5.
“ I spake unto you ... but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not: therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, ... as I have done to Shiloh.” Jeremiah 7:13,1413And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; 14Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. (Jeremiah 7:13‑14).
AMON, the son and successor of Manasseh, had no sooner ascended the throne than he discovered the same deliberate determination to commit wickedness which had characterized his father’s youth, and proved himself to be one that despised the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, whose goodness led his father to repentance. He served those idols whose worship had proved the ruin of Manasseh, and “humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more;” and was early made to eat of the fruit of his own way. He had reigned but two short years when his own servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house.
The untimely death of the wicked Amon was an event fraught with blessing to Judah; for the throne thus suddenly rendered vacant was now occupied by a child, whose name had been announced at Bethel, several hundred years before, by the man of God that spake against the altar of Jeroboam (1 Kings 13:22And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. (1 Kings 13:2)). The boy-king Manasseh was an impious son of a pious father, and did a vast amount of evil in his kingdom before he reached the age of maturity; but the boy-king Josiah, as the godly son of an ungodly father, wrought a great amount of good before he attained to manhood.
He was but eight years old when he began to reign, and in the eighth year of his reign, “while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.” The inspired historian briefly summarizes his actions thus,— “He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left.”
The blessed results of the piety of this youthful king early became apparent in his kingdom. In the twelfth year of his reign, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, groves, and carved and molten images, which had become so very numerous that the prophet Jeremiah afterward said, “According to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.” He that attentively reads the long catalog of the abominations which Josiah destroyed and abolished (2 Kings 23:4-204And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. 5And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. 6And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. 7And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. 8And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city. 9Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. 10And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. 11And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. 13And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. 16And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. 17Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. 18And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria. 19And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. 20And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:4‑20)), and also observes that, not until the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign (i.e. six years after the first commencement of this all-important work), do we find it recorded that “ he had purged the land, and the house,” cannot fail to form at least some faint idea of the awful magnitude of Judah’s idolatry during the respective reigns of that king’s two immediate predecessors. And what child of God can reflect upon all this and not magnify and exalt Rim who, according to the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, raised up Josiah to sit upon the throne of such a kingdom, at such a time! Who thus lingered in grace over a beloved but rebellious and iniquitous nation, the doom of which was already sealed!
Having purged the land, and the house, Josiah’s next thought was to repair the house of the Lord his God. The expense of this was met by the willing offerings of the people. While this was being done, Hilkiah the high priest made a most remarkable discovery.
Every father in Israel was clearly responsible both to keep the words of the law in his heart, and to teach them diligently unto his children (Deuteronomy 6:6, 76And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:6‑7)). The members of the tribe of Levi were responsible before God to teach Israel that law (33:10) which Moses wrote in a book, charging them withal to place in the side of the ark of the covenant” (31: 24-26). Over and above all these, the priests were particularly commanded to “teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord bath spoken unto them” &c. (Leviticus 10:1;11And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. (Leviticus 10:1)
1And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, (Leviticus 1:1)). Had Israelites, Levites, and priests altogether lost sight of and forgotten that same “holy law,” when Hilkiah found the book of the law in the house of the Lord? For Josiah appears to have been suffered to remain in profound ignorance of the contents of this book until it was read before him by Shaphan the scribe.
The reading of that word which is “quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,” brought the king into deep exercise of soul. To him it was indeed a light by which he discerned, as he never had done before, the appalling extent of the declension in that nation which had not kept the word of the Lord; so that he rent his clothes, and wept. Because of their fathers’ disobedience to that law, great wrath was already poured out upon them; and Josiah, rightly divining that that wrath still remained unappeased, delayed not to anxiously inquire of the Lord.
Yet he did not like Jehoshaphat, proclaim a fast; neither did he, like Hezekiah, enter into the temple, and there personally appeal to the God that dwelleth between the Cherubim. He sent the high priest and certain of his honored servants, to Huldah the prophetess, that they might inquire of the Lord for him. When we reflect upon all that had taken place within that sanctuary, surely we need not wonder that the anxious king acted as he did. With regard to the fate of the nation, the answer he received was decisively to the effect that the Lord would bring evil upon Judah, and wrath should be poured out, that should not be quenched, but that portion of it which referred to himself personally, was most merciful and gracious. He should be gathered to the grave in peace, and be spared the sorrow of beholding all the evil which the Lord would bring upon the land, and upon its people.
Having himself meekly received this word of the Lord, Josiah, as one whose heart yearned over his beloved subjects, lost no time in gathering the elders together. If he was himself powerless to avert the impending calamities, he would faithfully apprise Judah of their danger; that, ere it was too late, they might personally seek and obtain shelter from the wrath to come. In the house of God, in the audience of the assembled multitude, he read aloud all the words of the book of the law, and caused all that were present to stand to “the covenant of God.”
In accordance with the requirements of that law, in the same year, he kept the feast of the passover. It is in the chapter which treats of the observance of this passover that we have the last historical allusion to the ark of the covenant. Why did the king command the Levites to “put the holy ark in the house?” Such a command implies that it was at that moment outside of the house Had those who wickedly set up an idol in that house, removed it from its resting place, with sacrilegious hands? Or had certain faithful priests desirous of preserving it from sacrilege in those terrible days reverently borne it to some place of safety; as those Levites intended to have done, when Absalom threatened the peace of Jerusalem? (2 Samuel 15:24,2524And lo Zadok also, and all the Levites were with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God: and they set down the ark of God; and Abiathar went up, until all the people had done passing out of the city. 25And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it, and his habitation: (2 Samuel 15:24‑25)). Should this latter supposition be correct, it is not at all improbable that Ezekiel 44:1515But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God: (Ezekiel 44:15) refers to the same pious action.
Blessed in the pious king that sat upon the throne, and by his means with a knowledge of God’s holy law, Judah was about this time favored again with another threefold prophetic testimony; in the mouths of the prophets Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. The peaceful reign of Josiah may be compared to nature’s glorious sunset, so soon succeeded by the blackness and darkness of night: or to the calm which precedes the storm. But when we compare the respective prophecies of the above-mentioned prophets, with those of the prophets who preceded them, we can but observe how much the language of the former differed from that employed by the latter.
It may not be out of place here to mention one remarkable point of contrast between the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah. The former wearied not of testifying to the coming of the Deliverer to Zion; the latter wept as he foretold the coming destruction of Zion, &c. If the nation had believed the report of the one, would the other have been charged to deliver such sorrowful tidings? But, as the prophet Hosea, while he foretold the fate of the ten tribes, aptly expressed Jehovah’s abiding and tender affection for Israel (Hosea 11 i-8), in like manner, while Jeremiah foretold the captivity of Judah, he also pathetically expressed the love that Jehovah ceased not to cherish toward Judah (Jeremiah 11:15;1215What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. (Jeremiah 11:15)
15And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land. (Jeremiah 12:15). 7.).
We often distinguish Jeremiah by calling him “the weeping prophet.” Let us not forget that the Spirit of God moved him to cry; — “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” While his words and his tears aptly expressed his own heart’s poignant grief, they none the less clearly expressed how deeply Judah had grieved the Holy Spirit of God. Jehovah had “marked their iniquity” (Jeremiah 2:2222For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. (Jeremiah 2:22)), and would speedily requite their great wickedness upon their own heads: —even the “ house of their sanctuary” should be leveled with the ground.
A. J.
(To be continued.)
Marginal Notes.
Genesis.
16: 7. Shur is generally supposed to have been a desert on the South West of Palestine, extending to the boundaries of Egypt, and Hagar, being an Egyptian, probably took a route most likely to lead back to her native land.
19: 1. The gate of Sodom. “You observe that the gateway is vaulted, shady, and cool. This is one reason why people delight to assemble about it. Again, the curious and vain resort thither to see and to be seen. Some go to meet their associates; others to watch for returning friends, or to accompany those about to depart, while many gather there to hear the news, and to engage in trade and traffic. I have seen in certain places —Joppa for example —the lady and his court sitting at the entrance of the gate, hearing arid adjudicating all sorts of causes in the audience of all that went in and out thereat.” Dr. Thomson.
19:22. Zoar was one of the five cities of the plain spoken of in Chapter 14:2,8, and as we learn from Deuteronomy 29:2323And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: (Deuteronomy 29:23) it was the only one spared by the judgments that fell in consequence of the iniquity of the inhabitants of that country. Its site cannot now be fixed with any degree of certainty.
20:2. Abimelech was the common title of the Philistine kings, as Pharaoh was of the Egyptians.
21:14. The first mention of Beersheba, a town so often mentioned afterward as one of the boundaries of the possession of the children of Israel. The name was given on the occasion of the covenant made between Abraham and Abimelech, v. 31, and was confirmed later by Isaac Chapter 26:33. In the neighborhood there are to this day the ruins of a town called Bir-es-Seba with two large wells and five smaller ones.
22:2. Solomon built the temple on Mount Moriah, and on the same spot the mosque of Omar now stands. The place where Abraham built the altar for the sacrifice of Isaac was near the spot where our Lord was crucified.
23:17. “The cave of Machpelah is one of the sites mentioned in the Old Testament as to the identity of which no doubt exists. The burying-place of the patriarchs is shown now, though so carefully guarded by the jealousy of the Mohammedans that but few Europeans have been permitted to see the monuments erected in honor of the dead. The manner in which the purchase was effected by Abraham is exactly in accordance with the details of a similar transaction as now carried out. The preliminary negotiations, the mediation of the neighbors, weighing out of the money, and exact description of the plot of land are all the accompaniments of a bargain by which the purchased land is made sure to the purchaser.”