2 Kings 22:1

The Message

Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He lived the way God wanted. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to either left or right.

Cross References

2 Kings 11:21

Joash was seven years old when he became king.

2 Kings 21:1

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. In God’s judgment he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahab king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He even built these pagan altars in The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God’s decree (“in Jerusalem I place my Name”) to God’s Name. And he built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God. He burned his own son in a sacrificial offering. He practiced black magic and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God’s judgment, a career in evil. And God was angry.

Psalm 8:2

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.

Ecclesiastes 10:16

Unlucky the land whose king is a young pup, And whose princes party all night. Lucky the land whose king is mature, Where the princes behave themselves And don’t drink themselves silly. * * *

Ezekiel 18:14

“Now look: Suppose that this child has a child who sees all the sins done by his parent. The child sees them, but doesn’t follow in the parent’s footsteps— doesn’t eat at the pagan shrines, doesn’t worship the popular idols of Israel, doesn’t seduce his neighbor’s spouse, doesn’t bully anyone, doesn’t refuse to loan money, doesn’t steal, doesn’t refuse food to the hungry, doesn’t refuse to give clothes to the ill-clad, doesn’t live by impulse and greed, doesn’t exploit the poor. He does what I say; he performs my laws and lives by my statutes.

Zephaniah 1:1

God’s Message to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah. It came during the reign of Josiah son of Amon, who was king of Judah: