Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 22

THE REIGN OF JOSIAH (2 Kings 22:0, 2 Kings 23:30; compare 2 Chronicles 24:25)

Josiah. —The name seems to mean “Jah heals.” (Isaiah 30:26.)

Eight years old. —The queen-mother was probably paramount in the government during the first years of the reign.

Boscath. —In the lowland of Judah (Joshua 15:39).

He reigned thirty-one years. —And somewhat over. (Jeremiah 25:1; Jeremiah 25:3; according to which passages, it was twenty-three years from the thirteenth of Josiah to the fourth of Jehoiakim.)

And walked ... —See Note on 2 Chronicles 34:2.

In the eighteenth year. — See the Notes on 2 Chronicles 34:3 and following. The discourses of Jeremiah, who began his prophetic ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah, to which Thenius refers as incomprehensible on the assumption that idolatry was extirpated throughout the country in the twelfth year of this king, would be quite reconcilable even with that assumption, which, however, it is not necessary to make, as is shown in the Notes on Chronicles.

Josiah did not succeed, any more than Hezekiah, in rooting out the spirit of apostasy (Jeremiah 4:2). The young king was, no doubt, influenced for good by the discourses of Jeremiah and Zephaniah; but it is not easy to account for his heeding the prophetic teachings, considering that, as the grandson of Manasseh and the son of Amon, he must have been brought up under precisely opposite influences (Thenius).

The king sent Shaphan ... the scribe. — Chronicles mentions, besides Maaseiah, the governor of the city, and Joah the recorder.

Thenius pronounces these personages fictitious for the following reasons:

1. Only the scribe is mentioned in 2 Kings 12:10 (?).
2. Joshua was the governor of the city at that time (but this is not quite clear: the Joshua of 2 Kings 23:8 may have been a former governor; or, as Maaseiah and Joshua are very much alike in Hebrew, one name may be a corruption of the other).
3. Maaseiah seems to have been manufactured out of the Asahiah of 2 Kings 22:12 (but Asahiah is mentioned as a distinct person in 2 Chronicles 34:20).
4. Joah the recorder seems to have been borrowed from 2 Kings 18:18 (as if anything could be inferred from a recurrence of the same name, and that probably in the same family!).

Upon such a basis of mere conjecture, the inference is raised that the chronicler invented these names in order “to give a colour of genuine history to his narrative.”

It is obvious to reply that Shaphan only is mentioned here, as the chief man in the business (Compare also 2 Kings 18:17; 2 Kings 19:8).

Go up to Hilkiah the priest. — The account of the repair of the Temple under Josiah naturally resembles that of the same proceeding under Joash (2 Kings 12:10 and following). More than 200 years had elapsed since then, so that the fabric might well stand in need of repair, apart from the defacements it had undergone at the hands of heathenish princes (2 Chronicles 34:2). The text does not say that the repair of the Temple had been “longtemps négligée par l’incurie des prêtres” (Reuss).

Hilkiah. — See 1 Chronicles 6:13 for this high priest. He is a different person from Hilkiah, the father of Jeremiah, who was a priest, but not high priest (Jeremiah 1:1).

That he may sum — i.e., make up, ascertain the amount of... The Septuagint reads, seal up (σφράγισον), which implies a Hebrew verb, of which the one in the present Hebrew text might be a corruption.

Which the keepers of the door. — See the Notes on 2 Kings 12:9; 2 Kings 12:11–12, as to the contents of this and the next verse.

Howbeit there was. — Only let there be. The words of 2 Kings 22:6–7 are part of the royal mandate.

That was delivered ... they dealt.— That is given ... they deal. In 2 Kings 12:14; 2 Kings 12:16 the same construction is used in a different sense. (See the Notes there.)

I have found. —Literally, I have found the book of the Torah. The definite form of the expression proves that what the high priest found was something already known; it was not a book, but the book of the Law.

How little the critics agree about the precise character and contents of the book in question is well shown by Thenius: “Neither the entire then existing Scripture (Sebastian Schmidt), nor the Pentateuch (Josephus, Clericus, Von Lengerke, Keil, Bähr), nor the ordered collection of Mosaic laws contained in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers (Bertheau), nor the book of Exodus (Gramberg), nor the book of Deuteronomy (Reuss, Ewald, Hitzig) is to be understood by this expression.

All these must have been brought into their present shape at a later time. What is meant is a collection of the statutes and ordinances of Moses, which has been worked up (verarbeitet) in the Pentateuch, and especially in Deuteronomy.

This work is referred to by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 11:1–17), and was called “The Book of the Covenant” (2 Kings 23:2). According to 2 Chronicles 17:9 it already existed in the time of Jehoshaphat (compare 2 Kings 11:12, the Testimony); was probably preserved in the Ark (Deuteronomy 31:26), along with which in the reign of Manasseh it was set aside. When after half a century of disuse it was found again by the high priest while going through the chambers of the Temple for the intended repairs, in the Ark, which, though cast aside, was still kept in the Temple, it appeared like something new, because it had been wholly forgotten (for a time), so that Shaphan could say: ‘Hilkiah has given me a book’ (2 Kings 22:10).” (See also the Notes on 2 Chronicles 34:14.)

And he read it. —Thenius thinks that this indicates that the book was of no great size, as Shaphan made his report to the king immediately after the execution of his commission (2 Kings 22:9). But neither does 2 Kings 22:9 say immediately, nor does this phrase necessarily mean that Shaphan read the book through.