2 Chronicles 29
29
Hezekiah, King of Judah
2Ki 18:2–3
1#2Ki 18:1–3; 1Ch 3:13Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. The name of his mother was Abijah#Or Abi in 2Ki 18:2. the daughter of Zechariah. 2And he did what was correct in the eyes of the Lord just as his father David had done.
Hezekiah Cleanses the Temple
3#2Ch 28:24; 29:7And in the first year and first month of his reign he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and restored them. 4He then brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the square on the eastern side 5#2Ch 35:6; 1Ch 15:12and said to them, “Listen to me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves and consecrate the house of the Lord God of your fathers. And bring out the detestable things from the holy sanctuary. 6#Eze 8:16; Jer 2:27For our fathers have acted unfaithfully and have done what is evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and they have abandoned Him. They have turned their face from the sanctuary of the Lord and have turned their back. 7#2Ch 28:24They also shut the doors of the vestibule and have extinguished the lamps, nor have they burned incense or burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel. 8#Jer 25:9; 25:18Therefore the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem for a terror, horror, and scorn as you all can see with your own eyes. 9#2Ch 28:17; 28:5–8Observe, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and now our sons, daughters, and wives are in captivity for all this. 10#2Ch 23:16Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel so that His burning anger might turn away from us. 11My people, do not now be negligent for the Lord has chosen you all to stand in His presence, to serve Him, and to be ministers and make sacrifices for Him.”
12Then the Levites arose:
from the Kohathites,
Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah;
from the Merarites,
Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel;
from the Gershonites,
Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah;
13#1Ch 6:39; 15:8from the descendants of Elizaphan,
Shimri and Jeiel;
from the descendants of Asaph,
Zechariah and Mattaniah;
14#1Ch 6:33from the descendants of Heman,
Jehiel and Shimei;
from the descendants of Jeduthun,
Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15#2Ch 30:12; 1Ch 23:28So they gathered their brothers together and consecrated themselves and entered in as the king commanded by the words of the Lord in order to cleanse the house of the Lord. 16#2Ch 15:16Then the priests came into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they removed everything that they found that was unclean in the main hall of the temple of the Lord to the court. And the Levites took those things and brought them out to the Kidron Valley. 17They began to consecrate themselves on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the vestibule of the Lord. They consecrated the house of the Lord for eight days. Then on the sixteenth day of the first month they completed the task.
18Then they came toward Hezekiah the king and said, “We have cleaned the entire house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offerings and all its utensils, and the table for showbread and all its utensils. 19#2Ch 28:24All the vessels that King Ahaz discarded from use during his reign in his treachery we have prepared and consecrated. They are before the altar of the Lord.”
Hezekiah Restores Temple Worship
20So King Hezekiah got up early and gathered the officials of the city and went up to the house of the Lord. 21#Lev 4:3–14And he brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the kingdom, sanctuary, and Judah. Then he commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them up on the altar of the Lord. 22#Lev 4:18; 8:19So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took their blood and sprinkled it on the altar and then slaughtered the rams and sprinkled their blood on the altar. They did the same for the lambs. 23#Lev 4:15And they brought the male goats for a sin offering before the king and the assembly, and they placed their hands on the goats. 24And the priests slaughtered them and purified the altar with their blood to provide atoning reconciliation for all Israel because the king said that the burnt offering and sin offering would be for all Israel.
25#2Ch 8:14; 2Sa 24:11And he set the Levites at the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres according to the commandment of David, and Gad the seer of the king, and Nathan the prophet. For the commandment came from the Lord through His prophets. 26#1Ch 23:5; 15:24So the Levites stood with the instruments of David and the priests with the trumpets.
27#2Ch 23:18Then Hezekiah gave the command to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When they started the burnt offering, the song of the Lord began also, with the trumpets and the instruments of David, king of Israel. 28The entire assembly worshipped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All of this took place until the burnt offering was finished.
29#2Ch 20:18When the burnt offering was finished, the king and all those with him bowed down and worshipped. 30Then Hezekiah the king and the officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer. So they praised with gladness and bowed down to worship.
31#2Ch 13:9; Ex 35:22Then Hezekiah responded, “Now you have dedicated yourselves to the Lord. Come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.” So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all who had a willing heart brought burnt offerings.
32The number of the burnt offerings that the assembly brought was seventy bulls, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs; all these were for a burnt offering to the Lord. 33The consecrated animals were six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep. 34#2Ch 30:3; 35:11However there were too few priests, and they were not able to skin the burnt offerings. But their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was finished and more priests consecrated themselves, for the Levites were more upright in heart to consecrate themselves than the priests. 35#Nu 15:5–10; Ex 29:13Also burnt offerings were in abundance with the fat of the peace offerings and the drink offerings for the burnt offerings.
So the service of the house of the Lord was set in order. 36Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had prepared the people, since the events happened suddenly.
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Military Bible Association
2 Chronicles 29
29
King Hezekiah
1-2Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old and was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. In God’s opinion he was a good king; he kept to the standards of his ancestor David.
3-9In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah, having first repaired the doors of The Temple of God, threw them open to the public. He assembled the priests and Levites in the court on the east side and said, “Levites, listen! Consecrate yourselves and consecrate The Temple of God—give this much-defiled place a good housecleaning. Our ancestors went wrong and lived badly before God—they discarded him, turned away from this house where we meet with God, and walked off. They boarded up the doors, turned out the lights, and canceled all the acts of worship of the God of Israel in the holy Temple. And because of that, God’s anger flared up and he turned those people into a public exhibit of disaster, a moral history lesson—look and read! This is why our ancestors were killed, and this is why our wives and sons and daughters were taken prisoner and made slaves.
10-11“I have decided to make a covenant with the God of Israel and turn history around so that God will no longer be angry with us. Children, don’t drag your feet in this! God has chosen you to take your place before him to serve in conducting and leading worship—this is your life work; make sure you do it and do it well.”
12-17The Levites stood at attention: Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah from the Kohathites; Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel from the Merarites; Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah from the Gershonites; Shimri and Jeiel sons of Elizaphan; Zechariah and Mattaniah sons of Asaph; Jehiel and Shimei of the family of Heman; Shemaiah and Uzziel of the family of Jeduthun. They presented themselves and their brothers, consecrated themselves, and set to work cleaning up The Temple of God as the king had directed—as God directed! The priests started from the inside and worked out; they emptied the place of the accumulation of defiling junk—pagan rubbish that had no business in that holy place—and the Levites hauled it off to the Kidron Valley. They began the Temple cleaning on the first day of the first month and by the eighth day they had worked their way out to the porch—eight days it took them to clean and consecrate The Temple itself, and in eight more days they had finished with the entire Temple complex.
18-19Then they reported to Hezekiah the king, “We have cleaned up the entire Temple of God, including the Altar of Whole-Burnt-Offering and the Table of the Bread of the Presence with their furnishings. We have also cleaned up and consecrated all the vessels which King Ahaz had gotten rid of during his misrule. Take a look; we have repaired them. They’re all there in front of the Altar of God.”
20-24Then Hezekiah the king went to work: He got all the leaders of the city together and marched to The Temple of God. They brought with them seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats to sacrifice as an Absolution-Offering for the royal family, for the Sanctuary, and for Judah as a whole; he directed the Aaronite priests to sacrifice them on the Altar of God. The priests butchered the bulls and then took the blood and sprinkled it on the Altar, and then the same with the rams and lambs. Finally they brought the goats up; the king and congregation laid their hands upon them. The priests butchered them and made an Absolution-Offering with their blood at the Altar to atone for the sin of all Israel—the king had ordered that the Whole-Burnt-Offering and the Absolution-Offering be for all Israel.
25-26The king ordered the Levites to take their places in The Temple of God with their musical instruments—cymbals, harps, zithers—following the original instructions of David, Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet; this was God’s command conveyed by his prophets. The Levites formed the orchestra of David, while the priests took up the trumpets.
27-30Then Hezekiah gave the signal to begin: The Whole-Burnt-Offering was offered on the Altar; at the same time the sacred choir began singing, backed up by the trumpets and the David orchestra while the entire congregation worshiped. The singers sang and the trumpeters played all during the sacrifice of the Whole-Burnt-Offering. When the offering of the sacrifice was completed, the king and everyone there knelt to the ground and worshiped. Then Hezekiah the king and the leaders told the Levites to finish things off with anthems of praise to God using lyrics by David and Asaph the seer. They sang their praises with joy and reverence, kneeling in worship.
31-35Hezekiah then made this response: “The dedication is complete—you’re consecrated to God. Now you’re ready: Come forward and bring your sacrifices and Thank-Offerings to The Temple of God.”
And come they did. Everyone in the congregation brought sacrifices and Thank-Offerings and some, overflowing with generosity, even brought Whole-Burnt-Offerings, a generosity expressed in seventy bulls, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs—all for Whole-Burnt-Offerings for God! The total number of animals consecrated for sacrifice that day amounted to six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep. They ran out of priests qualified to slaughter all the Whole-Burnt-Offerings so their brother Levites stepped in and helped out while other priests consecrated themselves for the work. It turned out that the Levites had been more responsible in making sure they were properly consecrated than the priests had been. Besides the overflow of Whole-Burnt-Offerings there were also choice pieces for the Peace-Offerings and lavish libations that went with the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The worship in The Temple of God was on a firm footing again!
36Hezekiah and the congregation celebrated: God had established a firm foundation for the lives of the people—and so quickly!
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.