(26) His goodness.—His pious deeds (2Chronicles 32:32).

According to that . . . the Lord.—Said of no king besides.

The book . . . and Judah.—2Kings 23:28, “the Book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.”

2 Chronicles 35:26. The rest of the acts of Josiah, and his goodness — His piety toward God, and his benignity, clemency, and kindness toward all his subjects, being of a most tender and mild disposition, both toward God and toward men, 2 Chronicles 34:27. According to that which was written in the law — Which he made his rule in all his actions. The revelation which God has given us of his mind and will is the only true standard by which we can safely walk. All other rules may deceive us, and will often either leave us in doubt or uncertainty how to act, or will lead us wrong. But the word of God is a sure and unerring guide, a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our paths. Let us walk by this, and we shall please God in time and enjoy him in eternity.

35:20-27 The Scripture does not condemn Josiah's conduct in opposing Pharaoh. Yet Josiah seems to deserve blame for not inquiring of the Lord after he was warned; his death might be a rebuke for his rashness, but it was a judgment on a hypocritical and wicked people. He that lives a life of repentance, faith, and obedience, cannot be affected by the sudden manner in which he is removed. The people lamented him. Many mourn over sufferings, who will not forsake the sins that caused God to send them. Yet this alone can turn away judgments. If we blame Josiah's conduct, we should be watchful, lest we be cut down in a way dishonourable to our profession.Some find Jeremiah's lament in the entire Book of Lamentations; others in a part of it Lamentations 4. But most critics are of opinion that the lament is lost. Days of calamity were commemorated by lamentations on their anniversaries, and this among the number. The "Book of Dirges" was a collection of such poems which once existed but is now lost.

And made them an ordinance - Rather, "and they made them an ordinance," they i. e. who had authority to do so, not the minstrels.

25. Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, &c.—The elegy of the prophet has not reached us; but it seems to have been long preserved among his countrymen and chanted on certain public occasions by the professional singers, who probably got the dirges they sang from a collection of funeral odes composed on the death of good and great men of the nation. The spot in the valley of Megiddo where the battle was fought was near the town of Hadad-rimmon; hence the lamentation for the death of Josiah was called "the lamentation of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddo," which was so great and so long continued, that the lamentation of Hadad passed afterwards into a proverbial phrase to express any great and extraordinary sorrow (Zec 12:11). His goodness; either,

1. His piety towards God and his house. Or,

2. His benignity, clemency, and kindness towards all his subjects, being of a most tender disposition and carriage both towards God, 2 Chronicles 34:27, and towards men. But the former seems principally intended, because it best agrees both with the history of Josiah, which is wholly taken up with the former, and speaks little or nothing of the latter, and with the following words; and it doth not disagree with the Hebrew word hesed, which though it doth most frequently express kindness to men, yet sometimes it notes a man’s piety to God and his house, as is manifest from Nehemiah 13:14.

His piety towards God, and liberality to the people; of these two verses; see Gill on 2 Kings 23:28. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his goodness, according to that which was written in the law of the LORD,