2 Kings 23:21

Josiah Restores the Passover

21 And the king commanded all the people, ¹"Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, ²as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.

2 Kings 23:21 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:21

And the king commanded all the people
Not at Jerusalem only, but throughout the whole kingdom: saying,

keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in this book
of the covenant;
which had been lately found and read, and they had agreed to observe, and in which this ordinance was strictly enjoined, and was a commemoration of their deliverance out of Egypt, and a direction of their faith to the Messiah, the antitype of the passover.

2 Kings 23:21 In-Context

19 And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel

20 And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

21 And the king commanded all the people, "Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.

22 For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah.

23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.

Cross References

• 1. See 2 Chronicles 35:1-17
• 2. See Exodus 12:3-11; Leviticus 23:5, 8; Numbers 9:2-4; Deuteronomy 16:2-8