CHAPTER XXXV _Josiah celebrates a passover_, 1; _regulates the courses of the priests; assigns them, the_ _Levites, and the people, their portions; and completes the_ _greatest passover ever celebrated since the days of Solomon_, 2-19. _Pharaoh Necho passes with his army through Judea_, 20. _... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:3. _PUT THE HOLY ARK IN THE HOUSE_] It is likely that the priests had secured this when they found that the idolatrous kings were determined to destroy every thing that might lead the people to the worship of the true God. And now, as all appears to be well established, the ark... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:11. _THEY KILLED THE PASSOVER_] The _people_ themselves might slay their own paschal lambs, and then present the _blood_ to the _priests_, that they might _sprinkle_ it before the altar; and the _Levites_ flayed them, and made them ready for dressing.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:18. _THERE WAS NO PASSOVER LIKE TO THAT_] "That which distinguished this passover from all the former was," says Calmet, "the great liberality of Josiah, who distributed to his people a greater number of victims than either David or Solomon had done.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:20. _NECHO KING OF EGYPT_] _Pharaoh the lame_, says the _Targum_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:21. _GOD COMMANDED ME TO MAKE HASTE_] The _Targum_ gives a curious turn to this and the following verse: "My idol commanded me to make haste; refrain therefore from me and my idol which is with me, that he betray thee not. When he heard him mention his idol, he would not go bac... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:24. _THE SECOND CHARIOT_] Perhaps this means no more than that they took Josiah out of his own chariot and put him into another, either for _secrecy_, or because his own had been _disabled_. The chariot into which he was put might have been that of the _officer_ or _aid-de-camp... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:25. _BEHOLD, THEY_ ARE _WRITTEN IN THE LAMENTATIONS._] The Hebrews had _poetical compositions_ for all great and important events, _military_ songs, songs of _triumph, epithalamia_ or _marriage_ _odes, funeral elegies_, c. Several of these are preserved in different parts of th... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse 2 Chronicles 35:27. _AND HIS DEEDS, FIRST AND LAST_] "The former things which he did in his childhood, and the latter things which he did in his youth; and all the judgments which he pronounced from his _eighth_ year, when he came to the kingdom, to his _eighteenth_, when he was grown up, and... [ Continue Reading ]