2 Chronicles 29:34 - Exposition

Originally, the worshipper who was moved to sacrifice was enjoined to slay, flay, and cut in pieces the victim (Le 2 Chronicles 1:2-6 ). Later the Levites performed these duties, and on great public occasions, at any rate, the priests themselves. The simple tale of this verse speaks volumes of the state of the ecclesiastical profession and of the ecclesiastical heart at this very time. Into the dishonoured sepulchre already two or three unsuspected and apparently unacknowledged chinks had let in reproving light as to this, and very lately the almost unavoidable inferences respecting Urijah (see note on our 2 Chronicles 29:1 , and on 2 Chronicles 28:24 , compared with 2 Kings 16:10-16 ) served the same purpose. How true to nature and to history, both secular and ecclesiastical also, the superiority, in sincerity and life and preparation for work, of the subordinates ( the Levites ), to those who fed on dignity rather than maintained it, in the highest sense, by religious life and conscientious practice!