2 Kings 22:13 - Exposition

Go ye, inquire of the Lord for me. Inquiry of the Lord, which from the time of Moses to that of David was ordinarily "by Urim and Thummim," was after David's time always made by the consultation of a prophet (see 1 Kings 22:5-8 ; 2 Kings 3:11 ; 2 Kings 8:8 ; Jeremiah 21:2 ; Jeremiah 37:7 ; Ezekiel 14:7 ; Ezekiel 20:1 , etc.). The officers, therefore, understood the king to mean that they were to seek out a prophet (see 2 Kings 22:14 ), and so make the inquiry. And for the people, and for all Judah —the threats read in the king's ears were probably those of Deuteronomy 28:15-68 or Le Deuteronomy 26:16 -39, which extended to the whole people— concerning the words of this book that is found. Not "whether they are authentic, whether they are really the words of Moses" (Duneker), for of that Josiah appears to have had no doubt; but whether they are words that are to have an immediate fulfillment, "whether," as Yon Gerlach says, "the measure of sin is already full, or whether there is yet hope of grace?" (compare Huldah's answer in Deuteronomy 26:16 -20, which shows what she understood the king's inquiry to be). For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us. Josiah recognized that Judah had done, and was still doing, exactly those things against which the threatenings of the Law were directed—bad forsaken Jehovah and gone after other gods, and made to themselves high places, and set up images, and done after the customs of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before them. He could not, therefore, doubt but that the wrath of the Lord "was kindled;" but would it blaze forth at once? Because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. Josiah assumes that their fathers have had the book, and might have known its words, either because he conceives that it had not been very long lost, or because he regards them as having possessed other copies.