2Ch 30:19 | KD | STEP | ends, according to the Masoretic verse-division, with the preposition בּעד; but that division seems merely to have arisen from ignorance of the construction heekiyn כּל-l|baabow, of the fact that בּעד stands before a relative sentence without אשׁר, like אל in , and is certainly wrong. If we separate בּעד from what follows, we must, with Aben Ezra, supply אלּה, and make הכין ( ) refer to Hezekiah, both being equally inadmissible. Rightly, therefore, the lxx, Vulg., and also Kimchi, with the majority of commentators, have given up this division of the verses as incorrect, and connected the words in this way: May the good Jahve atone, i.e., forgive every one who has fixed his heart (cf. ) to seek God, Jahve, the God of his fathers, but not in accordance with the purity of the sanctuary. This intercession of Hezekiah’s is worthy of remark, not only because it expresses the conviction that upright seeking of the Lord, which proceeds from the heart, is to be more highly estimated than strict observance of the letter of the law, but also because Hezekiah presumes that those who had come out of Ephraim, etc., to the passover had fixed their heart to seek Jahve, the God of their fathers, but had not been in a position to comply with the precept of the law, i.e., to purify themselves up to the day appointed for the passover.

‏ 2 Chronicles 30:19

2Ch 30:18-19 2Ch 30:18 ends, according to the Masoretic verse-division, with the preposition בּעד; but that division seems merely to have arisen from ignorance of the construction heekiyn כּל-l|baabow, of the fact that בּעד stands before a relative sentence without אשׁר, like אל in 1Ch 15:12, and is certainly wrong. If we separate בּעד from what follows, we must, with Aben Ezra, supply אלּה, and make הכין (2Ch 30:19) refer to Hezekiah, both being equally inadmissible. Rightly, therefore, the lxx, Vulg., and also Kimchi, with the majority of commentators, have given up this division of the verses as incorrect, and connected the words in this way: May the good Jahve atone, i.e., forgive every one who has fixed his heart (cf. 2Ch 12:14) to seek God, Jahve, the God of his fathers, but not in accordance with the purity of the sanctuary. This intercession of Hezekiah’s is worthy of remark, not only because it expresses the conviction that upright seeking of the Lord, which proceeds from the heart, is to be more highly estimated than strict observance of the letter of the law, but also because Hezekiah presumes that those who had come out of Ephraim, etc., to the passover had fixed their heart to seek Jahve, the God of their fathers, but had not been in a position to comply with the precept of the law, i.e., to purify themselves up to the day appointed for the passover.