Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 34
Charles Ellicott Commentary
2 Chronicles 34
Charles Ellicott Commentary
2 Chronicles 34
"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem." — 2 Chronicles 34:1 (ASV)
Josiah was eight years old. —So 2 Kings 22:1, which adds, and his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath.
"Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left." — 2 Chronicles 34:1-2 (ASV)
(1-2) Length and character of the reign.
"And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left." — 2 Chronicles 34:2 (ASV)
And declined ... the left. — As in the Book of Kings. Josiah is the only king on whom this encomium is bestowed. It is equivalent to saying that his observance of the law was perfect. Compare Deuteronomy 5:32; Deuteronomy 17:20 (the law of the king); Deuteronomy 28:14.
"For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images." — 2 Chronicles 34:3 (ASV)
For. — Now.
In the eighth year. —The specifications of time in this verse are peculiar to the chronicler.
While he was yet young. —Being about sixteen.
He began to seek. — 2 Chronicles 17:3–4; 1 Chronicles 13:3.
And in the twelfth year. —When, perhaps, he began to govern alone.
He began to purge. —It is not said that the whole work was completed in the twelfth year; indeed, 2 Chronicles 34:33 implies the contrary.
But the writer, having begun the story of the destruction of idolatrous objects, naturally continues it to its close, though that properly belongs to Josiah’s eighteenth year (2 Kings 22:3, compared with 2 Kings 23:4 and following).
It is not, therefore, clear (as Thenius asserts) that the chronicler has put the extirpation of idolatry first, simply to show that the pious king needed no special prompting to such a course; or that, as Noldeke supposes, the writer meant to clear this highly-extolled king from the reproach of having quietly put up with the abomination for full eighteen years.
The high places. — 2 Kings 23:5; 2 Kings 23:8–9; 2 Kings 23:13.
The groves. — The Asherim (2 Kings 23:4; 2 Kings 6:7; 2 Kings 6:14). There was an Asherah in the Temple, as well as in the high places which Solomon built for Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom.
The carved and molten images are not mentioned in the parallel passage, which, however, gives a much clearer and more original description of the different kinds of idolatry abolished by Josiah.
(The Syriac has, “he began to root out the altars, and idols, and leopards, and chapels, and collars, and bells, and all the trees which they made for the idols.”)
"For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the sun-images that were on high above them he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves [of them] that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem. And [so did he] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, in their ruins round about. And he brake down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the graven images into powder, and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem." — 2 Chronicles 34:3-7 (ASV)
Idolatry eradicated. This brief account is parallel to 2 Kings 23:4–20.
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