And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, [that] the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the LORD, saying,
Ver. 3. In the eighteenth year of king Josiah.] That is, In the eighteenth year of his reign; after that, with a great deal of zeal, he had purged the land and the house. 2Ch 34:8 In which time also it seemeth that a collection was made for the repairing of the temple, which now this pious king taketh order to have done, and herein he proceedeth aequabiliter, iuste, prudenter. a And from this famous eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, both those thirty years, Eze 1:1 and those forty days or years of the sin of Judah, Eze 6:6 seem to take their rise and reckoning.
a Ussher., Annal. Vet. Testam., p. 115.