1Joziáš usporiadal v Jeruzaleme paschu Hospodinovi. Paschálneho baránka zabíjali štrnásty deň v prvom mesiaci. 2Určil kňazov na ich povinnosti a povzbudzoval ich k službe v dome Hospodinovom. 3Levítom, ktorí vyučovali celý Izrael a boli svätí Hospodinovi, prikázal: Uložte svätú truhlu do domu, ktorý vybudoval Šalamún, syn Dávidov, kráľ Izraela. Nemusíte ju už nosiť na pleciach. Slúžte teraz Hospodinovi, svojmu Bohu, a Jeho ľudu, Izraelu! 4Pripravte sa po rodinách, vo svojich oddieloch, podľa predpisu izraelského kráľa Dávida a podľa predpisu jeho syna Šalamúna. 5Postavte sa do svätyne podľa rodinných skupín ku svojim bratom z ľudu, a to pre každú skupinu jedno oddelenie levítskej rodiny. 6Zabíjajte paschálneho baránka! Posväťte sa a pripravte to svojim bratom, aby sa to dialo podľa slova Hospodinovho, daného prostredníctvom Mojžiša. 7Joziáš daroval pre pospolitý ľud drobný statok: ovce a kozľatá. To všetko, v počte tridsaťtisíc oviec a tritisíc kusov dobytka, slúžilo za paschu pre všetkých prítomných. To bolo z kráľovho majetku. 8Jeho hodnostári tiež prispeli milodarom pre ľud, kňazov a lévítov. Chilkija, Zecharja a Jechíél, kniežatá domu Božieho, dali kňazom na paschu dvetisícšesťsto oviec a tristo kusov dobytka. 9Konanja, Šemaja a Netaneél, jeho bratia, Chašabja, Jeíél a Józábád, lévíjskí hodnostári, darovali na paschu levítom päťtisíc oviec a päť sto kusov dobytka. 10Tak bola zriadená služba. Kňazi nastúpili na svoje miesto a levíti do svojich oddielov podľa kráľovho príkazu. 11Potom zabíjali paschálnych baránkov; kňazi kropili krvou a levíti sťahovali kože. 12Spaľovanú obeť však položili nabok, aby ju odovzdali rodinným skupinám ľudu na obetovanie Hospodinovi, ako je to napísané v knihe Mojžišovej. Tak urobili i s dobytkom. 13Paschálneho baránka piekli podľa predpisu na ohni. Zasvätené dary však varili na ohni v hrncoch, kotlíkoch a panviciach a rýchlo roznášali všetkému pospolitému ľudu. 14Potom pripravili sebe a kňazom; pretože kňazi - Áronovci boli zamestnaní obetovaním spaľovaných obetí a tuku až do noci, pripravili levíti baránka sebe i kňazom - Áronovcom. 15Speváci Ásáfovci boli na svojom mieste podľa nariadenia Dávida, Ásáfa, Hémána a Jedútúna, kráľovho vidca, ako i vrátnici pri jednotlivých bránach. Nemuseli sa vzdialiť zo služby, lebo ich bratia levíti im pripravili baránka. 16V ten deň bola zriadená celá služba Hospodinova svätením paschy a prinášaním spaľovaných obetí na oltári Hospodinovom podľa nariadenia kráľa Joziáša. 17Prítomní Izraelci svätili v tom čase paschu a sviatok nekvasených chlebov sedem dní. 18Podobná pascha sa v Izraeli nesvätila od čias proroka Samuela. A nijaký izraelský kráľ nesvätil takú paschu, akú svätil Joziáš, kňazi, levíti, celé Judsko, prítomní Izraelci a obyvatelia Jeruzalema. 19Táto pascha sa svätila v osemnástom roku Joziášovej vlády. 20Po všetkom tom, po úprave chrámu, pritiahol egyptský kráľ Necho bojovať pri Karkemiši nad Eufratom. Joziáš vyšiel proti nemu. 21Necho však vyslal k nemu poslov s odkazom: Čo my máme medzi sebou, judský kráľ? Dnes netiahnem proti tebe, ale proti domu, s ktorým vediem vojnu, a Boh prikázal, aby som sa ponáhľal. Prestaň sa vzpierať Bohu, ktorý je so mnou, aby ťa nezničil. 22Joziáš sa však neodvrátil od neho, ale odvážil sa proti nemu bojovať. Neposlúchol Nechove slová, hoci boli od Boha, ale prišiel bojovať na Megidskú rovinu. 23Strelci však zasiahli kráľa Joziáša a on prikázal svojim služobníkom: Odveďte ma, lebo som ťažko ranený! 24Sluhovia ho vyniesli z voza, preložili na jeho druhý voz a dopravili do Jeruzalema, kde zomrel. Pochovaný bol v otcovských hroboch. Celé Judsko a Jeruzalem trúchlili za Joziášom. 25Jeremiáš zložil o ňom trúchlospev a až podnes všetci speváci a speváčky spievajú vo svojich trúchlospevoch o Joziášovi. Bolo to pravidlom pre Izrael. Hľa, poznačené sú v Žalospevoch. 26Ostatné Joziášove činy, jeho zbožné skutky, ako sú predpísané v zákone Hospodinovom, 27jeho skoršie i ne skoršie činy, sú zaznačené v Knihe izraelských a judských kráľov.
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary 1 The destruction which Josiah made of idols and idolatry was more largely related in the
Kings, but just mentioned here in the foregoing chapter (v. 33); but his solemnizing the passover, which was touched upon there (
2Kgs 23:21), is very particularly related here. Many were the feasts of the Lord, appointed by the ceremonial law, but the passover was the chief. It
began them all in the night wherein Israel came out of Egypt; it
concluded them all in the night wherein Christ was betrayed; and in the celebration of it Hezekiah and Josiah, those two great reformers, revived religion in their day. The ordinance of the Lord's supper resembles the passover more than it does any of the Jewish festivals; and the due observance of that ordinance, according to the rule, is an instance and means both of the growing purity and beauty of churches and of the growing piety and devotion of particular Christians. Religion cannot flourish where that passover is either wholly neglected or not duly observed; return to that, revive that, make a solemn business of that affecting binding ordinance, and then, it is to be hoped, there will be a reformation in other instances also.
In the account we had of Hezekiah's passover the great zeal of the people was observable, and the transport of devout affection that they were in; but little of the same spirit appears here. It was more in compliance with the king that they all kept the passover (
2Chr 35:17,
2Chr 35:18) than from any great inclination they had to it themselves. Some pride they took in this form of godliness, but little pleasure in the power of it. But, whatever defect there was among the people in the spirit of the duty, both the magistrates and the ministers did their part and took care that the external part of the service should be performed with due solemnity.
I. The king exhorted and directed, quickened and encouraged, the priests and Levites to do their office in this solemnity. Perhaps he saw them remiss and indifferent, unwilling to go out of their road or mend their pace. If ministers are so, it is not amiss for any, but most proper for magistrates, to stir them up to their business. Say to Archippus,
Take heed to thy ministry, Colos 4:17. Let us see how this good king managed his clergy upon this occasion. 1. He reduced them to the office they were appointed to by the law of Moses (
2Chr 35:6) and the order they were put into by David and Solomon,
2Chr 35:4.
He set them in their charge, 2Chr 35:2. He did not cut them out new work, nor put them into any new method, but called them back to their institution. Their courses were settled in writing; let them have recourse to that writing, and marshal themselves according to the
divisions of their families, 2Chr 35:5. Our rule is settled in the written word; let magistrates take care that ministers walk according to that rule and they do their duty. 2. He ordered the ark to be put in its place. It should seem, it had of late been displaced, either by the wicked kings, to make room for their idols in the most holy place, or by Hezekiah, to make room for the workmen that repaired the temple. However it was, Josiah bids the
Levites put the ark in the house (
2Chr 35:3), and not carry it about from place to place, as perhaps of late they had done, justifying themselves therein by the practice before the temple was built. Now that the priests were discharged from this burden of the ark they must be careful in other services about it. 3. He charged them to
serve God and his people Israel, 2Chr 35:3. Ministers must look upon themselves as servants both to Christ and to his church for his sake,
2Cor 4:5. They must take care, and take pains, and lay out themselves to the utmost, (1.) For the glory and honour of God, and to advance the interests of his kingdom among men. Paul,
a servant of God, Titus 1:1. (2.) For the welfare and benefit of his people, not as having dominion over their faith, but as helpers of their holiness and joy; and there will be no difficulty, in the strength of God, in honestly serving these two masters. 4. He charged them to
sanctify themselves, and
prepare their brethren, 2Chr 35:6. Ministers' work must begin at home, and they must sanctify themselves in the first place, purify themselves from sin, sequester themselves from the world, and devote themselves to God. But it must not end there; they must do what they can to
prepare their brethren by admonishing, instructing, exhorting, quickening, and comforting, them.
The preparation of the heart is indeed
from the Lord; but ministers must be instruments in his hand. 5. He
encouraged them to the service, 2Chr 35:2. He spoke comfortably to them, as Hezekiah did,
2Chr 30:22. He promised them his countenance. Note, Those whom we charge we should encourage. Most people love to be commended, and will be wrought upon by encouragements more than by threats.
II. The king and the princes, influenced by his example, gave liberally for the bearing of the charges of this passover. The ceremonial services were expensive, which perhaps was one reason why they had been neglected. People had not zeal enough to be at the charge of them; nor were they now very fond of them, for that reason, and therefore, 1. Josiah, at his own proper cost, furnished the congregation with paschal lambs, and other sacrifices, to be offered during the seven days of the feast. He allowed out of his own estate 30,000
lambs for
passover offerings, which the offerers were to feast upon, and 3000 bullocks (
2Chr 35:7) to be offered during the following seven days. Note, Those who are serious in religion should, when they persuade others to do that which is good, make it as cheap and easy to them as may be. And where God sows plentifully he expects to reap accordingly. It is to be feared that the congregation generally had not come provided; so that, if Josiah had not furnished them, the work of God must have stood still. 2. The chief of the priests, who were men of great estates, contributed towards the priests' charges, as Josiah did towards the people's.
The princes (
2Chr 35:8), that is, the chief of the priests, the princes of the holy tribe,
rulers of the house of God, bore the priests' charges. And some of the rich and great men of the Levites furnished them also with cattle, both great and small, for offerings,
2Chr 35:9. For, as to those that sincerely desire to be found in the way of their duty, Providence sometimes raises up friends to bear them out in it, beyond what they could have expected.
III. The priests and Levites performed their office very readily,
2Chr 35:10. They killed the paschal lambs in the court of the temple, the priests sprinkled the blood upon the altar, the Levites flayed them, and then gave the flesh to the people according to their families (
2Chr 35:11,
2Chr 35:12), not fewer than ten, nor more than twenty, to a lamb. They took it to their several apartments, roasted it, and ate it
according to the ordinance, 2Chr 35:13. As for the other sacrifices that were eucharistical, the flesh of them was boiled according to the law of the peace-offerings and was
divided speedily among the people, that they might feast upon it as a token of their joy in the atonement made and their reconciliation to God thereby. And,
lastly, The priests and Levites took care to honour God by
eating of the passover themselves,
2Chr 35:14. Let not ministers think that the care they take for the souls of others will excuse their neglect of their own, or that being employed so much in public worship will supersede the religious exercises of their closets and families. The Levites here mace ready for themselves and for the priests, because the priests were wholly taken up all day in the service of the altar; therefore, that they might not have their lamb to dress when they should eat it, the Levites got it ready for them against supper time. Let ministers learn hence to help one another, and to forward one another's work, as brethren, and fellow-servants of the same Master.
IV. The singers and porters attended in their places, and did their office,
2Chr 35:15. The singers with their sacred songs and music expressed and excited the joy of the congregation, and made the service very pleasant to them; and the porters at the gates took care that there should be no breaking in of any thing to defile or disquiet the assembly, nor going out of any from it, that none should steal away till the service was done. While they were thus employed their brethren the Levites prepared paschal lambs for them.
V. The whole solemnity was performed with great exactness, according to the law (
2Chr 35:16,
2Chr 35:17), and, upon that account, there was none like it since Samuel's time (
2Chr 35:18), for in Hezekiah's passover there were several irregularities. And bishop Patrick observes that in this also it exceeded the other passovers which the preceding kings had kept, that though Josiah was by no means so rich as David, and Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, yet he furnished the whole congregation with beasts for sacrifice, both paschal and eucharistical, at his own proper cost and charge, which was more than any king ever did before him.
20 It was thirteen years from Josiah's famous passover to his death. During this time, we may hope, thing went well in his kingdom, that he prospered, and religion flourished; yet we are not entertained with the pleasing account of those years, but they are passed over in silence, because the people, for all this, were not turned from the love of their sins nor God from the fierceness of his anger. The next news therefore we hear of Josiah is that he is cut off in the midst of his days and usefulness, before he is full forty years old. We had this sad story,
2Kgs 23:29,
2Kgs 23:30. Here it is somewhat more largely related. That appears here, more than did there, which reflects such blame on Josiah and such praise on the people as one would not have expected.
I. Josiah was a very good prince, yet he was much to be blamed for his rashness and presumption in going out to war against the king of Egypt without cause or call. It was bad enough, as it appeared in the
Kings, that he meddled with strife which belonged not to him. But here it looks worse; for, it seems, the king of Egypt sent ambassadors to him, to warn him against this enterprise,
2Chr 35:21.
1. The king of Egypt argued with Josiah, (1.) From principles of justice. He professed that he had no desire to do him any hurt, and therefore it was unfair, against common equity and the law of nations, for Josiah to take up arms against him. If even a
righteous man engage in an
unrighteous cause, let him not expect to prosper.
God is no respecter of persons. See
Prov 3:30;
Prov 25:8. (2.) From principles of religion:
God is with me; nay,
He commanded me to make haste, and therefore, if thou retard my motions, thou meddlest with God. It cannot be that the king of Egypt only pretended this (as Sennacherib did in a like case,
2Kgs 18:25), hoping thereby to make Josiah desist, because he knew he had a veneration for the word of God; for it is said here (
2Chr 35:22) that the words of Necho were from the mouth of God. We must therefore suppose that either by a dream, or by a strong impulse upon his spirit which he had reason to think was from God, or by Jeremiah or some other prophet, he had ordered him to make war upon the king of Assyria. (3.) From principles of policy:
That he destroy thee not; it is at thy peril if thou engage against one that has not only a better army and a better cause, but God on his side.
2. It was not in wrath to Josiah, whose heart was upright with the Lord his God, but in wrath to a hypocritical nation, who were unworthy of so good a king, that he was so far infatuated as not to hearken to these fair reasonings and desist from his enterprise. He
would not turn his face from him, but went in person and fought the Egyptian army in the
valley of Megiddo, 2Chr 35:22. If perhaps he could not believe that the king of Egypt had a command from God to do what he did, yet, upon his pleading such a command, he ought to have consulted the oracles of God before he went out against him. His not doing that was his great fault, and of fatal consequence. In this matter he walked not in the ways of David his father; for, had it been his case, he would have enquired of the Lord,
Shall I go up? Wilt thou deliver them into my hands? How can we think to prosper in our ways if we do not acknowledge God in them?
II. The people were a very wicked people, yet they were much to be commended for lamenting the death of Josiah as they did. That Jeremiah lamented him I do not wonder; he was the weeping prophet, and plainly foresaw the utter ruin of his country following upon the death of this good king. But it is strange to find that all Judah and Jerusalem, that stupid senseless people,
mourned for him (
2Chr 35:24), contrived how to have their mourning excited by singing men and singing women, how to have it spread through the kingdom (they made an ordinance in Israel that the mournful ditties penned on this sad occasion should be learned and sung by all sorts of people), and also how to have the remembrance of it perpetuated: these elegies were inserted in the collections of state poems; they are written in the Lamentations. Hereby it appeared, 1. That they had some respect to their good prince, and that, though they did not cordially comply with him in all his good designs, they could not but greatly honour him. Pious useful men will be manifested in the consciences even of those that will not be influenced by their example; and many that will not submit to the rules of serious godliness themselves yet cannot but give it their good word and esteem it in others. Perhaps those lamented Josiah when he was dead that were not thankful to God for him while he lived. The Israelites murmured at Moses and Aaron while they were with them and spoke sometimes of stoning them, and yet, when they died, they mourned for them many days. We are often taught to value mercies by the loss of them which, when we enjoyed them, we did not prize as we ought. 2. That they had some sense of their own danger now that he was gone. Jeremiah told them, it is likely, of the evil they might now expect to come upon them, from which he was taken away; and so far they credited what he said that they lamented the death of him that was their defence. Note, Many will more easily be persuaded to lament the miseries that are coming upon them than to take the proper way by universal reformation to prevent them, will shed tears for their troubles, but will not be prevailed upon to part with their sins. But godly sorrow worketh repentance and that repentance will be to salvation.