2 Kings 22:8-13 - Homiletics

A strange loss, and a strange recovery.

The loss by a nation of its sacred book is a strange and extraordinary occurrence. Books deemed sacred are naturally so highly valued and so deeply reverenced that the utmost care is taken of them. Generally, copies are multiplied and are in so many hands that the loss of all, while the nation itself survives, is practically impossible. It is practically impossible, nowadays, that the Christians should lose their Bible, or the Mohammedans their Koran, or the Hindoos their Vedas, or the Parsecs their Zendavesta, or the Chinese their Shu-King or their Taou-tih King. To understand what had taken place in Palestine shortly before Josiah came to the throne, we must consider the peculiar circumstances of the Jewish religion, and the place, which "the book of Law" occupied in it. The following points are especially worthy of note.

I. THE ORIGINAL BOOK OF THE LAW WAS DEPOSITED RESIDE THE ARK , AND KEPT THERE , "It came to pass," we are told, "when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this Law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the Law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against them" ( Deuteronomy 31:24-26 ).

II. THERE WAS NO PROVISION FOR MAKING COPIES OF IT UNTIL SUCH TIME AS ISRAEL SHOULD HAVE KINGS . Then indeed each king was to "write him a copy of the Law in a book out of that which was before the priests the Levites ' ( Deuteronomy 17:18 ). But, except on such occasions, the book, it would seem, remained in the ark, and was not lent about to be copied.

III. THE DESIGN WAS TO MAKE THE LAW KNOWN TO THE PEOPLE BY READING IT TO THEM PUBLICLY . Such reading was prescribed once in each seven years, in the sabbatical year, at the Feast of Tabernacles ( Deuteronomy 31:10-13 ). Under Nehemiah certainly ( Nehemiah 8:2-5 ), perhaps at other times, the precept was acted on.

IV. MULTIPLICATION OF COPIES WAS NOT NEEDED FOR SYNAGOGUES , WHICH DID NOT AS YET EXIST . The result was that probably, besides the temple copy, very few copies of the Law had at any time existed. Irreligious kings, as Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amen, would, as a matter of course, disobey the precept to make a copy; and it is not even certain that all religious kings would carry out the precept. David, whose delight was in the Law ( Psalms 119:77 ), Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah, would almost certainly have made copies; but Solomon may not have done so, nor Amaziah, nor Uzziah, nor Jotham. If the prophets seem to show such a familiarity with the Law as implies constant study, it may well be that the "schools of the prophets" were in possession of some of the royal autograph copies, or the prophets may have been allowed access as often as they required it to the temple copy. Passages of the Law as the Decalogue and other precepts regarding conduct, or, again, the promises made to the patriarchs, and to the nation at large through Moses, may have been widely known, being fixed in the memory of the people, and passed on from father to son by word of mouth. And these well-known passages may also have sometimes taken a written shape. But entire copies of the Law must, even in the time of the later kings, have been exceedingly scarce. Thus when an irreligious king like Manasseh set aside the Jehovistic worship, and thrust, it may be, into lumber-rooms, the old furniture of the temple, so that the book of the Law, i.e. the temple copy, became mislaid or lost, there was no very ready way of replacing it. Nor, perhaps, did there seem to be any absolute necessity of so doing. Except once in seven years, the reading of the Law does not appear to have formed a part of any temple service. The precepts of the Law were inculcated orally by priests and Levites, who had received them from their predecessors. Hilkiah and the priests generally were probably content to carry on the traditional teaching, and did not feel the need of seeking the water of life from the fountain-head. But suddenly a discovery was made. There had been no wanton or malignant destruction of the book of the Law. It had merely been thrust out of sight, and then forgotten. As the repair and restoration of the temple proceeded, and even lumber-rooms and closets were searched, that the whole building might be brought into proper order, those employed in the work came upon the lost volume. It was, probably, very easily recognized. As Bahr says, it may have been "distinguished by its external appearance, size, material, beauty of the writing," etc; as the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch at Nablous is distinguished. Or it may have had for its title, "The Book of the Law of the Lord by the hand of Moses" ( 2 Chronicles 34:14 ). There may even have been priests living who had seen the book before it was lost, and knew it as the volume with which, fifty years before, they had been familiar. At any rate, priests, king, and people unanimously, though with much grief and fear, accepted it. The prophetess, who was God's mouthpiece at the time, confirmed their view; and it remained for nineteenth-century critics to throw a doubt upon the conclusion thus come to, and to brand the work as a forgery of Hilkiah's, or as a chance production of a chance author, who had amused himself by composing a code of laws for a Utopia.