Summary
Josiah: A King Not Bound by His Past
Josiah came to the throne of Judah at the age of eight, inheriting a kingdom drowning in idolatry. His grandfather Manasseh had reigned fifty-five years, rebuilding the high places, raising altars to Baal, placing pagan altars in the very house of the Lord, even passing his son through fire and dabbling in sorcery and mediums 2 Kings 21:2-6. Late in life Manasseh repented, but the cleanup was incomplete. Josiah's father Amon then took the throne and proved worse than his father, never repenting, before being assassinated by his own servants 2 Kings 21:20-23. Into this wreckage stepped a child king.
The Chronicler's verdict on Josiah is striking: "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his ancestor David. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left" 2 Chronicles 34:2. His reign unfolds in a remarkable progression. At eight he became king. At sixteen, "while he was still a boy, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David." At twenty he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, sacred poles, and carved images. At twenty-six he turned to repair the house of the Lord 2 Chronicles 34:3-8.
Josiah's reforming work had been foretold three centuries earlier. A man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel in the days of Jeroboam: "A son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name. And he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you" 1 Kings 13:2. When Josiah ground the idols to dust, scattered them on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them, and burned the bones of the idolatrous priests on their own altars, the prophecy was fulfilled to the letter.
During the temple repairs, the workmen discovered the Book of the Law—likely Deuteronomy or the whole Pentateuch—long hidden away, presumably to escape Manasseh's destruction. Josiah tore his clothes when he heard it read. He then summoned the elders, priests, Levites, and all the people, "both great and small," and read in their hearing every word of the book of the covenant. Standing in his place, he made a covenant before the Lord to keep His commandments with all his heart and soul, and he led the whole nation in pledging themselves to it 2 Chronicles 34:29-32.
The lesson of Josiah is that a person need not be controlled by the past. The grip of the past is real—children of emotionally distant parents can become emotionally distant; those who witness abuse can repeat it; those who are taught contempt can grow into it. We learn by seeing, hearing, and repetition, and the familiar dysfunction can become the inherited dysfunction. Yet Josiah, with a grandfather and father steeped in idolatry, did not turn to the right or to the left.
How? When Josiah sought God, he discovered that God had first sought him. This is the heart of the gospel. The Law exposes the depth of our sinfulness—what we have done and what we have left undone—and shows that we cannot redeem ourselves; left to ourselves, we deserve nothing but condemnation. But God comes in seeking love and gives us Christ, who bore our sin on the cross, paid the debt in full, and rose from an empty tomb. In the waters of Baptism, God claims us as His own. He frees us from the past—both from the patterns we inherited and from the condemnation we heap upon ourselves for past sins, which are now covered in the blood of Jesus. You are not your past. The baptized child of God belongs to Him, and His grace is bigger than any inheritance of sin. "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" Psalm 118:24.
Video citations
- "Josiah" — Let's open our Bibles, please this morning to the book of 2 Chronicles, the 34th chapter for our study today, 2 Chronicles in the Old Testament chapter 34, as we study God's Holy Word together. In…