What the Old Testament Means to Us. . . No. 15

LOSING THE BIBLE AT CHURCH

Every church has its shelf of “lost” Bibles, left behind by members or visitors who do not realize that they have lost their Bible at church. Some of them are expensive editions and autographed by some loved one, the inscription indicating it was a graduation, anniversary, or Christmas gift. Even though the owner’s name is sometimes printed in gold on the cover it is never called for and goes unclaimed. When I see these Bibles lining the shelves of churches across the country, it strikes me as odd that people would lose their Bibles at church and apparently never know it. I am left wondering what it says about people who lose their Bibles at church and do nothing about it.

There is a story in the Old Testament that is something like that. The people of God lost their Bible in the temple. How it was found and the consequences it had is quite a story. It takes a certain religious condition for people to lose such contact with their Bible that they go for a long time without knowing it is lost, and when it is found they are not sure what it is! That was the case with ancient Judah. I wonder if some today who find their Bible at church never realized it was lost. While we cannot judge in such cases, the Scriptures tell us something about the circumstances that led the Israelites to lose their Bible at church, and then find it many years later without ever knowing it was lost.

Judah’s “dark age,” as it is sometimes called, began with Manasseh who was king for some 37 years, beginning in 687 B.C. The author of 2 Kings and the prophet Jeremiah depict him as the arch-villain of the entire line of Davidic kings. It was he that reversed the reforms of king Hezekiah and led the people into doing more evil than the pagan nations around them. His reign is painted as the darkest period in Judean history. The OT writers hold him responsible for the final destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. by provoking God’s wrath as he did.

While his father Hezekiah had created a wave of religious enthusiasm by destroying pagan shrines, Manasseh disillusioned the people by rebuilding them. He arrogantly promoted efforts to unite the worship of Yahweh God with that of Baal, the nature god of Canaan. Yahweh was actually worshiped at the altars of Baal. Sacred prostitution was practiced with royal sanction. Even worse, Manasseh imported pagan cults from Mesopotamia such as the astral cult called “the worship of all the host of heaven.” These pagan influences even invaded the temple in Jerusalem. He even revived necromancy, the cult of the dead, which was severely condemned by the prophets.

As if the introduction of astrology, magic, and divination were not enough, Manasseh resorted to the most despicable pagan rite, the practice of human sacrifice. He even burned his own son as an offering, apparently as an attempt to court divine favor. He was also a murderer in that he “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another.” Some scholars think that Manasseh tried to liquidate the prophets, Isaiah being one of them, who was according to tradition “sawn in two” (cf. Heb. 11:37). In his efforts to make peace with Assyria, the dominant nation at the time, king Manasseh surrendered Israel’s distinctive religious heritage.

It was indeed a dark period in Judah’s history. It is understandable that the nation would lose touch with its holy Scriptures. But God always watched after his covenant people, and he always had the right person at the right time to save the nation from complete apostasy. In this instance he had prophets, some anonymous and some named, like Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and a woman named Huldah. He also raised up a boy king named Josiah, who would make a big difference in the history of God’s people.

It was during a period of prophetic silence lasting 75 years that Judah lost touch with its Scriptures. During the wicked reign of Manasseh the prophets went underground, some speaking quietly and anonymously. But finally there was an outburst of prophecy, which usually attended reforms.

Zephaniah’s piercing message of the nearness of “the Day of Yahweh” rocked Jerusalem like a bolt of thunder, assuring them that a day of wrath, ruin, and destruction would follow the nation’s unfaithfulness. The prophet saw God working in history not only to punish his people but to preserve them as well. To Zephaniah the sins of Manasseh and the nation were so serious that he had no hope that disaster could be averted. Jerusalem was a rebellious city and Judah a shameless nation. The clock was nearing midnight. But in Zeph. 2:3 the prophet finds a remnant that could make a difference by seeking righteousness and humility.

Then there was the great prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of Zephaniah who began to prophecy in 626 B.C. during the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah. Unlike other prophets Jeremiah was also a priest, and he was called to be a prophet when he was but a youth. It was a time of international unrest, with Assyria, the ruler of the world, tottering on its throne. Jeremiah was called to make history, for God had “set him over the nations and over the kingdoms.” Early on the young prophet had visions indicating that Judah would be overrun by a foreign power because of her unfaithfulness.

Jeremiah used rich imagery to describe his people’s disloyalty. They had rejected fresh water from Yahweh and had stored up water in “broken cisterns that can hold no water.” She was like a faithless wife that leaves her husband and becomes a common prostitute. Even if she washed herself with lye and used much soap she would still be unclean. Like her adulterous sister Israel, Judah too would have to be given a certificate of divorce. But still Jeremiah held out hope; there was time for repentance. But it would have to be a genuine reformation, not just cosmetic, “a circumcision of the heart.” But this did not happen, and in time the foreign power did come in the form of Babylon. Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were taken into captivity.

In the meantime, however, there was a reformation of sorts under king Josiah. He undertook to remove every sign of Assyrian dominance from the land of Judah. The Bible says of him: “He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn to the right hand or to the left” (2 Kgs. 22:2). David, always depicted as the ideal king, was of course his distant father. Josiah was the son of Amon and the grandson of Manasseh, both of whom “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Josiah set his heart to undo all the evil perpetrated by his father and grandfather. If David was a man after God’s own heart, Josiah is described by Yahweh as tender hearted and humble (2 Kgs. 22:19).

Josiah’s reformation had been underway about six years when they found the Bible in the temple. Perhaps there is a lesson here. It isn’t always the Bible that leads to reformation; it may be that reformation will lead us to the Bible. That is, we really “discover” the holy Scriptures, their meaning and relevance for us, in times of renewal.

The discovery of the Bible in the temple is told as if it were by accident, but we can believe it was by God’s providence. Josiah’s reform included repairs on the temple, probably to remove the last vestige of alien influence. Amidst the repairs “the Book of the Law” was discovered, probably a scroll-like manuscript of the book of Deuteronomy or a part thereof that had been laid back by some priest during the long years of Judah’s indifference. When the king’s secretary came to the temple one day to pay the workers, Hilkiah the priest told him “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kgs 22:8).

When it was read to Josiah he rent his garments, a gesture of despair, for it caused the king to realize how far the nation had wandered from God and he feared the warnings of God’s wrath recorded in the document. Eager to have the document verified as the word of God and to know its relevance for his own time, Josiah sent a committee to inquire of a prophet, a woman! Huldah appears only here in the Bible, but we can be sure she spent her life as a prophet of God.

Huldah minced no words. It would be well for the church if the men of God would be as forthright as was this woman of God. She told the delegation sent by the king what Yahweh said: “Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read.” But she assured the king that because of his humility before Yahweh he would be gathered to his fathers in peace and his eyes would not see the calamity that would befall Judah.

The discovery of the Book of Torah accelerated Josiah’s reforms. The king did a remarkable thing in gathering all the elders of Judah and all the people of Jerusalem around the temple, and there he personally read to them the portion of Scripture that had been found. He then made a covenant with the Lord before the people, vowing to keep with all his heart and soul all the words that had been read. The people joined him in the covenant. The king then called for a giant bonfire. There before the temple they burned all the articles that were made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven that had been found in the temple.

The king went on to effect other reforms, such as removing idolatrous priests, burning images to Baal, and bringing an end to sodomy and prostitution in religious rituals. He also brought an end to human sacrifice and tore down the high places of heathen worship that had stood since the days of Solomon. Moreover, he executed those who practiced black magic, all mediums and wizards, along with those who consulted them.

Josiah did an amazing thing in reinstituting the Passover, for it had not been observed since the days of the judges. In this the reforming king was looking to the future more than to the past in that the Passover was to be significant in Israel’s future. This is in fact much of what this story is about, for in renewing the Covenant and reinstating the Passover the king was drawing creatively from the nation’s past and restoring its meaning for the future. Josiah was a futurist that tapped the rich resources of the past, a lesson for ourselves.

We today have lost the Bible at church in a different way in that it has become irrelevant. We have lost its relevancy. Outwardly the Bible is part of our church life to the point of boredom. We study the same old subjects over and over again. We have had more concern with what the Scriptures meant to them back then than what they mean to us now. We are tuned out and turned off. The Bible has little meaning for our drug-addicted, crime-ridden, riot-torn world.

Part of the answer to this may lie in Josiah’s reform. He rediscovered the Bible when he began to clear away the garbage. If we will slim down, live more simply, think with more discipline, pray more urgently, become more debt-free, be more concerned for the suffering masses, indulge in rigid self-examination—in this kind of renewal we might, like sweet-spirited Josiah, rediscover the Bible for our lives. We will fall in love with the Bible when we fall in love with our troubled world. When we come to terms with our own narcissism we will begin to see the beauty of the holy Scriptures. When we identify with those who live out on the margins of society we will have more than a marginal concern for the Bible.

The psalmist’s prayer can become ours: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things from your word.” That is our task, to have a new vision of the world, of ourselves, and of God. Such renewal must come first, then we will rediscover the “lost” Bible in the temples of our own complex lives.—the Editor