II Chronicles 30:21
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The Israelites who were present in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great joy, and the Levites and priests praised the LORD day after day, accompanied by loud instruments of praise to the LORD.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Destruction of the idols and the altars of the high places. Provisions for the ordering and maintenance of the temple worship, and the attendants upon it. - Ch2 31:1. At the conclusion of the festival, all the Israelites who had been present at the feast (הנּמצאים כּל־שׂראל to be understood as in Ch2 30:21) went into the cities of Judah, and destroyed all the idols, high places, and altars not only in Judah and Benjamin (the southern kingdom), but also in Ephraim and Manasseh (the domain of the ten tribes), utterly (עד־לככּה, cf. Ch2 24:10), and only then returned each to his home; cf. Kg2 18:4.
Open source ↗After the passover followed the feast of unleavened bread, which continued seven days. How that was observed we are here told, and every thing in this account looks pleasant and lively. 1. Abundance of sacrifices were offered to God in peace-offerings, by which they both acknowledged and implored the favour of God, and on part of which the offerers feasted with their friends during these seven days (Ch2 30:22), in token of their communion with God and the comfort they took in his favour and their reconciliation to him. To keep up this part of the service, that God's altar might be abundantly regaled with the fat and blood and his priests and people with the flesh of the peace-offerings, Hezekiah gave out of his own stock 1000 bullocks and 7000 sheep, and the princes, excited by his pious example, gave the same number of bullocks and a greater number of sheep, and all for peace-offerings, Ch2 30:24. By this God was honoured, the joy of the festival was kept up, and the strangers were encouraged to come again to Jerusalem. It was generously done of the king and the princes thus plentifully to entertain the whole congregation; but what is a great estate good for but that it puts men into a capacity of doing so much the more good? Christ feasted those that followed him. I believe neither Hezekiah nor his princes were the poorer at the year's end for this their pious liberality. 2. Many good prayers were put up to God with the peace-offerings, Ch2 30:22. They made confession to the Lord God of their fathers, in which the intent and meaning of the peace-offerings were directed and explained. When the priests sprinkled the blood and burnt the fat they made confession, so did the people when they feasted on their part. They made a religious confession of their relation to God a…
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For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the LORD.
For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
On the fifteenth day of the same month begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart,
Then Nehemiah told them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send out portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you.
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed.
And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.
So there was great rejoicing in Jerusalem, for nothing like this had happened there since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel.
Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching,