part0175

Key Verse : "While they were bringing out the money that had been taken into the temple of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the LORD that had been given through Moses."

According to II Chronicles 34:8-11, King Josiah, in the eighteenth year of his reign, decided to send workers to repair the Temple. The kings before him had not taken very good care of the Temple, so it was very much in need of repair. The Jewish people not only had their own peculiar religion, but they were also a special nation unto themselves. They only married other offspring from within their own tribe, and they always retained their own individual nation status. An interesting point about their time of repairing the Temple is that the people paid for the repairs out of their own money. The Levites had collected funds specifically from the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, and Benjamin, and they had also gotten money from remnants of the other tribes, too. They did not go into debt to do the work that they should have already been doing.

In II Chronicles 38:14-18, a second interesting point occurred which should not have. When the workers were bringing out the money that had been taken into the Temple, they also brought out the Book of the Law that had been written by Moses about one thousand years earlier. In II Kings 22:8, the writer wrote that Hilkiah found the writings of Moses, and that is also consistent with II Chronicles 34:14-15. The part that should not have happened is that they should not have found the Book of the Law. Instead, they and the Jewish people that had lived before them should have never lost it. In present times, individuals sometimes have a very casual, nonchalante view of the Word of God, and in many modern-day homes, the Bible is sometimes nowhere to be found or simply stuck away in a vacant corner. God is real, His Word is real, and neither should be treated casually or as unimportant. In II Chronicles 38:29-33, the good thing about what happened with Hilkiah and his finding the Book of the Law is that he took it to the king. King Josiah read God's Word, repented of his sins and the sins of his people, and then, led a national revival.