Go up to Hilkiah the high priest,.... Who had an apartment in the temple; there was an Hilkiah, a priest, in those times, who was the father of Jeremiah the prophet, Jer 1:1, whom an Arabic writer takes to be the same with this; but it is not likely:that he may sum the silver which is brought into the house of the Lord which the people voluntarily offered for the repairing of it; this he would have the priest take an account of, that the sum total might be known; his meaning is, that he should take it out of the chest in which it was put, and count it, that it might be known what it amounted to; see 2Ki 12:9, some understand this of melting and coining the silver thus givenwhich the keepers of the door have gathered of the people: who were Levites, 2Ch 34:9, either porters of the door, or rather the treasurers, as the Targum; the keepers of the vessels of the sanctuary, that had the care of them, as the Jewish commentators generally interpret it.
Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p.