34:1-33 Josiah's good reign in Judah. - As the years of infancy cannot be useful to our fellow-creatures, our earliest youth should be dedicated to God, that we may not waste any of the remaining short space of life. Happy and wise are those who seek the Lord and prepare for usefulness at an early age, when others are pursuing sinful pleasures, contracting bad habits, and forming ruinous connexions. Who can express the anguish prevented by early piety, and its blessed effects? Diligent self-examination and watchfulness will convince us of the deceitfulness and wickedness of our own hearts, and the sinfulness of our lives. We are here encouraged to humble ourselves before God, and to seek unto him, as Josiah did. And believers are here taught, not to fear death, but to welcome it, when it takes them away from the evil to come. Nothing hastens the ruin of a people, nor ripens them for it, more than their disregard of the attempts made for their reformation. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. The current and tide of affections only turns at the command of Him who raises up those that are dead in trespasses and sins. We behold peculiar loveliness, in the grace the Lord bestows on those, who in tender years seek to know and to love the Saviour. Hath Jesus, the Day-spring from on high, visited you? Can you trace your knowledge of this light and life of man, like Josiah, from your youth? Oh the unspeakable happiness of becoming acquainted with Jesus from our earliest years!

Verse 13. - Scribes. Considering the mention of "scribes" in the plural in 1 Kings 4:3, although it stands alone, till, at all events, the time of Hezekiah (as testified by Proverbs 25:1), it is at any rate not improbable that an order of scribes was instituted by Solomon; that it fell into desuetude immediately under the divided kingdom, and, coming into vogue again under Hezekiah, is now mentioned in the natural way we here find it. The mention of the "scribe" in the singular number is of frequent occurrence in the historic books, and in Isaiah (Isaiah 33:18; Isaiah 36:22). The officers. This word reproduces, in the Hebrew, the familiar shoterim of Exodus 5:10 (see also 1 Chronicles 23:3-6).

Also they were over the bearers of burdens,.... Who carried the timber and stones to the workmen, to look after them, that they were not dilatory, and that the workmen might not stand still for want of materials being brought to them to work with:

and were overseers over all that wrought in any manner of service; whether in the way of masonry, or in that of carpenters, or of such that served them, or in whatsoever way:

and of the Levites there were scribes, and officers, and porters; some to take the account of the money carried in and paid, who were the

scribes, according to Jarchi; and others who looked after the men, and kept them to work, who were the

officers; and others that let them in and out, called

porters.

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