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Catholic Commentary
Introduction to King Josiah's Reign
1Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.2He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and didn’t turn away to the right hand or to the left.
2 Kings 22:1–2 introduces Josiah, who became king of Judah at age eight and reigned for thirty-one years, and affirms his faithfulness to God through his obedience to the Deuteronomic ideal of kingship. The passage establishes that despite inheriting a kingdom corrupted by idolatry, Josiah would become one of Judah's greatest reforming kings, faithfully following God's covenant standards.
A child king surrounded by idolatry and murder does not repeat the pattern—he becomes Judah's greatest reformer, proving that grace breaks family cycles.
"Did not turn to the right or to the left" — This phrase, drawn directly from Deuteronomy's instruction to the king (Deut 17:20) and to Israel generally (Deut 5:32; 28:14), signals that Josiah embodied the Deuteronomic ideal of the obedient covenant king. The image is of a man walking a narrow path with disciplined attention — not rigid legalism, but the focused devotion of someone who knows where the road leads. The same formula is used of Joshua (Josh 1:7), linking Josiah typologically to the great leader of the conquest and suggesting a new entry into covenantal faithfulness after a long period of spiritual wandering.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
In the typological reading of Catholic tradition, Josiah prefigures Christ the King, the true Son of David who fulfills the royal covenant in its fullness. As Josiah's reign begins in childhood and inaugurates a great restoration of the Law, so Christ appears as a child (Lk 2:40–52), even astonishing the teachers of the Law in the Temple, before his own mission of covenantal renewal. The "not turning right or left" motif finds its perfection in Christ, who in his entire earthly life never deviated from the Father's will — not even under the pressures of temptation (Mt 4:1–11) or the agony of Gethsemane (Lk 22:42).
Catholic tradition illuminates this passage at several interconnected levels.
The Davidic Covenant and Messianic Expectation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the promise made to David finds its fulfillment in Christ" (CCC 2579). Josiah's being praised for walking "in all the ways of David his father" situates his reign within the ongoing drama of covenantal fidelity that culminates in the Incarnation. St. Augustine, in The City of God (Book XVII), reads the Davidic kings typologically: their faithfulness or infidelity narrates the spiritual condition of the people of God and anticipates the eternal King who will reign without deviation.
The Formation of a King. The Church's teaching on human dignity and vocation recognizes that God calls people from their youth. The Catechism affirms that "from childhood" the human person can be drawn toward the good (CCC 1804, on virtue as habitual disposition). Josiah's early ascent to kingship, despite his disastrous paternal inheritance, illustrates the Catholic principle that grace is not determined by genealogy or environment — it is a divine gift that can reorient even the most compromised of situations.
The Virtue of Prudence and the Straight Path. St. Thomas Aquinas identifies prudence as the charioteer of virtues (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 47), the capacity to discern and pursue the right course of action. Josiah's "not turning right or left" is a narrative portrait of prudence in royal action — not impulsive, not swayed by pressure, but steadily ordered toward the good. Pope St. John Paul II, in Veritatis Splendor (§64), speaks of the narrow path of moral truth as the path of authentic freedom. Josiah's straight walk is an Old Testament icon of that same truth.
Josiah became king at eight years old, surrounded by a court shaped by his grandfather's idolatries and his father's murder. He had every sociological reason to continue the pattern — and yet he did not. For contemporary Catholics, this passage challenges the quiet fatalism that can creep into spiritual life: the assumption that family dysfunction, cultural pressure, or a disordered past determines one's spiritual future. It does not.
The phrase "did not turn to the right or to the left" is especially arresting in an age of algorithmic distraction and ideological polarization. Catholics today are constantly pulled — toward political tribe, toward comfort, toward compromise. Josiah's portrait invites a concrete examination of conscience: In my daily choices, am I walking the straight path of covenant fidelity, or am I drifting, a little to the right one week and a little to the left the next?
For parents, catechists, and godparents, the note about Jedidah — the quietly faithful mother from a small Judean town — is a reminder that maternal and familial witness plants seeds that outlast apostasy. You may not see the fruit. Josiah's mother likely lived through Amon's idolatrous reign. She planted anyway.
Commentary
Verse 1 — The young king and his lineage
Josiah begins his reign at eight years old, a detail that is far from incidental. The narrator records his age with precision because it underscores a striking theological point: genuine reform and fidelity to God can begin in the youngest and most unlikely of vessels. Josiah's father, Amon, had been assassinated after only two years on the throne (2 Kgs 21:23), and his grandfather Manasseh had presided over arguably the most idolatrous reign in Judah's history (2 Kgs 21:1–18). To become king at eight, in a court steeped in apostasy and political violence, is to inherit an almost impossible spiritual situation. Yet it is precisely from this wreckage that one of Judah's greatest reformers will emerge.
His reign of thirty-one years (c. 640–609 BC) is the longest of any king since Hezekiah, and it will be filled with covenantal renewal, the discovery of the Book of the Law, the destruction of high places, and the restoration of Passover. The narrator thus uses verse 1 as a frame — the span of time within which all this redemptive activity will occur.
The mention of Josiah's mother, Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath, is not mere genealogical filler. In the ancient Near East, the queen mother (gebirah) held a position of honor and influence in the royal court, a detail well attested throughout Kings (cf. 1 Kgs 2:19; 15:13). To name her is to acknowledge the maternal formation that shaped Josiah's character. Bozkath was a town in the Shephelah of Judah (Josh 15:39), an unremarkable location — a quiet, provincial origin for the woman whose son would shake a kingdom. Catholic tradition has long recognized the spiritual gravity of maternal influence on a child's faith, and this genealogical note invites reflection on that theme.
Verse 2 — The moral portrait: walking straight
Verse 2 delivers the narrator's evaluative verdict, which in the books of Kings functions almost as a theological report card for each monarch. Josiah receives the highest possible mark: he "did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh." This formula appears throughout Kings, but here it is amplified by three additional qualifiers that are unique in their cumulative weight:
"He walked in all the ways of David his father" — This is the Davidic standard, the benchmark against which every king of Judah is measured. To invoke David here is not merely genealogical; it is covenantal. David was the king after God's own heart (1 Sam 13:14), and the covenant with his house (2 Sam 7) is the theological backbone of the entire Davidic monarchy. Josiah is being presented as the faithful heir to that covenant.