1 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old; and he was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done.
3 In the first year of his rule, in the first month, opening the doors of the Lord's house, he made them strong.
4 And he sent for the priests and the Levites, and got them together in the wide place on the east side,
5 And said to them, Give ear to me, O Levites: now make yourselves holy, and make holy the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and take away everything unclean from the holy place.
6 For our fathers have done evil, sinning in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have given him up, turning away their faces from the house of the Lord, and turning their backs on him.
7 The doors of his house have been shut and the lights put out; no perfumes have been burned or offerings made to the God of Israel in his holy place.
8 And so the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to be a cause of fear and wonder and shame, as your eyes have seen.
9 For see, our fathers have been put to death with the sword, and our sons and daughters and wives have been taken away prisoners because of this.
10 Now it is my purpose to make an agreement with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that the heat of his wrath may be turned away from us.
11 My sons, take care now: for you have been marked out by the Lord to come before him and to be his servants, burning offerings to him.
12 Then the Levites took their places; Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel, the son of Azariah, among the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish, the son of Abdi, and Azariah, the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah, the son of Zimmah, and Eden, the son of Joah;
13 And of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah;
14 And of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15 And they got their brothers together and made themselves holy, and went in, as the king had said by the word of the Lord, to make the house of the Lord clean.
16 And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to make it clean, and everything unclean which was to be seen in the Temple of the Lord they took out into the outer square of the Lord's house, and the Levites got it together and took it away to the stream Kidron.
17 On the first day of the first month the work of making the house holy was started, and on the eighth day they came to the covered way of the Lord; in eight days they made the Lord's house holy, and on the sixteenth day of the first month the work was done.
18 Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, We have made all the house of the Lord clean, as well as the altar of burned offerings with all its vessels, and the table for the holy bread, with all its vessels.
19 And all the vessels which were turned out by King Ahaz in his sin while he was king, we have put in order and made holy, and now they are in their places before the altar of the Lord.
20 Then Hezekiah the king got up early, and got together the great men of the town, and went up to the house of the Lord.
21 And they took with them seven oxen and seven male sheep and seven lambs and seven he-goats as a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the holy house and for Judah. And he gave orders to the sons of Aaron, the priests, that these were to be offered on the altar of the Lord.
22 So they put the oxen to death and their blood was given to the priests to be drained out against the altar; then they put the male sheep to death, draining out their blood against the altar, and they put the lambs to death, draining out their blood against the altar.
23 Then they took the he-goats for the sin-offering, placing them before the king and the meeting of the people, and they put their hands on them:
24 And the priests put them to death, and made a sin-offering with their blood on the altar, to take away the sin of all Israel: for the king gave orders that the burned offering and the sin-offering were for all Israel.
25 Then he put the Levites in their places in the house of the Lord, with brass and corded instruments of music as ordered by David and Gad, the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for the order was the Lord's, given by his prophets.
26 So the Levites took their places with David's instruments, and the priests with their horns.
27 And Hezekiah gave the word for the burned offering to be offered on the altar. And when the burned offering was started, then the song of the Lord was started, with the blowing of horns and with all the instruments of David, king of Israel.
28 And all the people gave worship, to the sound of songs and the blowing of horns; and this went on till the burned offering was ended.
29 And at the end of the offering, the king and all who were present with him gave worship with bent heads.
30 Then King Hezekiah and the captains gave orders to the Levites to give praise to God in the words of David and Asaph the seer. And they made songs of praise with joy, and with bent heads gave worship.
31 Then Hezekiah made answer and said, Now that you have given yourselves to the Lord, come near and take offerings and praise-offerings into the house of the Lord. So all the people took in offerings and praise-offerings: and those whose hearts were moved, took in burned offerings.
32 The number of burned offerings which the people took in was seventy oxen, a hundred male sheep, and two hundred lambs: all these were for burned offerings to the Lord.
33 And the holy things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.
34 There were not enough priests for the work of cutting up all the burned offerings; so their brothers the Levites gave them help till the work was done and the priests had made themselves holy: for the Levites were more upright in heart to make themselves holy than the priests.
35 And there was a great amount of burned offerings, with the fat of the peace-offerings and the drink offerings for every burned offering. So the work of the Lord's house was put in order.
36 And Hezekiah and all the people were full of joy, because God had made the people ready: for the thing was done suddenly.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 29
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 29 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 29
2Ch 29:1, 2. Hezekiah's Good Reign.
1. Hezekiah began to reign, &c.—(see on 2Ki 18:1). His mother's name, which, in 2Ki 18:2, appears in an abridged form, is here given in full.
2Ch 29:3-11. He Restores Religion.
3. in the first year of his reign, in the first month—not the first month after his accession to the throne, but in Nisan, the first month of the sacred year, the season appointed for the celebration of the passover.
he opened the doors of the house of the Lord—which had been closed up by his father (2Ch 28:24).
and repaired them—or embellished them (compare 2Ki 18:16).
4, 5. the east street—the court of the priests, which fronted the eastern gate of the temple. Assembling the priests and Levites there, he enjoined them to set about the immediate purification of the temple. It does not appear that the order referred to the removal of idols, for objects of idolatrous homage could scarcely have been put there, seeing the doors had been shut up [2Ch 29:3]; but in its forsaken and desolate state the temple and its courts had been polluted by every kind of impurity.
6, 7. our fathers have trespassed—Ahaz and the generation contemporary with him were specially meant, for they "turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord," and whether or not they turned east to the rising sun, they abandoned the worship of God. They "shut up the doors of the porch," so that the sacred ritual was entirely discontinued.
8, 9. Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem—This pious king had the discernment to ascribe all the national calamities that had befallen the kingdom to the true cause, namely, apostasy from God. The country had been laid waste by successive wars of invasion, and its resources drained. Many families mourned members of their household still suffering the miseries of foreign captivity; all their former prosperity and glory had fled; and to what was this painful and humiliating state of affairs to be traced, but to the manifest judgment of God upon the kingdom for its sins?
10, 11. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God—Convinced of the sin and bitter fruits of idolatry, Hezekiah intended to reverse the policy of his father, and to restore, in all its ancient purity and glory, the worship of the true God. His commencement of this resolution at the beginning of his reign attests his sincere piety. It also proves the strength of his conviction that righteousness exalteth a nation; for, instead of waiting till his throne was consolidated, he devised measures of national reformation at the beginning of his reign and vigorously faced all the difficulties which, in such a course, he had to encounter, after the people's habits had so long been moulded to idolatry. His intentions were first disclosed to this meeting of the priests and Levites—for the agency of these officials was to be employed in carrying them into effect.
2Ch 29:12-36. The House of God Cleansed.
12-19. Then the Levites arose—Fourteen chiefs undertook the duty of collecting and preparing their brethren for the important work of cleansing the Lord's house. Beginning with the outer courts—that of the priests and that of the people—the cleansing of these occupied eight days, after which they set themselves to purify the interior; but as the Levites were not allowed to enter within the walls of the temple, the priest brought all the sweepings out to the porch, where they were received by the Levites and thrown into the brook Kedron. This took eight days more. At the end of this period they repaired to the palace and announced that not only had the whole of the sacred edifice, within and without, undergone a thorough purification, but all the vessels which the late king had taken away and applied to a common use in his palace, had been restored, "and sanctified."
20-30. Then Hezekiah the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city—His anxiety to enter upon the expiatory service with all possible despatch, now that the temple had been properly prepared for it, prevented his summoning all the representatives of Israel. The requisite number of victims having been provided, and the officers of the temple having sanctified themselves according to the directions of the law, the priests were appointed to offer sacrifices of atonement successively, for "the kingdom," that is, for the sins of the king and his predecessors; for "the sanctuary," that is, for the sins of the priests themselves and for the desecration of the temple; "and for Judah," that is, for the people who, by their voluntary consent, were involved in the guilt of the national apostasy. Animals of the kinds used in sacrifice were offered by sevens, that number indicating completeness. The Levites were ordered to praise God with musical instruments, which, although not originally used in the tabernacle, had been enlisted in the service of divine worship by David on the advice of the prophets Gad and Nathan, as well calculated to animate the devotions of the people. At the close of the special services of the occasion, namely, the offering of atonement sacrifices, the king and all civic rulers who were present joined in the worship. A grand anthem was sung (2Ch 29:30) by the choir, consisting of some of the psalms of David and Asaph, and a great number of thank offerings, praise offerings, and freewill burnt offerings were presented at the invitation of the king.
31. Hezekiah … said, Now ye have consecrated yourselves unto the Lord, come near—This address was made to the priests as being now, by the sacrifice of the expiation offerings, anew consecrated to the service of God and qualified to resume the functions of their sacred office (Ex 28:41; 29:32).
the congregation brought in—that is, the body of civic rulers present.
34-36. the priests were too few, … wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them—The skins of beasts intended as peace offerings might be taken off by the officers, because, in such cases, the carcass was not wholly laid upon the altar; but animals meant for burnt offerings which were wholly consumed by fire could be flayed by the priests alone, not even the Levites being allowed to touch them, except in cases of unavoidable necessity (2Ch 35:11). The duty being assigned by the law to the priests (Le 1:6), was construed by consuetudinary practice as an exclusion of all others not connected with the Aaronic family.
for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests—that is, displayed greater alacrity than the priests. This service was hastened by the irrepressible solicitude of the king. Whether it was that many of the priests, being absent in the country, had not arrived in time—whether from the long interruption of the public duties, some of them had relaxed in their wonted attentions to personal cleanliness, and had many preparations to make—or whether from some having participated in the idolatrous services introduced by Ahaz, they were backward in repairing to the temple—a reflection does seem to be cast upon their order as dilatory and not universally ready for duty (compare 2Ch 30:15). Thus was the newly consecrated temple reopened to the no small joy of the pious king and all the people.