Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

The solemnization of the passover. - To ratify the renewal of the covenant, and to confirm the people in the communion with the Lord into which it had entered by the making of the covenant, Josiah, immediately after the finding of the book of the law and the renewal of the covenant, appointed a solemn passover to be held at the legal time, which is only briefly mentioned in Kg2 23:21-23, but in the Chronicle is minutely described. Ch2 35:1 Ch2 35:1 contains the superscription-like statement, that Josiah held a passover to the Lord; and they held the passover in the 14th day of the first month, consequently at the time fixed in the law. It happened otherwise under Hezekiah (Ch2 30:2, Ch2 30:13, and Ch2 30:15). With Ch2 35:2 commences the description of the festival: and first we have the preparations, the appointment of the priests and Levites to perform the various services connected with the festival (Ch2 35:2-6), and the procuring of the necessary beasts for sacrifice (Ch2 35:10-15); then the offering of the sacrifices and the preparation of the meals (Ch2 35:10-15); and finally the characterization of the whole festival (Ch2 35:16-19). Ch2 35:2 He appointed the priests according to their guards or posts, i.e., according to the service incumbent upon each division, and "he strengthened them for the service of the house of Jahve," namely, by encouraging speech, and by teaching as to the duties devolving upon them, according to the provisions of the law. Cf. the summons of Hezekiah, Ch2 29:5.; and as to the יחזּק, Neh 2:18. Ch2 35:3-4 The Levites are designated "those teaching all Israel, those holy to the Lord," in reference to what is commanded them in the succeeding verses. The Keth. מבונים does not elsewhere occur, and must be regarded as a substantive: the teachers; but it is probably only an orthographical error for מבינים (Neh 8:7), as the Keri demands here also. As to the fact, cf. Ch2 17:8. The Levites had to teach the people in the law. Josiah said to them, "Set the ark in the house which Solomon did build; not is to you to bear upon the shoulder;" i.e., ye have not any longer to bear it on your shoulders, as formerly on the journey through the wilderness, and indeed till the building of the temple, when the ark and the tabernacle had not yet any fixed resting-place (Ch1 17:5). The summons וגו את־ערון וּ תּן is variously interpreted. Several Rabbins regard it as a command to remove the ark from its place in the most holy place into some subterranean chamber of the temple, so as to secure its safety in the event of the threatened destruction of the temple taking place. But this hypothesis needs no refutation, since it in no way corresponds to the words used. Most ancient and modern commentators, on the other hand, suppose that the holy ark had, during the reigns of the godless Manasseh and Amon, either been removed by them from its place, or taken away from the most holy place, from a desire to protect it from profanation, and hidden somewhere; and that Josiah calls upon the Levites to bring it back again to its place. Certainly this idea is favoured by the circumstance that, just as the book of the law, which should have been preserved in the ark of the covenant, had been lost, and was only recovered when the temple was being repaired, so the ark also may have been removed from its place. But even in that case the sacred ark would have been brought back to its place, according to the law, at the completion of the purification of the temple, before the king and people made the covenant with Jahve, after the law had been read to them in the temple, and could not have remained in its hiding-place until the passover. Still less probable is Bertheau's conjecture, "that the Levites bore the just reconsecrated ark upon their shoulders at the celebration of the passover, under the idea that they were bound by the law to do so; but Josiah taught them that the temple built by Solomon had caused an alteration in that respect. They were no longer bearers of the ark; they might set it in its place, and undertake other duties." For the idea that the Levites bore the ark at the celebration of the passover is utterly inconsistent with the context, since Ch2 35:3-6 do not treat of what was done at the passover, but merely of that which was to be done. But even if we were to alter "they bare" into "they wished to bear," yet there is no historic ground for the idea attributed by Bertheau to the Levites, that at the celebration of the passover the ark was to be brought forth from the most holy place, and carried in procession in the temple courts or elsewhere. Finally, the reasons stated for the call, וגו תּנוּ, cannot be made to harmonize with the two views above mentioned. If it was only the bringing back of the ark to its ancient place in the most holy place which is here spoken of, why are the words "which Solomon built" added after בּבּית; and why is the command based upon the statement, "Ye have not to carry it any more upon your shoulders, but are to serve the Lord your God and His people in another way"? Both the additional clause and these reasons for the command show clearly that Josiah, in the words וגו תּנוּ, did not command something which they were to do at the approaching passover, but merely introduces therewith the summons: "Serve now the Lord," etc. R. Sal. saw this, and has given the sense of the verse thus: quum non occupemini amplius ullo labore vasa sacra portandi, Deo servite et populo ejus mactando et excoriando agnos paschales v. 4ff. It therefore only remains to ascertain how this signification is consistent with the words בּבּית הק את־ארון תּנוּ. The exhortation, "Set the ark in the house," must certainly not be understood to mean, "Leave it in the place where it has hitherto stood," nor, "Bring the sacred ark back into the house;" for נתן with בּ does not mean to bring back, but only to place anywhere, set; and is here used not of material placing, but of mental. "Set the ark in the house" is equivalent to, "Overlook, leave it in the temple; you have not any longer, since Solomon built a house for it, to bear it upon your shoulders;" i.e., Think not on that which formerly, before the building of the temple, belonged to your service, but serve the Lord and His people now in the manner described in Ch2 35:4. The interpretation of the words as denoting a material setting or removing of the ark, is completely excluded by the facts, (1) that in the description of what the Levites did at the passover, "according to the command of the king," which follows (Ch2 35:10-15), not a word is said of the ark; and (2) that the bearing of the ark into the most holy place was not the duty of the Levites, but of the priests. The duty of the Levites was merely to bear the ark when it had to be transported for great distances, after the priests had previously wrapped it up in the prescribed manner. In Ch2 35:4-6 the matters in which they are to serve the Lord in the preparation of the passover are more fully stated. The Keth. הכונו is imper. Niphal, הכּונוּ, Make yourselves ready according to your fathers'-houses, in your divisions, according to the writing of David. בּ in בּכתב, as in בּמצות, Ch2 29:25; but כּתב does not = מצות, but is to be understood of writings, in which the arrangements made by David and Solomon in reference to the service of the Levites were recorded. Ch2 35:5 "Stand in the sanctuary for the divisions of the fathers'-houses of your brethren, the people of the nation, and indeed a part of a father's-house of the Levites;" i.e., Serve your brethren the laymen, according to their fathers'-houses, in the court of the temple, in such fashion that a division of the Levites shall fall to each father's-house of the laymen; cf. Ch2 35:12. So Bertheau correctly; but he would erase the ו before הלקּת without sufficient reason. Older commentators have supplied the preposition ל before הלקּת: Stand, according to the divisions of the fathers'-houses, and according to the division of a father's-house of the Levites; which gives the same sense, but can hardly be justified grammatically. Ch2 35:6 Kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare it (the passover) for your brethren (the laymen), doing according to the word of the Lord by Moses (i.e., according to the law of Moses). The sanctification mentioned between the killing and the preparation of the passover probably consisted only in this, that the Levites, after they had slain the lamb, had to wash themselves before they gave the blood to the priest to sprinkle upon the altar (cf. Ch2 35:11 and Ch2 30:16). As to the slaying of the lamb by the Levites, cf. the remarks on Ch2 30:16. Ch2 35:7-9 The bestowal of beasts for sacrifice on the part of the king and his princes. - Ch2 35:7. The king gave (ירם as in Ch2 30:24) to the sons of the people small cattle, viz., lambs and young goats, all for the passover-offerings, for all that were present, to the number of 30,000 (head), and 3000 bullocks from the possession of the king (cf. Ch2 31:3; Ch2 32:29). כּל־הנּמצא is all the people who were present, who had come to the feast from Jerusalem and the rest of Judah without having brought lambs for sacrifice. Ch2 35:8-9 And his princes (the king's princes, i.e., the princes of the kingdom) presented for a free-will offering to the people, the priests, and the Levites. לנדבה is not to be taken adverbially, as Berth. thinks: according to goodwill, but corresponds to the לפּסחים, i.e., for free-will offerings, Lev 7:16. The number of these gifts is not stated. From the princes of the king we must distinguish the prefects of the house of God and the princes of the Levites, who are mentioned by name in Ch2 35:8, Ch2 35:9. Of these the first presented sheep and cattle for passover-sacrifices to the priests, the latter to the Levites. Of the three נגידים of the house of God named in Ch2 35:8, Hilkiah is the high priest (Ch2 34:9), Zechariah perhaps the next to him (משׁנה כּהן, Kg2 25:18; Jer 52:24), and Jehiel is probably, as Berth. conjectures, the chief of the line of Ithamar, which continued to exist even after the exile (Ezr 8:2). Of the Levite princes (Ch2 35:9) six names are mentioned, three of which, Conaniah, Shemaiah, and Jozabad, are met with under Hezekiah in Ch2 31:12-15, since in the priestly and Levitic families the same names recur in different generations. The Conaniah in Hezekiah's time was chief overseer of the temple revenues; the two others were under overseers. Besides the פּסהים for which the king and the princes of the priests and of the Levites gave צאן, i.e., lambs and young goats, בּקר, oxen, in considerable numbers, are mentioned as presents; 3000 from the king, 300 from the princes of the priests, and 500 from the princes of the Levites. Nothing is said as to the purpose of these, but from Ch2 35:13 we learn that the flesh of them was cooked in pots and caldrons, and consequently that they were intended for the sacrificial meals during the seven days of the Mazzoth-feast; see on Ch2 35:12 and Ch2 35:13. Ch2 35:10-15 The preparation of the paschal sacrifice and the paschal meals. - Ch2 35:10 leads on to the carrying out of the arrangements. "So the service was prepared;" the preparation for the festival mentioned in Ch2 35:3-9 was carried out. The priests stood at their posts (cf. Ch2 30:16), and the Levites according to their courses, according to the command of the king (in Ch2 35:4 and Ch2 35:5). Ch2 35:11 And they (the Levites, cf. Ch2 35:6) slew the passover (the lambs and young goats presented for the passover meal), and the priests sprinkled (the blood of the paschal lambs) from their hand (i.e., which the Levites gave them), while the Levites flayed them; as also under Hezekiah, Ch2 30:17. Ch2 35:12 "And they took away the burnt-offerings, to give them to the divisions of the fathers'-houses of the sons of the people, to offer unto the Lord, as it is written in the book of Moses; and so also in regard to the oxen." הסיר signifies the taking off or separating of the pieces intended to be burnt upon the altar from the beasts slain for sacrifice, as in Lev 3:9., Lev 4:31. העלה, in this connection, can only signify the parts of the paschal lamb which were to be burnt upon the altar, viz., the same parts which were separated from sheep and goats when they were brought as thank-offerings and burnt upon the altar (Lev 3:6-16). These pieces are here called העלה, because they not only were wholly burnt like the burnt-offering, but also were burnt upon the flesh of the evening burnt-offering to God, for a savour of good pleasure; cf. Lev 3:11, Lev 3:16, with Lev 1:13. They cannot have been special burnt-offerings, which were burnt along with or at the same time with the fat of the paschal lambs; for there were no special festal burnt-offerings, besides the daily evening sacrifice, prescribed for the passover on the evening of the 14th Nisan; and the oxen given by the king and the princes for the passover are specially mentioned in the concluding clause of the verse, לבּקר וכן, so that they cannot have been included in העלה. The suffix in לתתּם might be referred to הפּסח: to give the paschal lambs, after the עלה had been separated from them, to the divisions of the people. But the following ליהוה להקריב does not harmonize with that interpretation; and the statement in Ch2 35:13, that the Levites gave the roasted and boiled flesh to the sons of the people, is still more inconsistent with it. We must consequently refer לתתּם to the immediately preceding noun, העלה: to give the parts separated from the paschal lambs to be burnt upon the altar to the divisions of the people, that they might offer them to the Lord. This can only mean that each division of the fathers'-houses of the people approached the altar in turn to give the portions set apart from the עלה to the priests, who then offered them on the fire of the altar to the Lord. On בס כּכּתוּב Gusset. has already rightly remarked: Lex Mosis hic allegatur non quasi omnia illa quae praecedunt, exprimerentur in ipsa, sed respective seu respectu eorum quae mandata erant; quibus salvis adjungi potuerunt quidam modi agendi innocui et commodi ad legis jussa exsequenda. לבּקר וכן, and so was it done also with the oxen, which consequently were not offered as burnt-offerings, but as thank-offerings, only the fat being burnt upon the altar, and the flesh being used for sacrificial meals. Ch2 35:13 The passover, i.e., the flesh of the paschal lamb, they roasted (בּאשׁ בּשּׁל, to make ready upon the fire, i.e., roast; see on Exo 12:9), according to the ordinance (as the law appointed); and "the sanctified (as they called the slaughtered oxen, cf. Ch2 29:33) they sod (שּׁלוּ, sc. במּים, cf. Exo 12:9) in pots, caldrons, and pans, and brought it speedily to the sons of the people," i.e., the laymen. From this Bertheau draws the conclusion, "that with the paschal lambs the oxen were also offered as thank-offerings; and the sacrificial meal consisted not merely of the paschal lamb, but also of the flesh of the thank-offerings: for these must have been consumed on the same day as they were offered, though the eating of them on the following day was not strictly forbidden, Lev 7:15-18." But this conclusion is shown to be incorrect even by this fact, that there is no word to hint that the roasting of the paschal lambs and the cooking of the flesh of the oxen which were offered as thank-offerings took place simultaneously on the evening of the 14th Nisan. This is implied neither in the לבּקר וכן, nor in the statement in Ch2 35:14, that the priests were busied until night in offering the עלה and the חלבים. According to Ch2 35:17, the Israelites held on that day, not only the passover, but also the Mazzoth-feast, seven days. The description of the offering and preparation of the sacrifices, partly for the altar and partly for the meal, Ch2 35:13-15, refers, therefore, not only to the passover in its more restricted sense, but also to the seven days' Mazzoth festival, without its being expressly stated; because both from the law and from the practice it was sufficiently well known that at the פּסח meal only צאן (lambs or goats) were roasted and eaten; while on the seven following days of the Mazzoth, besides the daily burnt-offering, thank-offerings were brought and sacrificial meals were held; see on Deu 16:1-8. The connecting, or rather the mingling, of the sacrificial meal prepared from the roasted lambs with the eating of the sodden flesh of oxen, would have been too great an offence against the legal prescriptions for the paschal meal, to be attributed either to King Josiah, to the priesthood, or to the author of the Chronicle, since the latter expressly remarks that the celebration was carried out according to the prescription of the law of Moses, and according to the "right." Ch2 35:14-15 And afterwards (אחר, postea, after the passover had been prepared for the laymen in the way described) the Levites prepared it for themselves and for the priests; for the latter, however, only because they were busied with the offering of the עלה and the חלבים till night. Most expositors understand by עלה the fat of the paschal lambs, which was burnt upon the altar, as in Ch2 35:12; and חלבים, the fat of oxen, which was likewise burnt upon the altar, "but was not, as it seems, designated by the expression העלה" (Berth.). This interpretation certainly at first sight seems likely; only one cannot see why only the fat of the oxen, and not that of the paschal lambs also, should be called חלבים, since in the law the parts of all thank-offerings (oxen, sheep, and goats) which were burnt upon the altar are called חלבים. We will therefore be more correct if we take והחלבים to be a more exact definition of העלה: the burnt-offering, viz., the fat which was offered as a burnt-offering; or we may take העלה here to denote the evening burnt-offering, and החלבים the fat of the paschal lambs. But even if the first-mentioned interpretation were the only correct one, yet it could not thence be concluded that on the passover evening (the 14th Nisan) the fat not only of the 37,600 lambs and goats, but also of the 3800 oxen, were offered upon the altar; the words, that the priests were busied until night with the offering of the עלה and the חלבים, are rather used of the sacrificing generally during the whole of the seven days' festival. For the compressed character of the description appears in Ch2 35:15, where it is remarked that neither the singers nor the porters needed to leave their posts, because their brethren the Levites prepared (the meal) for them. With the words, "according to the command of David," etc., cf. Ch1 25:1 and Ch1 25:6. Ch2 35:16-19 The character of the passover and Mazzoth festivals. - Ch2 35:16. "So all the service of the Lord was prepared the same day, in regard to the preparing of the passover, and the offering of the burnt-offerings upon the altar, according to the command of the king." This statement, like that in Ch2 35:10, summarizes all that precedes, and forms the transition to the concluding remarks on the whole festival. ההוּא בּיּום is not to be limited to the one afternoon and evening of the fourteenth day of the month, but refers to the whole time of the festival, just as יום in Gen 2:4 embraces the seven days of creation. "עלות are the עלה and the חלבים (Ch2 35:14)" (Berth.); but it by no means follows from that, that "at the passover, besides the regular burnt-offering (Num 28:4), no burnt-offering would seem to have been offered," but rather that the words have a more general signification, and denote the sacrifices at the passover and Mazzoth festivals. Ch2 35:17 The duration of the festival. The Israelites who had come kept the passover "at that time (that is, according to Ch2 35:1, on the fourteenth day of the first month), and the Mazzoth seven days," i.e., from the 15th to the 21st of the same month. Ch2 35:18-19 Ch2 35:18 contains the remark that the Israelites had not held such a passover since the days of the prophet Samuel and all the kings; cf. Kg2 23:22, where, instead of the days of Samuel, the days of the judges are mentioned. On the points which distinguished this passover above others, see the remarks on Kg2 23:22. In the concluding clause we have a rhetorical enumeration of those who participated in the festival, beginning with the king and ending with the inhabitants of Jerusalem. הנּמצא ישׂראל are the remnant of the kingdom of the ten tribes who had come to the festival; cf. Ch2 34:33. - In Ch2 35:19 the year of this passover is mentioned in conclusion. The statement, "in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah," refers back to the same date at the beginning of the account of the cultus reform (Ch2 34:8 and Kg2 22:3), and indicates that Josiah's cultus reform culminated in this passover. Now since the passover fell in the middle of the first month of the year, and, according to 2 Chron 34 and 2 Kings 22, the book of the law was also found in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, many commentators have imagined that the eighteenth year of the king is dated from the autumn; so that all that is narrated in 2 Chronicles, from 34:8-35:19, happened within a period of six months and a half. This might possibly be the case; since the purification and repair of the temple may have been near their completion when the book of the law was found, so that they might hold the passover six months afterwards. But our passage does not require that the years of the king's reign should be dated from the autumn, and there are not sufficient grounds for believing that such was the case. Neither in our narrative, nor in 2 Kings 22 and 23, is it said that the passover was resolved upon or arrange din consequence of the finding of the book of the law. Josiah may therefore have thought of closing and ratifying the restoration of the Jahve-worship by a solemn passover festival, even before the finding of the book; and the two events need not be widely separated from each other. But from the way in which the account in 2 Kings 22 and 23 is arranged, it is not improbable that the finding of the book of the law may have occurred before the beginning of the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, and that date may have been placed at the beginning and end of the narrative, because the cultus reform was completed with the celebration of the passover in his eighteenth year. (Note: The addition of the lxx to Kg2 22:3, "in the eighth month," to which Thenius and Berth. attach some weight, as a proof that the years of Josiah's reign are dated from autumn, is utterly useless for that purpose. For even were that addition more than a worthless gloss, it would only prove the contrary, since the eighth month of the civil year, which is reckoned from autumn, corresponds to the second month of the ecclesiastical year, and would consequently carry us beyond the time of the passover.)