And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel ,.... So exactly according to the law, so universally by Israel and Judah, and with such liberality shown by the king, and the chief of the priests and Levites; of this, and the following verse; see Gill on 2 Kings 23:22 ; see Gill on 2 Kings 23:23 read more
solemn celebration of the Passover. (For the homiletics of this passage, or the subject of it, see those written on 2 Chronicles 30:1-27 .) read more
The great Passover of Josiah. I. GREAT IN RESPECT OF ITS CONFORMITY TO THE LAW . To suppose (De Wette, Thenius, and others) that never before had a Passover been observed in Israel or Judah since the days of Samuel ( 2 Chronicles 35:18 ; 1 Esdras 1:20, 21) or of the judges ( 2 Kings 23:22 ), is not only to extract an unwarrantable inference from the sacred text, but is contradicted by the fact that Hezekiah, a former King of Judah, celebrated a Passover in Jerusalem... read more
The moral of the Passover. The keeping of this Passover is very particularly described in this chapter, and we may be sure that it was entered into and enjoyed, as a religious festival, with exceeding zest. We naturally ask—What was its significance? What did it mean to those who celebrated it? We reply that in it and by it— I. THEY RECOGNIZED THEIR UNITY AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD . They went back in thought to the time when they were bound together in the strong bond of a... read more
The date is stamped as ever-memorable, ever-honorable landmark in Josiah's reign. read more
The final reform (34:1-35:27)Another reform swept Judah during the reign of Josiah (34:1-33; see notes on 2 Kings 22:1-23:20). As with the reform of Hezekiah, the climax in the eyes of the Chronicler was a great Passover Feast in Jerusalem.After returning the ark to its rightful place in the temple, the priests and Levites prepared themselves for their duties. Josiah arranged them in divisions as Hezekiah had done earlier, so that the music, singing, sacrifices and other rituals could be... read more
kept. The Septuagint Version adds here [with a colon after kept]: " : after all these things that Josiah did in the house, who also burnt those who had familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and the sodomites, which were in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that lie might confirm the words of the law that were written in the book which Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD. There was no one like him before him. who turned to the LORD with all his... read more
19. In the eighteenth year of the reign Josiah was this passover kept—"It is said ( :-) that Josiah sent Shaphan to Hilkiah in the eighth month of that year." If this statement rests upon an historical basis, all the events narrated here (at :-) must have happened in about the space of five months and a half. We should then have a proof that the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign was reckoned from the autumn (compare :-). "The eighth month" of the sacred year in the eighteenth year of his... read more
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Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - 2 Chronicles 35:1-19
The destruction which Josiah made of idols and idolatry was more largely related in the Kings, but just mentioned here in the foregoing chapter (2 Chron. 34:33); but his solemnizing the passover, which was touched upon there (2 Kgs. 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... read more