Weep Jerusalem, your sins have overtaken you – Wednesday, 12th Week in ordinary time – 2 Kings 22:8-13, 23:1-3

Since we will be celebrating several solemnities and feasts in the days to come, we will no longer hear the readings from the book of Kings. I will endure to bring this narrative to a close so that when we begin on Monday of the 13th week in ordinary time, we will begin with the prophet Amos.

In chapter 17, the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians under King Hoshea. In the South we have King Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz who begins a 29 year reign that was good in the sight of God. That reign was also turbulent as he had to deal with Sennachereb the King of Assyria who had captured all the citadels of Judah except Jerusalem. But the angel of the Lord wiped out the army of Sennachereb, 1,85,000 of them. Twenty years later Sennachereb the Assyrian conqueror of Israel is killed in his own bed by his sons. In time King Hezekiah dies but already in his lifetime Isaiah, the prophet has foretold of the fall of Judah to Babylon.

Hezekiah is succeeded by his son Manasseh who reigned for 55 years in Jerusalem and whose evil was so great against the LORD. He rebuilt the altars to Baal that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and provoked the LORD to anger. He had misled the nations into doing evil, more than any of the Kings before him. God was so furious that he says in 2 Kings 21: 12- 14; “I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such evil that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will wipe Jerusalem out as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.”

Manasseh is succeeded by Amon who was twenty-two years old when he began his reign. He reigned for two years and continued the evil that his father had begun. He was killed by his own servants but his own assassins were put to death by the people of the land and was succeeded by his son Josiah. Our text of today deals with the reign of Josiah who reigned for thirty-one years. He was just eight years old when he took over as king but he did what was right in the sight of God. It was when Josiah was 26 years old that he began to repair the temple of Jerusalem.

Josiah understood that the work of repairing and rebuilding the temple needed organization and funding. He paid attention to both of these needs when he commanded the priest Hilkiah to begin the work on the temple. According to Jeremiah 1:1-2, the prophet Jeremiah was the son of this particular priest Hilkiah. Jeremiah began his ministry during the reign of King Josiah.

At this time, we are told that Hilkiah finds the book of the law while repairing the temple. According to Deuteronomy 31:24-27, there was to be a copy of this Book of the Law beside the ark of the covenant, beginning in the days of Moses. Shaphan the secretary of the king read the book to King Josiah. It is now that the word of God spreads. It had been forgotten and regarded as nothing more than an old, dusty book.The hearing of God’s word did a spiritual work in King Josiah. It was not merely the transmission of information; the hearing of God’s word had an impact of spiritual power on Josiah.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading