is evident by its constant change of kings and dynasties. The author of the book is anonymous. Scholars view that Jeremiah is the author of the book. The author emphasize that the division and collapse of Israel and Judah were the direct and inevitable consequences of idolatry and unrighteousness on the part of the kings and the nation as a whole. In the light of this the author evaluates the success or failure of each king according to his faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the covenant of God. No matter what success a king had politically or economically, he was judged as failure if he did not uphold the covenant. This prophetical understanding was presented so that the captives might forever turn away from idolatry and turn to god and obey his commands in future generation.
The very first sentence of the scripture goes like this “then the king sent”. It provide a diverted continuation of the story line begun in chapter 22. It clearly shows us about something which has been influenced the king. The king is none other than Josiah. Josiah came to the throne in 641BC when he was a young boy of eight years old. He began to seek the lord and the story of 2 kings goes straight to something that happened when he was 26years old. He was seeking God. He was determined to improve the poor condition of the temple and wanted to re establish faith in Israel. To know the factor which influenced the king we have to make a study of the background of chapter 23, which lies on chapter 22.
The young king Josiah gave instruction to a high ranking official in Josiah’s government named shaphan to instruct the high priest to renovate the temple. The builders were known to be honest people. The money was being handed to the builder. “The book of law” was found in the temple. In the ancient Egyptian Mesopotamian tradition there was a practice of burying a foundation box when building a temple or a palace. One purpose of these documents was to offer information to the king who might undertake the restoration of the building in the future days. The book found here may be probably Deuteronomy. A hundred years before in the reign of Ahaz. It is not likely the king would be reading Deuteronomy. By Hezekiah’s time Deuteronomy may already have been forgotten. In Manasseh’s long reign the book would have become just vague memory. Soon the scripture are being neglected. It is which happened in Judah. There were plenty of religious ideas around in Judah. The Assyrians were the dominant power and people had their minds full of anxieties the Assyrian. So it was easy for the scripture to get neglected and forgotten. The high priest found the book and reported to Shaphan who had been in charge of the project. Shaphan read the newly discovered book and took it to the king and read it to him aloud. The king reacted with great distress. The description goes of the blessing that will be Israel’s portion if she walks in the in god’s ways. The bulk of the materials describe the curses in the form of various calamities that will befall the people if they do not obey God. The scripture was bringing to his attention a new aspect of the obedience that god wanted from him. The king creates a group of reliable people to look how this book is being obeyed. The group goes to Huldah the prophetess. The message comes back that the calamity is about to fall on the nation precisely as Deuteronomy had predicted. The passage can be divided into major portion
1. Responding to the covenant a mark of turning to God (Vv1, 2)
Immediately after the handing over Huldah’s message, king called the elders, priest and prophets together, with the people of the land, and shared the message with them. The elders or patriarchal family heads played a major role in the early tribal organization of Israel and evidently still had a function during the monarchy. The prophets may be the Levites which occur in chronicles. Small and great refers to the entire population. Here we see the leadership quality of Josiah. He was only at the age of 26. He was also able to gather all the elders. Since elders were the rulers of the pre monarchical age. And during the transition to the monarchic period the nation still recognized the political power of the elders. Even to these elders Josiah was an influential character. Being a king Josiah was ready to hear the words of the elders. He was ready to involve them in the project. One of the most important qualities of Christian leadership is to hear from others. A quotation goes like this “if you tell me something I will forget, if you show me I will remember, but if you involve me I will understand”
Here again two things are important
a. Coming to the house of God
Josiah went to the house of Lord. Josiah clearly knows that there will be no other place holy than the house of god. He also felt that only in the presences of the lord that the book should read. He may also know that the reformation or the revival begins at the house of God. And surely that place was the best place. In God’s house or in God presence we are to assemble and look for him. It is there we must expect the power of God. It is there we must seek for renewed vigor and Divine influence. It is there we must look for the lord, himself and pray to him to strengthen us. It is there we must come for the deepening our faith in eternal; enlarging of our courage and zeal; and the expansion of our Christian hope
b. Coming back to the Word of God
Even after the invention of the alphabets, many of the people in the ancient near east were illiterate, and thus the public reading of the document had an important function. Assyrian source describe herald standing at city gates reading royal pronouncement to groups of onlookers. In this occasion there were the high priest, scribes, priest, and prophets and all the elders of the people, but, the king himself reads the book of the covenant which had been lately found! It is likely that the king considered himself a mediator between God and the people. And it was read to all the people. The young king was quick to see its importance, value and worth. Its warning heeded, its promises believed. There is no any revival without the Word of God. As we trace the history of the church and we will find the role of Word of God in all revivals. John Wycliffe was a great power in his day. He is rightly called the morning star of the reformation. He translated the bible into the language of the people. Thus people discovered the truth of the scripture which was hidden for several centuries. In the history of the reformation martin Luther is the hero. Reared in the faith and practice of Romish church, he saw its weakness. He found a copy of scripture, the neglected, deserted, forsaken bible. He read it. It was the Word of God that made him the great reformer. It was the Bible which the reformer accepted as a sufficient rule of faith and life. Let us look for the God sent message. Let us hearken for the voice of the living God. Let us open our ears and hearts to listen and obey the Word of God. Word of God helps us to renew the covenant and our relation with God.
2. Renewing of covenant a mark of abiding in constant relation with God.
Renewing the covenant was a familiar event in Jewish history when the new generation was about to enter Canaan, Mosses had them renew the covenant. On two occasions Joshua called for renewal of the covenant (josh 8:34ff). Samuel also did the same. The king stood by the pillar of the temple and read the words of the law to the assembly. There was a special royal pillar in the temple where the king used to stand on special occasion. It signifies his authority. The assembly at the house of god, and the solemn and reverent reading of the law made deep impression upon the people. At first the king himself dedicated to God. All the people were influenced by this act. In RSV bible it is referred that the “people joined in the covenant”. But according to the Masoretic text it refers as the “people stood in the covenant”. This is the literal translation of the Hebrew and there is every reason to suppose that Masoretic text is more accurate than English versions. In the ancient times if there is an enmity between any two groups. There will be mediator he will bring a boar into the market place and he will cut it into two pieces and place one piece to the west and other piece to the east. He will then cause everyman, with his drawn sword in his hand to pass between the pieces. Then each man will enter into a common brotherhood. It is covenant made between these two groups. Such an idea was existing in ancient times among the Hebrews also. It is seen in the story of Abraham’s covenant (gen 15: 9-21), where god passed between the pieces of the sacrifice in the likeness of a flaming torch. We see the same in Jeremiah 43:18 also. So we judge therefore that there was some such ceremony at Josiah’s dedication of himself and his people to the task of reform. Hope was given to Josiah that he would be removed from the wrath of the law; Even then we see the concern of Josiah towards his nation. His obligation was to extend the hope to his people. For that he did all this arrangements. For true Christian also his obligation is to extend his salvation or eternal hope to his fellow being. And here the salvation and the hope lie in the living word of God. To many, this living word is unseen and neglected. As a minister of God it is our obligation to bring the redeeming word to the people in darkness. In the contemporary church the importance of God’s word is decreasing. Everyone is in behind of many kind of peripheral spirituality. Many of the churches are reluctant in spending time in bible study. One of the Christian missionary named Nygren once said like this “if all the neglected Bibles were dusted simultaneously, we would have a record dust storm and the sun would go into eclipse for a whole week”. The most important factor for finding the will of God is the scripture itself. God still speaks to us and it is through the word of God. It is the need of our generation to renew the covenant with our lord. It is the time to turn back to the word of God. As Josiah encouraged the people to follow the commandments, testimonies and statutes with all their whole heart and soul. There are people those read the scripture with triviality. What makes the difference is not how many times you have been through the Bible, but how many times and how thoroughly the Bible has been through you.
Dear friends let us come back to the word of God. Let us open our eyes to the truth of the scripture. Let us be aware that the adversary uses different kinds of weapon in different period to destroy the church in the history. For eg. he used the weapon of persecution in the apostolic period but the church sustained. Later, it was heretical teaching. Still the church survived. Then he tried for the division in the church but the church reached thus far victoriously. But I believe that in this 21st century, the powerful weapon used by the capricious foe is that make the eyes of the people blind towards the clear understanding of the scripture. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to get a clear vision upon the scripture and lead others to the word of God as Josiah did for his people. Let us turn to God, respond to the word of God and renew the covenant with lord; let’s commit ourselves to obey his commandments, testimonies and statutes. And we may be saved from the final wrath of the God. And let this be our hopes until our death. And let us rejoice in that hope.AMEN!
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