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CHAPTER 16 - JOSIAH (SIXTEENTH), JEHOAHAZ
(SEVENTEENTH), JEHOIAKIM (EIGHTEENTH), KINGS OF JUDAH.
Retrospect - Political History - Possible Reunion of Judah and Israel - The Fall of the
Assyrian Empire - Incursion of the Scythians - Revolt and Independence of Babylonia -
The Expedition of Pharaoh Necho - Resistance of Josiah to his Progress - Battle of
Megiddo - Death and Burial of Josiah -Appointment, Deposition, and Captivity of
Jehoahaz - Accession of Jehoiakim - Tribute to Egypt. (2 KINGS 23:29-36; 2
CHRONICLES 35:20; 36:5.)
THE observant student of this history must have been impressed with the seemingly
strange fact that, at the final crisis in the history of Judah, when that kingdom was
hastening to its fall, monarchs of such opposite religious tendencies as Ahaz and
Hezekiah, Amon and Josiah, should have succeeded one another. And it reflects most
unfavorably on the moral and religious condition of the people that each reformation
should, within so short a period, have been followed by a counter-reformation. On the
other hand, it must be felt how gracious had been the divine dealing when, in succession
to monarchs who, as we cannot but think, too truly represented the real state of the
nation, pious kings were raised up, as if to give space for tardy repentance and recovery.
Even the history of Manasseh would, in that sense, almost seem to have borne a symbolic
meaning. But especially does the mind dwell on the administration of Josiah, with its
very significant re-discovery and re-publication of the Law of Moses. As neither before
nor after him was there any king whose heart was so "tender," and who so humbled
himself before Jehovah (2 Kings 22:19), nor yet any who so "turned to Jehovah with all
his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses"
(2 Kings 23:25) - so we must surely regard his upraising at that crisis, his bearing, and his
rule as of direct Divine grace and interposition.
It is when taking into wider consideration these two facts -regarding the people and the
king - that we fully understand the Divine sentence of judgment upon Jerusalem and
Judah (2 Kings 23:26, 27), and the personal mercy extended to Josiah (2 Kings 22:20).
We have been hitherto occupied with the most important measures of his reign - that
public religious reformation which had as its necessary sequence the abolition of private
idolatrous practices (2 Kings 23:24). But the political history of the time is also of
deepest interest.
Reference has already been made to the approximation between Judah and the remnant of
Israel left in the northern kingdom. All indications point to the inference that hopes were
entertained, if not plans actually formed, of a possible re-union of the two kingdoms
under the sway of Josiah. Thus, just as the independent existence of Judah was about to
cease, the national prospects might seem to human view more promising than for
(^)