2 Kings 22:4

4 Go thou to Hilkiah, the great priest, (and command) that the money, which is borne into the temple of the Lord, be molten together, which money the porters of the temple have gathered of the people; (Go thou to the High Priest Hilkiah, and command that the money, which is brought into the Temple of the Lord, be melted down, which money the guards, or the door-keepers, of the Temple 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 68.

2 Kings 22:4 In-Context

2 And he did that, that was pleasant before the Lord, and he went by all the ways of David, his father; he bowed not, neither to the right side, nor of the left side. (And he did what was pleasing before the Lord, and he went in all the ways of his forefather David; he turned not, neither to the right, nor to the left.)

3 Forsooth in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, the king sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, [the] scribe, either doctor, of the temple of the Lord (to the Temple of the Lord), and said to him,

4 Go thou to Hilkiah, the great priest, (and command) that the money, which is borne into the temple of the Lord, be molten together, which money the porters of the temple have gathered of the people; (Go thou to the High Priest Hilkiah, and command that the money, which is brought into the Temple of the Lord, be melted down, which money the guards, or the door-keepers, of the Temple have gathered from the people;)

5 and that it be given to craftsmen by the sovereigns of the house of the Lord; which also parted that money to them that work in the temple of the Lord, to repair the roofs of the temple of the Lord, (and that it be given to the craftsmen by the foremen of the House of the Lord; and they deal out that money to those who work in the Temple of the Lord, to make the needed repairs to the Temple of the Lord,)

6 that is, to carpenters, and to masons, and to them that make [together] broken things (and to those who put together broken things), and (also) that timber and stones of quarriers be bought, to repair the temple of the Lord;