Context & Key Themes
2 Chronicles 34 covers the reign of Josiah, the last great king, and like the account in 2 Kings it is built around two pivots: Josiah’s early reform and the discovery of the Book of the Law. Unlike 2 Kings, the Chronicler notes that Josiah begins seeking the God of his father David in the eighth year of his reign — at sixteen — and begins purging idolatry in the twelfth year, even before the book is found. The finding of the law in the eighteenth year confirms and intensifies what is already underway. Josiah tears his clothes. He sends to inquire of the Lord. Huldah the prophetess delivers the word: the disaster is coming, but not in Josiah’s days. He gathers all Judah and Jerusalem and reads the whole book of the covenant in their hearing and makes the covenant before the Lord. All who are present in Israel serve the Lord all the days of Josiah.
Key Verse
“For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the metal images.”
— 2 Chronicles 34:3
Summary
Josiah is eight years old when he begins to reign and reigns thirty-one years in Jerusalem. He does right in the eyes of the Lord and walks in the ways of David his father. In the eighth year of his reign, while still a youth, he begins to seek the God of David his father. In the twelfth year he begins to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the metal images. They break down the altars of the Baals and cut down the incense altars. He breaks in pieces the Asherah poles and the carved and metal images and makes dust of them and scatters it over the graves of those who sacrificed. He burns the bones of the priests on their altars and cleanses Judah and Jerusalem. In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali he breaks down the altars, beats the Asherah poles and the idols into powder, and cuts down all the incense altars throughout Israel. He returns to Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he has purged the land and the house, he sends Shaphan and others to repair the house of the Lord his God. Hilkiah the high priest finds the Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses. He tells Shaphan. Shaphan reads it and brings it to the king and reads it in his presence. The king tears his clothes. He sends to inquire of the Lord: the wrath of the Lord is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord to do according to all that is written in this book. They go to Huldah the prophetess. She says: thus says the Lord — I will bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants, because they have forsaken me. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire: because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you. You shall be gathered to your grave in peace and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring on this place. Josiah gathers all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He goes to the house of the Lord and all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small. And he reads in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. The king stands in his place and makes a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that are written in this book. Then he makes all who are present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin stand to it. The inhabitants of Jerusalem act according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. Josiah removes all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel and makes all who are present in Israel serve the Lord their God. All his days they do not turn away from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.
Reflection
The Chronicler’s addition that Josiah begins seeking God at sixteen and begins the reform at twenty is theologically significant. In 2 Kings, Josiah’s reform appears to be triggered primarily by the discovery of the law in the eighteenth year. In Chronicles, the discovery confirms and accelerates a reform that has been underway for six years. Josiah is not a king who waited to be told what to do. He began seeking God as a boy, on his own initiative, in the reign following Amon’s two corrupt years. The law’s discovery does not create his faithfulness. It deepens it.
The public reading of the Book of the Covenant and Josiah’s covenant-making before all the people is the Chronicler’s most fully realized moment of covenant renewal. Every previous instance — Asa’s feast, Jehoiada’s coronation covenant, Hezekiah’s Passover — points toward this. The king stands in his place. He reads the whole book in their hearing. He makes the covenant. All the people stand to it. This is what Deuteronomy was designed to produce: a gathered people, a king who reads the law, a covenant renewed in the presence of the Lord, a nation standing together before God’s word. It is also the last time this will happen in Judah’s pre-exile history. Josiah is the final great king. The covenant renewal is real. And then he dies at Megiddo.