Because
your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard
what he spoke against this place and its people . . . I have heard you,
declares the Lord.
(2 Chronicles 34:27)
[Josiah] did what was
right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not
turning aside to the right or to the left (34:2). The parallel account in 2 Kings
says this about Josiah: Neither before
nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did –
with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength (2 Kings
23:25).
Josiah
became king at age 8, and began to search out the things of God when he was 16.
At age 20 he purged from Judah every vile and offensive thing. When he was 26,
he started the work of repairing the temple, which led to the discovery of the
Book of the Law.
Josiah
was not some cavalier young man following his basest instincts until suddenly
being confronted with the word of God. He had already been pursuing God for
sixteen years. When God revealed his plan to punish Judah, how easy would it
have been for Josiah to throw a tantrum? Don’t
you know everything I’ve done for you? But he didn’t. He submitted to the
words of God and found favor in God’s eyes.
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