A year and a half ago, I wrote an article for The
American Thinker about a parallel between the reading of the US
Constitution in the newly elected US House of Representatives and the reading
of the Book of the Law by King Josiah of the Kingdom of Judah in the Old
Testament.
The rest of this post won’t make much sense unless you read
the article. You can go to the link
above, or just read it here:
Reading the Documents Doesn't Always Help
While attending to tax receipts, a government
agent finds his country's founding document and brings it to the attention of
the ruling powers, which are stunned by how far the country has strayed from
its founding principles. A public reading of the document ensues. No, this is
not this week's news; it's a lot older. As strangely similar the events are,
the events after this first reading should add a dose of caution to the
optimism in Washington, D.C. today.
In 640 BC, Josiah became
king of Judah at the age of eight after the assassination of his father, Amon.
As kings of Judah went, Josiah was a good ruler. When he was in his
mid-twenties, Josiah ordered the high priest, Hilkiah, to go to the temple in
Jerusalem and oversee its repair using the money the priests had been
collecting from the people (one could say this was "tax" money for
the services rendered by the priests). As Hilkiah was accounting of the money
in the temple, he made an amazing discovery -- the Book of the Law.
Now, to modern sensibilities, it is very
puzzling to find out that something so vital to the legitimacy of a people --
their founding document, as it were -- could be misplaced. You'd think someone
would wonder what happened to that stuff that Moses wrote. Nevertheless, the
traditions of the Book of the Law lived on without a thought to the book that
spawned them.
You'd think that such a momentous finding would
be reported to the king right away. At the very least, you'd think the high
priest would at least read the thing. You'd be wrong, as Hilkiah gave it to his
secretary, Shaphan, who did actually read it and decided that maybe the king
should know about it.
King Josiah had Shaphan read the Book of the Law
aloud and was taken aback by how far Judah had strayed from its founding
principles. In fact, Josiah immediately ordered that the Book of the Law be
read aloud in front of the elders of Judah on the steps of the temple before
all the people of Jerusalem. Afterwards, Josiah decreed that henceforth, Judah
would return to obeying the Book of the Law, and the assembled people did
likewise.
Parts of the above story have parallels to today
-- the "discovery" of the founding documents by those in a position
of authority (or recently put in a position of authority) and a subsequent
reading in front of government officials. Yet the similarities quickly break
down from there. In Josiah's day, those assembled to hear the reading quickly
pledged themselves to follow the Book of Law. In Washington this week, quite a
few of the government officials didn't stick around to hear the reading, and
support for it was split mainly down party lines, with a large dose of ridicule
aimed at the whole affair. At least the people in Josiah's day committed
themselves to getting back to basics. They purged the temple of idols and all
the other stuff that displeased God.
The outcome of Josiah's reading provides a
warning for us today. After Josiah, Judah had only two more kings before being
swallowed up by Babylon. In the long run, repentance wasn't enough to save
Judah from destruction. It was enough to postpone it beyond Josiah's lifetime,
but that's about it.
I have often wondered why, if everybody got back
on board and started doing the right things, God still wiped out Judah. Had
Judah's enemies gotten so strong that it didn't matter what the people did?
Were the people just caught up in the moment? Did they quickly change their
minds after the reading?
The text in 2 Kings suggests something deeper --
the society of Judah was so rotten underneath that no amount of contrition was
going to save it. Not only had the people forgotten where they had misplaced
their founding principles, but they had supplanted them with others that were
vile and corrosive. Individual redemption could still be found, but the body of
the state was already in a terminal condition.
And so a warning for today: Reading the
Constitution in the halls of government to remind those in power of where their
authority originates is laudable, but even when everyone in government shares
your concern (which they don't), it doesn't assure that the sickness of society
can be reversed or even stymied.
My hope is that the analogy I discovered in the
22nd and 23rd chapters of 2 Kings isn't as close as I
think. However, as I watched and listened to the events in Washington this
week, I found the similarity too close for comfort.
(Published by The American Thinker on January 9,
2011)
At the time, I was both fascinated and worried by the similarities. As I have reflected more on the two events,
the differences make me more worried than I was at the time. At least in the time of Josiah, the entire
nation pledged to return to its roots.
Today, we are still very torn as to the meaning of the Constitution, let
alone agreed that it is still relevant. This
corrosive nature of this split between Constitutionalists and non-Constitutionalists
will doom any reforms. Even though,
unlike in the time of Josiah, we can change our top leadership to affect
change, we seem to be unable to find enough leaders with the courage to stand
firm on our founding principles.
Judah was ultimately too weak to defend itself from external
attacks. 2 Kings doesn’t say anything
about internal forces abetting the Babylonian army and I doubt that was a major
factor in Judah’s fall. The same would
not apply today; a sizeable portion of our citizenry is given over to
self-loathing and would gladly assist in our demise.
The reading of the Constitution in the House of
Representatives was a high-water mark for Constitutional reformers. Alas, the tide has receded.
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