The Boy King and the Straight Path Text: 2 Kings 22:1-2
Introduction: Grace Out of a Wasteland
History, as it is written by the Holy Spirit, is full of sudden, sharp turns. Just when the story seems to be hurtling toward a cliff, God wrenches the wheel. We are accustomed to thinking in straight, predictable lines. We see a father, and we predict the son. We see a generation in steep decline, and we assume the next one will be scraping the bottom of the abyss. But God is not a determinist, and His grace is not bound by our expectations. The story of Josiah is the story of a lightning strike in a spiritual wasteland.
To understand the shock of Josiah's reign, you have to remember what came immediately before him. His grandfather, Manasseh, was arguably the most wicked king in Judah's history. He was a black hole of depravity. He rebuilt the high places his own father Hezekiah had torn down, he erected altars to Baal, he made an Asherah pole, he worshiped the host of heaven right in the courts of the Lord's temple, he practiced child sacrifice, burning his own son as an offering, and he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood from one end to the other (2 Kings 21). His son, Amon, Josiah's father, took up the family business of rebellion and "walked in all the way that his father walked." He reigned for a miserable two years before his own servants conspired against him and assassinated him in his own house.
This is the inheritance of the boy Josiah. The nation was a spiritual ruin. The temple was defiled, the law was lost and forgotten, the leadership was corrupt, and the people were steeped in idolatry. The air was thick with paganism and apostasy. By all human calculation, Judah was finished. There was no political program, no educational reform, no grassroots movement that could reverse this kind of momentum. The nation was in a death spiral. And into this absolute mess, God injects an eight-year-old king who would become one of the greatest reformers in the history of Israel. This is not just a surprising plot twist; it is a fundamental lesson about the nature of God's kingdom. Reformation does not bubble up from the goodness of man; it breaks in from the grace of God.
We live in a time much like Josiah's. We see the ruins of a Christian civilization all around us. We see the high places of secularism and paganism being built and celebrated. We see the shedding of innocent blood on an industrial scale. And it is easy to despair. But the story of Josiah is a potent antidote to that despair. It tells us that God can raise up righteousness from the dust of apostasy. It tells us that the darkness is never too dark for the light of God's sovereign grace to shatter it.
The Text
Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh and walked in all the way of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left.
(2 Kings 22:1-2 LSB)
An Unlikely Instrument (v. 1)
The first verse sets the stage by giving us the raw, improbable facts.
"Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath." (2 Kings 22:1)
First, consider his age. "Josiah was eight years old." God's chosen instrument for this mighty reformation was a boy. This is a deliberate affront to our human obsession with credentials, experience, and worldly power. We look for the seasoned general, the wise statesman, the charismatic leader. God looks for a yielded heart, and He is perfectly capable of creating one in a child. This is a consistent pattern in Scripture. God chooses a shepherd boy, David, to slay a giant. He chooses a young virgin, Mary, to bear the Messiah. He tells us that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with Him, and He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). The fact that Josiah was a child when he took the throne meant that this reformation could not be attributed to his political genius or his personal gravitas. It had to be the work of God from start to finish.
He inherited a throne that was stained with his own father's blood. The kingdom was politically unstable and spiritually bankrupt. Yet, we are told he reigned for thirty-one years. This was not a flash in the pan. It was a long, stable, and effective reign, a testimony to the blessing of God that rests upon obedience. A long obedience in the same direction bears tremendous fruit.
And notice the small, but significant detail: his mother's name is recorded. "His mother's name was Jedidah." In the chronicles of the kings of Judah, the mother's name is frequently mentioned. This is not just genealogical bookkeeping. It reminds us that God works through families and covenant lines. In the midst of the rampant apostasy of Manasseh and Amon, there must have been a remnant of faithfulness. We can surmise that this woman, Jedidah, had a hand in shaping the heart of her young son, protecting him from the court's corruption and planting seeds of righteousness that would later flourish. Even when the official, public religion is utterly corrupt, God preserves His people in the quiet faithfulness of homes and mothers.
The Unswerving Standard (v. 2)
Verse two gives us the divine evaluation of Josiah's entire life and reign. It is the epitaph that every Christian should desire.
"And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh and walked in all the way of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left." (2 Kings 22:2 LSB)
The first and most important measure of any life is here: "he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh." The standard was not public opinion, or political expediency, or what was "right in his own eyes," which was the mantra of the dark days of the Judges. The standard was objective, transcendent, and personal: the sight of Yahweh. True morality is not a democratic consensus or a private feeling. It is conformity to the character and law of the living God. This is the foundational issue in our culture war. We are a people who have rejected the sight of Yahweh and have substituted the ever-shifting, tyrannical gaze of the collective. Josiah's righteousness began with this fundamental presupposition: God is, and He is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong.
Next, his walk is compared to a specific standard: "he walked in all the way of his father David." Now, why David? David was a great man, but he was also a great sinner. He was an adulterer and a murderer. The text doesn't say Josiah walked in the way of the sinless David, because there was no such man. It says he walked in the "way" of David. David's way, despite his terrible lapses, was the way of a heart that was oriented toward God. It was the way of zealous worship, of fierce loyalty to the covenant, of swift and deep repentance when confronted with sin, and of fighting the Lord's battles. Josiah didn't follow the immediate, wicked examples of his father and grandfather. He leapfrogged over them and recovered the ancient path, the true pattern of a godly king. Reformation always involves this kind of recovery. It is a return to the source, a rediscovery of the old paths.
Finally, we have the description of his directional integrity: "and did not turn aside to the right or to the left." This is a picture of walking a straight, narrow road. It is a path defined by the Word of God, and there are ditches on both sides. The ditch on the left is the ditch of liberalism, compromise, and worldliness. It is the temptation to soften God's commands, to blur the lines, to be more "loving" than God, and to accommodate the spirit of the age. The ditch on the right is the ditch of legalism, self-righteousness, and dead traditionalism. It is the temptation to add to God's commands, to create a brittle and heartless religion, and to worship the forms of godliness while denying its power. True biblical faithfulness is not about finding a "balance" in the mushy middle. It is about walking a razor's edge of truth, refusing to be pulled into either error. Josiah's reign was characterized by this kind of doctrinal and practical precision. He did not veer off into pagan syncretism on the left, nor did he settle for a sterile, institutional religion on the right. He pursued wholehearted obedience to the revealed will of God.
Conclusion: Reformation Then and Now
The story of Josiah is more than an inspiring historical account. It is a paradigm for reformation, and it is filled with gospel truth. Our nation, and much of the Western church, is in a state that would be grimly familiar to the faithful remnant in Josiah's day. We are surrounded by the rubble of a once-great Christian consensus. But this text is a trumpet blast of hope.
It teaches us that revival is a sovereign work of God. It does not depend on our cleverness or our resources. God can start a fire with the smallest of sparks, even an eight-year-old boy. Our duty is not to manufacture revival, but to pray for it and to be the kind of flammable material that is ready when the fire falls.
It teaches us the standard for that revival. We must do what is right in the sight of the Lord. We must recover the way of our greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ. This means a radical, joyful, and unashamed submission to the authority of all of Scripture. And it means we must learn to walk that straight path, turning neither to the right nor to the left. We must reject the siren song of cultural accommodation from the left, and we must reject the deadening spirit of pharisaism from the right.
Ultimately, Josiah points us to Christ. Josiah was a good king who found the law. Christ is the perfect King who is the Law, the living Word of God. Josiah tore down the high places of idolatry. Christ, at the cross, tore down the ultimate high place of sin and death. Josiah cleansed the temple. Christ has cleansed us, His temple, by His own blood. The reformation Josiah began was glorious but temporary; within a generation, Judah would fall to Babylon. But the reformation that Christ brings is eternal. He is the true Boy King, born in Bethlehem, who has established a kingdom that will never be shaken. And He calls us to walk in His way, the straight and narrow path that leads to life, and to the glorious reformation of all things under His sovereign and gracious rule.