Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
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2 Chronicles
Book: 2 Chronicles
Chapter: 34
Overview:
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
connections. 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!