(17) There were many in the congregation that were not sanctified.--Comp. 2Chronicles 35:6; 2Chronicles 35:10-11, where the Levites are again represented as doing the same work, but not as an exception. The precedent of Hezekiah's Passover would seem to have become the rule. (Comp. also Ezra 6:20.)

To sanctify them--i.e., the lambs, which would have been ceremonially unclean if slain by unclean hands. (Comp. 2Chronicles 2:4, "to dedicate it unto Him;" the same verb.)

Verse 17. - Therefore the Levites had the charge (see Leviticus 1, etc., which repeatedly affirms that the original directions of Moses were that the person who brought the victim to offer it was to slay it, and to bring the blood).

30:13-20 The great thing needful in attendance upon God in solemn ordinances, is, that we make heart-work of it; all is nothing without this. Where this sincerity and fixedness of heart are, there may yet be many things short of the purification of the sanctuary. These defects need pardoning, healing grace; for omissions in duty are sins, as well as omissions of duty. If God should deal with us in strict justice, even as to the very best of our doings, we should be undone. The way to obtain pardon, is to seek it of God by prayer; it must be gotten by petition through the blood of Christ. Yet every defect is sin, and needs forgiveness; and should be matter to humble, but not to discourage us, though nothing can make up for the want of a heart prepared to seek the Lord.For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified,.... Or purified from uncleanness, contracted either by idolatry, or through such things which, according to the ceremonial law, made them unclean, and from which they had not now time to cleanse themselves according to the law:

therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the passovers for everyone that was not clean, to sanctify them unto the Lord; this they did for the masters of families, who were ceremonially unclean, who otherwise might have killed their passover lambs themselves, see Exodus 12:6, but now the Levites did it for them, that their passovers might be sanctified and consecrated to the Lord; for, as Philo the Jew says (r), one day in a year the whole sacrificed, everyone acted as a priest, and brought and slew his own sacrifice, meaning at the passover.

(r) De Vita Mosis, l. 3. p. 686. & de Decalogo, p. 766.