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 19. - With one insignificant exception (the omission here of the word סֶפֶר), the words of this verse are identical with the parallel in its ver. 11. The same, to all purposes, may be said of our twelve succeeding verses, compared with the parallel in its ver. 12 - 2 Chronicles 23:3. The king rent his clothes, in grief that the practice of his nation had diverged so terribly from their ever-to-be-venerated Law.

2Ch 34:19-33. And, Causing the Law to Be Read, Renews the Covenant between God and the People.

19. when the king had heard the words of the law, &c.—(See on [475]2Ki 22:11-20; [476]23:1-3).

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