1, 2 (= 2 Kings xxii. 1, 2).
Josiah’s good Reign.
Of Josiah only good is recorded in Kings: “he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left” (2 Kings xxii. 2). In the eighteenth year of his reign he is said to have ordered a repair of the Temple in the course of which a discovery was made of a book of the Law. In consequence of its injunctions a thorough reformation was carried out by Josiah, a solemn covenant with God being entered into by the king and all the people, and attested first by a crusade against all idolatrous images and symbols throughout the land and then by a grand celebration of the Passover feast (2 Kings xxii. 3–xxiii. 27). Obviously Josiah was a king after the Chronicler’s own heart. He makes Josiah’s reforming energy begin as early as his eighth year, causing some changes in the order of events (see the note on verse 3). On the record of the Passover feast the Chronicler has naturally fastened with special pleasure, and he expands the brief allusions to it in Kings into a detailed account occupying xxxv. 1–19. His narrative of the death of Josiah differs considerably from that in Kings. Several other minor variations are pointed out in the notes below.
¹Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem.
1. in Jerusalem] Here the Chronicler omits the name of Josiah’s mother; compare xxxiii. 1, 21.
²And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
2. turned not aside, etc.] A commendatory phrase applied to Josiah alone of the kings.
3–7 (compare verse 33; 2 Kings xxiii. 4–20).
Josiah destroys the Symbols of Idolatry.
³For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the graven images, and the molten images.
3. in the eighth year ... and in the twelfth] It should be noticed that the order of the events of Josiah’s reign given in Chronicles varies from that given in 2 Kings Thus we have in 2 Chronicles:
(1) Destruction of idolatrous symbols throughout Jerusalem, Judah and Israel; xxxiv. 3–7.