2 Kings 23

Chap. XXIII. Ver. 1—30. Josiah reads certain parts of the holy writings, and makes various reforms in consequence.— As Solomon, though surrounded by priests and prophets, himself offered prayer at the dedication of the temple, so Josiah here takes the lead in this work of piety and reform, though attended in like manner. The zeal and alacrity with which the young king acted, shows that his heart was in the design. His reform was thorough and universal. Every vestige of idolatry was destroyed, and the idolatrous punished according to the law. This book, in the first instance, was read to the king by Shaphan the scribe; but now it was to be read in public, it might receive much greater attention from the king himself being the reader, though it is by no means unlikely that he was assisted and relieved in the deeply engaged in by others in the work.

The king, we are informed, stood by or upon a pillar, or pedestal, while he made a covenant with the people, as Joshua had before done. ((Joshua 24)) “And all the people stood” up to express their assent and obedience “to the covenant” now made, or rather renewed and ratified; though we afterwards find them were hypocritical and insincere. That a great part of (See (Jeremiah 3:10).) “door: 19 And out of the city he took an * officer that was set over the men of war, and gave the house of the Lord to Babylon,” and put them in the temple of his god. ((2 Chronicles 36:7). (Daniel 5:2).) These were the vessels that Belshazzar profaned, and Cyrus restored to Ezra. ((Daniel 5:2). (Ezra 1:2).) 2. Under Jehoiachin, when he took the rest of the golden vessels, and brake and cut them in pieces, as the Lord had said, (ver. 13.) And, 3. In the time of Zedekiah (as in this chapter, ver. 13.) when he burnt the temple and the palaces, took the brazen vessels, pillars, and every thing valuable, and left only the poor of the land to till the ground and dress the vines. As long, and terrible, was the imprisonment of Jehoiachin; but, in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, Nebuchadnezzar being dead, Evil-merodach, his son and successor, took pity on the exiled prince and liberated him: not only so, but he spake kindly to him, preferred him to all the other captive kings, and fed him at his own table all his remaining days. By comparing this very concise account with the fuller narrative of Josephus, we learn that Pharaoh-Hophra hearing how Zedekiah was besieged, and alarmed for the safety of B.

B. C. 533. | Men, at the threshold. servants of the Chaldees: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon; and it shall be well with you.; x im at Mizpah. Egypt, if Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, came and attacked the Chaldean army, which, upon this, raised the siege, and went to meet the Egyptians. At this juncture, Zedekiah and the military escape toward Jericho, where he was taken, and his army utterly dispersed. He was therefore taken before the king of Babylon, who gave judgment against him, and, according to the barbarity of those times, slew his sons, and having put out both his eyes, carried him captive into Babylon, where he died; and whither Jehoiachin had been carried long before.

Thus commenced the seventy years of the Babylonish captivity, in the year of the world (according to common computation) 3398, and 606 years before the Christian era. The completion of this period was accomplished in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, who then issued an edict for the restoration of the Jews to their own country, as we find in the first chapter of the book of Ezra, which continues the Jewish history. During this interval, though we have no continuous history, we shall find many important facts in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and especially Daniel, which will connect these Chronicles with that book.

Notes on the verses

Chap. XXIII Ver. 4. Priests of the second order.—{These were either such as bore the high priest’s office, or those of the second course or order established by David.}—Bagster. Ver. 5. He put down the idolatrous priests.—Heb. Kemarim; literally, the Black priests, so called either from the colour of their garments; or, as others think, from their being blackened with the smoke of their incense. See Dr. Clarke.—To the planets.—(Or, twelve signs, or, constellations. So the Vulgate, “the twelve signs,” i.e. the zodiac; which is the most probable meaning of the word, mazzaloth, from the Arabic, manzeel, a caravanseral house or dwelling, as being the apparent dwellings of the sun in his annual course; and the Targumists and Rabbins often employ the words tereysar mazzalaya, to denote the signs of the zodiac.)—B.——All the host of heaven.—That is, the stars, fixed, or erratic.

Ps. exlvii. 2. See =p. of (Genesis 2:1-3). Ver. 7. Houses of the sodomites—Heb. Kedoshim; “All kinds of prostitutes.” —Dr. Clarke. The term implies that they were devoted or consecrated to prostitution in honour of their idols. See note on (1 Kings 14:24).—Hangings.—Houses woven, must be tents, or tent curtains, made square, perhaps instead of round. These probably were a kind of shrines. Ver. 9. Priests of the high places.—Where sacrifices were offered, sometimes to the Lord, and at others, to idols. These were treated as priests having some blemish. See (Leviticus 21:21-23). Ver. 10. Topheth… in the valley… Jerusalem, infamous for its idolatrous services. This was called Gehenna, and made a type of hell, by all the filth and offal of the city being brought thither, and consumed in fires perpetually burning.

Ver. 11. Horses…. given to the sun.—[Throughout the East, the horse, because of his swiftness and utility, was dedicated to the sun; and the Greeks and Romans feigned that the chariot of the sun was drawn by four horses, Pyrous, Eous, Aithon, and Phlegon; and hence also chariots were dedicated to that luminary. Jarchi says, that those who adored the sun had horses which they mounted every morning, to go out to meet him at his rising. Kings of Judah had imitated these idolatrous customs, and kept the horses of the sun even at the entrance of the temple of the Lord!]—Bagster. The chamberlain.—This being peculiarly opposed to the divine law, ((Deuteronomy 23:1).) we may hope that these officers, of whom we frequently read in the books of Kings, were foreigners, and employed in imitation of the heathen nations. On the top of the upper chamber.—The flat roof.—Brake them, [or] “run (them) down.” The marginal reading makes this the action of Josiah; having “beaten down” these altars, in his zeal, he “ran from thence” himself, to cast them into Kidron. Perhaps (as probably were of brass) he served them as Moses did the golden calf; broke, melted, and ground them, and cast the dust into the river. (Exodus 32:15-35). of Hinnom.—A valley south of Je- | of Ver. 13. Mount of corruption.—This, according to the Chaldee, was the mount of Olives, which, by a very slight change in the original, was now named, “the mount of corruption,” for having been devoted to idolatry.

Ver. 16. Who proclaimed these words.—(The Septuagint and oe agriac at Paris insert, “when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the feast, turning about, he cast his eyes on the sepulchre of the man of God.”)—Bagster. See (1 Kings 13:1-3). Ver. 20. And he slew.—Not in a religious but in a judicial sense, as every culprit executed is a sacrifice to justice. Ver. 29. Pharaoh-nechoh.—{Pharaoh-Nechoh, called Necos, the son of Psammiticus, by Herodotus, was now marching against the Babylonians, who had dissolved the Assyrian empire,” (Josephus;) the king of the latter being the famous Nabopolassar, who was Assyria.— Megiddo.—Megiddo, called Regeb by Herodotus, was situated in the tribe of Manasseh, west of Jordan, not far from Hadad-Rimmon, or Maximianopolis.

See expos. See exposition of (1 Kings 18)“to make war upon the Medes and also become king of Assyria, in the valley of Jezreel, and This shows that Josiah