Because thy heart was tender Here are four tokens of true repentance and conversion to God in Josiah: 1st, Tenderness, or softness of heart, in opposition to that hardness which arises from unbelief of God's declarations and threatenings: he trembled at God's word: he was grieved for the dishonour done to God by the sins of the people: and he was afraid of the judgments of God, which he saw coming on Jerusalem. This is tenderness of heart; and proceeded in Josiah from his faith in God's word. 2d, Great humility: he abased himself before the divine majesty, conscious of his own sinfulness and guilt before God, and unworthiness of the goodness God had shown him. These two qualities were internal. The two others were outward tokens of this inward sense of things; namely, rending his clothes, and weeping before God, for his own and the public offences, followed by all possible endeavours to effect a reformation in the people.
Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 22:19
2 Kings 22:19
19 Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.