THE CONSECRATION COMPLETED BY ADDITIONAL SACRIFICES
(2 Chronicles 29:31-36).
(31) Answered and said. — See 1 Chronicles 12:17. The phrase is used as we should use it in Exodus 4:1; 2 Kings 7:13.
Ye have consecrated... — Literally, ye have filled your hand for Jehovah, a phrase used of the consecration of priests (Leviticus 7:37). Here it is addressed to the whole assembly, as the following words prove (unless the text be unsound). The congregation, as well as the sacerdotal order, had consecrated themselves anew to Jehovah, by their presence and participation in the previous solemnities. Others suppose that these words are spoken to the priests only, and that then the king turns to the congregation with the words “Come near,” &c. (There should be a semicolon after “the Lord.”)
Sacrifices and thank offerings (zebahîn we thôdôth). — The first word means “thank-offerings” (= zébahîm shelamîm); the second, a peculiar species of thank-offering, apparently accompanied by a special kind of psalms called tôdôth (“thanksgivings”). “Sacrifices and thank-offerings” therefore means “sacrifices, that is, thank-offerings.” (See Leviticus 7:12; Leviticus 7:16, for the three kinds of thank-offerings.)
As many as were of a free heart. — Literally, Every free-hearted one (1 Chronicles 29:6; 1 Chronicles 29:9).
Burnt offerings were a token of greater self-denial and disinterestedness than thank-offerings, because they were wholly consumed on the altar, whereas the worshippers feasted upon the latter.