Bird's-eye view
This passage is the pivot point in the great reformation under King Josiah. Having discovered the Book of the Law and having responded with immediate, gut-level repentance, Josiah now seeks an authoritative word from God. What he receives through Huldah the prophetess is a perfect illustration of God's covenantal dealings. The message is twofold, a declaration of both severe judgment and profound mercy. On the one hand, the corporate, generational sin of Judah has reached its limit. The covenant curses written in the book are not idle threats; they are coming, and they will not be quenched. The nation as a whole is going to drink the cup of God's wrath. But on the other hand, Josiah's personal and genuine repentance has been seen and heard by God. His soft heart, his humility, his tears, these are the very things God requires. As a result, God grants him a personal reprieve. He will be gathered to his fathers in peace, spared the sight of the coming calamity. This is not a contradiction, but rather a demonstration of a foundational biblical principle: God's sweeping covenantal judgments upon nations do not negate His tender regard for the individual righteous man who humbles himself before the Word.
The scene is a stark reminder that true reformation begins with the recovery of God's Word and a right response to it. The Law brings a knowledge of sin, and for a nation steeped in idolatry, that knowledge is devastating. Huldah's prophecy confirms the worst fears that the book had awakened. Judgment is set. But it also confirms the best hopes that a repentant heart can have. God sees the humble, and He responds to them with grace. Josiah's story is therefore a story of hope in the midst of wrath, a testimony to the fact that even when a nation is headed for the cliff, the man who tears his clothes and his heart before God will find mercy.
Outline
- 1. A King's Inquiry and a Prophet's Response (2 Chron 34:22-28)
- a. The Delegation to Huldah (2 Chron 34:22)
- b. The Covenant Lawsuit Declared (2 Chron 34:23-25)
- i. The Authority of the Message: "Thus says Yahweh" (2 Chron 34:23)
- ii. The Certainty of Judgment: "I am bringing evil" (2 Chron 34:24)
- iii. The Reason for Judgment: Forsaking God for Idols (2 Chron 34:25)
- c. The Personal Reprieve for Josiah (2 Chron 34:26-28)
- i. The Condition of Mercy: A Soft and Humble Heart (2 Chron 34:26-27)
- ii. The Promise of Mercy: Gathered in Peace (2 Chron 34:28)
Context In 2 Chronicles
This passage sits at the heart of the Chronicler's account of Judah's final kings. The narrative has been a long, sorry tale of decline since the days of Solomon, punctuated by brief moments of revival under kings like Hezekiah. Josiah's father, Amon, was wicked, and his grandfather, Manasseh, was perhaps the most wicked king in Judah's history, though he repented at the end. Josiah's reign, which begins in chapter 34, is a bright light in a deepening twilight. He begins seeking the Lord as a youth and commences a thorough purge of the land's idolatry. The discovery of the Book of the Law (likely Deuteronomy) during the temple repairs in 34:14 is the catalyst for the events that follow. The reading of the book reveals the vast chasm between God's standard and the nation's practice. Josiah's dramatic reaction of tearing his clothes (34:19) is the proper response of a godly magistrate confronted with the corporate sin of his people. His sending of a delegation to Huldah is his next right step: having heard the Law, he now seeks the prophetic application of it to his specific time and place. The prophecy he receives sets the stage for the solemn covenant renewal ceremony in the remainder of the chapter and explains why, despite Josiah's personal righteousness, the kingdom of Judah was still doomed to fall, a fall which is recounted just a few chapters later.
Key Issues
- The Authority of a Prophetess
- Corporate Guilt and Generational Sin
- The Nature of True Repentance
- The Unquenchable Wrath of God
- The Meaning of Being "Gathered in Peace"
- The Relationship Between Law and Prophecy
Thus Says Yahweh
When the king's men go to inquire of the Lord, they don't form a committee to discuss theological options. They go to a prophet. And when the prophet speaks, she doesn't offer her sanctified opinion or a set of pastoral suggestions. She says, "Thus says Yahweh." This is the foundational issue. Does God speak, and can His word be known? The entire reformation of Josiah hinges on this reality. The book they found wasn't just a collection of ancient wisdom; it was the constitution of their covenant with the living God. And Huldah was not just a spiritual woman with deep insights; she was a mouthpiece for that same God.
The fact that God's chosen instrument here is a woman, Huldah, should not cause us to stumble. The prophetic office was an extraordinary office, not a normative one for the ongoing life of the church. God raised up prophets, male and female, as He willed (e.g., Deborah, Miriam). Huldah's authority did not derive from her gender, but from the source of her message. She spoke the word of God, and the king, the high priest, and all the king's men recognized it as such. This is not a warrant for upending the created order in the regular ministry of the church, but it is a potent reminder that God is sovereign and will use whom He will use to deliver His authoritative word. The issue for Hilkiah and the others was not who was speaking, but who was speaking through her. And the answer was Yahweh.
Verse by Verse Commentary
22 So Hilkiah and those whom the king had told went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter); and they spoke to her regarding this.
Josiah's response to hearing the Law is not despair, but action. He sends the highest officials of his kingdom, including the high priest Hilkiah, on a mission. Their task is to inquire of Yahweh. They go to Huldah, identified as a prophetess. The text matter-of-factly gives us her husband's name and occupation, grounding this supernatural event in the mundane realities of everyday life. She is a real woman, in a real marriage, living in a specific neighborhood in Jerusalem. The word of God comes into the real world, not from some ethereal, mystical plane. They go to her because her prophetic gift was known and acknowledged. They have the book, the written standard. Now they need the prophetic word to apply it to their present crisis.
23-24 And she said to them, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Say to the man who sent you to Me, thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I am bringing evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the curses written in the book which they have read in the presence of the king of Judah.
Huldah's response is immediate and unflinching. She prefaces it with the unmistakable formula of divine authority: "Thus says Yahweh." She speaks not for herself, but for the God of Israel. The message is first for the nation. The "evil" or calamity that is coming is not random misfortune; it is a direct fulfillment of the covenant curses written in the very book they just found. This is a covenant lawsuit, and the verdict has been rendered. God is simply announcing the sentence He promised to carry out against a covenant-breaking people. The words on the scroll are not dead letters; they are loaded pistols, and Judah's sin has pulled the trigger.
25 Because they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore My wrath will be poured out against this place, and it shall not be quenched.” ’
Here is the legal basis for the sentence. The charge is singular and all-encompassing: idolatry. They have forsaken Yahweh, their covenant Lord, and have given their worship to idols, which are nothing more than the "works of their hands." This is the ultimate insult. The creature has chosen to worship its own creations rather than the Creator. This act is a provocation, a deliberate stirring of God's righteous anger. Consequently, God's wrath is not just coming, it will be poured out, an image of overwhelming, liquid judgment. And crucially, it shall not be quenched. The time for appeal is over. The fire of judgment has been lit, and no amount of ritual or last-minute reform will be able to put it out. The corporate sin has reached a point of no return.
26-27 But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, “Regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was soft and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you,” declares Yahweh.
After delivering the grim national sentence, the prophecy turns to the personal. God addresses Josiah directly. The reason for this shift is found entirely in the king's response to the Word. Notice the characteristics God highlights: his heart was soft, not hardened. He humbled himself, not once but twice in the description. He had an external reaction, tearing his clothes, which was accompanied by an internal reality, weeping before God. This is the anatomy of genuine repentance. It is a tender heart that is broken by the Word of God, leading to humility and sorrow for sin. And God's response to this is beautiful in its simplicity: "I truly have heard you." In the midst of a deafening roar of national rebellion, God's ear is tuned to the quiet weeping of a single humble man.
28 “Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace, so your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place and on its inhabitants.” ’ ” So they brought back word to the king.
Here is the personal mercy that corresponds to Josiah's personal repentance. The promise is that he will be "gathered to his grave in peace." Now, we know from the end of the story that Josiah dies in battle against the Egyptians. So this cannot mean he would die of old age in his sleep. The "peace" here is covenantal. It means he will die and be buried with his ancestors before the covenantal judgment, the "evil" prophesied against Judah and Jerusalem, comes to pass. He will be spared the horror of seeing the city besieged, the temple destroyed, and his people slaughtered or carried into exile. It is the peace of being brought safely into the fold before the great storm hits. It is God's tender mercy to a beloved son, shielding his eyes from the terrible but just consequences of his nation's sin. The delegation then takes this two-sided word, a word of national doom and personal deliverance, back to the king who had the courage to ask.
Application
This passage puts a sharp, pointed question to us. When we hear the Word of God, is our heart soft or is it hard? The book had been sitting in the temple, ignored and gathering dust for years. For all that time, its threats were dormant. But the moment it was opened and read, it became a living and active word, dividing soul and spirit. For the nation at large, it was a word of condemnation. For Josiah, it was a word that brought him to his knees, and in so doing, brought him salvation from the coming wrath.
We live in a culture, and often in a church, that has forsaken the word of God. We have traded the hard truths of the law and the gospel for gods made with our own hands: therapeutic deism, political ideologies, and self-help moralism. And because of this, the wrath of God is being stored up. The covenant curses are real, and they are not just for ancient Israel. Nations that forsake God will be broken. But the message to the individual is the same as it was for Josiah. God is looking for the man or woman whose heart is soft, who will humble themselves, who will weep over their own sin and the sins of their people. Repentance does not always turn away national judgment. Sometimes the die is cast. But it always, always finds a hearing with God for the one who repents.
Our task, then, is to be like Josiah. We are to recover the book. We are to read it, and we are to let it break our hearts. We must tear our clothes over the state of our nation, our communities, our churches, and our own souls. And when we do, we can be confident that even if the world is hurtling toward a judgment it richly deserves, our Father hears our cry and will gather us to Himself in peace.