2 Chronicles 30:10

So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) So the posts passed.—And the couriers were passing.

Even unto Zebulun.—This tribe, which lay on the southern border of Naphtali, had suffered from Tiglath-pileser’s invasion (Isaiah 9:1). The messengers did not actually travel northward so far as Dan (2Chronicles 30:5). This mention of Zebulun as the limit of their journey lends an air of historical truth to the account.

Laughed them to scorn.—Literally, and they were laughing at them (hisḫîq: here only), and making mock of them (Psalm 22:7). The verbs imply what the Israelites did continually. Vulg., “cursores pergebant . . . illis irridentibus et subsannantibus eos.”

Benson Commentary

2 Chronicles 30:10. They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them — Having been long accustomed to serve other gods, the hearts of the generality of the ten tribes were so hardened, that they scoffed at this most gracious invitation to repentance. And what wonder that Hezekiah’s messengers were thus despitefully used by this apostate race, when even God’s messengers, his servants the prophets, who produced undeniable credentials from him, had been and still were worse treated. These Israelites, however, in a little time, paid dear for thus rejecting the counsel of God against themselves. In about two years and a half after their refusing this grace, Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, invaded the country, and laid siege to Samaria, their capital city, and, at the end of three years more, took it, and carried the whole nation away captive into Assyria and Media, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded, and would not hear nor do it, 2 Kings 18:9-12.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:1-12 Hezekiah made Israel as welcome to the passover, as any of his own subjects. Let us yield ourselves unto the Lord. Say not, you will do what you please, but resolve to do what he pleases. We perceive in the carnal mind a stiffness, an obstinacy, an unaptness to compel with God; we have it from our fathers: this must be overcome. Those who, through grace, have turned to God themselves, should do all they can to bring others to him. Numbers will be scorners, but some will be humbled and benefited; perhaps where least expected. The rich mercy of God is the great argument by which to enforce repentance; the vilest who submit and yield themselves to the Lord, seek his grace, and give themselves to his service, shall certainly be saved. Oh that messengers were sent forth to carry these glad tidings to every city and every village, through every land!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned as the two tribes nearest to Judah, Zebulun as one of the furthest off.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10-12. the posts passed from city to city—It is not surprising that after so long a discontinuance of the sacred festival, this attempt to revive it should, in some quarters, have excited ridicule and opposition. Accordingly, among the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Zebulun, Hezekiah's messengers met with open insults and ill usage. Many, however, in these very districts, as well as throughout the kingdom of the ten tribes, generally complied with the invitation; while, in the kingdom of Judah, there was one unanimous feeling of high expectation and pious delight. The concourse that repaired to Jerusalem on the occasion was very great, and the occasion was ever after regarded as one of the greatest passovers that had ever been celebrated.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They laughed, i.e. the generality of the ten tribes; who by long want of meat had now lost all their appetite to God’s ordinances, and from a neglect were now fallen into a contempt and derision of them; for which they paid dear. For about six years after their refusal of this offer of grace they were all carried captive, 2 Kings 18:1,10.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So the posts passed from city to city, through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun,.... Through all the ten tribes, not being hindered or forbid by Hoshea king of Israel, who was one of the best of their kings, and was very willing his people should go and worship at Jerusalem if they thought fit; so that they had no excuse to make, as before, that they were forbid by their king going thither; and which it is very probable Hezekiah knew, and therefore took the freedom to send posts throughout his kingdom:

but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them; the messengers that brought the letters, the contents of which they despised, and paid no regard to; this was the behaviour of many, and probably of the greater part, but not of all, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they {h} laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.

(h) Though the wicked mock the servants of God, by whom he calls them to repentance, as in Ge 19:14, yet the word does not cease to ripen in the hearts of God's elect.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. passed] LXX. ἦσαν … διαπορευόμενοι (more literal).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Through... Ephraim and Manasseh. The way in which the names of these two tribes are here used may explain in part the use of them in brief for simple reasons of the convenience of brevity in ver. 1. They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. These two words speak significant description of the exact moral state in which Israel's tribes were now to be found. Even unto Zebulun. What of the country lay north of Zebulun had been so wasted by Assyria that practically Zebulnn is spoken of as what was most northerly. 2 Chronicles 30:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The couriers went about from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun; but the people laughed to scorn and mocked at the summons to return, and the invitation to the passover festival. The words "from city to city" are not inconsistent with the view that the kingdom of Israel had already been ruined. The Assyrians had not blotted out all the cities from the face of the land, nor carried away every one of the inhabitants to the last man, but had been satisfied with the capture of the fortresses and their partial or complete demolition, and carried only the flower of the inhabitants away. No doubt also many had saved themselves from deportation by flight to inaccessible places, who then settled again and built in the cities and villages which had not been completely destroyed, or perhaps had been completely spared, after the enemy had withdrawn. From the statement, moreover, that the couriers passed through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh unto Zebulun, no proof can be derived that the messengers did not touch upon the domain of the tribes led away captive by Tiglath-pileser (Naphtali and the trans-Jordanic land), but only visited those districts of the country which formed the kingdom of Israel as it continued to exist after Tiglath-pileser. If that were so, it would follow that the kingdom had not then been destroyed. But the enumeration is not complete, as is manifest from the fact that, according to 2 Chronicles 30:11 and 2 Chronicles 30:18, men of the tribes of Asher and Issachar came to Jerusalem in compliance with the invitation; and the domain of Asher extended to the northern frontier of Canaan. If we further take it into consideration, that, according to the resolution of the king and his princes, all Israel, from Beersheba on the southern frontier to Dan on the northern, were to be invited, it is not to be doubted that the couriers went through the whole land.