2 Chronicles 34:14-33 And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the LORD… I. THE DISCOVERY OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW. We see here — 1. A striking instance of the indestructibleness of God's Word. It has a charmed life. 2. That honest efforts after reformation are usually rewarded by clearer knowledge of God's will. If Hilkiah had not been busy in setting wrong things right, he would not have found the book in its dark hiding-place. We are told that the coincidence of the discovery at the nick of time is suspicious. So it is, if you do not believe in Providence. If you do, the coincidence is but one instance of his sending gifts of the right sort at the right moment. 3. That the true basis of all religious reform is the Word of God. The nearest parallel is Luther's finding the dusty Latin Bible among the neglected convent books. Faded flowers will lift up their heads when plunged into water. The old Bible, discovered and applied anew, must underlie all real renovation of dead or moribund Christianity. II. THE EFFECT OF THE REDISCOVERED LAW. If a man will give God's Word a fair hearing, and be honest with himself, it will bring him to his knees. No man rightly uses God's law who is not convinced by it of his sin, and impelled to that self-abased sorrow of which the rent royal robes were the passionate expression. The first function of the law is to arouse the knowledge of sin, as Paul profoundly teaches. Without that penitential knowledge religion is superficial, and reformation merely external. III. THE DOUBLE-EYED MESSAGE OF THE PROPHETESS. Josiah does not seem to have told his messengers where to go; but they knew, and went to a very unlikely person, the wife of an obscure man, only known as his father's son. Where was Jeremiah of Anathoth? Perhaps not in the city at the time. This embassy to Huldah is in full accord with the high position which women held in that state, of which the framework was shaped by God Himself. In Christ Jesus "there is neither male nor female," and Judaism approximated much more closely to that ideal than other lands did. Huldah's message has two parts. 1. The confirmation of the threatenings of the law. 2. The assurance to Josiah of the acceptance of his repentance and gracious promise of escape from the coming storm.These two are precisely equivalent to the double aspect of the gospel, which completes the law, endorsing its sentence and pointing the way of escape. (A. Maclaren, D.D.) \ Parallel Verses KJV: And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the LORD given by Moses. |
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