Josiah’s celebration of the Passover
35
📚Moreover, Josiah kept a Passover to the LORD in Jerusalem, and they killed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. 2 📚And he appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the house of the LORD, 3 📚and said to the Levites who taught 📖 all Israel, who were holy to the LORD, “Put the holy ark 📖 in the house which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, built. It is not to be carried on your shoulders. Now serve the LORD your God and his people Israel, 4 📚and prepare yourselves according to the houses of your fathers, according to your divisions, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of his son Solomon.5 📚“And stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the families of the fathers of your brethren, the people, and according to the divisions of the families of the Levites. 6 📚So kill the Passover, and consecrate yourselves, and prepare your brethren, so that they may do according to the word of the LORD through Moses”.
7 📚And Josiah gave lambs and young goats from the flock to the people, all for the Passover offerings, for all who were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bulls. These were from the king’s possessions.
8 📚And his officials willingly gave to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah and Zechariah and Jehiel, rulers of the house of God, gave to the priests two thousand six hundred lambs and young goats, and three hundred oxen for the Passover offerings. 9 📚And Conaniah and Shemaiah and Nethaneel, his brethren, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, heads of the Levites, gave to the Levites five thousand lambs and young goats, and five hundred oxen for the Passover offerings.
10 📚So the service was made ready, and the priests stood in their place and the Levites in their divisions, according to the king’s command. 11 📚And they killed the Passover, and the priests sprinkled 📖 the blood handed to them, and the Levites skinned the animals. 12 📚And they put the burnt offerings aside, so that they might give them in accordance with the divisions of the families of the people, to offer to the LORD, as it is written in the book of Moses. They did this also with the oxen. 13 📚And they roasted the Passover with fire in accordance with the ordinance, but the other holy offerings they boiled in pots and in cauldrons and in pans, and quickly divided them among all the people. 14 📚And afterwards they prepared for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the sons of Aaron, were busy offering the burnt offerings and the fat 📖 until night. Therefore the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests, the sons of Aaron.
15 📚And the singers, the sons of Asaph, were in their place, in accordance with the instruction of David and Asaph and Heman and Jeduthun the king’s seer. And the gatekeepers remained at each gate, not needing to leave their work, for their brethren the Levites prepared for them.
16 So all the service of the LORD was prepared the same day, to keep the Passover, and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of the LORD, in accordance with the command of King Josiah. 17 📚And the children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days. 18 📚And no Passover like that had been kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; nor did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as that kept by Josiah and the priests and the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were present and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
35:18 2 Chron 30:5. The Passover celebration in Josiah’s reign exceeded even that which took place under Hezekiah’s leadership.⚜
19 This Passover was kept in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.
Josiah’s death
20 📚After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho, king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish 📖 at the Euphrates, and Josiah went out against him. 21 📚But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, “What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I have not come against you today, but against the house with which I am at war 📖, for God commanded me to hurry. Stop yourself from opposing God 📖, who is with me, so that he does not destroy you”.
22 📚Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself, so that he might fight with him, and did not listen to the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight on the plain of Megiddo.
35:22 Josiah did not believe the heathen king spoke a message from the true God, and may have had no good reason to believe it. He may have reasoned that if God had anything to say to him God would use a prophet in Judah.⚜
23 📚And the archers shot at king Josiah, and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am severely wounded”. 24 📚So his servants took him out of that chariot and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died, and was buried in one of the tombs of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.
25 📚And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah. And all the singing men and the singing women speak of Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them as an ordinance in Israel, and, see, they are written in the lamentations.
35:25 Jeremiah’s high regard for Josiah is seen in Jer 22:15-16. No man knows what became of the laments he composed for him. The book of Lamentations is about the fall of Jerusalem several years later, and not about the death of Josiah.⚜
26 📚Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his goodness, according to what is written in the law of the LORD, 27 📚and his deeds, first and last, see, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.