⁵So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: for they had not kept it in great numbers[¹] in such sort as it is written.
[¹] Or, of a long time.
5. to make proclamation] A phrase characteristic of the Chronicler.
from Beer-sheba even to Dan] i.e. the extreme points of the undivided kingdom of David and Solomon. “The existence of the North Kingdom is either ignored or more probably the writer assumed that it had already fallen” (Curtis). On the origin of the phrase and the order in Chronicles (Beer-sheba to Dan not Dan to Beer-sheba, as in 2 Samuel xxiv. 2, etc.) see Hogg in the Expositor, 1898, pp. 411–421.
they had not kept it in great numbers in such sort as it is written] The statement applies to Israel, not to Judah; for the first time an attempt is made to draw Israel en masse to a regular Passover at Jerusalem.
⁶So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant that are escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.
6. the posts] Literally “the runners.”
the remnant that are escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Assyria] The phrase applies most naturally to the final downfall of Samaria through Shalmaneser and Sargon (722–721 B.C.), but it is possible of course to interpret it of the repeated disasters at the hands of the Assyrians in the time of Tiglath-pileser some ten years earlier.
⁷And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation[¹], as ye see.
[¹] Or, to be an astonishment.