LESSON XCII.

JOSIAH'S PASSOVER.

B.C. 625.-2 CHRON. XXXV. I—19 (abridged).

Moreover Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the 14th day of the first month.

And he set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to the service of the house of the LORD,

And 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; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the LORD your God and his people Israel,

And prepare yourselves by the houses of your fathers, after your courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son.

And stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the families of the fathers of your brethren the people, and after the division of the families of the Levites.

So kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place, and the Levites in the courses, according to the king's commandment.

And they killed the passover, and the priests sprinkled the blood from their hands, and the Levites flayed them.

And they removed the burnt offerings, that they might give according to the divisions of the families of the people, to offer unto the LORD, as it is written in the book of Moses. And so they did with the oxen.

And the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthan, the king's seer; and the porters waited at every gate; they might not depart from their service; for their brethren the Levites prepared for them.

So 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.

And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.

And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all judah and Israel ere present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Sighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.

COMMENT. There was nothing the faithful kings of Judah so tried to enforce as the proper observance of the Passover at Jerusalem. For in truth it was to them the commemoration of the Redemption from Egypt, and likewise the foretaste of the great Redemption. It was to them what an Easter Communion is to us, only that they had the shadow and we have the reality. All the power of a great king was, however, needed to gather the faithless, indolent people to Jerusalem, and even to stir up the priests to the right performance of their duty. It seems as if during the loss of the Book of the Law, the Ark had been taken out of the Holy of Holies, since Josiah bids the Levites place it there and not carry it about. He likewise took care that all should be done perfectly according to the Law-the killing the lamb, the sprinkling of the blood, the roasting whole, the seven days of unleavened bread. Moreover, the singing Levites of the house of Asaph and the doorkeepers of Korah all held their offices, and so devout was the Passover, so full of precious gifts, that it is declared in these respects to have surpassed even that of Hezekiah, and to have recalled the days of Samuel.

Then, too, the king caused a fourth book to be added to the Psalter, containing a collection of seventeen psalms, from the 90th to the 106th. The 90th is the psalm of Moses, then for the first time probably taken into the Temple service. The 91st is the promise of protection to the Holy One, which has the verse that Satan quoted to our Lord-" He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee, and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest Thou hurt Thy foot against a stone." From the 93d to the 100th is one great poem upon the kingdom and glory of the Lord, probably the great paschal hymn composed to be sung at this Passover, and giving us no less than three of the hymns used in our daily service; one of them (the 95th) every day. It is very remarkable that all these psalms, except the 90th and 102d, though added at this mournful period of the Jewish history, are more than usually joyful and full of praise and thanksgiving. It is likely that, as Hezekiah gave the 78th psalm to teach the ancient history of the Israelites, the 105th and the 106th were added for the same purpose now. Nor is there any praise sweeter and more glorious than we find in the 103d and 104th psalms. But the hope in all these psalms is the highest of all.

It is not of earthly peace and prosperity, for, on the part of the great bulk of the people, the reform was only just to please the king. They went about boasting of their Temple and their observances, and meanwhile they were as cruel, harsh, and as self-indulgent as ever. And thus was the priest-prophet Jeremiah bidden to stand and warn them :

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, are these.

For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.

But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I'spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;

Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

And I will cast you out of my right, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.—Jer. vii.

Then came the very words used by our Lord Himself, the Great High Priest, Prophet, and King, when He too purified the Temple, even while He spoke its doom (Matt. xxv. 13):-" And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

Shiloh, which had been the first place where the Lord had set

His Name, and which had been made desolate for the sins of the people in the time of the Judges, and for the guilt of Eli's sons, is held up as a warning of what should be the fate of Jerusalem; and Judah is assured that her children shall be scattered like those of Ephraim.

After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.

But 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: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.

Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded.

His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.

Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his goodness, according to that which was written in the law of the LORD.

And his deeds, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem.

Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, and condemned the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.

COMMENT.-There were fourteen more years of peace, and then the great light of Judah was taken from the nation, whom even their holy king could not bring to repent. Since the time of the Ethiopian Tirhakah, the old Egyptian race of Pharaohs had recovered Egypt, and a warlike king named Pharaoh-Necho was on the throne. He took advantage of the overthrow of Nineveh to make an invasion of Assyria, and marched with his army to attack the city of Charchemish on the Euphrates, passing through the Philistine country, and not intending to meddle with Judah at all. Indeed, when Josiah mustered his army against him, he returned for answer that he had no quarrel with Judah, and advised Josiah to beware, since God was on his side.

Whether Josiah was right in attacking him is a question that no one can answer. Necho probably only meant that his God was supposed to bid him fight, go forth on this expedition, as Sennacherib had pretended to be sent by the Lord. On the other hand, the apocryphal Book of Esdras says that he did not regard the words of Jeremiah; but in the first place the two Books of Esdras are not viewed as authoritative, in the next the words may only mean that he knew that he should fall in the battle, yet knew it was his duty to go forth, and disregarded the danger. Nor in the long roll of Jeremiah's prophecies preserved to us is there any sign of such prohibition, but everything to make us believe that Josiah died in favour with God. Nothing was more constantly enforced by the prophets than that there was to be no alliance with Egypt, and Josiah was acting in the spirit of all the law that he had studied so thoroughly when he attacked Necho at Megiddo just as he was about to cross the great plain of Jezreel. And yet the good Josiah died the death of the wicked Ahab, at the very same place where his own apostate ancestor Ahaziah had been slain. But it was also the death of the good Jonathan--the noble death of a brave man fighting for his country-and Isaiah's words truly describe how it was with him :

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart :
And merciful men are taken away;

None considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to

come.

He shall enter into peace:

They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.