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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 34:8 - 34:8
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The cleansing and repairing of the temple, and the finding of the book of the law. Cf. 2Ki 22:3-10. - In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he was purging the land and the house (of God), he sent. לְטַהֵר does not indeed signify “after the purging” (De Wette, with the older expositors), but still less is it a statement of the object, “to purge” (Berth.); for that is decisively disposed of both by its position at the beginning of the sentence, where no statement of the object would stand, but still more by the fact that a statement of the object follows, וגו לְחַזֵּק. לְ used of time denotes “about,” and so with the inf., e.g., Jer 46:13 : at (his) coming = when he came. Shaphan was סֹופֵר, state secretary, according to 2Ki 22:3. With him the king sent the governor of the city Maaseiah, and the chancellor Joah. These two are not mentioned in 2Ki 22:3, but have not been arbitrarily added by the chronicler, or invented by him, as Then. groundlessly supposes. “To repair the house of Jahve.” What these high royal officials had to do with it we learn from what follows.
2Ch 34:9-12
They, together with the high priest, gave the money which had been received for the repair of the temple to the overseers of the building, who then gave it to workmen to procure building materials and for wages, just as was done when the temple was repaired by Joash, 2Ch 24:11-13. The Keri וַיָּשֻׁבוּ is a correction resulting from a misinterpretation of the Keth. וְיֹשְׁבֵי, “and of the dwellers in Jerusalem.” The enumeration, “from the hand of Manasseh, Ephraim,” etc., is rhetorical. In וַיִּתְּנוּ, 2Ch 34:10, the verb of 2Ch 34:9 is again taken up: they handed it to the overseers of the building, and they to the workmen. הם עֹשֵׂה is a rare form of the plur. עֹשֵׁי; see on 1Ch 23:24. The overseers of the building (המפקדים - עֹשֵׁי) are the subject of the second וַיִּתְּנוּ; and before the following עֹשֵׂי לְ, which stands in 2 Kings, is to be supplied. בְדֹוק is a denom. from בֶּדֶק, and signifies to repair what has been damaged. The statement of 2Ch 34:10 is made more definite by 2Ch 34:11 : they gave it, namely, to the workers in stone and wood, and to the builders to buy hewn stones and timber for couplings, and for the beams of the houses (לְקָרֹות, to provide with beams; הַבָּתִים are the various buildings of the temple and its courts), which the kings of Judah had allowed to decay (הִשְׁחִית, not of designed destroying, but of ruining by neglect). - In 2Ch 34:12 we have still the remark that the people did the work with fidelity, and the money could consequently be given to them without reckoning, cf. 2Ki 22:7; and then the names of the building inspectors follow. Two Levites of the family of Merari, and two of the family of Kohath, were overseers; לְנַצֵּחַ, i.e., to lead in the building, to preside over it as upper overseers; and besides them, the Levites, all who were skilled in instruments of song (cf. 1Ch 25:6.). As men who by their office and their art occupied a conspicuous place among the Levites, the oversight of the workmen in the temple was committed to them, not “that they might incite and cheer the workmen by music and song” (Berth.).
2Ch 34:13
2Ch 34:13 is probably to be taken, along with 2Ch 34:12, in the signification, “All the Levites who were skilled in music were over the bearers of burdens, and were overseers of all the workmen in reference to every work.” The ו before הס על appears certainly to go against this interpretation, and Berth. would consequently erase it to connect הַסַּבָּלִים עַל with the preceding verse, and begin a new sentence with וּמְנַצְּחִים: “and they led all the workmen.” But if we separate וּמְנַצְּחִים from הַסַּבָּלִים עַל, this mention of the bearers of burdens (סבלים) comes awkwardly in between the subject and the predicate, or the statement as to the subject. We hold the text to be correct, and make the w before הס על correspond to the ו before מנצחים, in the signification, et - et. The Levites, all who were skilled in instruments of song, were both over the bearers of burdens, and overseeing the workmen, or leading the workmen. Besides, of the Levites were, i.e., still other Levites were, scribes and officers and porters, i.e., were busied about the temple in the discharge of these functions.
2Ch 34:14-18
In bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the Lord, the high priest found the book of Moses' law. It is not clearly implied in the words, that he found it in the place where the money was laid up. The book of the law which was found is merely characterized as the book of the Mosaic law by the words בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה, not necessarily as Moses' autograph. The communication of this discovery by the high priest to the state secretary Shaphan, and by him to the king, is narrated in 2Ch 34:15-18, just as in 2Ki 22:8-10. The statement, 2Ch 34:16, “And Shaphan brought the book to the king,” instead of the words, “and Shaphan the סֹפֵר came (went) to the king,” involves no difference as to the facts; it rather makes the matter clear. For since in 2Ki 22:10, immediately after the statement that Hilkiah gave him the book, it is said that Shaphan read from it to the king, he must have brought it to the king. With this elucidation, both the omission of וַיּקְרָאֵהוּ (2Ki 22:8), and the insertion of עֹוד after וַיָּשֶׁב, 2Ch 34:16, is connected. The main thing, that which it concerned the author of the Chronicle to notice, was the fact that the book of the law which had been discovered was immediately brought and read to the king; while the circumstance that Shaphan, when the book was given him, also opened it and read in it, is omitted, as it had no further results. But since Shaphan did not go to the king merely to bring him the book, but rather, in the first place, to report upon the performance of the commission entrusted to him in respect of the money, this report required to be brought prominently forward by the עֹוד: He brought the book to the king, and besides, made his report to the king. All that has been committed to thy servants (בְּיַד נָתַן), that they do; they have poured out the money, etc. The עֲבָדִים are not Shaphan and the others mentioned in 2Ch 34:8, but in general those who were entrusted with the oversight of the repair of the temple, among whom, indeed, the chief royal officials were not included. After this report there follows in 2Ch 34:18 an account of the book which Shaphan had brought, and which, as we were informed in 2Ch 34:16, in anticipation of the event, he gave to the king.