2 Chronicles 35:All Means All

Chapter Summary by Adam Clarke:Josiah celebrates a Passover, 1. Heregulates the courses of the priests; assigns them, theLevites, and the people, their portions; and completes thegreatest Passover ever celebrated since the days of Solomon, 2-19. Pharaoh Neco passes with his army through Judea, 20. Josiah meets and fights with him at Megiddo, and is mortallywounded, 21-23. He is carried to Jerusalem, where he dies, 24. Jeremiah laments for him, 25. Of his acts and deeds, and where recorded, 26,27.

I. Verses 1-19: Chapter 34 listed many of Josiah’s good deeds, and here we have yet another: he re-establishes Passover.

  1. The purpose of the Passover celebration was to remind God’s people who He was and what He had done. Before Josiah’s great-grandfather, Hezekiah, reinstated the Passover, God’s people had not been celebrating it…and they had forgotten who He was and what He had done. Josiah takes his grandfather’s reforms a step further and prepares the celebration “doing what the LORD commanded through Moses…as it is written in the Book of Moses…The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah…” (Verses 6, 12, and 18 ).
  2. After a total reformation beginning in the temple, moving outside, then ending in the home…Josiah then celebrates the Passover, reminding his people who his God was and what his God had done; then God described Josiah in 2 Kings: “Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with allhis heart and with all his soul and with all his strength…” (2 Kings 23:25).
  1. Really meditate on the meaning of turning “to the LORD.” In order to turn TO him…you will naturally turn AWAY FROM other things. Ask the Lord to reveal to you what those things are.
  2. Ask for HIS help to turn to him with ALL your heart, ALL your soul, and ALL your strength.

II. Verses 20-27: “After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Neco sent messengers to him saying, ‘What quarrel is there between you and me, O king of Judah? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you.’”

  1. Lesson number one: God does use unbelievers! The pagan leader warned Josiah, and when he didn’t listen, Neco’s prophecy came true: “Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle…Archers shot King Josiah…”
  2. Lesson number two: even a man who has turned to God with all of his heart, soul, and strength will fight the flesh he is wrapped in.F.B. Meyer gives a godly reminder to us: “A long God-fearing life may end in self-incurred disaster, unless we carefully walk with God to the very end. There is never a moment in the life of the most matured saint when he may lean to his own understanding.”

Pray that we all follow God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our strength…for ALL of our lives!