2 Kings 23:21-30

Notes
Transcript

Verses 21-23

The Passover was commanded by God to be observed the first time by faith in Exodus 12 just before God was to rescue the Children of Israel out of Egypt, it was then meant to be a yearly occurrence that would remind the children of Israel of God’s faithfulness and power to save those who would place their trust in Him.
The command to keep the Passover is repeated throughout the law in Leviticus 23, Numbers 9, and Deuteronomy 16.
The Passover was one day, but it was followed the next day by the feast of Unleavened Bread for the next 7 days.
Let’s look at Exodus 12 and read through it because it is incredibly important to see what God intended the children of Israel to understand about Him and His love for them. Not to mention it points clearly to Jesus Christ as the Savior.
Exodus 12:1–28 ESV
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7 “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. 10 And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. 19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.” 21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
Today we are able to look at the Passover celebration and see how it points to Jesus Christ who is our rescue and salvation from sin and death.
When you understand the importance of the yearly Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread and how it would remind the Jews of God’s grace, mercy, protection, provision, rescue, and power over them you can understand how they got so far away from God and forgot who He was by neglecting the Passover.
The Jews had gone so far away from the word of God and even worse from the God of the word that they had not kept the Passover in so many years that non of them even knew how to keep the Passover.
But I also look at this and thank God that He made His plan of salvation through Christ so clear that we would not be able to miss the connection.
To repeat what I said last week - The depth of their departure from God was flabbergasting!
I like what Guzik said about this...
“ Passover remembered the central act of redemption in the Old Testament: God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt in the days of Moses. Their neglect of Passover proved that they had neglected to remember the Lord’s work of redemption for them. It was as if a group of modern Christians had completely forgotten communion or the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which remembers Jesus’ work of redemption for us.” (Guzik)

Verses 24-25

Leviticus 19:31 ESV
31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 20:6 ESV
6 “If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.

Verses 26-27

For some context we learn when we read Jeremiah (who ministered in the days of Josiah) that even though king Josiah did all these great things for God, not all the people were on board spiritually speaking...
Jeremiah 3:6–11 ESV
6 The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? 7 And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. 9 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. 10 Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
Jeremiah 7:1–15 ESV
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. 8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

Verses 28-30

It was during this time that the Assyrians were losing their power and the Babylonians were gaining power. The Assyrians went to the Egyptians for help against the Babylonians.
2 Chronicles 35 has more details about Josiah’s death...
2 Chronicles 35:20–25 ESV
20 After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him. 21 But he sent envoys to him, saying, “What have we to do with each other, king of Judah? I am not coming against you this day, but against the house with which I am at war. And God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, lest he destroy you.” 22 Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo. 23 And the archers shot King Josiah. And the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” 24 So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. 25 Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah; and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a rule in Israel; behold, they are written in the Laments.
Unfortunately the great king Josiah didn’t seem to consult the Lord in this and reacted to his emotional response and it cost him his life, but even worse meant the end of a Godly king over Judah.
Oddly enough we also see that with the death of Josiah comes the end of making the eldest son the next king. Jehoahaz was the 3rd born son of Josiah...
1 Chronicles 3:15 ESV
15 The sons of Josiah: Johanan the firstborn, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.
So it seems that Jehoahaz may have been appointed king based on popularity and not by birthright.
So now Judah who had been wicked and provoked the Lord to anger will get what they deserve through the leadership of their next 3 kings before they are taken captive to Babylon by king Nebuchadnezzer which we will see next week.
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