One event, told twice

Josiah's Reforms

King Josiah's discovery of the law and his sweeping reforms are told in 2 Kings 22-23 and again in 2 Chronicles 34-35. Both celebrate his zeal, and Chronicles expands his great Passover.

“Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath.”2 Kings 22:1

“Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.”2 Chronicles 34:1

The two accounts

The two accounts. Both books tell of Josiah, who came to the throne as a boy and grew to seek the God of David. During the repair of the temple the book of the law is found, and when it is read to the king he tears his clothes in grief, for he sees how far the nation has strayed. The prophetess Huldah is consulted and confirms coming judgment, yet promises that because Josiah's heart was tender he will be spared its full weight. The king gathers the people, reads the covenant aloud, and leads them to renew it. He then purges the land of idolatry, tearing down high places and altars, defiling the pagan shrines, and even destroying the altar at Bethel in fulfillment of an old prophecy. Both accounts crown the reforms with a Passover unlike any kept in generations. 2 Kings 22-23 records the finding of the law, the covenant renewal, and the thorough removal of idolatry in detail. 2 Chronicles 34-35 tells the same reforms but gives a much fuller account of the Passover itself, its organization, the Levites, the offerings, and the joy. The finding, the reform, and the Passover belong to both; Chronicles lingers longest at the feast.

Read side by side: what differs, and why

Read side by side: what differs, and why. The two accounts agree on the shape of Josiah's reign: the finding of the law, his grief and repentance, Huldah's word, the covenant renewal, the purging of idolatry, the great Passover, and his death in battle at Megiddo. Their differences are of arrangement and emphasis. Chronicles appears to order some of Josiah's reforming efforts a little differently, noting that he began to seek God and to purge Judah early, in his youth, before the law was found (2 Chronicles 34:3-7), where Kings gathers the account of the reforms after the discovery of the book. This is not a contradiction; reform was a process spanning years, and each writer arranges the material to serve his theme. The most notable difference is the Passover. Kings reports it briefly, as the fitting climax of covenant renewal. Chronicles devotes a long, detailed chapter to it: the roles of the priests and Levites, the vast provision of animals, the careful order of worship, and the gladness of the people (2 Chronicles 35). This fits the Chronicler's purpose exactly. Writing for the returned exiles who were rebuilding temple worship, he holds up Josiah's Passover as a model of right, joyful, well-ordered worship centered on the temple and the Levitical service. Kings, concerned with the covenant and the coming judgment, uses the same reforms to show a righteous king who could delay but not finally avert the consequences of the nation's long apostasy. Two faithful histories, one aiming at covenant and judgment, the other at worship and hope, together give us the fullness of Josiah's zeal for God.