2 Chronicleschapter 30
27 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
For the king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem had decided to keep the Passover in the second month,
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a people asking who still belonged to Israel after the northern kingdom was gone. A king of Judah writes to tribes no king of Judah had ruled for two centuries. The feast he calls comes a month late, and the book explains why. Listen for the mixed welcome his couriers receive. Watch what the king does when people come to the feast unprepared. The chapter measures the day against the one event every first hearer already knew about.
Context
- Who
- Judeans and the remnant of the northern tribes, two peoples who had not kept a feast together in two centuries
- What
- Hezekiah's invitation to all Israel and Judah to keep the Passover in Jerusalem, kept in the second month, with a second week of feasting.
- Where
- Jerusalem, with couriers sent through Ephraim, Manasseh and Zebulun as far as Dan.
- When
- About 716 or 715 BC, the second month of Hezekiah's first year.
- Why
- To show that the division of the kingdom was not the last word on who Israel was, and that the LORD hears prayer for the sincere who fall short of the rite.
Historical context
The chapter is Hezekiah's, and in it he is a king of Judah writing to people no king of Judah had ruled for two hundred years. The couriers who carry the letters are the chapter's other actors.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is the second month of the first year of the reign, around 716 or 715 BC. The date is fixed by the chapter itself, which explains why the feast fell a month late.
The place is Jerusalem for the feast and the old northern territory for the invitation. The decree is proclaimed from Beersheba to Dan, which is the boundary formula of a kingdom that had not stood whole since the division of 1 Kings 12.
The occasion is given in verse 3. The priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number and the people had not gathered, so the fourteenth of the first month passed without a Passover.
A first hearer knew what stands behind that decision. Numbers 9:10 to 11 had written a second month Passover for a man made unclean by a dead body or away on the road, and Hezekiah applies that provision to a nation. A hearer also knew that Assyria had taken the northern kingdom within the last few years and that Reuben and Gad had already been carried off. The men who mocked the couriers were the last generation of a kingdom about to end.
Significance
For Judah this chapter said that the division was not the last word on who Israel was. The invitation went to people whose kingdom had just been destroyed, and the text names by tribe those who came.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
It also told them how God weighs a heart against a rite. A crowd ate the Passover unclean, the king prayed for them rather than turning them away, and the next verse says the LORD heard him and healed the people.
The closing measure set the day beside the one event every hearer knew. There had been nothing like it in Jerusalem since Solomon.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon, and the annual cycle of Torah portions and their Haftarot draws on other books. A Jewish reader meets this chapter in study rather than in a reading appointed for a Sabbath or a feast, and the site's own reading data records the same for every chapter.
The practice this chapter turns on is a Passover kept in the second month rather than the first. Rashi states the reason in four words of his own, that they could not keep it at that time, in Nisan (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:3:1). The invitation went out over the whole land, and Rashi marks the northern boundary named in the fifth verse as the boundary of the ten tribes (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:5:1). The feast was then held twice over, and Rashi reads the added week as seven further days of joy (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:23:1).
How it is read
Rashi first fixes the date, because the invitation to the north only makes sense before the exile. He places the Passover in the first year of the reign and the fall of Samaria in the sixth (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:1:1). He then explains why the northerners are already called a remnant that escaped. They had been tributary for six years and had been carried off many times before, so they counted themselves as good as exiled (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:6:1).
The slowness of the priests is read kindly. Rashi says they were ashamed of having delayed, and gives their reason. They could not believe the change was real, since the previous king had put them out of their office. They waited until they saw it was done for the name of Heaven (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:15:1). The Levites slaughtered for those who had not purified themselves, and Rashi notes that the receiving of the blood onward belongs to the priests (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:16:1, and 30:17:1).
The prayer for those who ate while unclean is read through a rule of interpretation. Rashi takes it as a case of separated sequence (Rashi on II Chronicles 30:19:1). That is one of the thirty-two methods by which Aggadah is expounded in the Baraita of Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Jose the Galilean. He adds the distinction the reading rests on. Judah lived near Jerusalem and could purify itself, while those from the northern tribes learned of the feast late and had no time, so the fault was not theirs.
Metzudat David comments at 30:4:1, 30:11:1, 30:12:1 and 30:25:1, Radak at 30:2:1 and 30:20:1, and Malbim at 30:10:1. Rashi has one further comment at 30:8:1 that Sefaria holds in Hebrew alone. The corpus holds no English text for any of these, so they stand cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-eight locators on this chapter and holds the locator alone for each. The Babylonian Talmud carries it at Pesachim 56a:3, Sanhedrin 12a:13 and 12b:1, and Berakhot 10b:8, with Ein Yaakov Sanhedrin 1:23 beside them. The Jerusalem Talmud carries it at Pesachim 5:6:2, 9:1:3, 9:1:4 and 9:1:5, Nedarim 6:8:6 and 6:8:7, Sanhedrin 1:2:27 and Taanit 4:1:5. The midrashim carry it at Bamidbar Rabbah 15:16, Midrash Lekach Tov Numbers 9:10:1, Midrash Tehillim 108:1 and Sifra Shemini Mekhilta DeMiluim II 29. Otzar Midrashim carries it at Baraita of The 32 Midot of Aggadah 1:15 and at Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:12. The rest are Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187:4, 386:2, 524:2, 524:3, 779:1 and 779:2. Last are Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Pesachim 59 and 61, and its Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Halakhic Midrash 20. The weight of that list sits in the tractate on Passover, which is where the second Passover belongs.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg (Sefaria, CC-BY); Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 30, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 30, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 30, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/30.json, fetched 2026-09-19; The reading data of this site, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Letters from Dan to Beersheba: turn again, and He will return
2 Chronicles 30:1-3
wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh: Hezekiah’s letters reach past Judah to Ephraim and Manasseh in the north, where the calves at Dan and Bethel had governed worship for two centuries. The Passover moved to the second month, the provision Numbers 9:9-11 makes for one man unclean or far from home.
2 Chronicles 30:1
"Let them take whom they will for their king," says Hezekiah, "so they will but take him for their God." The matters in difference between Judah and Israel, either upon a civil or sacred account, shall not hinder but that if the people of Israel will sincerely return to the Lord their God Hezekiah will bid them as welcome to the passover as any of his own subjects.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 30:1
“Hoshea, the reigning king, is described as, though evil in some respects, yet more favorably disposed to religious liberty than any of his predecessors since the separation of the kingdom. This is thought to be the meaning of the mitigating clause in his character (2Ki 17:2).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
to keep the Passover in the second month: The law set the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, as Exodus 12:6 commands. Wesley and Barnes explain the delay: the cleansing of the temple ran to the sixteenth day of that month, as 29:17 records. John Gill notes that the Targum names the second month Ijar.
2 Chronicles 30:2
“For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem,.... He and his nobles, and the great sanhedrim or senate of the nation, had consulted together: to keep the passover in the second month; in the month Ijar, as the Targum, because they could not keep it in the first month, as it should have been kept, according to the law of God, for the reasons following.”
3 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:2
“In the second month - Hezekiah and his counselors considered that the permission of the Law (see the marginal reference) might, under the circumstances, be extended to the whole people. It had been found impossible to complete the cleansing of the temple until the fourteenth day of the first month was past 2Ch 29:17. It was, therefore, determined to defer it to the 14th of the second month, which allowed time for the priests generally to purify themselves, and for proclamation of the festival to be made throughout all Israel.”
2 Chronicles 30:2
“In the second month - In Ijar, as they could not celebrate it in Nisan, the fourteenth of which month was the proper time. But as they could not complete the purgation of the temple, till the sixteenth of that month, therefore they were obliged to hold it now, or else adjourn it till the next year, which would have been fatal to that spirit of reformation which had now taken place.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 30:2
“Second month - Which was against the common rule, but the doing of this in its proper time, namely, the fourteenth day of the first month was impossible, because the temple was not cleansed, nor they prepared.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
not enough priests had consecrated themselves: Two causes are named: too few priests were consecrated, and the people had not gathered. The first repeats the complaint of 29:34. Matthew Henry reads the decision as letting the date yield to the feast itself, so that the people's readiness was used while it lasted.
2 Chronicles 30:3
“Whereupon they resolved to keep the passover in the second month. Let the circumstance give way to the substance, and let not the thing itself be lost upon a nicety about the time. It is good striking while the iron is hot, and taking people when they are in a good mind.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 30:4-6
pleased the king and the whole assembly: The decree gives formal shape to what the king and “the whole assembly” had already agreed. Its reach, “from Beersheba to Dan”, is the border language of the united kingdom, spoken to a north divided. Verse 5 gives the reason: “they had not observed it as a nation as prescribed”.
2 Chronicles 30:4
“And the thing pleased the king, and all the congregation. They all unanimously agreed to it, and determined it should be done.”
had not observed it as a nation: The last clause gives the reason for the decree. Albert Barnes records a second reading of it: the northern tribes had not kept the Passover in full numbers, as the law required. On either reading the feast had lapsed, though Deuteronomy 16:16 required every male to appear before the LORD.
2 Chronicles 30:5
They had not done it ... - Some prefer, “they had not kept it in full numbers, as it was written” - i. e. “they (the Israelites of the northern kingdom) had not (for some while) kept the Passover in full numbers, as the Law required.”
return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the couriers for runners drawn from the royal guard. The letter turns on one verb: if Israel returns to the LORD, He will return to those who remain. Matthew Henry reads the letter as a call to repentance.
2 Chronicles 30:6
“So the posts went - רצים ratsim, the runners or couriers; persons who were usually employed to carry messages; men who were light of foot, and confidential.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 30:7-9
Do not be like your fathers: The letter argues from history: “Do not be like your fathers and brothers”, whose unfaithfulness made them “an object of horror, as you can see”. The call turns on the verb “return”, and it promises mercy before their captors, for “the LORD your God is gracious and merciful”.
2 Chronicles 30:7
“And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers,.... By worshipping the calves, and neglecting the service of God in the temple at Jerusalem; the Targum is,"which acted deceitfully with the Word of the Lord their God:" who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see; some part of the land of Israel being already made desolate by the kings of Assyria, which was very visible.”
Submit to the LORD: Exodus 32:9 calls Israel a stiff-necked people at the golden calf, and the letter names that refusal as the fathers' sin. Matthew Henry notes that the Hebrew behind Submit means to give the hand, the gesture that sealed a bargain. So the call is to enter covenant with the LORD.
gracious and merciful: The words gracious and merciful repeat the name the LORD proclaimed in Exodus 34:6. Solomon had asked in 6:36 to 39 that captives who turned to the LORD be heard and forgiven. Clarke cites the Targum, which reads the turning away of His face as the departure of His presence.
2 Chronicles 30:9
“And will not turn away his face from you - Well expressed by the Targum: “For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not cause his majesty to ascend up from among you, if ye will return to his fear.” The shechinah, of which the Targumist speaks, is the dwelling of the Divine Presence among men, and the visible symbol of that presence.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 30:10-11
the people scorned and mocked them: Along most of the couriers’ road, through Ephraim and Manasseh “as far as Zebulun”, the people “scorned and mocked them”. Barnes notes how few tribes were left to answer at all, since Reuben and Gad were already carried off and Dan was absorbed into Judah.
2 Chronicles 30:10
“They - The generality of the ten tribes; who by long want of meat had now lost their appetite to God's ordinances, for which they paid dear. For about six years after their refusal of this offer of grace they were all carried away captive, 2 Kings xviii, 1, 10.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:10
“Tell them of God's mercy and wrath! they neither dreaded the one nor desired the other. No marvel that the king's messengers were thus despitefully used by this apostate race when God's messengers were so, his servants the prophets, who produced credentials from him. The destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes was now at hand.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem: Albert Barnes counts the tribes: with Ephraim and Issachar, five of the northern tribes sent men. Reuben and Gad were in captivity, and Simeon and Naphtali appear to have held more firmly to idolatry. John Gill takes the humbling as confession and repentance, the condition the LORD set in 7:14.
to give them one heart: In Judah the response has one cause. The willingness itself is named as God’s work. The north scorned the couriers, while Judah’s one heart is credited to God, and its obedience runs “according to the word of the LORD”.
2 Chronicles 30:12
“They did it with one heart, were all of a mind in it, and the hand of God gave them that one heart; for it is in the day of power that Christ's subjects are made willing. It is God that works both to will and to do.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hezekiah prays for those who ate unprepared, and God heals them
2 Chronicles 30:13-14
celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread: The “very great assembly” clears the city before it worships. They “remove the altars in Jerusalem” and the incense altars, and throw them “into the Kidron Valley”. Barnes notes that Hezekiah had built up the true worship first, and only here does the work turn to the altars that stood.
2 Chronicles 30:13
“And there assembled at Jerusalem much people,.... Out of the several tribes: to keep the feast of unleavened bread: the passover, which was eaten with unleavened bread: in the second month: the month Ijar: a very great congregation; such as had not been seen on such an occasion for many years.”
throw them into the Kidron Valley: Albert Barnes observes that Hezekiah restored the temple service first and turned to the idol altars once the daily worship stood. John Gill adds that the incense altars burned to idols, and that the Kidron had received the uncleanness carried out of the temple in 29:16.
2 Chronicles 30:14
“The continuance of the idolatrous altars to this time shows that Hezekiah had been more anxious to construct than to destroy, to establish the Yahweh-worship than to root out idolatry. Now, however, that the more important work was done, the temple open, and the daily service restored, attention could be turned to the secondary object of removing from the city all traces of the late apostasy.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:14
“The best preparation we can make for the gospel passover is to cast away our iniquities, our spiritual idolatries. The celebration of the passover. In this the people were so forward and zealous that the priests and Levites blushed to see themselves out-done by the commonalty, to see them more ready to bring sacrifices than they were to offer them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 30:15-17
The priests and Levites were ashamed: The lamb is slaughtered on “the fourteenth day of the second month”, the day Numbers 9:11 names for this case. Because many had not consecrated themselves, the Levites slaughtered the lambs “for every unclean person”, standing in for offerers who lacked the required purity.
2 Chronicles 30:15
“The laggart priests and Levites, who from want of zeal for the Yahweh-worship, or from actual inclination to idolatry, had neglected to purify themselves (2Ch 30:3 and marginal reference), were now shamed by the general ardor, and sanctified themselves for the Paschal festival. And brought in the burnt offerings - Received them, i. e. from the offerers at the doors of the inner court, and took them up to the brass altar in front of the porch. No part of the burnt offerings was ever taken inside the temple building.”
The priests sprinkled the blood: Leviticus 1:5 gives the sprinkling of blood to the priests. Albert Barnes describes the later practice recorded in the Mishnah, rows of priests reaching from the altar to the court. Matthew Henry connects the sprinkled blood to Christ, whom Paul calls our Passover lamb in 1 Corinthians 5:7.
2 Chronicles 30:16
“After their manner - According to the Mishna, the custom was for the priests to stand in two rows extending from the altar to the outer court, where the people were assembled. As each offerer killed his lamb the blood was caught in a basin, which was handed to the nearest priest, who passed it on to his neighbor, and he to the next; the blood was thus conveyed to the altar, at the base of which it was thrown by the last priest in the row.”
the Levites were in charge of slaughtering the Passover lambs: Under Exodus 12:6 each household killed its own lamb. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the change a departure from the established practice, made because many worshipers were unclean. Matthew Henry notes that the Levites took on the offerers' part, and Josiah's Passover made the same arrangement the practice in 35:6.
2 Chronicles 30:17
“They also assisted more than the law ordinarily allowed in offering the other sacrifices, particularly those that were for the purifying of the unclean, many of which there was now occasion for. Some think that it was the offerers' work, not the priests', that the Levites had here the charge of.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 30:18-20
they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written: “May the LORD, who is good, provide atonement for everyone” “who sets his heart on seeking God”, the measure Chronicles applies to every king. Then “the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people”, which John Gill reads as forgiveness, citing Psalm 41:4 and Psalm 103:3.
2 Chronicles 30:18
“A multitude of the people - had not cleansed themselves - As there were men from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, they were excusable, because they came from countries that had been wholly devoted to idolatry. The good Lord pardon every one - “The Lord, who is good, have mercy on this people who err.” - T.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:18
“Here is a defect in sanctuary purification. There is nothing perfect under the sun, nor a just man that doeth good, and sinneth not. (3.) These defects need pardoning healing grace; for omissions in duty are sins as well as omissions of duty.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The prayer names the Chronicler's central measure and weighs it above the outward rules of cleansing. John Wesley explains the purification of the sanctuary as the washing required of those who came into God's house. Spurgeon preached this text to believers who felt unfit to come to the Lord's Table.
2 Chronicles 30:19
“The sanctuary - With that purification which was required of them that came in God's sanctuary. So he calls it to distinguish from that internal purity which they are here acknowledged to have. The great thing required in our attendance on God's ordinances is, that we prepare our heart to seek him; that the inward man be engaged, that we make heart work of it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
healed the people: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, following Bertheau, read the healing in light of Leviticus 15:31, which warns that the unclean who defile the tabernacle die. The people stood under that threat, and the LORD removed it. The verb recalls the promise of 7:14, that He will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 30:20
“And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah,.... Heard his prayer, and accepted of it, and granted what he desired: and healed his people; that is, forgave their sins, as Kimchi interprets it; forgiveness being expressed by healing, for which he refers to Psa 41:4 to which may be added Psa 103:3 and which was known either by a prophet sent to declare it, or by not punishing them for their offence.”
Seven days more of gladness, unmatched since Solomon's day
celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days: The Israelites keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread “for seven days with great joy”, the gladness Chronicles records when worship is rightly offered. The Levites and priests praise the LORD “day after day, accompanied by loud instruments of praise”. They are the musicians David appointed in 1 Chronicles 25.
2 Chronicles 30:21
“And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness,....”
Hezekiah encouraged all the Levites: Hezekiah “encouraged all the Levites who performed skillfully before the LORD” after a week of their labor. For seven days the people “ate their assigned portion”, sacrificing fellowship offerings that were eaten as a shared meal. The feast closes with thanks “to the LORD, the God of their fathers”.
2 Chronicles 30:22
“Princes and magistrates by encouraging faithful and labourious preachers, greatly promote the kingdom of God. That taught - Who by their office were to instruct and build up the people in the knowledge and fear of God: which is mentioned as the cause of his respect and kindness to them.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:22
“They made a religious confession of their relation to God and dependence upon him, a penitent confession of their sins and infirmities, a thankful confession of God's mercies to them, and a supplicatory confession of their wants and desires; and, in all these, they had an eye to God as the God of their fathers, a God in covenant with them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 30:23-24
agreed to observe seven more days: The assembly extends the feast by its own choice, “seven more days” that the law never commanded, kept with the same joy as the first. Hezekiah contributes “a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep”, and the officials exceed him with “a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep”.
2 Chronicles 30:23
“And the whole assembly took counsel to keep other seven days,.... They consulted among themselves, and with the king and his nobles about it, who all agreed to it: and they kept other seven days with gladness; not altogether in the same manner they had kept the preceding seven days; they did not slay and eat passover lambs, nor did they eat unleavened bread, but offered peace offerings, and feasted upon them; and sung the praises of God, and attended to the instructions of the priests and Levites, being in a very agreeable frame of mind for religious exercises.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:23
“To keep other seven days - This was a voluntary addition to the requirements of the Law - the fruit and sign of the abounding zeal which characterized the time. Hezekiah and the princes probably proposed it to the people, and presented them with sacrificial animals.”
a great number of priests consecrated themselves: John Wesley explains the gift: the animals were offered to God as peace offerings. The king gave up his share of the meat so the people could feast on it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that these herds supplied the meals of the added second week.
2 Chronicles 30:24
“Did give - First to God, to whom the parts appointed were offered in a way of thanksgiving; and then to the people, who feasted upon the relicks, as the offerer used to do in peace- offerings: and Hezekiah, who was the offerer, gave away his right in the remains of the sacrifices to the people.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 30:25-26
the foreigners who had come from Israel: The text names the company that rejoices: the assembly of Judah, the priests and Levites, and the assembly “that had come from Israel”. With them were “the foreigners who had come from Israel and those who lived in Judah”. Verse 26 measures the joy against Solomon’s dedication of the temple.
2 Chronicles 30:25
“The strangers that come out of the land of Israel - That is, the proselytes of the covenant who had embraced Judaism, and had submitted to the rite of circumcision, for none others could be permitted to eat of the passover.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel: Albert Barnes points to 7:8 to 10, where Solomon's dedication and the feast that followed ran fourteen days in all. John Gill notes that Hezekiah's feast matched it in length, seven days and then seven more. Matthew Henry draws the lesson that holy duties should be done with gladness.
2 Chronicles 30:26
“So there was great joy in Jerusalem,.... Not merely carnal, expressed in eating and drinking, and making merry with one another, but spiritual, on account of the restoration of temple service, and the feasts of the Lord: for since the time of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like in Jerusalem; not the like joy, so spiritual, sincere, and hearty; nor such a number of persons rejoicing together on such an occasion; nor for so many days together, which were as many as at the dedication of the temple by Solomon.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 30:26
“Since the time of Solomon - there was not the like in Jerusalem - For from that time the ten tribes had been separated from the true worship of God, and now many of them for the first time, especially from Asher, Issachar, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Zebulun, joined to celebrate the passover.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
stood to bless the people: The feast closes as it began, with the priests and Levites acting for the assembly. They “stood to bless the people”, and “God heard their voice”. Adam Clarke notes that the northern kingdom’s captivity was only a few years off when this recovery took place.
2 Chronicles 30:27
“And their voice was heard - God accepted the fruits of that pious disposition which himself had infused. And their prayer came up - As the smoke of their sacrifices ascended to the clouds, so did their prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings, ascend to the heavens. The Targum says: “Their prayer came up to the dwelling-place of his holy shechinah, which is in heaven.” Israel now appeared to be in a fair way of regaining what they had lost; but alas, how soon were all these bright prospects beclouded for ever!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A narrative of one festival, carrying a royal letter, a decree, a king's prayer and its answer inside the account, as Adam Clarke, with John Wesley classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| From Beersheba even to Dan | The decree of verse 5 is proclaimed in the boundary formula of a united kingdom. No such kingdom had stood on the ground for two centuries. The site's exposition note on 30:4 to 6 records that the phrase is spoken to a scattered north as though the division of 1 Kings 12 had never fallen between them.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 30:4 to 6. | 2 Chronicles 30:5, 2 Chronicles 30:1, 2 Chronicles 30:10 |
| Turn again unto the LORD | The letter of verses 6 to 9 turns on one verb, repeated at its opening and its close. It is the seeking verb the book measures every reign by. The letter promises what only God can promise past a captivity, compassion before their captors and a return to the land, on the ground that the LORD is gracious and merciful.the site's 2 Chronicles guide, the KEYNOTES table of `Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx`, darash at Strong's h1875, called the book's single most load-bearing verb. | 2 Chronicles 30:6, 2 Chronicles 30:8, 2 Chronicles 30:9 |
| They laughed them to scorn, nevertheless | Verses 10 and 11 set the two answers to the letter side by side in two sentences. The posts pass from Ephraim through Manasseh into Zebulun and are mocked. Then men of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humble themselves and come. The site's exposition note on those verses records Albert Barnes counting who was left to answer at all, with Reuben and Gad already carried off.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 30:10 to 11. | 2 Chronicles 30:10, 2 Chronicles 30:11, 2 Chronicles 30:12 |
| The good LORD pardon every one that prepareth his heart | Hezekiah's prayer at verses 18 and 19 is spoken over people eating the Passover unclean, and it names the very thing the book measures kings by, the heart that seeks God. The site's exposition note on 30:18 to 20 records that the prayer asks mercy where the heart outran the rite rather than asking that the law be set aside. Verse 20 answers it plainly, that the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 30:18 to 20. | 2 Chronicles 30:18, 2 Chronicles 30:19, 2 Chronicles 30:20 |
The historical value
14 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter places a Judean king sending messengers into territory the Assyrian empire had taken. The site's exposition note on 30:10 to 11 records Albert Barnes counting the tribes still able to answer, with Reuben and Gad already carried off and Dan absorbed into Judah. The response comes from as many of the ten tribes as still had a homeland to send it from.
The outside record for this reign belongs to chapter 32 rather than to this one. The book's dossier carries Sennacherib's annals on the Taylor Prism and the Siloam tunnel with its inscription, and both bear on the invasion and the water works rather than on the feast. What this chapter gives a historian is a picture of the mechanics of a national festival. It names the couriers, the second month provision, the division of labour between Levite and priest, and the supply of animals from the royal herds.
One closing note of the chapter is a matter of chronology. The site's exposition note on verse 27 records Adam Clarke reading the moment as the high point of a recovery that did not hold, with the northern kingdom's captivity only a few years off.
The debated concept
The chapter carries a question the law itself raises and the chapter answers in one direction. The law of Numbers 9:10 to 11 gives a second month Passover to a man unclean by a dead body or away on the road. Hezekiah applies it to a whole nation on the ground that the priests had not sanctified themselves in number and the people had not gathered. Whether that is the provision applied or the provision widened is a question a reader meets on the surface of the text. The chapter records the decision of king, princes and congregation together at verses 2 to 4 and argues none of it.
Verse 18 raises the sharper case. A multitude from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun eat the Passover otherwise than it was written, which is to say unclean by the sanctuary's own standard. Hezekiah prays rather than turning them away, and verse 20 says the LORD heard him and healed the people. The site's exposition note on 30:18 to 20 records John Gill reading the healing as forgiveness, on the pattern of Psalm 41:4 and Psalm 103:3. The same note calls this the book's clearest word that a sought heart outweighs an unmet ceremony. A reader who wants the other side of that has verse 17 in the same chapter, where the Levites kill for the unclean rather than letting the irregularity stand unattended.
The divine connection
The chapter names God as the cause of the one response it calls unanimous. Verse 12 says the hand of God was on Judah to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of the LORD. The site's exposition note on that verse records John Wesley reading the willingness itself as the gift, under a decision that looks merely civic. The north was free to refuse and did, and Judah's unity is credited to something other than royal authority.
The letter of verses 6 to 9 states a theology of return that the rest of the book works out. If the people turn again, the LORD will turn again to the remnant that escaped the kings of Assyria. The promise runs past the border of the kingdom and past the border of the disaster, and it names compassion before their captors as part of what God can give.
The prayer at verses 18 and 19 is where the chapter states its own measure. Hezekiah asks pardon for every one that prepares his heart to seek God, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. The site records the answer of verse 20 and states no verdict beyond it.
How the rest of Scripture reads this chapter
There is no parallel account. 2 Kings 18 carries the reign and says nothing of this feast, so every fact in this chapter comes from this book alone. The site says that plainly rather than pointing a reader to a second witness that does not exist.
The chapter's law is Numbers 9:9 to 11, which the letter and the decree both stand on. Its precedent is Solomon's dedication, which verse 26 names outright, since there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem since the time of Solomon the son of David. The site's exposition note on 30:25 to 26 records that the chapter reaches further back for its measure than any reign between.
The feast is measured again five chapters later. At 2 Chronicles 35:18 no Passover like Josiah's had been kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet, which reaches back further than this chapter's own claim. The site's exposition note on 35:18 to 19 records John Wesley reading a difference of kind, with Hezekiah's keeping carrying irregularities the law did not intend and Josiah's running exactly to the law.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, with John Wesley, Commentary on the Bible and Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, cited together by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 30:1 to 3 and the site's 2 Chronicles guide, the APEX table and the THEMES table of `Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx`, the all Israel row at 30:1 and 30:6 to 9.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2131: “To Those Who Feel Unfit for Communion” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.