2 Kings 22:4

4 "Go to the high priest Hilkiah. Have him carefully count the money that has been brought to the LORD's temple and that has been collected from the people by the doorkeepers.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 68.

2 Kings 22:4 In-Context

2 He did what was right in the LORD's eyes, and walked in the ways of his ancestor David-not deviating from it even a bit to the right or left.

3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah's rule, he sent the secretary Shaphan, Azaliah's son and Meshullam's grandson, to the LORD's temple with the following orders:

4 "Go to the high priest Hilkiah. Have him carefully count the money that has been brought to the LORD's temple and that has been collected from the people by the doorkeepers.

5 It should be given to the supervisors in charge of the LORD's temple, who in turn should pay it to those who are in the LORD's temple, repairing the temple—

6 the carpenters, the builders, and the masons. It should be used to pay for lumber and quarried stone to repair the temple.

Footnotes

• [a] Heb uncertain