2 Kings 23:4-27 - Homiletics

The inability of the best intentions and the strongest will to convert a nation that is corrupt to the core.

Josiah's reformation was the most energetic and the most thorough-going that was ever carried out by any Jewish king. It far transcended, not only the efforts made by Jehoiada in the time of Joash ( 2 Kings 11:17-21 ; 2 Kings 12:1-16 ), and the feeble attempts of Manasseh on his return from Babylon ( 2 Chronicles 33:15-19 ), but even the earnest endeavors of Hezekiah at the beginning of his reign ( 2 Kings 17:3-6 ). "It extended not only to the kingdom of Judah, but also to the former kingdom of Israel; not only to the public, but also to the private, life of the people. The evil was everywhere to be torn out, roots and all. Nothing which could perpetuate the memory of heathen or of illegitimate Jehovah-worship remained standing. All the places of worship, all the images, all the utensils, were not only destroyed, but also defiled; even the ashes were thrown into the river (?) at an unclean place, that they might be borne away forever. The idol-priests themselves were slain, and the bones of those who were already dead were taken out of the graves and burnt. The priests of Jehovah, who had performed their functions upon the heights, were deposed from their office and dignity, and were not allowed to sacrifice any more at the altar of Jehovah" (Bahr). It may be added to this account that private superstitions, the use of teraphim and gillulim , together with the practice of witchcraft and magic arts, were put a stop to, and the rightful ordinances of the Mosaic religion restored and re-established with the utmost strictness and exactitude (verses 24, 25). Josiah did all that a godly king could do to check the downward course of his nation and recall it to piety and virtue. And for his efforts the sacred writers give him the highest praise ( 2 Kings 22:2 ; 2 Kings 23:25 ; 2 Chronicles 34:2 ; 2 Chronicles 35:26 ; Ecclesiasticus 49:1-3). It has been reserved for modern criticism to discover that he defeated his own ends by the violence of his methods, and injured the cause of true religion by making a book—"especially such an imperfect law-book and history as the Pentateuch"—the fundamental law of the nation (Ewald, Eisenlohr). It has not, however, been as yet shown that Josiah's methods were any more violent than the Law required ( Exodus 22:20 ; Deuteronomy 13:5 , Deuteronomy 13:9 , Deuteronomy 13:15 ), much less that injury is done to the cause of true religion by the adoption of a sacred book as the standard of religious truth and morality. The real reason for the failure of his reformation was "the irreformability of the people." When they professed to turn to God, they did not do it "with their whole heart, but feignediy" ( Jeremiah 3:10 )—at any rate, with but half their heart, moved by a gust of sentiment, not by any deep strong tide of religious feeling. And so they soon relapsed into their old ways. The severe religion, the stern morality, which Josiah sought to impose, had no attraction for them. They shrank from Mosaism as cold, hard, austere. They preferred the religions of the nations, with their lax morality, their gay rites, their consecration of voluptuousness. So they "slid back by a perpetual backsliding" ( Jeremiah 8:5 ); they reintroduced all the old abominations; they sinned in secret when they were unable to sin in public; they "proceeded from evil to evil" ( Jeremiah 9:4 ). It has been argued that if Josiah's life had not been cut short within thirteen years of his undertaking the great national reform, if he had been permitted to carry on for some years longer in the same spirit the work which he had initiated, there might have been a complete removal of all the ancient and deep-rooted evils, and a lasting impression might have been made upon the character of the whole people. But this seems too favorable a forecast. The nation was rotten to the core; the "whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint …. from the sole of the foot even unto the head there was no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." When such is the case, no human efforts can avail anything—not the strongest will, not the wisest measures, not the purest and best intentions; the time for repentance and return to God is gone by, and nothing remains but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall destroy God's adversaries" ( Hebrews 10:27 ).