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You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you Isa 26:3 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Monday, June 23, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's PassageIsrael after Solomon (30): Josiah Finds the Book of Law BibleVerse:2 Kings 22 (ESV) "osiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent to Hilkiah the high priest, that he might count the money that had been brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the threshold had collected from the people. “Let it be given into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord, and let them give it to the workmen who are at the house of the Lord, repairing the house, and let them use it for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the house.” And Hilkiah the high priest said, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” And Hilkiah gave the book to the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.” So [the priests] went to Huldah the prophetess, and she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore, you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.’” " Message:
We have looked at three periods of Hebrew history after Solomon:
The breakup of the kingdom into Israel and Judah after Solomon’s death, @ 930 B.C.;
The apostasy of Israel (the Northern Kingdom), including Ahab and Jezebel; the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and the first of the latter prophets (i.e. those who have books named after them in the Bible), Amos and Hosea @ 870 B.C.; and
The annihilation of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria and the salvation of the Southern Kingdom @740-690 B.C. The primary figures in Judah were King Hezekiah and the prophets Micah and Isaiah. Perhaps we should put Hezekiah and Huldah into this third group, too.
Huldah the Prophetess
Huldah the Prophetess
by James Lewis
See “Today in Daily Prayer”
for more discussion.
This upswing, under Hezekiah and Josiah, is a last gasp for Hebrew righteousness. Our next installment will describe the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (587 B.C.), followed by the “Babylonian Captivity.” This involves a morass of confusing names, even though we have kept them to a minimum. But since one purpose of this series is to at least be exposed to the 12 minor prophets, learning a few difficult names is unavoidable. Hopefully readers will find our chart helpful and refer to it when name confusion sets in.
Coming up next: The Books of Habakkuk and Zephaniah, which were written by important prophets at the time of King Josiah, but have difficult names to keep straight. Habakkuk was a great, great prophet and poet; it is a shame he did not leave more writing behind, and we will spend a couple of days on his short book, because it is so good. The name is pronounced Ha-ba'-kuhk or Ha'-ba-kuhk.
Zephaniah is probably the one I find hardest to keep straight, because there is another minor prophet name Zechariah (which is identical to the name of John the Baptist’s father — sigh). He was an important prophet, historically, but his book is repetitive of others and has no special poetic merit, so we won’t spend much time on him.
We have not left much space for comment on today’s Scripture, but it is easy enough to read. It tells of a good king (Josiah) who repairs the Temple, a prophetess, and a temporary reprieve for Judah. But what sets it apart is the utterly astonishing revelation that the Jews — and this includes the actual priests of the Temple — no longer even had a copy of the Law of Moses (i.e., the Pentateuch)! A high priest stumbled upon it while repairing the Temple.
This indicates just how far the Hebrews had strayed from God. They were so completely divorced from their duties, imposed by God’s directly revealed commandments, that they did not even know what they were.
Hebrew actually disappeared as a spoken language around 550 B.C. By 300 B.C., Hebrew was to the Jews what Latin is to us: dead. Only a few religious scholars had any idea of how to read it. There was no book of Scripture. A revival of religious interest around 300 B.C. impelled a group of 70 scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, whose famous library was the world’s repository of knowledge, to search the world for ancient Hebrew writings and put together first Jewish Bible — written in Greek (and paid for by an heir of Alexander the Great). This Bible, known as the Septuagint, was translated into Latin as the Old Testament of the Vulgate and, eventually, the King James Version.
Meditation : “God has two dwellings – one in heaven and the other in a thankful heart.” Prayer : And finally, may the grace of Christ our Savior, and the Father’s boundless love, with the Holy Spirit’s favor, rest upon me, and all of us, from above. Thus may we abide in union, with each other and the Lord, and possess, in sweet communion, joys which earth cannot afford.......Amen. |
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