(with 2 Chronicles 34:15)
There is an apparent discrepancy between the recorded facts of the reign of Josiah and the indications of his inward temperament and disposition which are given to us. The facts of his reign, if we could come to their study independently, would lead us to characterize him as an ardent, sanguine, energetic man. All seems consistent with this view: his zeal for religion, his labour in the restoration of the Temple and the reformation of the kingdom, and the warlike spirit which forced a collision with the power of Egypt and cost him his life at Megiddo. Activity, forwardness, and enterprise seem to mark the man, quite as distinctly as the deep religious principle which hallowed his doings.
Such would be the conclusion from the data of a human historian. But here the superhuman element comes in to represent his real character in a very different light. Huldah the prophetess is appropriately introduced to speak of him as tender, sensitive, and feminine in character, and to promise as his best reward that he should be taken away early from the evil to come.
I. During the restoration of the Temple a sensation was produced by the discovery of the original roll of the Law, which had been put into the ark eight centuries before. The reading of the book produced panic and dismay because of its contents, its threatenings, the evil denounced in it against the sins of the house of Judah. King and people alike seem to have been ignorant of the very existence of their Bible, as a book containing the revelation of God's wrath against sinners.
II. This story touches not only the nation or the Church; it touches every one of us. Are there not many of us who have lost the book of life lost it how much more wilfully, how much more guiltily, because in so many senses we have it? If we acquire the habit of studying the Bible merely or chiefly with scientific or literary views, of prying into it, dissecting it, criticising the word because it is man's, as if it were not also God's, can we help fearing that we may be losing the word of life?
III. Notice the result of the discovery of the book of the Law. The king rent his clothes, and sent to inquire of the Lord for himself and his people concerning the words of the book that was found. Let us also seek for deep and living repentance for the sin which our ignorance has been.
R. Scott, University Sermons,p. 325.
References: 2 Kings 22:11. S. Wilberforce, Sermons before the University of Oxford,p. 175. 2 Kings 22:12; 2 Kings 22:13. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xii., No. 704.