From monarch to bishop: Covenant, Torah, and community formation in the Old Testament and the Anglican Communion

Anglican Theological Review, Winter 2003 by Newman, Judith H

Deuteronomistic history

In 2 Kings 22-23, the sequence of events surrounding Josiah's reform is as follows: During some routine repairs on the Temple, the high priest Hilkiah finds "the book of the law." The king's secretary takes the book to the king and the king reads it, whereupon he immediately tears his clothes as a sign of distress. He then consults with the prophetess Huldah, who verifies that the curses and loss of land will take place. Why this reaction? If we accept the essential historicity of this account, and also that the scroll that was being read to him corresponds to the core of the book of Deuteronomy, Josiah is traumatized because he is reading a conditional covenant that would result in punishment for disobedience and an end to the covenant between God and the Israelites. Deuteronomy calls for exclusive covenant loyalty to Yahweh. No doubt he was also distressed in hearing about the very limited role for the monarch in the book of Deuteronomy-not much more than a glorified baseball commissioner. In addition to criticizing the tendency of monarchs to amass vast amounts of wealth (at the expense of their subjects), Deuteronomy 17:18-20 reads:

18 When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. 19 It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandments, either to the right or to the left, so that he and his descendants may reign long over his kingdom in Israel.

This view of kingship clearly stands in tension with the divine adoption model reflected in the Davidic covenant theology. Here the Davidic king stands under the judgment of the Sinai covenant of Deuteronomy in which idolatrous worship, worship of a. God other than Yahweh, was considered the worst sin possible. After his consultation with the prophetess Huldah, he summons "all the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem," and reads the words of the book of the covenant to them. The king then makes a covenant with Yahweh to be faithful and observe the commandments written in the newly discovered book. Thus we see Josiah making himself a party to the Sinai covenant, with its conditional demands. After the covenant-making ceremony, Josiah launches a reform to purge Judah and Jerusalem of all foreign, non-Yahwistic worship. He centralizes worship in Jerusalem, and, in a departure from what Deuteronomy actually prescribes, Josiah kills the priests of the high places outside of Jerusalem. Josiah's concluding act is to command that the Passover be kept, reactivating thememorial of the Exodus event as prescribed in the book of the covenant. "No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges," according to 2 Kings 23:22, that is, prior to the establishment of the monarchy.