2 Cronache 34:3 Commento

Before we see Judah and Jerusalem ruined we shall yet see some glorious years, while good Josiah sits at the helm. By his pious endeavours for reformation God tried them yet once more; if they had known in this their day, the day of their visitation, the things that belonged to their peace and improved them, their ruin might have been prevented. But after this reign they were hidden from their eyes, and the next reigns brought an utter desolation upon them. In this chapter we have, I. A general account of Josiah's character (Ch2 34:1, Ch2 34:2). II. His zeal to root out idolatry (Ch2 34:3-7). III. His care to repair the temple (Ch2 34:8-13). IV. The finding of the book of the law and the good use made of it (Ch2 34:14-28). V. The public reading of the law to the people and their renewing their covenant with God thereupon (Ch2 34:29-33). Much of this we had 2 Kings 22.

INTRODUCTION TO 2 CHRONICLES 34 This chapter begins with the good reign of Josiah, the reformation he made in the land, purging it from idolatry, Ch2 34:1, relates the orders he gave to repair the house of the Lord, which was accordingly done, Ch2 34:8, when the book of the law was found and brought to him, which greatly affected him, Ch2 34:12, upon which he deputed some persons to inquire of the Lord, who did of Huldah the prophetess, to whom she gave an answer, which they returned to the king, Ch2 34:20 and the chapter is concluded with an account of reading the book in the ears of all the people, and of the king, and then making a covenant with the Lord to serve him, Ch2 34:27.

And they broke down the altars of Baalim in his presence,.... He not only ordered them to be broke down, but he went in person, and saw it done; these were the altars Manasseh had reared up to the idols; and though upon his humiliation he cast them out, they were rebuilt by Amon his son, see Ch2 33:3, and the images that were above them he cut down; sun images, as the word signifies; these Chamanim might be representatives of Cham or Ham, the son of Noah, the same with Jupiter Ammon; and there was another Heathen deity, Amanus, Strabo (w) speaks of, supposed to be the sun; see Gill on Lev 26:30, these, as Jarchi says, were in the form of the sun, and were set above the altars, over against the sun, to whom worship was paid; though some think this respects not place, but time, and that these were images in times past; in the preceding age, as the Tigurine version: and the groves, and the carved images and the molten images, he brake in pieces; ordered them to be broken; the groves were statues, or images in groves, and thereby distinguished from those made of wood, and were carved, and from those that were of molten metal, and were placed elsewhere: and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them, see Kg2 23:6. (w) Geograph l. 11. p. 352.

Josiah reigns thirty-one years; destroys idolatry in Judah, as also in Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and even to Naphtali, Ch2 34:1-7. He begins to repair the temple, and collects money for the purpose, and employs workmen, Ch2 34:8-13. Hilkiah the priest finds the book of the law in the temple, which is read by Shaphan before the king, Ch2 34:14-19. He is greatly troubled, and consults Huldah the prophetess, Ch2 34:20-22. Her exhortation, and message to the king, Ch2 34:23-28. He causes it to be read to the elders of Judah, and they make a covenant with God, Ch2 34:29, Ch2 34:32. Josiah reforms every abomination, and the people serve God all his days, Ch2 34:33.

JOSIAH'S GOOD REIGN. (Ch2 34:1-2) Josiah was eight years old--(See on Kg2 22:1). The testimony borne to the undeviating steadfastness of his adherence to the cause of true religion places his character and reign in honorable contrast with those of many of his royal predecessors.

HE DESTROYS IDOLATRY. (Ch2 34:3-7) in the eighth year of his reign--This was the sixteenth year of his age, and, as the kings of Judah were considered minors till they had completed their thirteenth year, it was three years after he had attained majority. He had very early manifested the piety and excellent dispositions of his character. In the twelfth year of his reign, but the twentieth of his age, he began to take a lively interest in the purgation of his kingdom from all the monuments of idolatry which, in his father's short reign, had been erected. At a later period, his increasing zeal for securing the purity of divine worship led him to superintend the work of demolition in various parts of his dominion. The course of the narrative in this passage is somewhat different from that followed in the Book of Kings. For the historian, having made allusion to the early manifestation of Josiah's zeal, goes on with a full detail of all the measures this good king adopted for the extirpation of idolatry; whereas the author of the Book of Kings sets out with the cleansing of the temple, immediately previous to the celebration of the passover, and embraces that occasion to give a general description of Josiah's policy for freeing the land from idolatrous pollution. The exact chronological order is not followed either in Kings or Chronicles. But it is clearly recorded in both that the abolition of idolatry began in the twelfth and was completed in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign. Notwithstanding Josiah's undoubted sincerity and zeal and the people's apparent compliance with the king's orders, he could not extinguish a strongly rooted attachment to idolatries introduced in the early part of Manasseh's reign. This latent predilection appears unmistakably developed in the subsequent reigns, and the divine decree for the removal of Judah, as well as Israel, into captivity was irrevocably passed.

Extirpation of idolatry. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a youth, being then only sixteen years old, Josiah began to seek the God of his ancestor David, and in the twelfth year of his reign he commenced to purify Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, Asherim, etc. The cleansing of the land of Judah from the numerous objects of idolatry is summarily described in Ch2 34:4 and Ch2 34:5; and thereupon there follows (Ch2 34:6 and Ch2 34:7) the destruction of the idolatrous altars and images in the land of Israel, - all that it seemed necessary to say on that subject being thus mentioned at once. For that all this was not accomplished in the twelfth year is clear from the לטהר החל, "he commenced to cleanse," and is moreover attested by Ch2 34:33. The description of this destruction of the various objects of idolatry is rhetorically expressed, only carved and cast images being mentioned, besides the altars of the high places and the Asherim, without the enumeration of the different kings of idolatry which we find in 2 Kings 23:4-20. - On Ch2 34:4, cf. Ch2 31:1. ינתּציּ, they pulled down before him, i.e., under his eye, or his oversight, the altars of the Baals (these are the בּמות, Ch2 34:3); and the sun-pillars (cf. Ch2 14:4) which stood upwards, i.e., above, upon the altars, he caused to be hewn away from them (מעליהם); the Asherim (pillars and trees of Asherah) and the carved and molten images to be broken and ground (הדק, cf. Ch2 15:16), and (the dust of them) to be strewn upon the graves (of those) who had sacrificed to them. הזּבחים is connected directly with הקּברים, so that the actions of those buried in them are poetically attributed to the graves. In Kg2 23:6 this is said only of the ashes of the Asherah statue which was burnt, while here it is rhetorically generalized.