If the brief life of Anion presents a solemn warning, his son's history is refreshingly different. The divine Penman begins with him at the early age of eight, and brings us presently to view him at sixteen and at twenty-years of age, and next when he was twenty-six; lastly we see him at thirty-nine when he died in battle.
As to his general course, and almost all we are told about him, too, we observe the reckoning of God when Josiah's days were done:
"And he did that which was right in the sight ()Nile Lord, and walked in the ways of David his Father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left." (Verse 2 and 2 Kings 22:22And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. (2 Kings 22:2)), and in 2 Kings 23:2525And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. (2 Kings 23:25) is added:
"And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him."
"While he was yet young'' in his sixteenth year "he began to seek after the God of David his father."
What thoughts does this not suggest of inward stirrings of heart and conscience in this boy eight years fatherless? Was it his mother that, moved by desire to God, and commending her little babe to Him, named him Josiah ("Jehovah heals")? We would not expect it of his father, Anion.
And who planted in his breast the knowledge of that God of David after whom he began to seek? Is it presumptuous to say, his mother?
Eternity will reveal it, and the story of many another mother who has earnestly sought to impress upon her children "While they were yet young," the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom.
In the twelfth year of Josiah's reign, that is, when he was not more than twenty —dangerous period for many a youth— he began to act for God. This necessarily followed the "seeking after God" with which Josiah's history as given to us in the Chronicles, began. His activities are the more remarkable when we consider the state of the nation as told us in the prophets (see Isaiah 1; Jeremiah 3:10,10And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:10) and Zephaniah). High places, "groves" (Asherahs), graven and molten images, altars of Baal and sun-pillars on high above the altars of Baal, were broken in pieces, cut down, strewed on the graves of those that had sacrificed to the idols.
Even the bones of the false priests were burned by Josiah upon their altars. And this purging of the symbols of idolatry was carried out, not only in Judah and Jerusalem, but also in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and Naphtali, now largely desolate through the carrying away to Assyria of Israel.
In Josiah's eighteenth year as king he undertook the repairing of the temple,— long neglected and considerably damaged by earlier kings of Judah. During this work Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord by Moses, evidently long lost,— perhaps since Hezekiah's day. Shaphan the scribe, to whom as the king's messenger Hilkiah gave the book, apparently did not realize that this was God's Word, when he took it to the king (verse 18), and read out of it to him.
When Josiah, Godly young man as he had shown himself to be, heard the words which Shaphan the scribe read to him out of the book of God, and learned God's thoughts about what were the state and the practice of the people of Judah, he was overcome with sorrow. That book had in unmistakable language spoken of judgment unsparing, which would certainly fall upon the nation in the event of their turning away in heart from God, and having other gods before him, and though Josiah had with great energy destroyed the outstanding evidences of idolatry, he well knew that the state of the people was unchanged. Besides, the ten tribes were already in captivity—token of the faithfulness of God to His word. What of Judah? Was there hope for mercy, for restoration?
Josiah sent five men to inquire of the Lord for himself, and for those that were left in Israel and Judah; they went to Huldah, a prophetess who lived in the second quarter of Jerusalem, and told her their reason for their call. Huldah, instructed of God, returned answer that He was about to execute judgment upon Jerusalem and its inhabitants, but that because of the king's personal piety, and his humbling himself when he had heard His word read, and because of his sorrow and tears, he would be taken away before the storm burst.
Grateful as Josiah must have been to learn that he was himself to be spared, his heart yearned over his people, and he gathered the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the Levites at the temple. To them the king caused to be read all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found by the priest during the repairs of the temple.
The king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after Him, and to keep His commandments, testimonies and statutes with all his heart and with all his soul. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to his covenant.
We are told of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that they did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers; there was then some effect, however brief in duration, from Josiah's effort.
Josiah removed all the outward evidences of idolatry from all the countries that belonged to the children of Israel, and made all that were found in Israel to serve the Lord their God. While he lived they did not depart from following Him. Outwardly all looked well, but to the spiritual mind, the hearts of the people were far from God.