16 Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof, all the words of the book that the king of Judah hath read.
But it shall come to pass, that as every good word hath been fulfilled to you, that Jehovah your God spoke to you, so will Jehovah bring upon you every evil word, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which Jehovah your God hath given you;
And all Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside so as not to listen unto thy voice. And the curse hath been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God: for we have sinned against him. And he hath performed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that there hath not been done under the whole heaven as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet we besought not Jehovah our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. And Jehovah hath watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he hath done; and we have not hearkened unto his voice.
and if ye shall despise my statutes, and if your soul shall abhor mine ordinances, so that ye do not all my commandments, that ye break my covenant, I also will do this unto you -- I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and fever, which shall cause the eyes to fail, and the soul to waste away; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, that ye may be routed before your enemies; they that hate you shall have dominion over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if for this ye hearken not unto me, I will punish you sevenfold more for your sins, and I will break the arrogance of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as bronze, and your strength shall be spent in vain, and your land shall not yield its produce; and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring sevenfold more plagues upon you according to your sins. And I will send the beasts of the field among you, that they may rob you of your children, and cut off your cattle, and make you few in number; and your streets shall be desolate. And if ye will not be disciplined by me through these, but walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will smite you, even I, sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that avengeth with the vengeance of the covenant, and ye shall be gathered together into your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver you the bread again by weight; and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if for this ye hearken not to me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven-fold for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will lay waste your high places, and cut down your sun-pillars, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols; and my soul shall abhor you. And I will lay waste your cities and desolate your sanctuaries; and I will not smell your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation; that your enemies who dwell there in may be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be desolation, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, when ye are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest, and enjoy its sabbaths. All the days of the desolation it shall rest, [the days in] which it did not rest on your sabbaths, when ye dwelt therein. And as to those that remain of you -- I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, that the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth; and they shall stumble one over another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that remain of you shall waste away through their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also through the iniquities of their fathers shall they waste away with them. And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, through their unfaithfulness wherein they were unfaithful to me, and also that they have walked contrary unto me, so that I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. For the land shall be left by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths, when it is in desolation without them; and they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they despised my judgments, and their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them, and will not abhor them, to make an end of them utterly, to break my covenant with them, for I am Jehovah their God. But I will remember toward them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, that I might be their God: I am Jehovah. These are the statutes and ordinances and laws which Jehovah made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.
But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to take heed to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be in thy coming in, and cursed shalt thou be in thy going out. Jehovah will send upon thee cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all the business of thy hand which thou doest, until thou be destroyed and until thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. Jehovah will make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. Jehovah will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with burning ague, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew, and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. And thy heavens which are over thy head shall be brass, and the earth which is under thee, iron. Jehovah will give as the rain of thy land powder and dust; from the heavens shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. Jehovah will give thee up smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out against them one way, and by seven ways shalt thou flee before them; and thou shalt be driven hither and thither into all the kingdoms of the earth. And thy carcase shall be meat unto all the fowl of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no man to scare them away. Jehovah will smite thee with the ulcers of Egypt, and with boils, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled continually, and there shall be none to save. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not eat of it. Thine ox shall be slaughtered before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; thine ass shall be snatched away from before thy face, and shall not return to thee; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to recover them. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and languish for them all the day long; and there shall be no power in thy hand [to help it]. The fruit of thy ground and all thy labour, shall a people that thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed continually. And thou shalt be mad through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. Jehovah will smite thee in the knees and in the legs with evil ulcers, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head. Jehovah will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation that neither thou nor thy fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples whither Jehovah shall lead thee. Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall devour it. Thou shalt plant and till vineyards, but shalt drink no wine, nor gather [the fruit]; for the worms shall eat it. Olive-trees shalt thou have throughout all thy borders, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with oil; for thine olive-tree shall cast its fruit. Sons and daughters shalt thou beget, but thou shalt not have them [to be with thee]; for they shall go into captivity. All thy trees and the fruit of thy ground shall the locust possess. The sojourner that is in thy midst shall rise above thee higher and higher, and thou shalt sink down lower and lower. He shall lend to thee, but thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail. And all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, until thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee. And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because thou servedst not Jehovah thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, thou shalt serve thine enemies whom Jehovah will send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of everything; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. Jehovah will bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, like as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou understandest not; a nation of fierce countenance, which regardeth not the person of the old, nor is kind to the young; and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, until thou be destroyed; for he shall not leave thee corn, new wine, or oil, offspring of thy kine, or increase of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and strong walls wherein thou trustedst come down, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates in all thy land, which Jehovah thy God hath given thee. And in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee, thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters whom Jehovah thy God hath given thee. The eye of the man in thy midst that is tender and very luxurious shall be evil towards his brother, and the wife of his bosom, and the residue of his children which he hath left; so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children that he eateth, because he hath nothing left him in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. The eye of the tender and luxurious woman in thy midst who would not attempt to set the sole of her foot upon the ground from luxuriousness and from tenderness, shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and her son, and her daughter, because of her afterbirth which hath come out between her feet, and her children whom she shall bear; for she shall secretly eat them for want of everything in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. If thou wilt not take heed to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, to fear this glorious and fearful name, JEHOVAH THY GOD; then Jehovah will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, great and persistent plagues and evil and persistent sicknesses; and he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt which thou art afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will Jehovah bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left a small company, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou hast not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah thy God. And it shall come to pass, that as Jehovah rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so Jehovah will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whereunto thou goest to possess it. And Jehovah will scatter thee among all peoples, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and thou shalt there serve other gods, whom thou hast not known, neither thou nor thy fathers, wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou have no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have a resting-place, and Jehovah shall give thee there a trembling heart, languishing of the eyes, and pining of the soul. And thy life shall hang in suspense before thee; and thou shalt be in terror day and night and shalt be afraid of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would that it were even! and in the evening thou shalt say, Would that it were morning! through the fright of thy heart wherewith thou shalt be in terror, and through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. And Jehovah will bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I said unto thee, Thou shalt see it again no more; and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and there shall be no man to buy [you].
lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from Jehovah our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood, and it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to sweep away the drunken with the thirsty. Jehovah will not pardon him, but the anger of Jehovah and his jealousy will then smoke against that man, and all the curse shall be upon him that is written in this book; and Jehovah will blot out his name from under the heavens; and Jehovah will separate him for mischief out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law. And the generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sicknesses wherewith Jehovah hath visited it, [that] the whole ground thereof is brimstone and salt, [and] burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, and no grass groweth in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his fury:
But if thy heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and thou shalt bow down to other gods and serve them; I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish; ye shall not prolong your days upon the land whereunto thou passest over the Jordan to possess it.
And Jehovah said to Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the strange gods of the land into which they enter, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. And my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, and they will say in that day, Have not these evils befallen me because my God is not in my midst? And I will entirely hide my face in that day for all the evils that they have wrought, because they turned unto other gods.
Then Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked -- Thou art waxen fat, Thou art grown thick, And thou art covered with fatness; -- He gave up +God who made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They moved him to jealousy with strange gods, With abominations did they provoke him to anger. They sacrificed unto demons who are not +God; To gods whom they knew not, To new ones, who came newly up, Whom your fathers revered not. Of the Rock that begot thee wast thou unmindful, And thou hast forgotten ùGod who brought thee forth. And Jehovah saw it, and despised them, Because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is no ùGod; They have exasperated me with their vanities; And I will move them to jealousy with that which is not a people; With a foolish nation will I provoke them to anger. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And it shall burn into the lowest Sheol, And shall consume the earth and its produce, And set fire to the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; Mine arrows will I spend against them. They shall be consumed with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And with poisonous pestilence; And the teeth of beasts will I send against them, With the poison of what crawleth in the dust. From without shall the sword bereave them, and in the chambers, terror -- Both the young man and the virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs. I would say, I will scatter, I will make the remembrance of them to cease from among men,
know for a certainty that Jehovah your God will no more dispossess these nations from before you, and they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which Jehovah your God hath given you.
Behold, days come that all that is in thy house, and what thy fathers have laid up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah.
therefore thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipeth a pan, wiping it and turning it upside down.
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, [that] Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built turrets against it round about. And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. On the ninth of the [fourth] month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And the city was broken into; and all the men of war [fled] by night, by the way of the gate between the two walls, which [leads] to the king's garden (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about); and they went the way toward the plain.
Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my fury shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 22
Commentary on 2 Kings 22 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 22
This chapter begins with the age and character of Josiah king of Judah, 2 Kings 22:1, relates his orders for repairing the temple, 2 Kings 22:3, his attention to the book of the law, which was found, and read to him, and the effect it had upon him, 2 Kings 22:8, the command he gave to certain persons to inquire of the Lord about it, who applied to Huldah the prophetess, 2 Kings 22:12, who returned an answer by them to the king, foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, and giving the reason of it, and at the same time assuring the king it should not be in his days, 2 Kings 22:15.
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign,.... And must be born when his father was but sixteen, for Amon lived but twenty four years, 2 Kings 21:19,
and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem; and so must die at thirty nine years of age:
and his mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath; a city of the tribe of Judah; see Gill on Joshua 15:39.
And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,.... In the affair of religious worship especially, as well as in other things:
and walked in all the ways of David his father; in his religious ways, in which he never departed from his God:
and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; but kept an even, constant, path of worship and duty, according to the law of God.
And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of King Josiah,.... Not of his age, but of his reign, as appears from 2 Chronicles 34:8 nor is what follows the first remarkable act he did in a religious way; for elsewhere we read of what he did in the eighth and twelfth years of his reign, 2 Chronicles 34:3,
that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam the scribe, to the house of the Lord; the king's secretary; the Septuagint version is, the scribe of the house of the Lord, and so the Vulgate Latin version; that kept the account of the expenses of the temple; with him two others were sent, 2 Chronicles 34:8,
saying: as follows.
Go up to Hilkiah the high priest,.... Who had an apartment in the temple; there was an Hilkiah, a priest, in those times, who was the father of Jeremiah the prophet, Jeremiah 1:1, whom an Arabic writerF12Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 68. takes to be the same with this; but it is not likely:
that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord which the people voluntarily offered for the repairing of it; this he would have the priest take an account of, that the sum total might be known; his meaning is, that he should take it out of the chest in which it was put, and count it, that it might be known what it amounted to; see 2 Kings 12:9, some understand this of melting and coining the silver thus given
which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people: who were Levites, 2 Chronicles 34:9, either porters of the door, or rather the treasurers, as the Targum; the keepers of the vessels of the sanctuary, that had the care of them, as the Jewish commentators generally interpret it.
And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work,
that have the oversight of the house of the Lord,.... That were overseers of the workmen, whose names are mentioned, 2 Chronicles 34:12 into their hands the money was to be delivered by the high priest, when he had taken the account of it, and perhaps along with the king's scribe, see 2 Kings 12:10,
and let them give it to the doers of the work, which is in the house of the Lord, to repair the breaches of the house as their wages for their work; it seems it had not been repaired from the times of Jehoash, a space of two hundred and eighteen years, according to the Jewish chronologyF13Seder Olam Rabba, c. 24. p. 67. ; but Kimchi and Abarbinel make it two hundred and twenty four.
Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons,.... Who were employed, some in mending the woodwork, and others in repairing the stone walls
and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house; not only money was to be given them for their workmanship, but to buy timber and stone to work with.
Howbeit, there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand,.... No account was kept between the high priest, and the king's scribe who delivered the money and the overseers of the workmen, who received it from them the latter were not called to any account by the former, nor any audit made of their accounts:
because they dealt faithfully: they were persons of such known honour and integrity, that their fidelity was not in the least called in question, but were trusted without examining their accounts, and how they disposed of the money committed to them, see 2 Kings 12:15.
And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe,.... Not at the first time of his message to him, but afterwards that he attended on him upon the same business; after the high priest had examined the temple to know what repairs it wanted, and where:
I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord; some think this was only the book of Deuteronomy, and some only some part of that; rather the whole Pentateuch, and that not a copy of it, but the very autograph of Moses, written with his own hand, as it seems from 2 Chronicles 34:14. Some say he found it in the holy of holies, on the side of the ark; there it was put originally; but, indeed, had it been there, he might have found it before, and must have seen it, since, as high priest, he entered there once every year; more probably some pious predecessor of his had taken it from thence in a time of general corruption, as in the reign of Manasseh, and hid it in some private place, under a lay of stones, as Jarchi, in some hole in the wall, which upon search about repairs was found there:
and Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it; and though there might be some copies of it in private hands, yet scarce; and perhaps Shaphan had never seen one, at least a perfect one, or however had never read it through, as now he did.
And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again,.... Of the delivery of his message to the high priest, and of what had been done upon it:
and said, thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house; meaning Hilkiah and himself, who had examined the chest in the temple, into which the money was put for the repairs of it, and had taken it out, and told it:
and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord; according to the king's orders.
And Shaphan showed the king,.... Further related to him what follows:
saying, Hilkiah the high priest hath delivered me a book; but did not say what book it was:
and Shaphan read it before the king; part of it; and it is thought by Kimchi and Ben Gersom that he particularly read the reproofs and threatenings in the book of Deuteronomy; they suppose that Hilkiah read those to Shaphan, and directed him to read them to the king, that he might take into consideration a further reformation.
And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law,.... From whence it appears that he had never wrote out a copy of it, as the kings of Israel were ordered to do, when they came to the throne, Deuteronomy 17:18 nor had read it, at least not the whole of it; and yet it seems strange that he should be twenty six years of age, as he now was, and had proceeded far in the reformation of worship, and yet be without the book of the law, and the high priest also; it looks as if it was, as some have thought, that they had till now only some abstracts of the law, and not the whole: and perhaps the reformation hitherto carried on chiefly lay in abolishing idolatry, and not so much in restoring the ordinances of worship to their purity; for it was after this that the ordinance of the passover was ordered to be kept; and when the king observed, on hearing the law read, that it had not been kept as it should, that such severe threatenings were denounced against the transgressors of it;
that he rent his clothes; as expressive of the rending of his heart, and of his humiliation and sorrow for the sins he and his people were guilty of.
And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest,.... The high priest, as he is called, 2 Kings 22:4.
and Ahikam the son of Shaphan; whether the same with Shaphan the scribe, before mentioned, or another of the same name, is not certain:
and Achbor the son of Michaiah; who is called Abdon, the son of Micah, 2 Chronicles 34:20.
and Shaphan the scribe; who brought and read the book to the king:
and Asahiah, a servant of the king's; that waited on him constantly:
saying; as follows.
Go ye, inquire of the Lord,.... Of some of his prophets, as Jeremiah, who began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign, and had been a prophet five years, Jeremiah 1:1,
for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for he observed that this book threatened and foretold not only the captivity of the ten tribes, but of Judah, and of their king; and Jarchi thinks, he had a particular respect to that passage:
the Lord shall bring thee and thy king, &c. Deuteronomy 28:36 and therefore was desirous of knowing what he and his people must do to avert those judgments:
for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us; which he concluded from the threatenings denounced:
because that our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according to all which is written concerning us: he clearly saw that his ancestors more remote and immediate had been very deficient in observing the laws, commands, and ordinances enjoined them in that book; and therefore feared that what was threatened would fall upon him and his people, who, he was sensible, came short of doing their duty.
So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went down to Huldah the prophetess,.... Such as were Miriam and Deborah; in imitation of those Satan had very early his women prophetesses, the Sibyls, so called from their being the council and oracle of God, and consulted as such on occasion, as Huldah now was; and the first of the Sibyls, according to SuidasF14In voce σιβυλλα. , was a Chaldean or a Persian; and some say an Hebrew; and Pausanias expressly saysF15Phocica, sive, l. 10. p. 631. , that with the Hebrews above Palestine was a woman prophetess, whose name was Sabba, whom some called the Babylonian, others the Egyptian Sibyl. Aelian relatesF16Var. Hist. l. 12. c. 35. that one of them was a Jewess:
the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; but whether the king's wardrobe in the palace, or the priest's in the temple, is not certain; he is called Hasrah, 2 Chronicles 34:22 who is here called Harhas:
now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college; in the college of the prophets; in the house of instruction, as the Targum; the school where the young prophets were instructed and trained up; though Jarchi observes, that some interpret this "within the two walls"; Jerusalem it seems had three walls, and within the second this woman lived; there were gates in the temple, as he also observes, called the gates of HuldahF17Misn. Middot, c. 1. sect. 3. , but whether from her cannot be said: this place of her dwelling seems to be mentioned as a reason why these messengers went to her, because she was near, as well as well known for her prophetic spirit, prudence, and faithfulness, and not to Jeremiah, who in all probability was at Anathoth; and so also is the reason why they went not to Zephaniah, if he as yet had begun to prophesy, because he might be at a distance also: and they communed with her; upon the subject the king sent them about.
And she said unto them,.... The king's messengers:
thus saith the Lord God of Israel; being immediately inspired by him, she spake in his name, as prophets did:
tell the man that sent you to me; which may seem somewhat rude and unmannerly to say of a king; but when it is considered she spake not of herself, but representing the King of kings and Lord of lords, it will be seen and judged of in another light.
Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of it,.... Destruction to the place, and captivity to the inhabitants of it:
even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read; particularly what is contained in Leviticus 26:14, even all the curses in it, as in 2 Chronicles 34:24.
Because they have forsaken me,.... My worship, as the Targum; his word and ordinances:
and have burnt incense unto other gods; to Baal, to the host of heaven, and other Heathen deities:
that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands: their idols of wood, stone, gold, and silver, which their hands had made, to worship; than which nothing was more provoking to God:
therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched; the decree for the destruction of Jerusalem was gone forth, and not to be called back; the execution of it could not be stopped or hindered by cries, prayers, entreaties, or otherwise; this wrath of God was an emblem of the unquenchable fire of hell, Matthew 3:12.
But to the king of Judah, which sent you to inquire of the Lord,.... That is, with respect to him, or what may concern him:
thus shall ye say unto him; carry back this message to him as from the Lord he desired to inquire of:
thus saith the Lord God of Israel, as touching the words which thou hast heard: read out of the law, concerning the destruction of the land, and its inhabitants therein threatened.
Because thine heart was tender,.... Soft like wax, and susceptible of impressions; or was "moved", or "trembled", as the Targum; for God has respect to such as are of contrite hearts, and tremble at his word, Isaiah 66:2,
and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord; external humiliation, such as in Ahab, was regarded by the Lord, much more internal and cordial humiliation is regarded by him, see 1 Kings 21:29,
when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse; as in Leviticus 26:1.
and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; as expressive of the inward contrition, sorrow, and grief of his heart:
I also have heard thee, saith the Lord: his cries and prayers.
Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers,.... To his godly ancestors, to share with them in eternal life and happiness; otherwise it could be no peculiar favour to die in common, as his fathers did, and be buried in their sepulchres:
and thou shall be gathered into thy grave in peace; in a time of public peace and tranquillity; for though he was slain in battle with the king of Egypt, yet it was what he was personally concerned in, and it was not a public war between the two kingdoms, and his body was carried off by his servants, and was peaceably interred in the sepulchre of his ancestors, 2 Kings 23:29, as well as he died in spiritual peace, and entered into eternal peace, which is the end of the perfect and upright man, as he was, Psalm 37:37 but this chiefly regards his not living to be distressed with the calamities of his nation and people, as follows:
and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place: he being removed first, though it came upon it in the days of his sons:
and they brought the king word again; of what Huldah the prophetess had said unto them.