resolution two reasons are given in 2Ch 30:24 : 1. Hezekiah had given to the assembly 1000 bullocks and 7000 head of small cattle, and the princes had given 1000 bullocks and 10,000 head of small cattle besides; so that there was more than they could use during the seven days of the Mazzoth feast. Bertheau incorrectly supposes that these were “rich gifts for further sacrificial feasts.” The gifts were bestowed for the Mazzoth festival, but were so plentiful that they sufficed for another festival of seven days. הרים, like תּרוּמה, denotes to bestow, i.e., to present beasts, etc., with the design that they should be used as sacrifices; cf. 2Ch 35:7. 2. The second reason: “priests also had sanctified themselves in multitude,” so as to be able to carry on the service at the altar, even with such numerous sacrifices, refers back to 2Ch 30:15 and 2Ch 30:3.
Verse 25
Concluding remarks on this festival. There took part in it (1) the whole congregation of Judah, and the priests and Levites; (2) the whole congregation of those who had come out of Israel (the ten tribes); (3) the strangers, both those who came out of the land of Israel and those dwelling in Judah.
Verse 26
The joy was great, for there had not been the like in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon. The meaning is, that this feast could be compared only with the feast at the dedication of the temple in the time of Solomon, 2Ch 7:1-10, in respect to its length, the richness of the sacrificial gifts, the multitude of those who participated, and the joyous feeling it caused” (Berth.). The feast at the dedication of the temple had been a festival of fourteen days; for the feast of tabernacles, which lasted seven days, came immediately after the proper dedicatory feast, and since the time of Solomon all the tribes had never been united at a feast in Jerusalem.
Verse 27
At the end of the Levitic priests dismissed the people with the blessing (the ו before הלויּם in some MSS, and which the lxx, Vulg., and Syr. also have, is a copyist's gloss brought from 2Ch 30:25; cf. against it, 2Ch 23:18), and the historian adds, “Their voice was heard, and their prayer came to His holy dwelling-place, to heaven.” This conclusion he draws from the divine blessing having been upon the festival; traceable partly in the zeal which the people afterwards showed for the public worship in the temple (2 Chron 31), partly in the deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem from the attack of the Assyrian Sennacherib (2 Chron 32).
Chap. 31
Verse 1
2Ch 31:1Destruction of the idols and the altars of the high places. Provisions for the ordering and maintenance of the temple worship,
