In Second Kings, chapter twenty-two, verse nineteen, Josiah pleased God because he humbled himself before the Lord. The humbling oneself before God is a primary condition for renewal and receiving God’s grace. It involves believing that God’s judgments towards us are right and just by what we deserve: knowing that we, without His grace, are captives to sin and evil and that we are dependent upon Him for all good, as in Proverbs three, verse seven, Romans twelve, verse three, and First Corinthians one, verse four, respectively. Having a contrite heart before God because of our spiritual poor condition, as in Psalms fifty-one, verse seventeen, Leviticus twenty-six, verses forty to forty-one, Numbers twelve, verse three, and Second Chronicles twelve, verses five to six, and Proverbs twenty-two, verse four, accordingly. They fear God’s Word with deep sincerity, as in verse eleven and Second Chronicles thirty-four, verses eighteen to nineteen.
Here are four tokens of true repentance and conversion to God in Josiah: The first is tenderness, or softness of heart, in opposition to that hardness which arises from the unbelief of God’s declarations and threatenings: he trembled at God’s word: he was grieved for the dishonor done to God by the sins of the people: and he was afraid of the judgments of God, which he saw coming on Jerusalem. This is tenderness of heart; and proceeded in Josiah from his faith in God’s word. The second is great humility: he abased himself before the divine majesty, conscious of his own sinfulness and guilt before God, and unworthy of the goodness God had shown him. These two qualities were internal. The two others were outward tokens of this inward sense of things; namely, rending his clothes, and weeping before God, for his own and public offenses, followed by all possible endeavors to effect a reformation in the people.