So the service was prepared,.... Every thing was got ready both for the passover and the feast of unleavened bread, for all sorts of people, rich and poor:

and the priests stood in their place; in their court near the altar, to sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices about it, as in the following verse:

and the Levites in their courses; whose turn it was to officiate:

according to the king's commandment, 2 Chronicles 35:4.

The preparation of the paschal sacrifice and the paschal meals. - 2 Chronicles 35:10 leads on to the carrying out of the arrangements. "So the service was prepared;" the preparation for the festival mentioned in 2 Chronicles 35:3-9 was carried out. The priests stood at their posts (cf. 2 Chronicles 30:16), and the Levites according to their courses, according to the command of the king (in 2 Chronicles 35:4 and 2 Chronicles 35:5).

So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place, and the Levites in their courses, according to the king's commandment.

10, 11. So the service was prepared, &c.-All the necessary preparations having been completed, and the appointed time having arrived for the passover, the solemnity was celebrated. One remarkable feature in the account is the prominent part that was taken by the Levites in the preparation of the sacrifices; namely, the killing and stripping of the skins, which were properly the peculiar duties of the priests; but as those functionaries were not able to overtake the extraordinary amount of work and the Levites had been duly sanctified for the service, they were enlisted for the time in this priestly employment. At the passover in Hezekiah's time, the Levites officiated in the same departments of duty, the reason assigned for that deviation from the established rule being the unprepared state of many of the people (2Ch 30:17). But on this occasion the whole people had been duly sanctified, and therefore the exceptional enlistment of the Levites' services must have been rendered unavoidably necessary from the multitudes engaged in celebrating the passover.

35:1-19 The destruction Josiah made of idolatry, was more largely related in the book of Kings. His solemnizing the passover is related here. The Lord's supper resembles the passover more than any other of the Jewish festivals; and the due observance of that ordinance, is a proof of growing piety and devotion. God alone can truly make our hearts holy, and prepare them for his holy services; but there are duties belonging to us, in doing which we obtain this blessing from the Lord.