2 Chronicles 34:9

And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest,.... To whom they were sent to advise with about the repair of the temple: they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God; that is, the high priest, and the Levites the doorkeepers, gave it to the king's ministers; which money was either brought to the temple voluntarily, as the free gifts of the people, for the repairs; or rather what was collected by the Levites, sent throughout the land for that purpose, or it may be both: which the Levites that kept the doors; of the temple; and received the money as the people brought it: and also had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah, and Benjamin; they went throughout all the land of Israel and Judah, and collected money for the above purpose: and they returned to Jerusalem; with it, which the high priest took the sum of, see 2 Kings 22:4 of whom the king's ministers now received it.

34:1-33 Josiah's good reign in Judah. - As the years of infancy cannot be useful to our fellow-creatures, our earliest youth should be dedicated to God, that we may not waste any of the remaining short space of life. Happy and wise are those who seek the Lord and prepare for usefulness at an early age, when others are pursuing sinful pleasures, contracting bad habits, and forming ruinous connexions. Who can express the anguish prevented by early piety, and its blessed effects? Diligent self-examination and watchfulness will convince us of the deceitfulness and wickedness of our own hearts, and the sinfulness of our lives. We are here encouraged to humble ourselves before God, and to seek unto him, as Josiah did. And believers are here taught, not to fear death, but to welcome it, when it takes them away from the evil to come. Nothing hastens the ruin of a people, nor ripens them for it, more than their disregard of the attempts made for their reformation. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. The current and tide of affections only turns at the command of Him who raises up those that are dead in trespasses and sins. We behold peculiar loveliness, in the grace the Lord bestows on those, who in tender years seek to know and to love the Saviour. Hath Jesus, the Day-spring from on high, visited you? Can you trace your knowledge of this light and life of man, like Josiah, from your youth? Oh the unspeakable happiness of becoming acquainted with Jesus from our earliest years!

9 . And when they came … they delivered ] R.V. And they came … and delivered . The matter is somewhat differently stated in 2 Kin. according to which they are sent to Hilkiah with a message to him to “sum” i.e. to reckon the total of the money collected in the Temple. the Levites that kept the doors ] R.V. the Levites, the keepers of the door . In 2 Kings 12:9 the keepers of the doors are called priests ; cp. ib. 2 Kings 25:18 . of the hand of Manasseh etc.] In 2 Kin. simply “of the people.” and they returned to Jerusalem ] R.V. and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem . The A.V. (cp. for the meaning of this rendering, 2 Chronicles 24:5 ) follows one reading of the Hebrew (the Ḳ’rî ), the R.V., in agreement with the LXX., follows the other reading ( C’thib ).

Verse 9. - Hilkiah the high priest . Of Hilkiah's ancestors and descendants we learn something in the following references: 1 Chronicles 6:13, 14 ; 1 Chronicles 9:11 ; 2 Kings 25:18 ; Nehemiah 11:11 ; Ezra 7:1 . They delivered . This means that Hilkiah's people delivered of what they had collected to Shaphan and his colleagues, who again in their turn (ver. 10) "put it into the hand of the workmen,' etc. This is certainly the meaning of 2 Kings 22:4-9 . And they returned to Jerusalem ; translate, and of the dwellers in Jerusalem. Note Keri, and see 2 Chronicles 35:18 ; and Septuagint rendering here and there. 2 Chronicles 34:9

And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem.

The power of Assyria being now (629-624 B.C.) greatly weakened, if not completely broken, Josiah aimed not merely at a religious reformation, but at a restoration of the kingdom to its ancient limits (see the 2 Kings 23:19 note). With their mattocks ... - Or "in their desolate places" (compare Psalm 109:10). Another reading gives the sense, "he proved their house round about."

(9) And when they came . . . they delivered. — And they came . . . and they gave. In 2Kings 22:3-7 , the contents of 2Chronicles 34:9-12 a are given in the form of the king’s instructions to Shaphan. Here we are told that those instructions were carried out. “They delivered ( wayyittĕnû ) is substituted for the difficult wĕyatt ē m of Kings ( i.e., “and let him pay out”). From the hand of Manasseh . . . Benjamin.—Kings, “from the people.” Reuss oddly imagines that these words denote “a kind of organised collection throughout all Palestine,” and then proceeds to draw an inference unfavourable to the chronicler. And they returned to Jerusalem.—This is the meaning of the Qri or Hebrew margin. The Hebrew text has, “and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” which is correct.

They, together with the high priest, gave the money which had been received for the repair of the temple to the overseers of the building, who then gave it to workmen to procure building materials and for wages, just as was done when the temple was repaired by Joash, 2 Chronicles 24:11-13 . The Keri ויּשׁבוּ is a correction resulting from a misinterpretation of the Keth. וישׁבי, "and of the dwellers in Jerusalem." The enumeration, "from the hand of Manasseh, Ephraim," etc., is rhetorical. In ויּתּנוּ, 2 Chronicles 34:10 , the verb of 2 Chronicles 34:9 is again taken up: they handed it to the overseers of the building, and they to the workmen. הם עשׂה is a rare form of the plur. עשׁי; see on 1 Chronicles 23:24 . The overseers of the building (המפקדים - עשׁי) are the subject of the second ויּתּנוּ; and before the following עשׂי ל, which stands in 2 Kings, is to be supplied. בדוק is a denom. from בּדק, and signifies to repair what has been damaged.

The statement of 2 Chronicles 34:10 is made more definite by 2 Chronicles 34:11 : they gave it, namely, to the workers in stone and wood, and to the builders to buy hewn stones and timber for couplings, and for the beams of the houses (לקרות, to provide with beams; הבּתים are the various buildings of the temple and its courts), which the kings of Judah had allowed to decay (השׁחית, not of designed destroying, but of ruining by neglect). - In 2 Chronicles 34:12 we have still the remark that the people did the work with fidelity, and the money could consequently be given to them without reckoning, cf. 2 Kings 22:7 ; and then the names of the building inspectors follow. Two Levites of the family of Merari, and two of the family of Kohath, were overseers; לנצּח, i.e., to lead in the building, to preside over it as upper overseers; and besides them, the Levites, all who were skilled in instruments of song (cf. 1 Chronicles 25:6 .). As men who by their office and their art occupied a conspicuous place among the Levites, the oversight of the workmen in the temple was committed to them, not "that they might incite and cheer the workmen by music and song" (Berth.).

If, then, the clause, "they do not according to their statutes and their right," is not to contain a glaring contradiction to the previous assertion, "unto this day they do after their first (former) rights," we must understand by וּמשׁפּטם חקּתם the statutes and the right of the ten tribes, i.e., the worship of Jehovah under the symbols of the calves, and must explain the inexactness of the expression "their statutes and their right" from the fact that the historian was thinking of the Israelites who had been left behind in the land, or of the remnant of the Israelitish population that had become mixed up with the heathen settlers ( 2 Kings 23:19-20 ; 2 Chronicles 34:6 , 2 Chronicles 34:9 , 2 Chronicles 34:33 ). The meaning of the verse is therefore evidently the following: The inhabitants of Samaria retain to this day the cultus composed of the worship of idols and of Jehovah under the form of an image, and do not worship Jehovah either after the manner of the ten tribes or according to the precepts of the Mosaic law.