Josiah the Boy King Bible story for kids

"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign."

Eight years old, little one. Maybe about as old as you.

Imagine a crown on a head that size. I wonder if it slipped down over his eyes. The Bible doesn't say. But it tells us something much more important.

Do you remember David, the shepherd boy with the sling? Josiah came from his family, many, many years later.

The Bible says Josiah walked in all the way of David his father, and "didn't turn away to the right hand or to the left."

Picture one boy on a long, straight road. Not wandering off this way. Not wandering off that way. Just straight on.

Some years later, "while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father."

To seek is to look for. Josiah was looking for God, the way you look for someone you really want to find.

Now, the boy king grew up. By the next part of our story, he had been king for nearly eighteen years. He was a young man now.

Do you remember the beautiful house Solomon built for God? Hundreds of years had gone by, and parts of it needed mending.

So Josiah sent his scribe, a man named Shaphan, to the temple, and the money the people had given went to the workers. Carpenters. Builders. Stonemasons. New timber and cut stone. I imagine saws and chisels, and stone scraping on stone. A busy, noisy place.

And here is a lovely thing. Nobody had to check the money afterwards. Not one piece of silver. The Bible says, "for they dealt faithfully."

Then, in the middle of all that mending, Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe,

"I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord."

In those days, a book was a long roll of writing, wound up tight. A scroll. And this was the Book of the Law, the words God gave His people through Moses, long, long ago.

How it came to be lost, the Bible doesn't tell us. I wonder if it was dusty.

Shaphan read it, then went to the king. First he reported on the money.

Then, at the very end, he added: "Hilkiah the priest has delivered a book to me."

Just a book. I wonder if he had any idea how much it would matter.

And Shaphan read it to the king.

"When the king had heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes."

In those days, tearing your clothes was how you showed a very deep sorrow.

So Josiah sent five of his men, Hilkiah and Shaphan among them, to ask the Lord about the book, "for me, and for the people."

And he told them why: "our fathers have not listened to the words of this book." He meant all the people who had lived before them.

They went to a woman named Huldah. She was a prophetess, someone God gave His messages to.

Huldah gave them God's answer, and it was honest. The words in the book were true. God's people had turned away from Him for a long, long time, to other gods. So God said that hard days would come to their land, just as the book said.

But for the king, God had a gentle word.

"Because your heart was tender," God said. The king had torn his clothes and wept before God. "I also have heard you."

I also have heard you.

Tender means soft. Like the first green shoot of a plant. A heart that doesn't go hard when God speaks, but lets His words all the way in.

And God promised that Josiah's own eyes would not see those hard days.

The five men brought the message back. And what did Josiah do next? He did not keep the book to himself.

He called everybody, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, "both small and great," up to God's house. Maybe some of them were children, just like you.

And the king himself read it out loud. Every word. "He read in their hearing all the words of the book."

Then "the king stood by the pillar," and made a promise before the Lord, to walk with God and keep His words, with all his heart and all his soul.

"And all the people agreed to the covenant."

Then the king cleared away the idols, the statues and altars people had been bowing down to instead of God.

And then the king said, "Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant."

Do you remember the very first Passover, the night God brought His people out of Egypt? This was the same feast.

And oh, what a Passover it was.

From his own flocks, the king gave lambs and young goats for the people. Thirty thousand of them, and three thousand bulls besides. Food roasting over the fire, then carried quickly to everybody.

The gatekeepers stood at every gate. The singers stayed in their places and never had to leave them, because others made their supper for them. Imagine someone bringing you your supper, just so you can keep on singing.

Seven days the feast went on.

"Surely there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges." Longer ago than anybody could remember.

And the Bible says there was no king like Josiah, "that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might."

God's words had gone unheard for years and years. Then, one ordinary working day, they were found again. And when a tender heart heard them... God heard that heart, too.

And God was with him. God was with her. God is with you, too.

Lights low, little one. May the same God who brought His lost words back into the light for a young king who went looking for Him... let Himself be found by you, whenever you go looking.