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similar. The collections for the Temple repairs, to which reference is made, must have
begun some years previously (2 Kings 22:4) - perhaps so early as the eighth year of the
king's reign. But what specially interests us is that contributions came not merely from
Judah, but from the Israelitish inhabitants of what had been the kingdom of Israel (2
Chronicles 34:9). This indicates not only a religious movement among them, such as
previously in the time of Hezekiah, (Compare 2 Chronicles 30:1, 18.) but that politically
also the remnant of Israel in the land was drawn into a hopeful alliance with Judah. Yet
further insight into the character of the reformation now begun comes from the history of
some of those whom the king employed, either now or later, in connection with it.
Foremost among them is Hilkiah, the high priest, the father or grandfather of Seraiah (1
Chronicles 6:13, 14; Nehemiah 11:11) who was high-priest at the time of the captivity (2
Kings 25:18), and an ancestor of Ezra (Ezra. 7:1). Again, chief among those whom Josiah
sent to Hilkiah, was Shaphan the Scribe (2 Kings 22:3), the father of Gemariah, the
protector of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:10, 19, 25), and grandfather of Micaiah (Jeremiah
36:20-13).
- But he could not have been identical with the father of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:1), since
the priests at Anathoth were from the line of Ithamar (1 Kings 2:26), while the high-priest
Hilkiah belonged to that of Eleazar.
** He must not be confounded with the father of Ahikam. Comp. 2 Chronicles 34:14.
*** The other members of the deputation to Hilkiah and to Huldah, mentioned in 2
Chronicles 34:8, 14, are not otherwise known.
Of the personages afterwards mentioned 1 Kings 22:14), we have definite notices about
Ahikam (the son of another Shaphan), who protected Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:24), and was
the father of Gedaliah (2 Kings 25:22); and about Achbor, the father of Elnathan, one of
those among "the princes of Judah" who vainly endeavored to prevent the burning of the
prophetic roll dictated to Baruch by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:12). Scanty as these notices
are, they leave the impression that Josiah had surrounded himself with men embued, on
the whole, with a true religious spirit.
This inference is the more important in view of the general state of the people. The whole
history leads to the conviction that the reformation inaugurated by Josiah, although
submitted to, and apparently shared in by the people, was not the outcome of a spiritual
revival. It was a movement on the part of the king rather than of the nation. Of this we
have only too much confirmation in the account which the prophets give of the moral and
religious condition of the people, and of the evidently superficial and chiefly external
character of the reformation.*
- Comp. here such passages as Jeremiah 3:6, etc.; 8:5, etc.; 15:6; 16:10, etc.; and other
passages. Comp. also Zephaniah iii. 1.
(^)