Thirty-one years after inheriting the kingdom of Judah from his father, Josiah traveled to the
Valley of Megiddo and fought against
Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt. The Bible gives few details about this battle, but what it does tell
us has caused some to question the
Bible’s accuracy. Skeptics allege that a contradiction exists between 2 Kings 23 and 2
Chronicles 35. The writer of 2 Kings
recorded that “Pharaoh Necho killed him [Josiah—JE] at Megiddo
when he confronted him.” Then,
later, “his servants moved his body in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and
buried him in his own tomb”
(23:29-30). When the writer of Chronicles wrote of these events, he recorded that after King
Josiah was struck with arrows, he said to
his servants, “Take me away, for I am severely wounded.” After that “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.” Then the
text says, “So he died, and was
buried in one of the tombs of his fathers” (2 Chronicles 35:23-24). Because the writer of 2
Kings recorded that Pharaoh Necho
killed Josiah at Megiddo and the chronicler used the phrase, “so he died”
after writing that Josiah’s body
was returned to Jerusalem, skeptics charge that the recorded history of one or both of the writers
is wrong.
If 2 Kings 23 were the only account we had of Josiah’s death, then one might very well
assume that he took his last breath at
Megiddo. But, since 2 Chronicles 35 indicates that he was alert enough after he was shot to
command his servants to take him away, we
know that he did not die immediately. However, he still may have died in Megiddo after he uttered
this command. Or, he could have died
on the way to Jerusalem. The accounts can be reconciled even if he had died in Jerusalem. Just
because 2 Kings 23:29 says that Pharaoh
Necho killed Josiah at Megiddo does not have to mean that he actually died there. It easily could
mean that he was mortally wounded at
Megiddo and then died sometime later. If someone today is shot in a back alley late at night, he
may be rushed to the hospital in hopes
that his life might be saved. However, if he dies, whether it is on the way to the hospital or in
the hospital, those who rehearse the
details of the shooting likely will not say that he died in the hospital but that he was
killed in the back alley.
Furthermore, just because the writer of 2 Chronicles wrote the phrase, “so he died,”
after he mentions that Josiah was
brought to Jerusalem, does not mean that he did not die beforehand. As E.M. Zerr observed in his
Bible Commentary: “The
statement and he died...is just a common form of expression in the Bible, where the several
facts of a circumstance may be named
with very little regard for their chronological order” (1954, pp. 278-279, emp. in orig.).
The acknowledgment of the chronicler
that Josiah died is just that—an acknowledgment. It says nothing about when he died.
The facts of the story are as follows: (1) Josiah was wounded fatally at Megiddo; (2) his body
was rushed away to Jerusalem after he
commanded his servants to take him away; and (3) he died sometime after he gave that command. The
text is not clear as to the exact
location of death. He could have passed away in Megiddo, or on his way to Jerusalem, or even in
Jerusalem for that matter. However, the
latter is not likely to have occurred since Jerusalem was over fifty miles from Megiddo (probably
no less than a two-hour chariot
ride). Neither account clearly defines the location of death, only that the location of the fatal
injury occurred in Meggido. We must
remember that “where two different, but not conflicting accounts of an event are given, one
more specific than the other, the one
that is clearer should be used to explain the other” (Zerr, pp. 278-279).
Those who claim that these two passages are contradictory are grasping for straws that do not
exist. The only difference in the
texts is that one is more descriptive than the other.
REFERENCES
Zerr, E.M. (1954), Bible Commentary (Bowling Green, KY: Guardian of Truth Publications).
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