The Missing Book

Something I read in Second Kings about King Josiah got me thinking. When he took over from his predecessor, a spectacularly wicked king, Josiah ordered the clean-up and restoration of Solomon’s temple which had fallen into disuse and misuse during earlier reigns. In the process, they found the scroll of the Torah, also known as the books of Moses, which had remained hidden for a long time. Josiah’s emotional reaction (he tore his robes) indicates the level of his piety for which he is famous. Josiah ordered the book to be read and he discovered the institution of the Passover. Here is what shocked me: the writer of Second Kings says that the Passover had not been celebrated since the time of the judges.

Not Saul, nor David, nor Solomon bothered to obey the command to remember the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt with the annual celebration of Passover. What is most curious to me is that both David and Solomon made scores of references to the word of the Lord in their writings. David’s 19^th Psalm extols the law, the precepts, and the ordinances of God as enduring forever, righteous altogether, more desirable than gold. Yet apparently, Israel’s greatest king, a “man after [God’s] own heart,” couldn’t be bothered to keep one of the required feasts, perhaps the most important feast, commanded in the law.

I can only assume that the scroll discovered by Josiah was not read by David. That is what the text of Second Kings implies. Surely, the man after God’s heart would follow such a clear command if he knew of it. But he didn’t. I am left wondering what David used as his supporting text for his volume of Psalms that regularly encourage the following of God’s commands. Perhaps they were oral tradition, or they might have been other documents that are lost to us. The point is that apparently, David didn’t read the Torah.

This might explain why he had as many problems as he did. If you are not regularly reading the law that says thou shalt not commit adultery or thou shalt not commit murder, maybe you can plead ignorance regarding the Bathsheba and Uriah incident. I note that when the prophet Nathan confronted David with his obvious sins, the approach was an emotional one rather than a legal one. David was asked to consider the theft of a poor man’s lamb for a rich man’s pleasure. Incensed, David demanded that justice be executed upon the wicked person. “Thou art the man,” proclaimed Nathan. Perhaps they were ignorant of the law’s requirement to stone adulterers and murders; could they be applied to the king?

But if they were not reading the law because it had been missing since the time of the judges, one would not expect it to be brought out in accusation. Might this also explain David’s twenty-odd wives, and his horrible track record with his children. Moses had commanded that children be raised with great respect for the requirements of the Lord. Was David relying on his own understanding of what God wanted instead of reading it as written in the Books of Moses?

It was not until the remnant of Israel was returned to the land of promise that they began to revere God’s Word. Perhaps they finally realized what they had been missing. Fortunately, the destruction of the temple did not include the loss of the scrolls of Moses. The captivity in Babylon forced the Israelites to consider what they had lost. Among those lost things was the Law. In post-exile Palestine, the institution of the synagogue (which had its beginnings in Babylon) became almost as important as the temple itself. The rise of the scribes and Pharisees who are so prominent in the time of Christ also began during this period. It is believed that Ezra, one of the returnees from Babylon, wrote much of the history of Israel as we now have it. The rabbis, a feature of the synagogues, began to write commentaries and other genre such as the apocryphal books that Jews respect even to this day.

We know that the canon of Jewish scripture was well developed by 150 B.C. because a group of Alexandrian Jewish scholars translated their scriptures into Greek in what became known as the Septuagint. Jesus and the writers of the books we now call our New Testament, all make reference to the Word of God as the Jews had received it. The devout Jews and then the early Christians, many of whom were converted Jews, had great reverence for the Scripture. They knew their lives depended on it, and they often gave their lives for it. And they turned the world upside down.

I am about to beat a dead horse, so pardon me. Search any pollyou can find about Bible reading in the modern church, especially in America, and you will be dismayed by its absence. If that were not bad enough, polls also prove that even those who claim to read and believe the Bible differ very little in their lifestyles from those who make no such claims. I wonder where the Josiahs are who could find in Scripture a reason to tear their clothes and weep over the rediscovery of God’s word.

If the modern church seems to be powerless to do anything about America’s descent into paganism, it is because her people don’t read their Bibles; they are ignorant of the power they have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To quote N.T. Wright, the message of Christ’s resurrection is, “that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ, and that you’re now invited to belong to it…. There are many parts of the world we can’t do anything about except pray. But there is one part of the world… we can do something about, and that is the creature each of us calls ‘myself.’ Personal holiness and global holiness belong together. Those who wake up to the one may well find themselves called to wake up to the other as well.”

It is just as Paul encouraged the Romans, “Wake up… The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So, remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see.” (Romans 13:11-13 NLT) This echoes what Jesus said, “Let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” We need to bring the church out of the new dark ages it has fallen into. Light it up! Read the Book.

Related posts: Read This Or Die; Through the Bible in Seven Minutes; Take the Bible Literally; Understanding the Bible as Literature; What Did You Do Today; Merely Christian