God blessed Josiah because he was obedient to His Word. We read, "Like unto him was there no king before him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to the law of Moses; neither after him arose any like him," 2 Kings 23:25.
I wish we did not have to tell about the one thing in which Josiah disobeyed Him but we cannot leave out what God has put in His Word for our learning. There were two countries with great armies tin that day, Egypt and Assyria. They were enemies and often fought with each other.
The land of Israel was between them so that they sometimes marched through Israel going to and from their battles. One time the King of Egypt with his army started toward Assyria and came through the land of Israel. Josiah wanted to fight with the Egyptians, and he got his army ready to go out to meet them.
The Egyptian king sent a message to Josiah. He said, "I do not want to fight with you. My enemy is Assyria, and I am going to fight with them. God has commanded me to fight with them and to do it quickly. Do not meddle with what God is doing, or He will destroy you."
This was a message from God to Josiah, even though it came from a heathen king. God was using the Egyptian king to fulfill His purposes in destroying the Assyrians. But Josiah would not listen to this message. He wanted to fight the king of Egypt, and in this one thing he was not willing to listen to the voice of God.
He disguised himself as an ordinary soldier and went with his army into the battle. There he was wounded by one of the Egyptian archers. His servants drove him back to Jerusalem in a chariot. There he died.
All the people mourned for him. Jeremiah, the prophet, mourned because of his death. He was only thirty nine. If he had listened to the voice of God in this one thing, he might have lived to rule his people for many years. But the Bible says there was no king like him, because he believed God's Word and obeyed it in every other matter.
