And they killed the passover, and the priests sprinkled the blood from their hands, and the Levites flayed them.
The killing of the Passover at Josiah's feast was ordered work: the animals were killed, the priests sprinkled the blood from their hands upon the altar, and the Levites flayed the bodies and made them ready. The word rendered sprinkled is zah-rak, which means to scatter and by extension to sprinkle, not to dip or to immerse. The lambs were slain toward sunset on the fourteenth of Nisan, and their blood and fat were given to the priests, who sprinkled the blood on the altar and burned the fat that same night after the fifteenth had commenced, so that the sprinkling belonged to the night beginning the fifteenth, the first paschal yearly sabbath with its holy convocation.
The verse belongs to the account of Josiah's reign, which ended in 607 B.C., after which the Jubilee and release years were no longer kept. It belongs to the contemporary history of the times of the kings of Israel and Judah, whose value lies in widening the horizon and presenting the setting for the events recorded in the Bible, and it holds precious spiritual lessons, for it was not written to exalt man or to make known human successes and failures but is directly connected with God's historical revelation culminating in Christ, receiving illuminating light from Christ as the central sun who holds all Scripture together and testifying of Christ in whom eternal life is found. Josiah's Passover brought a great revival of hope in Judah before a more hopeless apostasy followed.
Josiah stands as an example of a great religious revival that led to missionary endeavor. Modesty, respect for age, and reverent conduct like that seen at Josiah's and Hezekiah's Passovers recalls those feasts when God blessed His people.
The killing of the Passover at Josiah's feast was ordered work: the animals were killed, the priests sprinkled the blood from their hands upon the altar, and the Levites flayed the bodies and made them ready. The word rendered sprinkled is zah-rak, which means to scatter and by extension to sprinkle, not to dip or to immerse. The lambs were slain toward sunset on the fourteenth of Nisan, and their blood and fat were given to the priests, who sprinkled the blood on the altar and burned the fat that same night after the fifteenth had commenced, so that the sprinkling belonged to the night beginning the fifteenth, the first paschal yearly sabbath with its holy convocation.
The verse belongs to the account of Josiah's reign, which ended in 607 B.C., after which the Jubilee and release years were no longer kept. It belongs to the contemporary history of the times of the kings of Israel and Judah, whose value lies in widening the horizon and presenting the setting for the events recorded in the Bible, and it holds precious spiritual lessons, for it was not written to exalt man or to make known human successes and failures but is directly connected with God's historical revelation culminating in Christ, receiving illuminating light from Christ as the central sun who holds all Scripture together and testifying of Christ in whom eternal life is found. Josiah's Passover brought a great revival of hope in Judah before a more hopeless apostasy followed.
Josiah stands as an example of a great religious revival that led to missionary endeavor. Modesty, respect for age, and reverent conduct like that seen at Josiah's and Hezekiah's Passovers recalls those feasts when God blessed His people.