Bible Synapse
Was Josiah gathered to his grave “in peace”, when he was killed in battle?
Hard question · Prophecy and its fulfilment · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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Huldah tells Josiah that, because he humbled himself, he will be gathered to his grave in peace and will not see the evil God will bring on Jerusalem.
But to the king of Judah which sent you to enquire of the Lord, thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again.
Pharaoh Necho kills Josiah at Megiddo; his servants bring his body to Jerusalem and bury him in his own sepulchre.
In his days Pharaoh–nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.
Wounded by archers, Josiah is brought to Jerusalem, dies, and is buried in the sepulchres of his fathers; all Judah mourns, and Jeremiah laments for him.
And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.
The objection
The prophetess Huldah promised King Josiah, “thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace” (2 Kings 22:20). Yet Josiah was shot by Egyptian archers at Megiddo and died of his wounds (2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:23–24). A violent death in battle hardly seems a peaceful one.
The answer
Huldah’s next words explain what she meant by ‘in peace’: “thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place” (2 Kings 22:20). The promise was that Josiah would die before the disaster she had foretold fell on Jerusalem, not that he would die in his bed. That came true. Josiah died in about 609 BC; Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem in 597 BC and burned the city and its temple in 586 BC.
His burial was peaceful too. His servants brought his body home to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb, while all Judah mourned and Jeremiah composed laments for him (2 Kings 23:30; 2 Chronicles 35:24–25). Compare the kings after him: Jehoahaz was taken to Egypt and died there (2 Kings 23:34), Jehoiakim was to be “buried with the burial of an ass” (Jeremiah 22:19), and Zedekiah was blinded and died in a Babylonian prison (Jeremiah 52:11). The Old Testament uses the same kind of language of other kings who fell in battle: Ahab was killed by an arrow, yet he “slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 22:34–40). Keil and Delitzsch point out that such phrases describe a king’s death and burial among his people, and are used of death in battle as well as of death at home.
Other answers Christians give
Peace with God
John Gill adds that Josiah died in spiritual peace and entered into eternal peace, the end of the upright man (Psalm 37:37), and that he was buried in peace in his fathers’ tomb. Isaiah speaks in the same way of the righteous, who are “taken away from the evil to come” (Isaiah 57:1–2).
His own rash choice
Some note that Josiah went into battle against Necho’s warning, which the Chronicler says came “from the mouth of God” (2 Chronicles 35:22). On this view his own rashness decided the manner of his death, while the promise still held in its main sense: he did not live to see Jerusalem fall.
From the classic commentators
The death of Josiah in battle 2 Kings 23:29 is in verbal contradiction to this prophecy, but not in real opposition to its spirit, which is simply that the pious prince who has sent to inquire of the Lord, shall be gathered to his fathers before the troubles come upon the land which are to result in her utter desolation.Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, on 2 Kings 22:20