2 Chronicles 23:4

The contents of this chapter are the same with 2 Kings 11:4 and need no other explanation than what may be found in the notes there, to which the reader is referred.See Gill on 2 Kings 11:4 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:5 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:6 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:7 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:8 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:9 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:10 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:11 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:12 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:13 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:14 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:15 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:16 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:17 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:18 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:19 . See Gill on 2 Kings 11:20 .

2 Chronicles 23:4-5 . A third part of you shall be porters of the doors — Or rather, guards at the gates, to prevent any of Athaliah’s party from entering into the temple. At the gate of the foundation — So called, because it stood lower than the rest of the doors, at the foot of the steps by which they went up from the king’s house to the temple. And all the people shall be in the courts — In the two courts; for by the people here he seems to intend both the generality of the Levites, who had no particular station assigned them, such as their brethren had, and who were to be in the court of the priests, and the people who were in the court of the people.

4 . This is the thing that ye shall do ] The main features of the arrangement as given here and in 2 Kin. are clear, although some details are obscure. From Kings it appears that it was the custom on the Sabbath for two-thirds of the royal guards to be free and for one-third to be on duty at the palace. In order to avoid arousing suspicion this last third was, according to Jehoiada’s directions, to be at the palace as usual, but it was to be subdivided into thirds and so distributed as to close the various means of communication between the palace and the rest of the city. Thus Athaliah was to be held as in a trap by her own guards ( 2 Kings 11:5-6 ). The two-thirds who were free from duty on the Sabbath were to be stationed in the Temple about the young king to guard him at his coronation. The arrangements are differently (and no doubt less accurately) stated in Chron.

In the first place Levitical Temple guards take the place of the royal guards, secondly, the only division of the guards recognised is a simple division into thirds, finally, the stations of the different divisions are differently given, viz., one-third in the Temple, one-third in the palace, and one-third at “the gate of the foundation.” Using the modern terms “battalion” and “company” for the divisions and subdivisions given in Kings, the arrangements may be stated in a form which allows easy comparison between Kings and Chron., as fallows:— (A) 2 Kings 11:5-7 . (Royal guards in three battalions.) 1st battalion on duty at the king’s house (palace). A company within the palace ( 2 Chronicles 23:5 ), B company at the gate of Sur ( SVR Heb.), C company at another gate (“behind the guard,” 2 Chronicles 23:6 ). 2nd and 3rd battalions off duty, but brought into the house of the Lord (the Temple) by Jehoiada ( 2 Chronicles 23:7 ). (B) 2 Chronicles 23:4-5 . (Levites in three bands.) Band I. (= 1st battalion C company of 2 Kin.) in the house of God, the Chronicler supposing that “the house” ( 2 Kings 11:6 ) means the house of the Lord. More probably it means “the house of the king” ( 2 Kings 11:5 ). Band II. (= 1st battalion A company of 2 Kin.) at the king’s house (so 2 Kin.).

Verse 4. - The first thing that is to be observed is the distinct and repeated mention of the Levites , as those on whom the critical and onerous service that came of Jehoiada's resolution was devolved, while the parallel does not so much as mention them. It may next be noted that our first and second verses state the part that "the captains of hundreds" were called to perform in collecting the requisite number of Levites from the provincial cities of Judah. And once more it may be noted that whereas, while we abide close by our own text alone, nothing in the description of our vers. 4-10 occasions material difficulty, even when the perplexity, which is considerable, does enter, on consulting and endeavouring to reconcile the parallel, it is with extreme probability due to our not making sufficient allowance for the fact that the matter of the two accounts does not so much offer itself for reconciliation as for concurrent acceptance. We have now to follow the description of our own text. Of you entering on the sabbath ; i.e. of you who enter on your period of duty on such a sabbath. See ver. 8, the "men that were to come in on the sabbath, with them that were to go out on the sabbath." This alludes, as the next clause definitely says, to the weekly courses of the Levites, as described in 1 Chronicles 9:25 ; 1 Chronicles 24 ; 1 Chronicles 25 . - the incoming and outgoing companies. Porters of the doors; i.e. "keepers of the doors of the temple" ( 1 Chronicles 9:19 ).

(4) This is the thing that ye shall do. — 2Kings 11:5 : “And he charged them saying, This is the thing,” (&c. There he charges the captains of the guard as being the leaders of the conspiracy. A third.—The third. So 2Chronicles 23:5. “The third of you who come in on the Sabbath” is read also in 2Kings 11:5. The chronicler has added the explanatory words: “belonging to the priests and to the Levites.” This can hardly be harmonised with 2Kings 12:4-12 - The chronicler may have misunderstood the words, which in the older account designate the royal guard; and it might have appeared to him impossible that any but members of the sacred orders would be called together in the Temple by the high priest. (Comp. 2Chronicles 23:5-6 with 2Kings 11:4 : “brought them into the house of the Lord.”) But he may also have had before him an account in which the part taken by the sacerdotal caste in the revolution was made much more of than m the account of Kings. Moreover the priests and Levites would be likely to play a considerable part in a movement tending to the overthrow of a cultus antagonistic to their own, especially when that movement originated with their own spiritual head, and was transacted in the sanctuary to which they were attached. The chronicler, therefore, cannot with fairness be accused of “arbitrary alterations,” unless it be presupposed that his sole authority in writing this account was the Second Book of Kings.

The priests and Levites used to do duty in the Temple from Sabbath to Sabbath, so that one course relieved another at the end of each week. (See 1 Chronicles 24; Luke 1:5.) That the companies of the royal guards succeeded each other on duty in the same fashion is clear from the parallel narrative. Shall be porters of the doors.—Warders of the thresholds, that is, of the Temple (1Chronicles 9:19; 1Chronicles 9:22). 1Kings 11:5 says: “The third of you that come in on the Sabbath, they shall keep the guard of the king’s house; “the latter part of which answers to the first sentence of the next verse: “And the third part (shall be) at the king’s house.” The king’s “house” in Kings means the royal palace; the chronicler appears to mean by it his temporary dwelling within the Temple precincts.