2 Kings 22:4

4 "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the silver which is brought into the house of the LORD, which the keepers of the door have gathered from the people.

2 Kings 22:4 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 22:4

Go up to Hilkiah the high priest
Who had an apartment in the temple; there was an Hilkiah, a priest, in those times, who was the father of Jeremiah the prophet, ( Jeremiah 1:1 Jeremiah 1:2 ) , whom an Arabic writer F12 takes to be the same with this; but it is not likely:

that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord
which the people voluntarily offered for the repairing of it; this he would have the priest take an account of, that the sum total might be known; his meaning is, that he should take it out of the chest in which it was put, and count it, that it might be known what it amounted to; see ( 2 Kings 12:9 2 Kings 12:10 ) , some understand this of melting and coining the silver thus given

which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people:
who were Levites, ( 2 Chronicles 34:9 ) , either porters of the door, or rather the treasurers, as the Targum; the keepers of the vessels of the sanctuary, that had the care of them, as the Jewish commentators generally interpret it.


FOOTNOTES:

F12 Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 68.

2 Kings 22:4 In-Context

2 And he did that which was right in the sight 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.
3 And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of King Josiah that the king sent Shaphan the scribe, the son of Azaliah the son of Meshullam, to the house of the LORD, saying,
4 "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the silver which is brought into the house of the LORD, which the keepers of the door have gathered from the people.
5 And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, who have the oversight of the house of the LORD; and let them give it to the doers of the work who are in the house of the LORD to repair the breaches of the house --
6 unto carpenters and builders and masons -- and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.
Third Millennium Bible (TMB), New Authorized Version, Copyright 1998 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.