2 Kings 22

2 Kings THE REDISCOVERED LAW AND ITS EFFECTS2 Kings 22:8 - 2 Kings 22:20 . We get but a glimpse into a wild time of revolution and counter-revolution in the brief notice that the ‘servants of Amon,’ Josiah’s father, conspired and murdered him in his palace, but were themselves killed by a popular rising, in which the ‘people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead,’ and so no doubt balked the conspirators’ plans. Poor boy! he was only eight years old when he made his first acquaintance with rebellion and bloodshed. There must have been some wise heads and strong arms and loyal hearts round him, but their names have perished. The name of David was still a spell in Judah, and guarded his childish descendant’s royal rights. In the eighteenth year of his reign, the twenty-sixth of his age, he felt himself firm enough in the saddle to begin a work of religious reformation, and the first reward of his zeal was the finding of the book of the law. Josiah, like the rest of us, gained fuller knowledge of God’s will in the act of trying to do it so far as he knew it. ‘Light is sown for the upright.’ I. We have, first, the discovery of the law. The important and complicated critical questions raised by the narrative cannot be discussed here, nor do they affect the broad lines of teaching in the incident.

Nothing is more truthful-like than the statement that, in course of the repairs of the Temple, the book should be found,-probably in the holiest place, to which the high priest would have exclusive access. How it came to have been lost is a more puzzling question; but if we recall that seventy-five years had passed since Hezekiah, and that these were almost entirely years of apostasy and of tumult, we shall not wonder that it was so. Unvalued things easily slip out of sight, and if the preservation of Scripture depended on the estimation which some of us have of it, it would have been lost long ago. But the fact of the loss suggests the wonder of the preservation. It would appear that this copy was the only one existing,-at all events, the only one known. It alone transmitted the law to later days, like some slender thread of water that finds its way through the sand and brings the river down to broad plains beyond. Think of the millions of copies now, and the one dusty, forgotten roll tossing unregarded in the dilapidated Temple, and be thankful for the Providence that has watched over the transmission. Let us take care, too, that the whole Scripture is not as much lost to us, though we have half a dozen Bibles each, as the roll was to Josiah and his men. Hilkiah’s announcement to Shaphan has a ring of wonder and of awe in it. It sounds as if he had not known that such a book was anywhere in the Temple. And it is noteworthy that not he, but Shaphan, is said to have read it.

2 Kings 22:8 . I have found the book of the law — This is generally agreed to have been the archetype written by Moses, and by him ordered to be deposited with the ark in the most holy place; but which some pious high- priest had caused to be thus hid in the reign of Ahaz or Manasseh, to prevent its being destroyed with the other copies of it; for it plainly appears, by the tenor of the history, that there were few, if any others, left. But it is much disputed, whether it was the whole Pentateuch, emphatically called ה תורה , he torah, the law, or only Deuteronomy, or even barely the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st chapters of that book. Josephus, by calling it the sacred books of Moses, seems to declare entirely for the former; as do far the greater number of Jews and Christians. If it be asked how Shaphan, reading to the king, could run over those five books so quickly as to come presently to the blessings and curses; it may be answered, that as their manner was to write upon volumes of a considerable length, which were rolled up round one or two sticks, it might so happen, that these last chapters proved to be on the outside, and that the king, impatient to know the contents of it, might desire to have them read before he had unfolded a round or two. Or we may suppose, with the Jews, that Providence directed him to that very part. Something like this we find happened under the gospel, Luke 4:17 ; Acts 18:28 , &c.

What appears most surprising is, that all the copies of the Scriptures, which the good King Hezekiah seems to have caused to be written and dispersed about the kingdom, (see Proverbs 25:1 ,) should be so soon vanished, that neither Josiah nor the high-priest had ever seen any of them till this one was brought to light. All that can be said in this case is, that Manasseh, during the former part of his reign, had made such a havoc of them, that if there were any left, they were only in a few private hands, who preserved them with the utmost caution and secrecy. See Dodd. and Univ. Hist. What a providence was this, that this book of the law was still preserved! And what a providence it is that the whole book of God is preserved to us! If the Holy Scriptures had not been of God, they would not have been in being at this day. God’s care of the Bible is a plain proof of his interest in it. We may observe further here, it was a great instance of God’s favour, and a token for good to Josiah and his people, that the book of the law was thus seasonably brought to light, to direct and quicken that blessed reformation which Josiah had begun. It is a sign God has mercy in store for a people, when he magnifies his law among them, and makes that honourable, and furnishes them with the means of increasing in Scripture knowledge. The translating of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongues was the glory, strength, and joy of the reformation from popery.