For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. ~Psalm 138:2b

This thought, which I read two days ago, comes back to me as I ponder the story of Josiah in today's reading of 2 Kings 22.

When Josiah heard the lost and neglected Book of the Law which Hilkiah found as they began repairing the temple Josiah's father had so wickedly desecrated, Josiah tore his clothes, apparently recognizing what great blessing his people had missed, and what great cursing they were under, because they had not known what God required of them.

Last night we got into a discussion of the fourth commandment on our way home from evening worship. Cal cited Hosea 4:6 "My people perish for lack of knowledge" to a friend struggling with the radical ideas regarding the Sabbath in Isaiah 58. Most pastors in America have not been teaching the whole counsel of God for many years, so now we come to accept as normal and okay things like open stores and football games on the Lord's Day.

Josiah understood with dismay how much God's people had missed. He commanded Hilkiah and four others to "Go, inquire of the LORD for me, for the people and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us." God answered through his prophetess, Huldah, that His wrath was aroused because the people had forsaken Him and gone after other gods, but that his blessing would be on Josiah because his heart was tender and humble and compassionate.

If God says He magnifies His word above His name, does it not follow that it is necessary for us to know what His words are, and to do them, even while our lips are saying that we love and praise Him?

If God says He magnifies His word above His name, and His name is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe, doesn't it follow that our spending time learning what He has said is also safe?

May God strengthen His undershepherds to open His word to His people. May God graciously give His people the strength to obey all of His commands. And bless His Name that He sent His Word Incarnate to live and die perfectly in our place.

(postscript: Cool to notice verse 7 about the carpenters and builders that the king trusted them such that "there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand, because they deal faithfully." God make us such faithful workers.)