2 Chronicles 30:3

3 They had not been able to observe it at the proper time because the cohanim had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number; also the people had not assembled in Yerushalayim.

2 Chronicles 30:3 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 30:3

For they could not keep it at the time
In the month Nisan, as the Targum adds, on the fourteenth day of the month, as the law enjoined, because the cleansing of the temple was not finished until the sixteenth day, see ( 2 Chronicles 29:17 ) and, besides this, two other reasons follow:

because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently;
that is, a sufficient number of them were not sanctified, to slay all the passover lambs the people that came to the feast would want:

neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem;
they had no notice of it, nor summons for it; and it was required that, at such a time, all the males in the land should appear at Jerusalem; but this custom having been long disused, it required time to acquaint them of the revival of it.

2 Chronicles 30:3 In-Context

1 Then Hizkiyahu sent to all Isra'el and Y'hudah, and wrote letters also to Efrayim and M'nasheh, summoning them to the house of ADONAI in Yerushalayim, to keep the Pesach to ADONAI the God of Isra'el.

2 For the king, his officials and the entire Yerushalayim community had agreed to keep the Pesach in the second month.

3 They had not been able to observe it at the proper time because the cohanim had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number; also the people had not assembled in Yerushalayim.

4 The idea had seemed right to the king and to the whole community;

5 so they issued a decree that it should be proclaimed throughout all Isra'el, from Be'er-Sheva to Dan, that they should come to keep the Pesach to ADONAI the God of Isra'el at Yerushalayim; for only a few had been observing it as prescribed.