2 Kings 23:25 → Deuteronomy 6:5

The narrator's epitaph for Josiah is the most exact OT echo of the Shema's love-command: he "turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength (bəkol ləbābô ûbəkol napšô ûbəkol məʾōdô), according to all the Law of Moses." This is the only place in the OT where all three Deut 6:5 terms — heart, soul, strength (məʾōd) — are predicated of a single human being, deliberately reproducing the Shema's full triad to crown Josiah as the Deuteronomistic ideal king. Yet the verse stands inside a tragedy: "Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him" — and still it was not enough to turn away the LORD's wrath (23:26). The most Shema-faithful king in Israel's history could not save his nation. The connection thus does double work: it shows the Shema as the canonical measuring rod of kingly faithfulness, and it exposes the insufficiency of even exemplary obedience. The telos: Josiah's whole-hearted turning is a true but unrepeatable foreshadowing that points past itself to the King who not only loved the LORD with all but bore the wrath Josiah's righteousness could not avert — Jesus, the better Josiah, whose obedience does what the best human love could not.