Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/374

310 and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. Also in Judah was the hand of God to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes by the word of the. And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away, and cast them into the brook Kidron. Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt offerings into the house of the. And they stood in their place after their order, according to the law of Moses the man of God: the priests sprinkled

humbled themselves] So xxxiii. 12.

12. Also in Judah was the hand of God] i.e. the mighty working of God, which brought some penitents from far parts of Israel, manifested itself in Judah also.

the commandment of the king by the word of the ] The king's command was according to God's command in the Law.

13—27 (not in 2 Kin.).&emsp;

It seems clear that the story of Hezekiah's Passover has been composed by the Chronicler on the analogy of Josiah's grand celebration of that feast (see xxxv. 1—19), which the present festival even surpasses in some respects—viz. in its scope (for all Israel and strangers, whereas Josiah's was for Judeans only) and in its duration (for two weeks, Josiah's for one). Josiah's Passover was famous because of the account of it in Kings. Doubtless the Chronicler felt that a celebration of that feast was incumbent upon a great reforming monarch, and he has therefore credited Hezekiah with observing it.

13. the feast of unleavened bread] In the "Passover" were united two separate "feasts," (1) the eating of the lamb on the fourteenth of Nisan, (2) the eating of unleavened bread from the fourteenth to the twenty-first of Nisan. The combined Feast was sometimes called "the Passover" and sometimes (as here) "the feast of unleavened bread"; cp. Ex. xii. 1—14 and 17—20, and note that the intervening verses, 15, 16, bind the two feasts into one celebration.

14. the altars] Cp. xxviii. 24.

15. the second month] Cp. vv. 2, 3.

were ashamed] Of their former backwardness; cp. ver. 3, xxix. 34.