2 Kings 22:4

4 "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord's temple-[the money] the doorkeepers have collected 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.

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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 sight and walked in all the ways of his ancestor David; he did not turn to the right or the left.

3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent the court secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord's temple, saying,

4 "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord's temple-[the money] the doorkeepers have collected from the people.

5 It is to be put into the hands of those doing the work-those who oversee the Lord's temple. They [in turn] are to give it to the workmen in the Lord's temple to repair the damage.

6 [They are to give it] to the carpenters, builders, and masons to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the temple.