2 Kings 23:30

25-30 Upon reading these verses, we must say, Lord, though thy righteousness be as the great mountains, evident, plainly to be seen, and past dispute; yet thy judgments are a great deep, unfathomable, and past finding out. The reforming king is cut off in the midst of his usefulness, in mercy to him, that he might not see the evil coming upon his kingdom: but in wrath to his people, for his death was an inlet to their desolations....

Verse 30. _DEAD FROM MEGIDDO_] The word מת _meth_ should here be considered as a participle, _dying_, for it is certain he was not _dead_: he was _mortally wounded_ at Megiddo, was carried in a _dying_ _state_ to Jerusalem, and _there_ he _died_ and was buried. See 2 Chronicles 35:24. _Herodotus_, lib. i., c. 17, 18, 25, and lib. ii. 159, appears to refer to the same war which is here mentioned. He says that Nechoh, in the _sixth_ year of his reign, went to attack the king of Assyria at _Magdolum_, gained a complete victory, and took _Cadytis_. Usher and others believe that _Magdolum_ and _Megiddo_ were the same place. The exact place of the battle seems to have been _Hadadrimmon_, in the valley of Megiddo, for there Zechariah tells us...

DEAD - It appears from a comparison of this passage with 2 Chronicles (marginal reference) that Josiah was not actually killed in the battle. JEHOAHAZ - Or Shallum (the marginal note). He may have taken the name of Jehoahaz (“the Lord possesses”) on his accession. He was not the eldest son of Josiah (see 2 Kings 23:36 note). The mention of “anointing” here favors the view that there was some irregularity in the succession (see 1 Kings 1:34 note)....

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 23:1 JOSIAH'S RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT. HIS REFORMS AND DEATH. REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ. ACCESSION OF JEHOIAKIM. 2 KINGS 23:1 _Josiah_'_s renewal of the covenant_._ _The first care of Josiah, on receiving Huldah's message, which stamped the book found as the true "book of the covenant," was to call together a great assembly of the nation, which should be sufficiently representative of it, and renew the covenant between God and his people made originally a

AND HIS SERVANTS CARRIED HIM IN A CHARIOT DEAD FROM MEGIDDO,.... They took him out of the chariot in which he was wounded, and put him into another, where he died of his wounds by the way; being mortally wounded, he is said to be dead, or a dead man, see 2 Chronicles 35:24 AND BROUGHT HIM TO JERUSALEM; which, according to Bunting b, was forty four miles from Megiddo: AND BURIED HIM IN HIS OWN SEPULCHRE; which either he had provided for himself in his lifetime, or which in common belonged to the kings of Judah, see 2 Chronicles 35:24 AND THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND TOOK JEHOAHAZ THE SON OF JOSIAH, AND ANOINTED HIM, AND MADE HIM KING IN HIS FATHER'S STEAD; though he was not the eldest son, Jehoiakim, who was afterwards placed in hi

2. THE RESULTS OF THE REVIVAL AND THE DEATH OF JOSIAH CHAPTER 23:1-30 _ 1. The People hear the law (2 Kings 23:1; 2 Chronicles 34)_ 2. Josiah makes a covenant (2 Kings 23:3) 3. The great reformations (2 Kings 23:4) 4. The Passover celebrated (2 Kings 23:21; 2 Chronicles 35) 5. Further statements concerning Josiah (2 Kings 23:24

Celebration of the Passover. The mention of the eighteenth year (2 Kings 23:23; cf. 2 Kings 22:3) shows that the reforms of Josiah occupied six months. The book was discovered in the first month of the civil year, in autumn. It was read (_cf._ Deuteronomy 31:10) at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Passover contemplated in Deuteronomy 16:6 was celebrated in the central sanctuary. It was not the domestic feast of the Priestly Code (Exodus 12), but a general assembly of the nation. In 2 Chronicles 30 Hezekiah is said to have kept a similar feast, but this is denied in...

BURIED HIM. For the sorrow attending this, see 2 Chronicles 35:25....

_carried him_in a chariot] The italics are wrong as also in 2 Kings 9:28. The verb signifies -to carry in a chariot". The R.V. prints in common type. According to the Chronicler, they moved him from his war chariot into a second chariot which he had at hand. From Zechariah 12:11 -As the mourning of Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo" it has been supposed that Josiah did not die till he reached Hadad-Rimmon, and that the mourning there mentioned by the prophet was for this good king's death. The Chronicler dwells at length on the sorrow which this event caused. -Jeremiah lamented for him, and all the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations unto this day". Some have thought that the lamentation here spoken of is preserved to us in the poem contained in...

I. THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF JOSIAH 23:28-30 TRANSLATION (28) Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? (29) In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up on behalf of the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. And King Josiah went to confront him, and he killed him in Megiddo when he had seen him. (30) And his servants brought him in a chariot as he was dying from Megiddo; and they brought him to Jerusalem and they buried him in his sepulcher. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him king in place of his father. COMMENTS Much more information about Josiah was contained in the prophetic annals of Judah (2 Kings 23:28). This king was remembered by his people for his goodness rather than his greatness. No mention is made of his might. The Chro