Year 2, Week 5, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 5, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of 2 Chronicles 29.

Today’s reading takes us back to 2 Chronicles as it begins a very detailed report on Hezekiah, King of Judah. This section of Chronicles corresponds to the previous day’s reading of 2 Kings 18, but the Chronicler has much more to say about Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a good king: “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done” (2 Chronicles 29:2); and the Chronicler gives him more attention than any other king apart from Solomon. Hezekiah’s twenty-nine year reign came at a crucial time to confront the kind of idolatry that had just recently accounted for the Northern Kingdom’s demise. 2 Chronicles 29 records what appears to be Hezekiah’s first priority as king: “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on the east” (2 Chronicles 29:2-3). Hezekiah acted early in his reign as king to restore true worship. With the aid of the Levites, Hezekiah cleanses the Temple and presides over a grand rededication: “Thus the service of the house of the LORD was restored. And Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had provided for the people, for the thing came about suddenly” (2 Chronicles 29:35b-36). Hezekiah’s rededication mirrors Solomon’s dedication of the Temple.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was Hezekiah’s message to the Levites: “Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place” (2 Chronicles 29:5). While the king did not have open access to the entire Temple compound, Hezekiah stirred up the Levites, who did have charge of the Temple, to get about the task of cleansing the Temple. A significant amount of the filth in the Temple was on account of Hezekiah’s own father, Ahaz: “And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and he shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 28:24). But Hezekiah’s priority was to undo the harm that his father had done and reconsecrate the Temple to the LORD’s standards.

Hezekiah is motivated by the honor of the LORD as he explained his priorities to the Levites. Hezekiah acknowledged how what had become of the Temple provoked the LORD’s wrath: “For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs…Therefore the wrath of the LORD came on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of horror, of astonishment, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes.” (2 Chronicles 29:6,8). Hezekiah knew what needed to be done to turn back God’s wrath: “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, in order that his fierce anger may turn away from us” (2 Chronicles 29:10).

The Levities coordinated themselves and set about to complete the task that the king charged them with “They gathered their brothers and consecrated themselves and went in as the king had commanded, by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 29:15). As the Levities completed their work, they immediately reported back to Hezekiah: “We have cleansed all the house of the LORD, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the showbread and all its utensils. All the utensils that King Ahaz discarded in his reign when he was faithless, we have made ready and consecrated, and behold, they are before the altar of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 29:18-19). The filth that faithless Ahaz had brought into the Temple was removed and dumped, “to the brook Kidron” (2 Chronicles 29:16b). Then the reconsecration process began: “they consecrated the house of the LORD, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished” (2 Chronicles 29:17b).

The Temple was readied to once again be used: “Then Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the officials of the city and went up to the house of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 29:20). At Hezekiah’s directives, the priests performed their duties of offering animal sacrifices: “the priests slaughtered them and made a sin offering with their blood on the altar, to make atonement for all Israel” (2 Chronicles 29:24a). And also by Hezkekiah’s directives, the musicians performed their musical duties: “And he stationed the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres” (2 Chronicles 29:25a). Then Hezekiah and, “The whole assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished” (2 Chronicles 29:28).

Down the road, a descendant of Hezekiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, would complete an even greater and longer lasting cleansing. Jesus would cleanse His people through offering Himself as a sacrifice: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe