II Kings 22:19: “Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place.”

Josiah was a king who not only sought to serve God, he loved God.  He became King of Judah at the age of 8 years.   Ten years into his reign he had the scribes begin some house cleaning and repairs to the temple of God.   In the process of this house cleaning Hilkiah, the high priest, happened upon the book of the Law, the Torah.  He gave it Shaphan a scribe, probably because the scribe was the only one who could read.  He took it with him and included this discovery in his report to the king.  It seemed to be almost an after thought: “Oh, by the way the boys at the temple ran across this book, looks like a good read.”   But when he read it before Josiah, Josiah immediately knew what it was and what it meant and fell before God in repentance knowing the kingdom would come under the judgment of God for breaking the laws of God.

King Josiah ordered the High Priest, the scribe and a couple servants to go and seek a word from the Lord.  They went to Huldah, a prophetess who gave them a Word from God.  That was recorded in II Kings 22:19.   King Josiah was assured that he would not live to see this judgment fall because his heart was tender before the Lord and because he humbled himself before the face or presence of the Lord.  This sounds  almost the same formula as II Chronicles 7:14: “If my people will humble themselves, seek my face and pray and turn from their wicked way…I will heal their land.”  Only it did not say anything about repentance.

I hate formulas, God is not a chemistry  experiment or a computer that needs the right program.  Josiah did not advert the judgment of God because he followed a formula, but because he did something else.  His heart was “tender” before God.   The word tender is rakak which means to be delicate, dainty, gentle, and feminine.   Rakak carries the idea of nurturing.   Josiah had a heart that was nurturing toward God.   He was also humble before God.  The word humble here is cana’ which has the idea of bundling or packaging. He put all the aspects of his heart into a package and presented it to God.   But soft, the word cana’ is in an imperfect form.  What God is saying is that Josiah had a heart that was tender before God and as a result he would humble or package his heart and present it to God.  This is not a case of Josiah suddenly discovering that judgment was coming and so he quickly starts to repent.  His whole life showed a heart tender before God ready to package it up and give it to God at any time God wanted it.

This passage does not say that because Josiah repented he would not suffer the judgment of God; it is saying that because he always had a heart tender before God, a heart that was nurturing God; he would escape God’s judgment.  His deliverance from God started long before the discovery of the law. From an early age he sought to understand the heart of God.  I have often heard people say, “Well, I don’t agree with them, but their heart is in the right place.”  This was Josiah, he had not been doing things according to the law, but his heart was in the right place and once he knew the law, he was ready to humble himself, or cana’ to the law.

The High Priest and scribe did not realize the significance of the book they found.  Josiah immediately knew the significance.  The reason he could discern the importance of the book over the High Priest and the scribe was because he was seeking to know the heart of God and the book of the law was the book for which he had been searching, a book which would tell him God’s heart, the God that he loved.

I remember hearing the story of Ray Bradbury, the science fiction writer.  When he first met the woman he would marry, he gave her one of his books.  She put it in a book case and forgot about it because she hated science fiction. But one day she fell in love with Ray Bradbury and the day they got engaged she took the book off the shelf and began to read it, every word, and she read through the book three times, staying up all night to do it.  Isn’t it odd that  someone who hated science fiction would savor every word in a science fiction novel?  But you see the difference is that she fell in love with it’s author,

In my threescore and three years of walking this earth I have met people from many religious walks, from Jews to Mormons to Catholics and I have met very few that subscribe to my brand of doctrine or theology, yet I could not question their sincerity toward God and the longing to love the Lord with all their hearts.  One day we will stand before God and we will find out who had the right doctrine and/or theology. But you know what (and you can throw rocks at me if you wish), somehow I suspect it will no longer matter what our doctrine or theology was on this earth, God will only  be interested in the same thing He was interested in with Josiah and that is whether or not we had a rakak (tender) heart toward Him.