◄ 2 Kings 22:11 ►
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes
Study Bible
When the king heard
This phrase introduces us to King Josiah, a young and reformative king of Judah. The Hebrew word for "heard" is "שָׁמַע" (shama), which implies not just hearing but understanding and internalizing. Josiah's response indicates a deep, personal engagement with the message, highlighting the importance of leaders being receptive to God's word. Historically, this moment marks a pivotal point in Judah's history, as it sets the stage for significant religious reforms.

the words of the Book of the Law
The "Book of the Law" refers to the Torah, particularly the Deuteronomic code, which had been neglected and forgotten in the temple. The Hebrew term "סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה" (sefer ha-torah) underscores the sacredness and authority of these scriptures. This rediscovery signifies a return to covenantal faithfulness and a reawakening of spiritual consciousness among the people of Judah. It serves as a reminder of the enduring power of God's word to transform lives and societies.

he tore his clothes
Tearing one's clothes was a traditional expression of grief, repentance, and humility in ancient Israel. The Hebrew verb "קָרַע" (kara) conveys a violent action, symbolizing Josiah's profound sorrow and contrition upon realizing the nation's disobedience to God's commands. This act of tearing his garments is a public declaration of repentance and a call to national renewal. It reflects a heart that is sensitive to sin and eager to restore a right relationship with God, setting an example for all believers to follow in times of spiritual awakening.

Persons / Places / Events
1. King Josiah
The king of Judah who reigned from approximately 640 to 609 BC. Known for his religious reforms and dedication to restoring the worship of Yahweh.

2. Hilkiah the High Priest
The high priest who discovered the Book of the Law in the temple during renovations ordered by King Josiah.

3. Shaphan the Scribe
The royal secretary who read the Book of the Law to King Josiah, leading to the king's dramatic reaction.

4. The Book of the Law
Likely a portion of the Torah, possibly Deuteronomy, found during temple repairs, which had been neglected for many years.

5. Jerusalem
The capital city of Judah, where the temple was located and where these events took place.
Teaching Points
The Power of God's Word
The rediscovery of the Book of the Law demonstrates the transformative power of Scripture. When God's Word is read and understood, it can lead to profound personal and communal change.

Repentance and Humility
Josiah's tearing of his clothes is a sign of deep repentance and humility. This act teaches us the importance of responding to God's Word with a contrite heart.

The Importance of Spiritual Leadership
Josiah's leadership in reforming Judah's religious practices shows the impact a godly leader can have. Spiritual leaders today should prioritize the teaching and application of Scripture.

Neglect of Scripture
The fact that the Book of the Law was lost and forgotten serves as a warning against neglecting God's Word. Regular engagement with Scripture is essential for spiritual health.

Revival through Scripture
Josiah's reforms led to a national revival. This illustrates how returning to the foundational truths of Scripture can bring about renewal in our lives and communities.
Bible Study Questions
1. What does Josiah's reaction to the Book of the Law teach us about the importance of Scripture in our lives?

2. How can we ensure that we do not neglect God's Word in our personal and communal worship?

3. In what ways can spiritual leaders today emulate Josiah's commitment to reform and renewal based on Scripture?

4. How does the rediscovery of the Book of the Law in Josiah's time parallel the need for biblical literacy in today's church?

5. Reflect on a time when reading or hearing Scripture led to a significant change in your life. How can you cultivate a heart that is responsive to God's Word like Josiah's?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Deuteronomy 31:24-26
This passage describes Moses' command to place the Book of the Law beside the Ark of the Covenant, highlighting its importance and the tragedy of its neglect.

2 Chronicles 34:19
A parallel account of Josiah's reaction, emphasizing the significance of rediscovering God's Word.

Romans 10:17
This verse underscores the importance of hearing the Word of God, which leads to faith, similar to how Josiah's faith was renewed upon hearing the Law.
Sermons
A Monarch of Rare Virtue, and a God of Retributive JusticeDavid Thomas, D. D.2 Kings 22:1-20
A Monarch of Rare Virtue, and a God of Retributive JusticeD. Thomas 2 Kings 22:1-20
Josiah and the Book of the LawMonday Club Sermons2 Kings 22:1-20
Josiah's ReformationAlex. Whyte, D. D.2 Kings 22:1-20
The Finding of the Law-BookJ. Orr 2 Kings 22:8-20
People
Achbor, Adaiah, Ahikam, Asahiah, Asaiah, Azaliah, David, Harhas, Hilkiah, Huldah, Jedidah, Josiah, Meshullam, Micaiah, Michaiah, Shallum, Shaphan, Tikvah
Places
Bozkath, Jerusalem, Second Quarter
Topics
Book, Clothes, Garments, Grief, Hands, Hearing, King's, Law, Parting, Pass, Rendeth, Rent, Robe, Robes, Sign, Tore, Violently
Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Kings 22:11

     1611   Scripture, inspiration and authority
     8149   revival, nature of

2 Kings 22:8-13

     4963   past, the

2 Kings 22:8-16

     1640   Book of the Law

2 Kings 22:11-13

     6173   guilt, and God

2 Kings 22:11-20

     8160   seeking God
     8466   reformation
     8648   enquiring of God

Library
The Rediscovered Law and Its Effects
'And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord: and Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9. And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord. 10. And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant.
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before Me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place."--2 Kings …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

A Traveler's Note-Book
A tourist who roams for a brief while through some great country like England or Russia may jot down a few of the impressions which come home to him, making no pretense at completeness or symmetry of description. So, one who has journeyed like a hasty traveler over some passages in that vast tract of years which we describe as the classic and Christian civilizations, notes down in the following pages a few of the salient features that have impressed him. He has already prefaced this with a sort …
George S. Merriam—The Chief End of Man

Whether Determinate Things are Required for a Sacrament?
Objection 1: It seems that determinate things are not required for a sacrament. For sensible things are required in sacraments for the purpose of signification, as stated above [4343](A[4]). But nothing hinders the same thing being signified by divers sensible things: thus in Holy Scripture God is signified metaphorically, sometimes by a stone (2 Kings 22:2; Zech. 3:9; 1 Cor. 10:4; Apoc. 4:3); sometimes by a lion (Is. 31:4; Apoc. 5:5); sometimes by the sun (Is. 60:19,20; Mal. 4:2), or by something …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint.
1. The carnal mind the source of the objections which are raised against the Providence of God. A primary objection, making a distinction between the permission and the will of God, refuted. Angels and men, good and bad, do nought but what has been decreed by God. This proved by examples. 2. All hidden movements directed to their end by the unseen but righteous instigation of God. Examples, with answers to objections. 3. These objections originate in a spirit of pride and blasphemy. Objection, that …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire
THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR. The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik--Phraortes …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8

The First Blast of the Trumpet
The English Scholar's Library etc. No. 2. The First Blast of the Trumpet &c. 1558. The English Scholar's Library of Old and Modern Works. No. 2. The First Blast of the Trumpet &c. 1558. Edited by EDWARD ARBER, F.S.A., etc., LECTURER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, ETC., UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. SOUTHGATE, LONDON, N. 15 August 1878. No. 2. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS. Bibliography vii-viii Introduction …
John Knox—The First Blast of the Trumpet

Why Should we not Believe These to be Angelic Operations through Dispensation of The...
16. Why should we not believe these to be angelic operations through dispensation of the providence of God, Who maketh good use of both good things and evil, according to the unsearchable depth of His judgments? whether thereby the minds of mortals be instructed, or whether deceived; whether consoled, or whether terrified: according as unto each one there is to be either a showing of mercy, or a taking of vengeance, by Him to Whom, not without a meaning, the Church doth sing "of mercy and of judgment." …
St. Augustine—On Care to Be Had for the Dead.

The Credibility of Scripture Sufficiently Proved in So Far as Natural Reason Admits.
1. Secondary helps to establish the credibility of Scripture. I. The arrangement of the sacred volume. II. Its dignity. III. Its truth. IV. Its simplicity. V. Its efficacy. 2. The majesty conspicuous in the writings of the Prophets. 3. Special proofs from the Old Testament. I. The antiquity of the Books of Moses. 4. This antiquity contrasted with the dreams of the Egyptians. II. The majesty of the Books of Moses. 5. The miracles and prophecies of Moses. A profane objection refuted. 6. Another profane …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Authorship of the Pentateuch.
The term Pentateuch is composed of the two Greek words, pente, five, and teuchos, which in later Alexandrine usage signified book. It denotes, therefore, the collection of five books; or, the five books of the law considered as a whole. 1. In our inquiries respecting the authorship of the Pentateuch, we begin with the undisputed fact that it existed in its present form in the days of Christ and his apostles, and had so existed from the time of Ezra. When the translators of the Greek version, …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Synagogues: their Origin, Structure and Outward Arrangements
It was a beautiful saying of Rabbi Jochanan (Jer. Ber. v. 1), that he who prays in his house surrounds and fortifies it, so to speak, with a wall of iron. Nevertheless, it seems immediately contradicted by what follows. For it is explained that this only holds good where a man is alone, but that where there is a community prayer should be offered in the synagogue. We can readily understand how, after the destruction of the Temple, and the cessation of its symbolical worship, the excessive value attached …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Greater Prophets.
1. We have already seen (Chap. 15, Nos. 11 and 12) that from Moses to Samuel the appearances of prophets were infrequent; that with Samuel and the prophetical school established by him there began a new era, in which the prophets were recognized as a distinct order of men in the Theocracy; and that the age of written prophecy did not begin till about the reign of Uzziah, some three centuries after Samuel. The Jewish division of the latter prophets--prophets in the more restricted sense of the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Of the Power of Making Laws. The Cruelty of the Pope and his Adherents, in this Respect, in Tyrannically Oppressing and Destroying Souls.
1. The power of the Church in enacting laws. This made a source of human traditions. Impiety of these traditions. 2. Many of the Papistical traditions not only difficult, but impossible to be observed. 3. That the question may be more conveniently explained, nature of conscience must be defined. 4. Definition of conscience explained. Examples in illustration of the definition. 5. Paul's doctrine of submission to magistrates for conscience sake, gives no countenance to the Popish doctrine of the obligation …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Of the Effects of those Prerogatives.
From these prerogatives there will arise to the elect in heaven, five notable effects:-- 1. They shall know God with a perfect knowledge (1 Cor. i. 10), so far as creatures can possibly comprehend the Creator. For there we shall see the Word, the Creator; and in the Word, all creatures that by the Word were created; so that we shall not need to learn (of the things which were made) the knowledge of him by whom all things were made. The most excellent creatures in this life, are but as a dark veil …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Meditations for one that is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:--First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee. 1. Meditate that God uses this chastisement of thy body but as a medicine to cure thy soul, by drawing thee, who art sick in sin, to come by repentance unto Christ, thy physician, to have thy soul healed …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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