Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/406

342 days. And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.

18. there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel] The statement is simply a reproduction of 2 Kin. xxiii. 22, where we read "there was not kept such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover kept to the  in Jerusalem." Actually the novelty of Josiah's festival was (i) that it was kept in Jerusalem, whereas previously the Passover had been a household feast observed at any "high-place" throughout the country, and (ii) that it thus marked the inauguration of the system of only one legitimate sanctuary—Jerusalem—which was codified in Deuteronomy. The writer in Kings may have clearly understood that the point lay in the words "in Jerusalem." To the Chronicler, the statement meant merely an assertion that this feast was the grandest Passover since the days of the judges (he prefers to write since Samuel, reckoning him the last of the judges).

A similar but not identical remark regarding Hezekiah's Passover is made in xxx. 26—"since the time of Solomon there was not the like in Jerusalem." In some points Hezekiah's feast as described in xxx. 1 ff. may be said to have surpassed Josiah's, but it is most unnecessary and indeed pedantic so to magnify this fact as to insist that the sweeping assertion of the present verse about Josiah's Passover cannot be from the same source as xxx. 1—26. Both passages may well be from the Chronicler (so Curtis, p. 471); in xxx. 1 ff. he was writing a free description of Hezekiah's feast, and the verse (xxx. 26) quoted above was written by him to impress us duly with its magnificence; in the present verse he was naturally reproducing his source in Kings, and it is most unlikely that he would notice any slight inconsistency with xxx. 26, or that, if he did, he would have been troubled thereby.

from the days of Samuel] In 2 Kin. xxiii. 22 "from the days of the judges."

19. In the eighteenth year] Comparison of the later Greek version (the so-called LXX.) of this verse with the earlier Greek version (the old LXX.) preserved in 1 Esdras reveals that this passage is one of great interest for the history of the text. After ver. 19 "In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept," 1 Esdras i. 23, 24 has a remarkable addition as follows: "And the works of Josias were upright before his with a heart full of godliness. Moreover the things that came to pass in his days [or 'the things concerning him'] have been written in times past concerning  those that sinned and did wickedly