James Nisbet Commentary - 2 King 22:8 - 22:8

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James Nisbet Commentary - 2 King 22:8 - 22:8


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THE BIBLE—LOST OR FOUND?

‘And Hilkiah the priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.’

2Ki_22:8

There is an apparent discrepancy between the recorded facts of the reign of Josiah and the indications of his inward temperament and disposition which are given to us. The facts of his reign, if we could come to their study independently, would lead us to characterise him as an ardent, sanguine, energetic man. All seems consistent with this view; his zeal for religion, his labour in the restoration of the Temple and the reformation of the kingdom, and the warlike spirit which forced a collision with the power of Egypt and cost him his life at Megiddo. Activity, forwardness, and enterprise seem to mark the man, quite as distinctly as the deep religious principle which hallowed his doings.

Such would be the conclusion from the data of a human historian. But here the superhuman element comes in to represent his real character in a very different light. Huldah the prophetess is appropriately introduced to speak of him as tender, sensitive, and feminine in character, and to promise as his best reward that he should be taken away early from the evil to come.

I. During the restoration of the Temple a sensation was produced by the discovery of the original roll of the Law, which had been put into the ark eight centuries before.—The reading of the book produced panic and dismay because of its contents, its threatenings, the evil denounced in it against the sins of the house of Judah. King and people alike seem to have been ignorant of the very existence of their Bible, as a book containing the revelation of God’s wrath against sinners.

II. This story touches not only the nation or the Church; it touches every one of us.—Are there not many of us who have lost the book of life—lost it how much more wilfully, how much more guiltily, because in so many senses we have it? If we acquire the habit of studying the Bible merely or chiefly with scientific or literary views, of prying into it, dissecting it, criticising the word because it is man’s, as if it were not also God’s, can we help fearing that we may be losing the word of life?

III. Notice the result of the discovery of the Book of the Law.—The king rent his clothes, and sent to inquire of the Lord for himself and his people concerning the words of the book that was found. Let us also seek for deep and living repentance for the sin which our ignorance has been.

—
Dean Scott.

Illustration

‘The book had been lost. Strange to say, too, it had been lost in the Lord’s House. The way it came was this—the people had given up the worship of God, and naturally they gave up God’s book. When they were worshipping idols they had no inclination for the holy law. When the book was used no longer, it easily got lost. The Bible is often lost in modern life. One may have a very nice copy of the Bible bound in morocco, and may even prize it as a handsome book, perhaps as a present, and keep it carefully, and yet really have no Bible. The Bible we do not read, take into our heart, and obey, is a lost Bible to us.

There are many persons who once loved the Bible and used it, but who have now lost it. They never open it. They pay no heed to its commands. Their hearts have become filled with other things; there is no room for God’s Word. Sometimes the book is entirely given up and sneered at. There are homes where the Bible was once a living book, highly prized, but where it is now lost. There is no more family worship. There have been times in the history of the world when even in the Church the Bible was a lost book.’