2 Chronicles 35:1–9

Read the passage.

The last major accomplishment of King Josiah was the celebration of the Passover with all the people in the eighteenth year of his reign. (v. 19) Very likely this is in response to finding the Book of the Law in the temple. The chronology is a little confusing because Passover occurs in the first month of the year, which wouldn’t leave a lot of time for the book to be found also in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. It wouldn’t, except the count of years of a king’s reign don’t necessarily line up with calendar years, just like birthdays. Your eighteenth year of life starts on your seventeenth birthday and ends on your eighteenth birthday, regardless of when during the year you were born.

When Josiah starts making preparations for the Passover, giving the orders to the Levites and priests to celebrate it, he gives an interesting command. “Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon the son of David, king of Israel built. You need not carry it on your shoulders.” (v. 3) Where had the ark been? Why wasn’t in the temple already? We can’t know for sure, but my guess is that it had been moved so that it wouldn’t be disturbed during the renovations and cleansing of the temple. It may even be possible, is they didn’t have the tabernacle still, that they didn’t want to set it down anywhere so they needed shifts of Levites to carry the ark for the entire time. That scenario seems unlikely, though.

Since the people hadn’t known to prepare for the Passover, Josiah and his officials give bulls and lambs from their own flocks and herds to make sure everyone who came to Jerusalem could celebrate as well. Not only them, but the chiefs of the Levites and the chief priests themselves gave offerings for the people. The generosity of the leaders shows how much they valued following the Lord, but not only for themselves but for everyone else too.

Ignite a passion in us to share Your righteousness with everyone around us.