Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Chronicles · About this commentary
The Passover Josiah Kept
2 Chronicles 35:1-19
1 Josiah kept a Passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem. They killed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. · WEB
The greatest Passover since the judges is organized so that the men who serve are themselves served, and the ark is set down for good.
The instruction to the Levites contains a sentence that closes a chapter of Israel's history. Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon... built. It will no longer be a burden on your shoulders 2 Chronicles 35:3.
The tribe's oldest duty had been to carry the holy things, and the ark had been moved often enough that carrying it was still a live expectation. Hezekiah's grandfather's generation had seen it moved. Josiah tells them to put it down and leave it, and reassigns them: now serve Yahweh your God and his people Israel. The same retirement David had announced two centuries earlier 1 Chronicles 23:26 is announced again, because in the interval the ark had evidently been moved out.
The organization that follows is exact about who provides what. Josiah gives thirty thousand lambs and goats and three thousand bulls of the king's substance 2 Chronicles 35:7. His officials give to the priests and Levites. The chiefs of the Levites give to the Levites 2 Chronicles 35:8–9. Every level supplies the level below it, and the king's contribution is from his own property rather than from the treasury.
The divisions are set according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son 2 Chronicles 35:4, and the killing and offering are done as it is written in the book of Moses 2 Chronicles 35:12. The book found four verses earlier is already governing the practice.
What distinguishes the day is the arrangement for the servers. The priests are at the altar until night, so the Levites prepare the meal for themselves and for the priests as well 2 Chronicles 35:14. The singers stay at their posts and the gatekeepers at the gates, and they didn't need to depart from their service, because their brothers the Levites prepared for them 2 Chronicles 35:15.
Nobody has to leave his station to eat. The men whose work is invisible — a doorkeeper at a gate, a singer in the court — have their portion carried to them, and the whole logistics of the feast is bent to make that possible. The offerings are carried quickly to the people 2 Chronicles 35:13, and the same haste is applied to the staff.
The assessment is the strongest in the book. There was no Passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet 2 Chronicles 35:18 — which reaches back past Hezekiah, past Solomon, past the monarchy itself.
And the date is given last, in a verse of its own: the eighteenth year 2 Chronicles 35:19. The same year the book was found, the money counted, the covenant made and the country cleared. Everything in this reign happens in one year, and the thirteen that follow are silent.
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