1; Josiah keeps a most solemn passover.
20; He provoking Pharaoh-necho, is slain at Megiddo.
25; Lamentations for Josiah.
* Josiah.
The whole solemnity was performed with great exactness
according to the law, and upon that account there was none
like it since Samuel's time; for even in Hezekiah's passover
there were several irregularities. Bp. Patrick observes, that
in this also it exceeded the other passovers which preceding
things had kept, that though Josiah was by no means so rich as
David, or Solomon, or Jehoshaphat, yet he furnished the
congregation with beasts for sacrifice, both paschal and
eucharistical, at his own proper cost and charge, which was
more than any king ever did before.
30:1-27 2Ki 23:21-23
* the fourteenth.
Ex 12:6 Nu 9:3 De 16:1-8 Ezr 6:19 Eze 45:21
Josiah's solemnization of the passover, which is merely
alluded to at 2; Ki 23:21, is very particularly related her,
while the destruction of idolatry is largely related in the
Kings, and here only touched upon. The feasts of the Lord
God, appointed by the ceremonial law, were very numerous; but
the passover was the chief. It was the first which was
solemnized in the night wherein Israel came out of Egypt, and
ushered in those which were afterwards instituted: and it was
the last great feast which was held in the night wherein
Christ was betrayed, before the vail of the temple was rent in
twain. Be means of this feast, both Josiah and Hezekiah
revived religion in their day.
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