=1‒19= (= 1 Esdras i. 1‒22; compare 2 Kings xxiii. 21‒23).
JOSIAH’S PASSOVER.
Regarding the reference to 1 Esdras i. in the heading above, see the
Introduction § 10, s.v. _Greek Versions_, where the important fact is
noted that in 1 Esdras we have an _old_ LXX. text, earlier than the
so-called LXX. of Chronicles, and representing a Hebrew text older than
the present Masoretic form. For introduction and notes on the text of
1 Esdras see the edition by S. A. Cook in Charles’ _Apocrypha_, vol. I.
¹And Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and
they killed the passover on the fourteenth _day_ of the first
month.
=1.= _the first month_] The legal month was _Nisan_, or as it was
called in pre-exilic times _Abib_; compare Exodus xii. Compare also
xxx. 2 (with note).
²And he set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to
the service of the house of the LORD.
=2.= _in their charges_] i.e. at their duties.
_encouraged them_] As Hezekiah had done; compare xxix. 5‒11, xxx. 22.
³And he said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were
holy unto the LORD, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon
the son of David king of Israel did build; there shall no more
be a burden upon your shoulders: now serve the LORD your God,
and his people Israel.
=3.= _that taught all Israel_] Compare Nehemiah viii. 7, 9.
_Put the holy ark in the house_] This rather curious remark seems to
imply that the ark had been removed from the Temple either by Manasseh
or by Josiah during the repairing of the house. The Levites are bidden
to set it in its place without delay, and to devote themselves to the
tasks related in verses 4 ff.
⁴And prepare yourselves after your fathers’ houses by your
courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and
according to the writing of Solomon his son.
=4.= _the writing of David_] Compare 1 Chronicles xxiii. 27, xxviii.
19‒21.
⁵And stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the
fathers’ houses of your brethren the children of the people, and
_let there be for each_ a portion of a fathers’ house¹ of the
Levites.
¹ Or, _and_ according to _the distribution of each fathers’
house_.
=5.= _the children of the people_] i.e. the laity. The same phrase
is translated in 2 Kings xxiii. 6 “the common people” (without any
invidious meaning).
let there be for each _a portion ... of the Levites_] Each great
division of the laity was to be served by a small division of the
Levites.
⁶And kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare for
your brethren, to do according to the word of the LORD by the
hand of Moses.
=6.= _prepare for your brethren_] Compare verses 12, 13.
⁷And Josiah gave¹ to the children of the people, of the flock,
lambs and kids, all of them for the passover offerings, unto all
that were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three
thousand bullocks: these were of the king’s substance.
¹ Or, _gave for offerings_ and so in verses 8, 9. See chapter
xxx. 24.
=7.= _gave_] margin _gave for offerings_; compare xxx. 24, where it is
said that Hezekiah did the same at his great Passover.
⁸And his princes gave for¹ a freewill offering unto the people,
to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah and Zechariah and
Jehiel, the rulers of the house of God, gave unto the priests
for the passover offerings two thousand and six hundred _small
cattle_, and three hundred oxen.
¹ Or, _willingly_.
=8.= _for a freewill offering_] Better, as Authorized Version and
margin, =willingly=.
_Jehiel_] 1 Esdras (Ἠσύηλος) suggests a different name, probably
_Haziel_.
_rulers of the house of God_] Compare 1 Chronicles ix. 11, note.
⁹Conaniah also, and Shemaiah and Nethanel, his brethren, and
Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave
unto the Levites for the passover offerings five thousand _small
cattle_, and five hundred oxen.
=9.= _Conaniah ... and Shemaiah_] Compare the “Conaniah and Shimei his
brother” of xxxi. 12, and for _Jozabad_ compare the “Jozabad” of xxxi.
13. Different persons, however, must surely be meant, or perhaps the
names represent families rather than individuals; nearly sixty years
separate the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah.
¹⁰So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their
place, and the Levites by their courses, according to the king’s
commandment.
=10‒13.= The variations in 1 Esdras i. 10‒12 are misunderstandings of
the Hebrew; see Cook, _Apocrypha_.
¹¹And they killed the passover, and the priests sprinkled _the
blood, which they received_ of their hand, ¹²and the Levites
flayed them. And they removed the burnt offerings, that they
might give them according to the divisions of the fathers’
houses of the children of the people, to offer unto the LORD,
as it is written in the book of Moses. And so did they with the
oxen.
=11.= _sprinkled_] Compare xxix. 22, note.
_the Levites flayed_] Compare xxix. 34.
¹³And they roasted the passover with fire according to the
ordinance: and the holy offerings sod they in pots, and in
caldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the
children of the people.
=13.= _the ordinance_] Exodus xii. 9.
_and the holy offerings_] The bullocks mentioned in verses 7, 8, 9.
Possibly these were slain not on the Passover day itself, but on the
days which immediately followed. The practice of later times, however,
seems to have admitted the sacrifice of oxen as a thank offering along
with the Passover lambs (see Mishnah, _Pesachim_, vi. 3, 4); and it
is possible that in the Chronicler’s time oxen were thus killed and
eaten on the Passover day, although they were, as this verse indicates,
prepared differently from the Passover lambs.
¹⁴And afterward they prepared for themselves, and for the
priests; because the priests the sons of Aaron _were busied_ in
offering the burnt offerings and the fat until night: therefore
the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests the
sons of Aaron.
=14.= _the fat_] Compare vii. 7, note; xxix. 35.
¹⁵And the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place,
according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and
Jeduthun the king’s seer; and the porters were at every gate:
they needed not to depart from their service, for their brethren
the Levites prepared for them.
=15.= _the singers_] Compare 1 Chronicles xxv. 1 ff.
_Heman_] But 1 Esdras has _Zacharias_, a reading which finds some
support in 1 Chronicles xv. 18, xvi. 5.
¹⁶So all the service of the LORD was prepared the same day, to
keep the passover, and to offer burnt offerings upon the altar
of the LORD, according to the commandment of king Josiah. ¹⁷And
the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at
that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.
=16.= _the same day_] Literally “on that day,” i.e. the fourteenth of
Nisan.
¹⁸And 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.
=18.= _there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days
of Samuel_] The statement is simply a reproduction of 2 Kings 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 LORD 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 Kings xxiii. 22 “from the days of the
judges.”
¹⁹In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this
passover kept.
=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 verse 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 LORD 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 against the LORD above every people and
kingdom, and how they grieved him exceedingly, so that the words of
the LORD were confirmed against Israel.” Then follows verse 25 (compare
Hebrew verse 20) “Now after all these acts of Josias it came to pass
that Pharaoh, king of Egypt,” etc. Probably some words have been lost
at the point where the dots are placed. As it stands, the passage
_seems_ to associate the reign of the godly Josiah with wicked and
irreligious doings. The inference to be drawn is that this passage
was originally part of the Hebrew text (from which the old LXX. was
translated), but was subsequently excised on account of its apparent
aspersion on the character of Josiah. The gap thus created was filled
in some Hebrew MSS. by the insertion of 2 Kings xxiii. 24‒27, and from
such a Hebrew text the later Greek version (the present LXX.) was made.
In other Hebrew MSS., however, the gap was left unfilled, and from one
of these was derived the Hebrew text which has reached us (see Torrey,
_Ezra Studies_, pp. 87‒89). It is only by the use of the Greek versions
that we are now able to perceive that an omission has been made.
=20‒24= (= 1 Esdras i. 25‒31; compare 2 Kings xxiii. 29, 30a).
THE DEATH OF JOSIAH.
The account of Josiah’s death is very much fuller in Chronicles
than in Kings. The features which are peculiar to the Chronicler are,
(1) Neco’s message to dissuade Josiah from war, (2) Josiah’s disguising
himself and coming to fight _in the valley of Megiddo_, (3) the
wounding of Josiah by archers, (4) the transfer of the wounded king
from a war chariot to another chariot. Thus all the details which
represent the meeting at Megiddo as a battle are peculiar to Chronicles.
The account given in Kings is simply:――“King Josiah _went to meet_ him
(Neco), and he put him to death _at Megiddo_ when he saw him. And his
servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to
Jerusalem.” The Hebrew expression for “went to meet” in this passage is
the same as in 1 Kings xviii. 16; 2 Kings xvi. 10; it does not suggest
a _hostile_ meeting, though it can be used in a suitable context to
describe one. The phrase “when he saw him” suggests an interview rather
than a battle. Thus we have two versions of Josiah’s death: according
to Chronicles he was mortally wounded in battle, according to Kings he
sought an interview with Neco and was assassinated by him at the town
of Megiddo.
These differences may be due to two distinct traditions, but it
seems more probable that the Chronicler’s account is an intentional
adaptation of the Kings narrative to suit the main principles of his
work. We can easily realise that the bald fact of Josiah’s death at
the hands of Neco presented a distressing moral perplexity to the
Chronicler’s mind. Why, when Josiah had been so diligent in the service
of his God, did Jehovah abandon him to death in this fashion? The
stress of the problem is reflected in the rather pathetic phrase of
verse 20, “After _all_ this ... came Neco.” The same words are used
of Hezekiah (xxxii. 1), “After these things and this faithfulness,
Sennacherib came ...,” but in his case the sore trial of faith proved
to be for the greater glory of the God of Israel. Here the plea of a
successful issue to the trouble was not available, and no doubt the
story of Josiah’s end was too famous to be passed over in silence. It
would seem as if the Chronicler therefore adapted the narrative so as
to make it appear that Josiah made an attack on Neco in defiance of
a Divine warning (verse 21), and thus deserved his fate. The somewhat
similar tale of Ahab’s death (xviii. 28‒34 = 1 Kings xxii. 29‒37) was
in the Chronicler’s mind, and he appears to have drawn upon it for
certain details introduced into his version of Josiah’s end (see verses
22, 23).
²⁰After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco
king of Egypt went up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates:
and Josiah went out against him.
=20.= _Neco_] This was Neco II who reigned 610‒594 B.C. (Flinders
Petrie, _History of Egypt_, III. 335). According to Herodotus (II. 159)
he conquered the “Syrians” at “Magdolus,” and then captured Cadytis
(Kadesh on the Orontes, _or_ Gaza?), an important city of Syria.
Herodotus no doubt refers to the same great campaign of Neco which is
recorded in Kings and Chronicles, though it is not at all likely that
the victory over the _Syrians_ at _Magdolus_ is to be identified with
the encounter of Neco and Josiah at Megiddo. The account of Herodotus
is obscure, ambiguous, and defective, but a comparison of 2 Kings with
an inscription of Nabu-na’id king of Babylon (555‒538 B.C.) sets Neco’s
action in a clearer light. The campaign (which took place about 608
B.C.) was directed “against the king of Assyria” (2 Kings xxiii. 29),
i.e. against the last king Sin-šariškun (Saracos) who was at war with
Nabopolassar (father of Nebuchadrezzar), king of Babylon. Nabopolassar,
hard pressed, called in to his help the Umman-manda (Scythians),
who destroyed Nineveh _circa_ 607 B.C.; compare Messerschmidt, _Die
Inschrift der Stele Nabu-na’id’s_ (pp. 5‒13). Neco advanced to the
Euphrates to secure some of the spoils of the Assyrian overthrow, but
the crushing victory of Nebuchadrezzar over Neco at Carchemish (_circa_
605 B.C.) finally excluded Egypt from any share.
_against Carchemish_] compare Jeremiah xlvi. 2. It was a city situated
near the junction of the Habor and Euphrates. In 2 Kings, “against the
king of Assyria.”
²¹But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do
with thee, thou king of Judah? _I come_ not against thee this
day, but against the house wherewith I have war; and God hath
commanded me to make haste¹: forbear thee from _meddling with_
God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.
¹ Or, _hath given command to speed me_.
=21.= _against the house wherewith I have war_] In 1 Esdras i. 27 there
is a different reading, “my war is upon Euphrates.”
²²Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but
disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened
not unto the words of Neco, from the mouth of God, and came to
fight in the valley of Megiddo.
=22.= _disguised himself_] Like Ahab at Ramoth-gilead (xviii. 29), to
reduce the risk. The LXX. reads ἐκραταιώθη, “was strengthened.” The
Hebrew text is probably correct (see Torrey, _Ezra Studies_, p. 221).
_the valley of Megiddo_] Compare Judges v. 19; Zechariah xii. 11. In 1
Esdras i. 29, “the _plain_ of Megiddo.” The whole (or perhaps only the
western part) of the plain of Esdraelon is meant; compare 1 Chronicles
x. 7, note.
²³And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his
servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded.
=23.= _the archers shot_] Compare the death of Ahab, xviii. 33. 1
Esdras i. 29, “the princes came down against king Josias,” is an
inferior reading due probably to a misreading of the Hebrew.
_for I am sore wounded_] The very words ascribed to Ahab (xviii. 33),
and further the verb rendered _I am wounded_ is used only in these
two passages: a singularly strong witness to the view that the present
story has been influenced by that of Ahab’s death.
²⁴So his servants took him out of the chariot, and put him in
the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem;
and he died, and was buried in the sepulchres of his fathers.
And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.
=24.= _the second chariot_] War chariots were small, with (apparently)
only standing room for their occupants; see the illustrations of
Egyptian and Assyrian chariots given in the _Encyclopedia Biblia_ I.
724‒730. This “second chariot” was probably of a larger kind, suitable
for travelling.
=25= (= 1 Esdras i. 32; not in 2 Kings).
THE LAMENTATIONS FOR JOSIAH.
²⁵And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and
singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations, unto this
day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold,
they are written in the lamentations.
=25.= _lamented_] i.e. “composed (_or_ uttered) an elegy.” The Hebrew
word (_ķōnēn_) suggests formal composition, and the actual words of
lamentation are often given, as in 2 Samuel i. 17 ff., iii. 33, 34;
Ezekiel xxvii. 33, xxxii. 2, 16. The elegy in question is not preserved
in the book of Jeremiah or elsewhere. Doubtless the Chronicler or his
source had real grounds for his statement about the popular Songs of
Lament for Josiah, and we may suppose that one of these, rightly or
wrongly, was ascribed to Jeremiah.
_an ordinance_] compare 2 Samuel i. 18.
_in the lamentations_] In some lost work, not in our canonical book
of the Lamentations, for the contents of the canonical book lend no
support whatever to the view that it is referred to here (see further
_Encyclopedia Britannica_¹¹, s.v. _Lamentations_, p. 128).
=26, 27= (= 1 Esdras i. 33; 2 Kings xxiii. 25, 28).
THE EPILOGUE TO JOSIAH’S REIGN.
²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his good deeds,
according to that which is written in the law of the LORD, ²⁷and
his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the book
of the kings of Israel and Judah.
=26.= _according to that which is written_] Compare the strong terms
used in 2 Kings xxiii. 25, “like unto him was there no king before him,
that turned to the LORD with all his heart ... according to all the law
of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.”