Reading: 2 Kings 20-22, Psalm 107

Today we are going to go on a roller coaster. The two stories of the divided kingdom has, of course, been something of a roller coaster already, but today we will meet the best and worst kings that Judah ever had. The northern kingdom’s trajectory was always bent a bit downward, as even their best kings were pretty bad. Judah, though, has had some really great moments, especially recently in the reign of Hezekiah. But that is all about to change.

The story opens with a little story about Hezekiah’s illness and near death. He begs God to spare his life after receiving word from Isaiah that he would not recover, and God relents. This scene ends with Hezekiah asking for a sign, and God moving the shadow on the steps of his palace back ten steps, effectively rewinding the clock. This is heavily symbolic, of God adding time to Hezekiah’s life, but also of the fact that since the reign of the wicked king Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, Judah has been kind of living on borrowed time. Immediately following this story there is another one about Hezekiah for some reason proudly displaying his house and treasury to envoys from Babylon, which Isaiah predicts will result in all that Hezekiah has falling into the hands of the Babylonians, though not until Hezekiah dies. We also get a little window into one of failings of Hezekiah- he appears to care only about his own time. Perhaps this preoccupation with the present explains to some extent his son, Manasseh.

Hezekiah’s son Manasseh is the worst king in the history of Israel, and one of the worst figures in the Bible. He shows no regard for the covenant law, but goes way beyond that. He not only worships foreign gods, he sets them up in the Temple. He rebuilds the high places of worship his father had gotten rid of. He sacrifices his son to one of these gods. He practices magic, and we are told sheds innocent blood from one side of Jerusalem to the other. He is presented as a wholly self interested, utterly disobedient monarch, and his rule is the last straw. God pronounces final judgment on Judah and the city of Jerusalem because of his evil life. Again, the wickedness of the king is imputed to his people. Manasseh is a disaster from which Judah will never recover. I usually avoid pulling extra bits from the book of Chronicles, as it is using the same story for a different purpose, but we are told there that Manasseh eventually did repent near the end of his life, which perhaps explains how his young grandson Josiah turned out. Eventually he dies, and his son Amon rules for a couple of years in the same vein, until he is assassinated by his own servants, paving the way for the 8 year old Josiah to take the throne.

Josiah is the best king Judah ever had. He brings the idolatrous and self centered activities his father and grandfather engaged in to a screeching halt, and does everything he can to reestablish the proper worship of the God of Israel. He has the Temple repaired, and in the process the priest Hilkiah finds, stashed away somewhere, the book of the Law of the God of Israel. What exactly this was we aren’t told, though it seems likely this is either Deuteronomy, or perhaps even the entirety of the books of Moses, suppressed during the very long reign of Manasseh. It is possible it had been lost even longer, since the reign of Ahaz. In any event, Josiah learns of the terrible covenant curses that his people are now bound to incur because of their violation of the covenant law, and he sends to a prophetess Huldah, to ask what they are to do. Huldah does not have great news for him. The curses are coming, one way or the other. But they will not come in the days of Josiah. Though God will be keeping his promises, and Jerusalem is now bound to destruction, God honors the faithfulness of Josiah and delays it.

The reign of Josiah is described as wholehearted in obedience to the God of Israel. Consider the message he receives about the destruction of Jerusalem. What kind of response might we give to such a message? Other than engaging in further repentance, it does not slow him down at all. He still acts in obedience. Still crushes the foreign worship that has invaded Judah, going farther than anyone before him in cleansing the land. Josiah made his choice, and he counted the judgment of God as righteous, and when right on obeying him anyway. In this way he was very similar to his ancestor David at his best moments. Trusting that God knew what he was doing, Josiah obeyed, even if it seemed useless. This is the kind of king the people of Israel had been waiting for. The only problem was he eventually died.