The document discusses the biblical story of King Josiah's religious reforms in Judah as told in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. It summarizes that Josiah instituted widespread reforms, destroying idols and centralizing worship of Yahweh, after the discovery of the Book of the Law sparked a religious awakening. While 2 Kings portrays the reforms as occurring in a single year, 2 Chronicles depicts them unfolding over a decade. Both texts praise Josiah as one of Judah's greatest kings but also note his disobedience resulted in his death in battle. The document examines lessons about leadership and the relationship between personal obedience and public outcomes.

1. Reformasi
Yosia

2. Pokok Bahasan
Latar Belakang Historis
Membaca 2 Kitab Raja-Raja 22-23
- Tokoh-tokoh dalam Reformasi
- Langkah-Langkah strategis dalam Reformasi
Relevansi

3. The story is told both in 2 Kings 22-23 and in 2 Chronicles 34-35. The author of Kings describes the
accession of Josiah to the throne at 8 years, and then a busy year of reform in the 18th year of his
reign. It begins with the decision to renovate the Temple, which leads to the discovery of the Book of
the Law. This in turn prompts the reforms: renewal of the covenant of Yahweh with the whole nation;
the destruction of idolatrous worship in both the Southern and the Northern Kingdoms; and a
climactic restoration of the celebration of Passover. Finally Josiah’s death in battle is recorded.

4. The Chronicler tells what is probably strikes us as a better story. Josiah’s reforms begin in the 8th year of
the reign, when he was 16 years old, with a personal religious awakening, and a purification of all the land
from idolatry. Then the 18th year of his reign (when he is 26) sees the renovation of the Temple, the
discovery of the Book of the Law, the renewal of covenant, and the climactic Passover restoration. Thus the
reform itself occurs over a decade, rather than in a single year. The Chronicler omits the arduous and
bloody details of false priests killed and high places intentionally defiled with human bones, but he does
portray rich details of the Passover, giving heft to the claim that “there had not been a Passover celebrated
like it since the days of Samuel” (which Kings also affirms but does not illustrate; 2 Kings 23:22; 2 Chron.
35:18). The Chronicles account of Josiah’s death also proves more “satisfying” in that a theological
justification emerges: Pharoah Neco warns Josiah that if Josiah interferes with his passage through the
plain of Megiddo he will be interfering with the plans of “God who is with me.” Josiah refuses to “heed the
words of Neco from the mouth of God” (2 Chron. 35:20-24), and so finds death.

5. Whereas scholarship generally holds that Kings represents the basis for what we find in the
Chronicles, and that the better storytelling and the theological explanations are likely the result of
redaction, there is reason to see some authenticity in some of the Chronicler’s variations. The 8th and
18th years of Josiah, dating the beginning and climax of the reform, do correspond to dates when the
power of Assyria faltered successively, suggesting that its weakness allowed Josiah to act in stages.
And the details of Neco’s campaign in Chronicles more accurately convey the history.2 While the
Chronicler clearly wishes to soften the harshness of the Kings account, and provide more positive
liturgical and theological notes, it is best to read them as parallel accounts, rather than preferring one
narrative to the other.

6. How does this episode speak to the dynamics of leadership in our very different world? We
may well begin with the figure of Josiah himself.

7. Both books bookend the story of Josiah with the highest possible praise for this king. Unlike so many of the
kings of Judah, Josiah “walked in the way of his father David, turning aside neither to the right or the left.”
But he was even greater than David: “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with
all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him
arise after him” (2 Kings 22:2; 23:25; cf. 2 Chron. 34:2; 35:18). It is not only his public policy that wins
appreciation; we glimpse the intensely personal dimension of his leadership when as a youth “he began to
seek the God of his ancestor David” (2 Chron. 34:3), and in Huldah’s assurance that God would grant him
peace “because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before the Lord” (2 Kings 22:19; 2
Chron. 34:27). But the public dimension too finds its outworking in the restitution of the authority of the
Law in the national and religious life of Judah. Walter Brueggemann observes that “the personal penitence
of leadership, the specific ‘turning’ of persons of influence, is basic… But personal turning is irrelevant
unless there is public action.”3 Josiah models both.

8. But Josiah’s faultlessness runs up against two spectacular counter-examples. The first is his unadvised
attack on Neco resulting in his death. Kings reports the fiasco but does not comment on it, though it
would be difficult to read it neutrally in a book that contains so much about the Lord’s concern with
the outcomes of battle (e.g., Hezekiah’s recent deliverance, 2 Kings 19:35-36). Chronicles roots it
explicitly in Josiah’s a refusal to heed the word of God (2 Chron. 35:22). We probably must read both
accounts as imbued with a “deuteronomist” perspective, so that since Josiah did not sin against the
Law, his crown from that standpoint remains essentially untarnished.4

9. A more specific issue is whether his death in battle cancelled Huldah’s promise that “you will be
gathered to your grave in peace” (2 Kings 22:20; 2 Chron. 34:28). Some, hearing “peace” as a personal
blessing, find that disobedience has abrogated the prophecy. The irony can run very deep; “The
linkage of virtue and blessing is broken in this very narrative that means to assert it.”5 Others, noting
that the authors themselves are not troubled by the problem, read “peace” as referring to the public
peace of the nation, contrasted in the previous verse with impending national “desolation and curse”
(2 Kings 22:19; 2 Chron. 34:27). The promise “really means that the exile would not take place during
Josiah’s lifetime.”6 In that regard Josiah had a full 31 years of peaceful reigning—much of which is left
to our imagination, since we only hear of the events of a very few years—at the end of which he was
in face literally “gathered to his grave” as his body was brought back from Megiddo to Jerusalem for
burial in the family tomb (the last of the kings for whom this would be true).

10. The story as we have it in fact asserts the connection of personal and public obedience, while clearly
affirming a disjunction between them as well. It is Huldah’s message that spells this out, with both
absolute clarity and absolute authority. In response to Josiah’s panicked inquiry she affirms that God’s
wrath burns unabated toward disobedient Judah, and the plan for the Exile remains in place. On the
other hand Josiah’s personal and public obedience means that there will be peace in the land (and
peace for the ruler of the land) for the period of his reign. But then comes the end.

12. Your best quote that reflects your
approach… “It’s one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind.”
- NEIL ARMSTRONG