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2 Chronicles 34:3-33 King James Version with Strong's Concordance (STRONG)

3 For in the eighth H8083 year H8141 of his reign, H4427 while he was yet young, H5288 he began H2490 to seek H1875 after the God H430 of David H1732 his father: H1 and in the twelfth H8147 H6240 year H8141 he began H2490 to purge H2891 Judah H3063 and Jerusalem H3389 from the high places, H1116 and the groves, H842 and the carved images, H6456 and the molten images. H4541

4 And they brake down H5422 the altars H4196 of Baalim H1168 in his presence; H6440 and the images, H2553 that were on high above them, H4605 he cut down; H1438 and the groves, H842 and the carved images, H6456 and the molten images, H4541 he brake in pieces, H7665 and made dust H1854 of them, and strowed H2236 it upon H6440 the graves H6913 of them that had sacrificed H2076 unto them.

5 And he burnt H8313 the bones H6106 of the priests H3548 upon their altars, H4196 and cleansed H2891 Judah H3063 and Jerusalem. H3389

6 And so did he in the cities H5892 of Manasseh, H4519 and Ephraim, H669 and Simeon, H8095 even unto Naphtali, H5321 with their mattocks H2719 round about. H5439

7 And when he had broken down H5422 the altars H4196 and the groves, H842 and had beaten H3807 the graven images H6456 into powder, H1854 and cut down H1438 all the idols H2553 throughout all the land H776 of Israel, H3478 he returned H7725 to Jerusalem. H3389

8 Now in the eighteenth H8083 H6240 year H8141 of his reign, H4427 when he had purged H2891 the land, H776 and the house, H1004 he sent H7971 Shaphan H8227 the son H1121 of Azaliah, H683 and Maaseiah H4641 the governor H8269 of the city, H5892 and Joah H3098 the son H1121 of Joahaz H3099 the recorder, H2142 to repair H2388 the house H1004 of the LORD H3068 his God. H430

9 And when they came H935 to Hilkiah H2518 the high H1419 priest, H3548 they delivered H5414 the money H3701 that was brought H935 into the house H1004 of God, H430 which the Levites H3881 that kept H8104 the doors H5592 had gathered H622 of the hand H3027 of Manasseh H4519 and Ephraim, H669 and of all the remnant H7611 of Israel, H3478 and of all Judah H3063 and Benjamin; H1144 and they returned H7725 H3427 to Jerusalem. H3389

10 And they put H5414 it in the hand H3027 of the workmen H6213 H4399 that had the oversight H6485 of the house H1004 of the LORD, H3068 and they gave H5414 it to the workmen H6213 H4399 that wrought H6213 in the house H1004 of the LORD, H3068 to repair H918 and amend H2388 the house: H1004

11 Even to the artificers H2796 and builders H1129 gave H5414 they it, to buy H7069 hewn H4274 stone, H68 and timber H6086 for couplings, H4226 and to floor H7136 the houses H1004 which the kings H4428 of Judah H3063 had destroyed. H7843

12 And the men H582 did H6213 the work H4399 faithfully: H530 and the overseers H5329 of them were Jahath H3189 and Obadiah, H5662 the Levites, H3881 of the sons H1121 of Merari; H4847 and Zechariah H2148 and Meshullam, H4918 of the sons of the Kohathites, H6956 to set it forward; H6485 and other of the Levites, H3881 all that could skill H995 of instruments H3627 of musick. H7892

13 Also they were over the bearers of burdens, H5449 and were overseers H5329 of all that wrought H6213 the work H4399 in any manner of service: H5656 and of the Levites H3881 there were scribes, H5608 and officers, H7860 and porters. H7778

14 And when they brought out H3318 the money H3701 that was brought into H935 the house H1004 of the LORD, H3068 Hilkiah H2518 the priest H3548 found H4672 a book H5612 of the law H8451 of the LORD H3068 given by H3027 Moses. H4872

15 And Hilkiah H2518 answered H6030 and said H559 to Shaphan H8227 the scribe, H5608 I have found H4672 the book H5612 of the law H8451 in the house H1004 of the LORD. H3068 And Hilkiah H2518 delivered H5414 the book H5612 to Shaphan. H8227

16 And Shaphan H8227 carried H935 the book H5612 to the king, H4428 and brought H7725 the king H4428 word H1697 back H7725 again, saying, H559 All that was committed H5414 to H3027 thy servants, H5650 they do H6213 it.

17 And they have gathered together H5413 the money H3701 that was found H4672 in the house H1004 of the LORD, H3068 and have delivered H5414 it into the hand H3027 of the overseers, H6485 and to the hand H3027 of the workmen. H6213 H4399

18 Then Shaphan H8227 the scribe H5608 told H5046 the king, H4428 saying, H559 Hilkiah H2518 the priest H3548 hath given H5414 me a book. H5612 And Shaphan H8227 read H7121 it before H6440 the king. H4428

19 And it came to pass, when the king H4428 had heard H8085 the words H1697 of the law, H8451 that he rent H7167 his clothes. H899

20 And the king H4428 commanded H6680 Hilkiah, H2518 and Ahikam H296 the son H1121 of Shaphan, H8227 and Abdon H5658 the son H1121 of Micah, H4318 and Shaphan H8227 the scribe, H5608 and Asaiah H6222 a servant H5650 of the king's, H4428 saying, H559

21 Go, H3212 enquire H1875 of the LORD H3068 for me, and for them that are left H7604 in Israel H3478 and in Judah, H3063 concerning the words H1697 of the book H5612 that is found: H4672 for great H1419 is the wrath H2534 of the LORD H3068 that is poured out H5413 upon us, because our fathers H1 have not kept H8104 the word H1697 of the LORD, H3068 to do H6213 after all that is written H3789 in this book. H5612

22 And Hilkiah, H2518 and they that the king H4428 had appointed, went H3212 to Huldah H2468 the prophetess, H5031 the wife H802 of Shallum H7967 the son H1121 of Tikvath, H8616 H8445 the son H1121 of Hasrah, H2641 keeper H8104 of the wardrobe; H899 (now she dwelt H3427 in Jerusalem H3389 in the college:) H4932 and they spake H1696 to her to that effect.

23 And she answered H559 them, Thus saith H559 the LORD H3068 God H430 of Israel, H3478 Tell H559 ye the man H376 that sent H7971 you to me,

24 Thus saith H559 the LORD, H3068 Behold, I will bring H935 evil H7451 upon this place, H4725 and upon the inhabitants H3427 thereof, even all the curses H423 that are written H3789 in the book H5612 which they have read H7121 before H6440 the king H4428 of Judah: H3063

25 Because they have forsaken H5800 me, and have burned incense H6999 H6999 unto other H312 gods, H430 that they might provoke me to anger H3707 with all the works H4639 of their hands; H3027 therefore my wrath H2534 shall be poured out H5413 upon this place, H4725 and shall not be quenched. H3518

26 And as for H413 the king H4428 of Judah, H3063 who sent H7971 you to enquire H1875 of the LORD, H3068 so shall ye say H559 unto him, Thus saith H559 the LORD H3068 God H430 of Israel H3478 concerning the words H1697 which thou hast heard; H8085

27 Because thine heart H3824 was tender, H7401 and thou didst humble H3665 thyself before H6440 God, H430 when thou heardest H8085 his words H1697 against this place, H4725 and against the inhabitants H3427 thereof, and humbledst H3665 thyself before H6440 me, and didst rend H7167 thy clothes, H899 and weep H1058 before H6440 me; I have even heard H8085 thee also, saith H5002 the LORD. H3068

28 Behold, I will gather H622 thee to thy fathers, H1 and thou shalt be gathered H622 to thy grave H6913 in peace, H7965 neither shall thine eyes H5869 see H7200 all the evil H7451 that I will bring H935 upon this place, H4725 and upon the inhabitants H3427 of the same. So they brought H7725 the king H4428 word H1697 again. H7725

29 Then the king H4428 sent H7971 and gathered together H622 all the elders H2205 of Judah H3063 and Jerusalem. H3389

30 And the king H4428 went up H5927 into the house H1004 of the LORD, H3068 and all the men H376 of Judah, H3063 and the inhabitants H3427 of Jerusalem, H3389 and the priests, H3548 and the Levites, H3881 and all the people, H5971 great H1419 and small: H6996 and he read H7121 in their ears H241 all the words H1697 of the book H5612 of the covenant H1285 that was found H4672 in the house H1004 of the LORD. H3068

31 And the king H4428 stood H5975 in his place, H5977 and made H3772 a covenant H1285 before H6440 the LORD, H3068 to walk H3212 after H310 the LORD, H3068 and to keep H8104 his commandments, H4687 and his testimonies, H5715 and his statutes, H2706 with all his heart, H3824 and with all his soul, H5315 to perform H6213 the words H1697 of the covenant H1285 which are written H3789 in this book. H5612

32 And he caused all that were present H4672 in Jerusalem H3389 and Benjamin H1144 to stand H5975 to it. And the inhabitants H3427 of Jerusalem H3389 did H6213 according to the covenant H1285 of God, H430 the God H430 of their fathers. H1

33 And Josiah H2977 took away H5493 all the abominations H8441 out of all the countries H776 that pertained to the children H1121 of Israel, H3478 and made all that were present H4672 in Israel H3478 to serve, H5647 even to serve H5647 the LORD H3068 their God. H430 And all his days H3117 they departed H5493 not from following H310 the LORD, H3068 the God H430 of their fathers. H1

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 34

Commentary on 2 Chronicles 34 Matthew Henry Commentary


Chapter 34

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 (v. 1, 2).
  • II. His zeal to root out idolatry (v. 3-7).
  • III. His care to repair the temple (v. 8-13).
  • IV. The finding of the book of the law and the good use made of it (v. 14-28).
  • V. The public reading of the law to the people and their renewing their covenant with God thereupon (v. 29-33). Much of this we had 2 Ki. 22.

2Ch 34:1-7

Concerning Josiah we are here told,

  • 1. That he came to the crown when he was very young, only eight years old (yet his infancy did not debar him from his right), and he reigned thirty-one years (v. 1), a considerable time. I fear, however, that in the beginning of his reign things went much as they had done in his father's time, because, being a child, he must have left the management of them to others; so that it was not till his twelfth year, which goes far in the number of his years, that the reformation began, v. 3. He could not, as Hezekiah did, fall about it immediately.
  • 2. That he reigned very well (v. 2), approved himself to God, trod in the steps of David, and did not decline either to the right hand of to the left: for there are errors on both hands.
  • 3. That while he was young, about sixteen years old, he began to seek after God, v. 3. We have reason to think he had not so good an education as Manasseh had (it is well if those about him did not endeavour to corrupt and debauch him); yet he thus sought God when he was young. It is the duty and interest of young people, and will particularly be the honour of young gentlemen, as soon as they come to years of understanding, to begin to seek God; for those that seek him early shall find him.
  • 4. That in the twelfth year of his reign, when it is probable he took the administration of the government entirely into his own hands, he began to purge his kingdom from the remains of idolatry; he destroyed the high places, groves, images, altars, all the utensils of idolatry, v. 3, 4. He not only cast them out as Manasseh did, but broke them to pieces, and made dust of them. This destruction of idolatry is here said to be in his twelfth year, but it was said (2 Ki. 23:23) to be in his eighteenth year. Something was probably done towards it in his twelfth year; then he began to purge out idolatry, but that good work met with opposition, so that it was not thoroughly done till they had found the book of the law six years afterwards. But here the whole work is laid together briefly which was much more largely and particularly related in the Kings. His zeal carried him out to do this, not only in Judah and Jerusalem, but in the cities of Israel too, as far as he had any influence upon them.

2Ch 34:8-13

Here,

  • 1. Orders are given by the king for the repair of the temple, v. 8. When he had purged the house of the corruptions of it he began to fit it up for the services that were to be performed in it. Thus we must do by the spiritual temple of the heart, get it cleansed from the pollutions of sin, and then renewed, so as to be transformed into the image of God. Josiah, in this order, calls God the Lord his God. Those that truly love God will love the habitation of his house.
  • 2. Care is taken about it, effectual care. The Levites went about the country and gathered money towards it, which was returned to the three trustees mentioned, v. 8. They brought it to Hilkiah the high priest (v. 9), and he and they put it into the hands of workmen, both overseers and labourers, who undertook to do it by the great, as we say, or in the gross, v. 10, 11. It is observed that the workmen were industrious and honest: They did the work faithfully (v. 12); and workmen are not completely faithful if they are not both careful and diligent, for a confidence is reposed in them that they will be so. It is also intimated that the overseers were ingenious; for it is said that all those were employed to inspect this work who were skilful in instruments of music; not that their skill in music could be of any use in architecture, but it was an evidence that they were men of sense and ingenuity, and particularly that their genius lay towards the mathematics, which qualified them very much for this trust. Witty men are then wise men when they employ their wit in doing good, in helping their friends, and, as they have opportunity, in serving the public. Observe, in this work, how God dispenses his gifts variously; here were some that were bearers of burdens, cut out for bodily labour and fit to work. Here were others (made meliori luto-of finer materials) that had skill in music, and they were overseers of those that laboured, and scribes and officers. The former were the hands: these were the heads. They had need of one another, and the work needed both. Let not the overseers of the work despise the bearers of burdens, nor let those that work in the service grudge at those whose office it is to direct; but let each esteem and serve the other in love, and let God have the glory and the church the benefit of the different gifts and dispositions of both.

2Ch 34:14-28

This whole paragraph we had, just as it is here related, 2 Ki. 22:8-20, and have nothing to add here to what was there observed. But,

  • 1. We may hence take occasion to bless God that we have plenty of Bibles, and that they are, or may be, in all hands,-that the book of the law and gospel is not lost, is not scarce,-that, in this sense, the word of the Lord is not precious. Bibles are jewels, but, thanks be to God, they are not rarities. The fountain of the waters of life is not a spring shut up or a fountain sealed, but the streams of it, in all places, make glad the city of our God. Usus communis aquarum-These waters flow for general use. What a great deal shall we have to answer for if the great things of God's law, being thus made common, should be accounted by us as strange things!
  • 2. We may hence learn, whenever we read or hear the word of God, to affect our hearts with it, and to get them possessed with a holy fear of that wrath of God which is there revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, as Josiah's tender heart was. When he heard the words of the law he rent his clothes (v. 19), and God was well pleased with his doing so, v. 27. Were the things contained in the scripture new to us, as they were here to Josiah, surely they would make deeper impressions upon us than commonly they do; but they are not the less weighty, and therefore should not be the less considered by us, for their being well known. Rend the heart therefore, not the garments.
  • 3. We are here directed when we are under convictions of sin, and apprehensions of divine wrath, to enquire of the Lord; so Josiah did, v. 21. It concerns us to ask (as they did, Acts 2:37), Men and brethren, what shall we do? and more particularly (as the jailor), What must I do to be saved? Acts 16:30. If you will thus enquire, enquire (Isa. 21:12); and, blessed be God, we have the lively oracles to which to apply with these enquiries.
  • 4. We are here warned of the ruin that sin brings upon nations and kingdoms. Those that forsake God bring evil upon themselves (v. 24, 25), and kindle a fire which shall not be quenched. Such will the fire of God's wrath be when the decree has gone forth against those that obstinately and impenitently persist in their wicked ways.
  • 5. We are here encouraged to humble ourselves before God and seek unto him, as Josiah did. If we cannot prevail thereby to turn away God's wrath from our land, yet we shall deliver our own souls, v. 27, 28. And good people are here taught to be so far from fearing death as to welcome it rather when it takes them away from the evil to come. See how the property of it is altered by making it the matter of a promise: Thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, housed in that ark, as Noah, when a deluge is coming.

2Ch 34:29-33

We have here an account of the further advances which Josiah made towards the reformation of his kingdom upon the hearing of the law read and the receipt of the message God sent him by the prophetess. Happy the people that had such a king; for here we find that,

  • 1. They were well taught. He did not go about to force them to do their duty, till he had first instructed them in it. He called all the people together, great and small, young and old, rich and poor, high and low. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear the words of the book of the covenant; for they are all concerned in those words. To put an honour upon the service, and to engage attention the more, though there were priests and Levites present, the king himself read the book to the people (v. 30), and he read it, no doubt, in such a manner as to show that he was himself affected with it, which would be a means of affecting the hearers.
  • 2. They were well fixed. The articles of agreement between God and Israel being read, that they might intelligently covenant with God, both king and people with great solemnity did as it were subscribe the articles. The king in his place covenanted to keep God's commandments with all his heart and soul, according to what was written in the book (v. 31), and urged the people to declare their consent likewise to this covenant, and solemnly to promise that they would faithfully perform, fulfil, and keep, all and every thing that was on their part to be done, according to this covenant: this they did; they could not for shame do otherwise. He caused all that were present to stand to it (v. 32), and made them all to serve, even to serve the Lord their God (v. 33), to do it and to make a business of it. he did all he could to bring them to it-to serve, even to serve; the repetition denotes that this was the only thing his heart was set on; he aimed at nothing else in what he did but to engage them to God and their duty.
  • 3. They were well tended, were honest with good looking to. All his days they departed not from following the Lord; he kept them, with much ado, from running into idolatry again. All his days were days of restraint upon them; but this intimated that there was in them a bent to backslide, a strong inclination to idolatry. Many of them wanted nothing but to have him out of the way, and then they would have their high places and their images up again. And therefore we find that in the days of Josiah (Jer. 3:6) God charged it upon treacherous Judah that she had not returned to him with all her heart, but feignedly (v. 10), nay, had played the harlot (v. 8) and thereby had even justified backsliding Israel, v. 11. In the twenty-third year of this reign, four or five years after this, they had gone on to provoke God to anger with the works of their hands (Jer. 25:3-7); and, which is very observable, it is from the beginning of Josiah's reformation, his twelfth or thirteenth year, that the iniquity of the house of Judah, which brought ruin upon them, and which the prophet was to bear lying on his right side, was dated (Eze. 4:6), for thence to the destruction of Jerusalem was just forty years. Josiah was sincere in what he did, but the generality of the people were averse to it and hankered after their idols still; so that the reformation, though well designed and well prosecuted by the prince, had little or no effect upon the people. It was with reluctancy that they parted with their idols; still they were in heart joined to them, and wished for them again. This God saw, and therefore from that time, when one would have thought the foundations had been laid for a perpetual security and peace, from that very time did the decree go forth for their destruction. Nothing hastens the ruin of a people nor ripens them for it more than the baffling of hopeful attempts for reformation and a hypocritical return to God. Be not deceived, God is not mocked.