2 Kings 23:21 - Exposition

And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover. The account given of Josiah's Passover is much more full in Chronicles than in Kings. In Chronicles it occupies nineteen verses of 2 Chronicles 35:1-27 . We learn from Chronicles that all the rites prescribed by the Law, whether in Exodus, Leviticus, or Deuteronomy, were duly observed, and that the festival was attended, not only by the Judaeans, but by many Israelites from among the ten tribes, who still remained intermixed with the Assyrian colonists in the Samaritan country (see 2 Chronicles 35:17 , 2 Chronicles 35:18 ). Unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. The ordinances for the due observance of the Passover feast are contained chiefly in Exodus ( Exodus 12:3-20 ; Exodus 13:5-10 ). They are repeated, but with much less fullness, in Deuteronomy 16:1-8 . The "book of the covenant" found by Hilkiah must, therefore, certainly have contained Exodus (see below, verse 25).