I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 29-30.

Essentially the first thing which Hezekiah did when he became king was to reopen the Temple, which his father had shut.  As part of that he summoned the priests and Levites.  He commanded them to purify themselves and the Temple so as to be prepared to properly worship and present sacrifices to God.  It would be easy to reach the conclusion that this just involved cleaning the Temple and conducting the appropriate rituals, but I think that Hezekiah meant, and his listeners understood, conducting the rituals, re-familiarizing themselves with God’s Laws, and changing their behaviors. 

It took the Levites 16 days to cleanse and purify the Temple (note that it specifies that the Levites did this work, not “the priests and Levites”).  As soon as the Temple was purified, Hezekiah gathered the city officials of Jerusalem and had the priests offer a sin offering for all of Israel.  It would be easy to overlook that he did not just ask them to offer a sin offering for the nation as commanded in the Law of Moses.  That could have been interpreted as either being for all of Israel, or just for the kingdom over which Hezekiah ruled.  No, Hezekiah called for a sin offering for all of Israel, for all of the descendants of Jacob, even those who had been taken into exile (both from the northern tribes and from his own territory while his father was king).  As part of this process, he had the priests and Levites conduct a festival-style worship service.  This drew the people of the city, not just the officials whom Hezekiah had summoned.

Once the re-dedication and sin offerings had been offered Hezekiah called on the people who so desired to bring their own offerings to the Lord.  This is where we see the significance of my note about who purified the Temple because not enough priests had purified themselves to offer all of the sacrifices the people brought.  The passage tells us that the Levites had to help the priests offer the sacrifices.  I believe that the problem was that what revealed that not enough priests had purified themselves was that many of them did not know how to offer the sacrifices.  Which indicated that they had not studied the Law of Moses, but the Levites had and thus knew what needed to be done.  The people responded enthusiastically to Hezekiah’s restoration of God’s worship, as did the Levites.  The priests, and I am going to guess other high officials, responded less enthusiastically.

The final element of Hezekiah’s restoration was the first Passover he celebrated.  They celebrated this Passover a month late because not enough priests could be purified in time.  As part of his preparations Hezekiah sent messengers throughout the entire land of Israel, not just the part over which he had authority, inviting people to prepare themselves and come celebrate the Passover.  This was after the fall of Samaria, so we learn that not all of the Northern Tribes were taken into exile by the Assyrians.  Most of the people in the northern regions laughed at King Hezekiah’s messengers, but large numbers still responded and came to Jerusalem for the Passover.  Many of those who came from the northern regions no longer knew how to properly worship God and so failed to properly purify themselves for the Passover.  King Hezekiah ruled that they should be allowed to take part anyway and prayed to God that He accept their desire to serve Him.  We should follow Hezekiah’s example and welcome all who genuinely wish to worship God, especially those whose enthusiasm exceeds their understanding.  I will note that they did not just allow those who were unprepared to conduct their Passover sacrifices however they saw fit.  No, they had the Levites prepare their sacrifices for them, showing them the correct way to do it.