also the remnant of the ten tribes, took part in it, or, as it is expressed in 2Ch 35:18, “all Judah and Israel;” (2) that it was kept in strict accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic book of the law, whereas in the passover instituted by Hezekiah there were necessarily many points of deviation from the precepts of the law, more especially in the fact that the feast had to be transferred from the first month, which was the legal time, to the second month, because the priests had not yet purified themselves in sufficient numbers and the people had not yet gathered together at Jerusalem, and also that even then a number of the people had inevitably been allowed to eat the passover without the previous purification required by the law (2Ch 30:2-3, 2Ch 30:17-20). This is implied in the words, “for there was not holden such a passover since the days of the judges and all the kings of Israel and Judah.” That this remark does not preclude the holding of earlier passovers, as Thenius follows De Wette in supposing, without taking any notice of the refutations of this opinion, was correctly maintained by the earlier commentators. Thus Clericus observes: “I should have supposed that what the sacred writer meant to say was, that during the times of the kings no passover had ever been kept so strictly by every one, according to all the Mosaic laws. Before this, even under the pious kings, they seem to have followed custom rather than the very words of the law; and since this was the case, many things were necessarily changed and neglected.” Instead of “since the days of the judges who judged Israel,” we find in 2Ch 35:18, “since the days of Samuel the prophet,” who is well known to have closed the period of the judges.
Verses 24-25
2Ki 23:24-25Conclusion of Josiah’s reign. - 2Ki 23:24. As Josiah had the passover kept in perfect accordance with the precepts of the law, so did he also exterminate the necromancers, the teraphim and all the abominations of idolatry, throughout all Judah and Jerusalem, to set up the words of the law in the book of the law that had been found, i.e., to carry them out and bring them into force. For האבות and היּדּענים see at 2Ki 21:6. תּרפים, penates, domestic gods, which were worshipped as the authors of earthly prosperity and as oracular deities (see at Gen 31:19). גּלּלים and שׁקּצים, connected together, as in Deu 29:16, as a contemptuous description of idols in general. - In 2Ki 23:25 the account of the efforts made by Josiah to restore the true worship of Jehovah closes with a general verdict concerning his
