2 Kings 23:21–23, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Kings 23:21–23
Josiah keeps a distinctive Passover
The king commands Passover as written in the covenant book
The king commands all the people, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. The public reading and the site-clearing now become a meal in Jerusalem, dated to the eighteenth year.
Passover is not invented here. It is ordered according to the found book and held in the chosen city. Festival obedience is the point, not a contest in liturgical novelty.
The narrator says none like it had been kept
Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah, but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah. The superlative is this book's comparison of royal festivals.
It does not prove that earlier generations never kept Passover, and it does not make festival precision a measure of human worth. A distinctive celebration can be praised without shaming every household that kept the night differently, or every generation that lived before this eighteenth year.
How this should shape us
Keep a commanded feast with care, and let a rare public observance be a gift rather than a ranking of souls. Do not use Josiah's Passover to scorn other Jews' practice, earlier generations, or people whose worship is less spectacular.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Kings 23:21–23 in your own words. Include its movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one affected or obscured person, and one misuse the complete context rules out.
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The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The received narrative supplies its theological interpretation, but the precise source history, chronology, motives, and external correlation remain open to graded historical judgment.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
2 Kings 23:21–23, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 23:21–23
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 663–665, translation and translator notes for 23:21–23
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 261–265, exposition covering 2 Kings 23:21–23
Supports: Only publisher-visible framing of authorship, dating, Deuteronomistic History, redaction stages, sources, and Elijah-Elisha collections.
Romer, 'Theories of the Composition of the Books of Kings,' Oxford Handbook (2024), official abstract and metadata for pp. 98–122
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Kings 23:21–23, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Kings
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 23:21–23
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Kings with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 663–665, translation and translator notes for 23:21–23
Open source ↗scholarly commentary chapter
1 and 2 Kings
Walter Dietrich
The Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2001
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Exact location: Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 261–265, exposition covering 2 Kings 23:21–23
Open source ↗scholarly handbook chapter abstract and metadata
Theories of the Composition of the Books of Kings
Thomas Romer
The Oxford Handbook of the Books of Kings, Oxford University Press, 2024
Supports: Only publisher-visible framing of authorship, dating, Deuteronomistic History, redaction stages, sources, and Elijah-Elisha collections.
Exact location: Romer, 'Theories of the Composition of the Books of Kings,' Oxford Handbook (2024), official abstract and metadata for pp. 98–122
Open source ↗