Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 30:1
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel.
Ch. 2Ch 30:1-12 (not in 2 Kin.). Hezekiah Invites all Israel to keep the Passover
This Passover took place in the first year of Hezekiah while the Northern Kingdom was still standing. The Chronicler, however, takes no note of merely political conditions, and it is not improbable that Hezekiah ventured to do in the fallen state of Israel that which earlier kings would not have dared to do.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Compare 2Ch 29:24 note.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XXX
Hezekiah invites all Israel and Judah, and writes letters to
Ephraim and Manasseh to come up to Jerusalem, and hold a
passover to the Lord, 1-4.
The posts go out with the king’s proclamation from Dan to
Beer-sheba, and pass from city to city through the coasts
of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Zebulun, but are generally mocked
in Israel, 5-10.
Yet several of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun, humble themselves,
and come to Jerusalem, 11.
But in Judah they are all of one heart, 12, 13.
They take away the idolatrous altars, kill the passover,
sprinkle the blood, and, as circumstances will permit,
sanctify the people, 14, 15.
Many having eaten of the passover, who were not purified
according to the law, Hezekiah prays for them; and the Lord
accepts his prayer, and heals them, 16-20.
Hezekiah exhorts them; and they hold the feast seven additional
days, fourteen in all, and the people greatly rejoice, 21-26.
The priests and the Levites bless the people, and God accepts
their prayers and thanksgivings, 27.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXX
Verse 1. Hezekiah sent to all Israel] It is not easy to find out how this was permitted by the king of Israel; but it is generally allowed that Hoshea, who then reigned over Israel, was one of their best kings. And as the Jews allow that at this time both the golden calves had been carried away by the Assyrians,-that at Dan by Tiglath-pileser, and that at Bethel by Shalmaneser,-the people who chose to worship Jehovah at Jerusalem were freely permitted to do it, and Hezekiah had encouragement to make the proclamation in question.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
To all Israel; whereby he understands all the persons of the ten tribes, who were now settled in his kingdom; as appears by their contradistinction to Ephraim and Manasseh here following. To Ephraim and Manasseh, i.e. to all the remainders of the ten tribes, 2Ch 30:5, who ave here synecdochically expressed by the names of Ephraim and Manasseh, as elsewhere by the name of Ephraim only. But he names these two tribes, because they were nearest to his kingdom, and a great number of them had long since, and from time to time, joined themselves to the kingdom of Judah, 2Ch 15:8,9, and therefore he had most hopes of success amongst them. That they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; admonishing them of their duty to God, and persuading them to comply with it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1-5. Hezekiah sent to all . . .Judah . . . to come to . . . Jerusalem, to keep the passoverThisgreat religious festival had not been regularly observed by theHebrews in their national capacity for a long time because of thedivision of the kingdom and the many disorders that had followed thatunhappy event. Hezekiah longed extremely to see its observancerevived; and the expression of his wishes having received a heartyresponse from the princes and chief men of his own kingdom, thepreparatory steps were taken for a renewed celebration of thenational solemnity.
letters also to Ephraim andManassehThe names of these leading tribes are used for thewhole kingdom of Israel. It was judged impossible, however, that thetemple, the priests, and people could be all duly sanctified at theusual time appointed for the anniversary, namely, the fourteenth dayof the first month (Nisan). Therefore it was resolved, instead ofpostponing the feast till another year, to observe it on thefourteenth day of the second month; a liberty which, being in certaincircumstances (Nu 9:6-13)granted to individuals, might, it was believed, be allowed to all thepeople. Hezekiah’s proclamation was, of course, authoritative in hisown kingdom, but it could not have been made and circulated in allthe towns and villages of the neighboring kingdom without theconcurrence, or at least the permission, of the Israelitishsovereign. Hoshea, the reigning king, is described as, though evil insome respects, yet more favorably disposed to religious liberty thanany of his predecessors since the separation of the kingdom. This isthought to be the meaning of the mitigating clause in his character(2Ki 17:2).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah,…. Sent messengers to them, not only to the subjects of his own kingdom, Judah, but to all the Israelites that dwelt in it, who were come thither for the sake of religion, and the worship of God:
and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh; which are put for all the ten tribes, as appears from 2Ch 30:10 and are distinguished from Israel in the preceding clause:
that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; not that he laid his commands upon them to come, they not being his subjects, namely, those of the ten tribes; but he hereby admonished them of their duty, and gave them a kind invitation, signifying the doors of the temple were open for them, and they were welcome to come thither:
to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel; to the glory of his name, who was the common Lord of them all, and whose command it was to keep the passover, and that at Jerusalem, and nowhere else, see
De 16:1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The celebration of the passover. – 2Ch 30:1-12. The preparations for this celebration. – 2Ch 30:1. Hezekiah invited all Israel and Judah to it; “and he also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh,” the two chief tribes of the northern kingdom, which here, as is manifest from 2Ch 30:5, 2Ch 30:10, are named instar omnium . But the whole sentence serves only to elucidate . To all Israel (of the ten tribes) he sent the invitation, and this he did by letters. The verse contains a general statement as to the matter, which is further described in what follows.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Preparations for the Passover. | B. C. 726. |
1 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel. 2 For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. 3 For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. 4 And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation. 5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. 6 So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7 And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. 8 Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. 9 For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him. 10 So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. 11 Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. 12 Also in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of the LORD.
Here is, I. A passover resolved upon. That annual feast was instituted as a memorial of the bringing of the children of Israel out of Egypt. It happened that the reviving of the temple service fell within the appointed days of that feast, the seventeenth day of the first month: this brought that forgotten solemnity to mind. “What shall we do,” says Hezekiah, “about the passover? It is a very comfortable ordinance, and has been long neglected. How shall we revive it? The time has elapsed for this year; we cannot go about it immediately; the congregation is thin, the people have not notice, the priests are not prepared, v. 3. Must we defer it till another year?” Many, it is likely, were for deferring it; but Hezekiah considered that by that time twelve-month the good affections of the people would cool, and it would be too long to want the benefit of the ordinance; and therefore, finding a proviso in the law of Moses that particular persons who were unclean in the first month might keep the passover the fourteenth day of the second month and be accepted (Num. ix. 11), he doubted not but that it might be extended to the congregation. Whereupon they resolved to keep the passover in the second month. Let the circumstance give way to the substance, and let not the thing itself be lost upon a nicety about the time. It is good striking while the iron is hot, and taking people when they are in a good mind. Delays are dangerous.
II. A proclamation issued out to give notice of this passover and to summon the people to it.
1. An invitation was sent to the ten revolted tribes to stir them up to come and attend this solemnity. Letters were written to Ephraim and Manasseh to invite them to Jerusalem to keep this passover (v. 1), not with any political design, to bring them back to the house of David, but with a pious design to bring them back to the Lord God of Israel. “Let them take whom they will for their king,” says Hezekiah, “so they will but take him for their God.” The matters in difference between Judah and Israel, either upon a civil or sacred account, shall not hinder but that if the people of Israel will sincerely return to the Lord their God Hezekiah will bid them as welcome to the passover as any of his own subjects. Expresses are sent post throughout all the tribes of Israel with memorials earnestly pressing the people to take this opportunity of returning to the God from whom they had revolted. Now here we have,
(1.) The contents of the circular letters that were despatched upon the occasion, in which Hezekiah discovers a great concern both for the honour of God and for the welfare of the neighbouring kingdom, the prosperity of which he seems passionately desirous of, though he not only received no toll, tribute, or custom, from it, but it had often, and not long since, been vexatious to his kingdom. This is rendering good for evil. Observe,
[1.] What it is which he presses them to (v. 8): “Yield yourselves unto the Lord. Before you can come into communion with him you must come into covenant with him.” Give the hand to the Lord (so the word is), that is, “Consent to take him for your God.” A bargain is confirmed by giving the hand. “Strike this bargain. Join yourselves to him in an everlasting covenant. Subscribe with the hand to be his, Isa. xliv. 5. Give him your hand, in token of giving him your heart. Lay your hand to his plough. Devote yourselves to his service, to work for him. Yield to him,” that is, “Come up to his terms, come under his government, stand it not out any longer against him.” “Yield to him, to be absolutely and universally at his command, at his disposal, to be, and do, and have, and suffer, whatever he pleases. In order to this, be not stiff-necked as your fathers were; let not your corrupt and wicked wills rise up in resistance of and rebellion against the will of God. Say not that you will do what you please, but resolve to do what he pleases.” There is in the carnal mind a stiffness, an obstinacy, an unaptness to comply with God. We have it from our fathers; it is bred in the bone with us. This must be conquered; and the will that had in it a spirit of contradiction must be melted into the will of God; and to his yoke the neck that was an iron sinew must be bowed and fitted. In pursuance of this resignation to God, he presses them to enter into his sanctuary, that is, to attend upon him in that place which he had chosen, to put his name there, and serve him in the ordinances which he had appointed. “The doors of the sanctuary are now opened, and you have liberty to enter; the temple service is now revived, and you are welcome to join in it.” The king says, Come; the princes and priests say, Come; whosoever will, let him come. This he calls (v. 6) turning to the Lord God; for they had forsaken him, and worshipped other gods. Repent now, and be converted. Thus those who through grace have turned to God themselves should do all they can to bring others back to him.
[2.] What arguments he uses to persuade them to do this. First, “You are children of Israel, and therefore stand related, stand obliged, to the God of Israel, from whom you have revolted.” Secondly, “The God you are called to return to is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a God in covenant with your first fathers, who served him and yielded themselves to him; and it was their honour and happiness that they did so.” Thirdly, “Your late fathers that forsook him and trespassed against him have been given up to desolation; their apostasy and idolatry have been their ruin, as you see (v. 7); let their harms be your warnings.” Fourthly, “You yourselves are but a remnant narrowly escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria (v. 6), and therefore are concerned to put yourselves under the protection of the God of your fathers, that you be not quite swallowed up.” Fifthly, “This is the only way of turning away the fierceness of God’s anger from you (v. 8), which will certainly consume you if you continue stiff-necked.” Lastly, “If you return to God in a way of duty, he will return to you in a way of mercy.” This he begins with (v. 6) and concludes with, v. 9. In general, “You will find him gracious and merciful, and one that will not turn away his face from you, if you seek him, notwithstanding the provocations you have given him.” Particularly, “You may hope that he will turn again the captivity of your brethren that are carried away, and bring them back to their own land.” Could any thing be expressed more pathetically, more movingly? Could there be a better cause, or could it be better pleaded?
(2.) The entertainment which Hezekiah’s messengers and message met with. It does not appear that Hoshea, who was now king of Israel, took any umbrage from, or gave any opposition to, the dispersing of these proclamations through his kingdom, nor that he forbade his subjects to accept the invitation. He seems to have left them entirely to their liberty. They might go to Jerusalem to worship if they pleased; for, though he did evil, yet not like the kings of Israel that were before him, 2 Kings xvii. 2. He saw ruin coming upon his kingdom, and, if any of his subjects would try this expedient to prevent it, they had his full permission. But, for the people, [1.] The generality of them slighted the call and turned a deaf ear to it. The messengers went from city to city, some to one and some to another, and used pressing entreaties with the people to come up to Jerusalem to keep the passover; but they were so far from complying with the message that they abused those that brought it, laughed them to scorn, and mocked them (v. 10), not only refused, but refused with disdain. Tell them of the God of Abraham! they knew him not, they had other gods to serve, Baal and Ashtaroth. Tell them of the sanctuary! their high places were as good. Tell them of God’s mercy and wrath! they neither dreaded the one nor desired the other. No marvel that the king’s messengers were thus despitefully used by this apostate race when God’s messengers were so, his servants the prophets, who produced credentials from him. The destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes was now at hand. It was but two or three years after this that the king of Assyria laid siege to Samaria, which ended in the captivity of those tribes. Just before this they had not only a king of their own that permitted them to return to God’s sanctuary, but a king of Judah that earnestly invited them to do it. Had they generally accepted this invitation, it might have prevented their ruin; but their contempt of it hastened and aggravated it, and left them inexcusable. [2.] Yet there were some few that accepted the invitation. The message, though to some it was a savour of death unto death, was to others a savour of life unto life, v. 11. In the worst of times God has had a remnant; so he had here, many of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun (here is no mention of any out of Ephraim, though some of that tribe are mentioned, v. 18), humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem, that is, were sorry for their sins and submitted to God. Pride keeps men from yielding themselves to the Lord; when that is brought down, the work is done.
2. A command was given to the men of Judah to attend this solemnity; and they universally obeyed it, v. 12. They did it with one heart, were all of a mind in it, and the hand of God gave them that one heart; for it is in the day of power that Christ’s subjects are made willing. It is God that works both to will and to do. When people, at any time, manifest an unexpected forwardness to do that which is good, we must acknowledge that hand of God in it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
2Ch 30:1
Second Chronicles – Chapter 30
(Note: The things being studied now are found only in Chronicles, but they come chronologically here [in the Hardbound Commentary 1st Edition, under 2Kings comments] in the context of the Kings record. -Author)
Passover Preparations – Verses 1-12
With the renewal of the covenant came the reinstitution of the feasts which were required by the law of Moses. The very first feast of the year was the Passover (see Lev 23:4-8; Exo 12:1-11; Exo 23:14-17). But the cleansing of priests, Levites, and the temple had only begun in the first month, and the date of the Passover had passed. Hezekiah then consulted with the princes of Judah, his counselors, and with the people, and they agreed it should be kept at the same date in the second month.
They cited two reasons why it could not be observed at the usual time; 1) the sanctification had not been completed; 2) the people had not been gathered to Jerusalem for it.
There was a provision for observance of the Passover in the second month instead of the first (Num 9:10-11). So it was decreed, and a proclamation was published to be sent throughout all the land of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, thus including the northern tribes who had suffered so terribly from the depredations of the Assyrians. Hoshea, the last king of Israel, yet occupied the throne of the northern kingdom. .
It was about two years before the siege of Samaria by Tiglathpileser began and some five years before the city’s fall. This call to the Passover in Jerusalem may have been the Lord’s last call to them to turn again in his worship. (Isa 55:6-7).
It had been a long time since the nation had observed the Passover. The king’s letters of invitation were sent out by post throughout the tribes north and south. Its message called on the people to turn back to the God of tile patriarchs that He might restore His blessings on the remnant who had escaped from the enemy’s sword and from famine.
They were to forsake the stiffnecked way of their fathers which brought down the wrath of God and yield themselves to Him. They who had long served the gods of the high places and groves were implored to come back to the Lord’s sanctuary which represented His everlasting presence.
If the people of the northern tribes would return to the Lord He might be compassionate on them and save them out of the hand of the Assyrians. Their children might be allowed to escape the captivity and even be allowed to return to their homeland. If they did not respond favorably His face would be turned away from them and they would not receive His grace and mercy, which He reserved for those who called on Him.
So the king’s posts traversed the land, from north to south through the cities, inviting the people to attend the Passover in Jerusalem in the second month. They went into the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh and on into Zebulun. Most of the people ridiculed them, laughing and mocking. But some of them had second thoughts and prepared themselves to go to Jerusalem and join the celebration. They came out of the tribes of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun. The people of Judah also responded with one heart to do what the king had commanded by the word of the Lord (cf. Mat 21:28-31).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES
IN discussing the First Book of Chronicles we called attention to the fact that according to Usshers chronology, the two Books, not reckoning the table of genealogy, covered a space of 468 years of history; the First Book only 41 of these, and this second, 427. As to the authorship of these Books, Ezra is commonly accepted.
The analysis of any book is largely the presentation of a personal view. One man divides this Second Book of Chronicles into two portions: The Reign of Solomon, chapters 1 to 9, and The Kings of Judah, chapters 10 to 36.
Scofield in his reference Bible, says of this Book: It falls into eighteen divisions, by reigns, from Solomon to the captivities; records the division of the kingdom of David under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and is marked by an ever growing apostasy, broken temporarily by reformations under Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Hezekiah, and Josiah.
It is our purpose to follow neither of these divisions, however natural they may be, but to discuss the volume under three heads: Solomon and the Temple; Rehoboam and the Division, and the History of Judah.
SOLOMON AND THE TEMPLE
The Book opens with a declaration concerning the new king, And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly (2Ch 1:1).
The history that follows gives occasion to say several things concerning this marvelous man of immortal reputation:
First, Solomons kingship enjoyed an auspicious beginning. The man who ascends the throne under the favor of the Lord necessarily begins a reign of promise. If, as in Solomons case, he sensibly recognizes his responsibility and seeks wisdom from the only sufficient source, he adds greater certainty to his success. When, in addition to this, his objectives are high and God-honoring, the glory of his kingdom advances accordingly. Certainly, Solomons preparation to build the temple was not only a noble objective, but one in line with his kingly fathers purpose and prayers, and the great Heavenly Fathers will for him.
The interesting history here of gathering materials and appointing men for this marvelous construction is made more interesting still by the kings personal supervision and spiritual interest. It takes some courage to conduct war, and we believe it takes almost more courage and even a clearer sense of God, to build sanctuaries, make their appointments according to the Divine pleasure, and call the people to worship within the spacious rooms of the same. Yet, when you have read but five chapters of this Book, you find such a work complete, and are not in the least amazed or even surprised to read, The glory of the Lord had filled the house of God (2Ch 5:14).
It is doubtful whether any company of men have done more for the establishment of spirituality in the earth and for the strengthening of the souls of their fellows, than have those who brought sanctuaries into existence and led congregations of people to a genuine worship of the most high God.
The on-going of this Book reveals Solomons conscious dependence. When the altar was erected he stood by it with outstretched hands (2Ch 6:12). That is the attitude of prayer and possibly of adoration. When his lips parted to speak, he says,
O Lord God of Israel, there is no God tike Thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and shewest mercy unto Thy servants that walk before Thee with all their hearts:
Thou which hast kept with Thy servant David my father that which Thou hast promised him; and spakest with Thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with Thine hand, as it is this day.
Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with Thy servant David my father that which Thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in My sight to sit upon the throne of Israel; yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in My Law, as Thou hast walked before Me (2Ch 6:14-16).
Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let Thy Word be verified, which Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant David (2Ch 6:17).
Then follows an appeal that Gods eyes should be open upon their house day and night; that His ears should hearken to the prayers made in that place, and if sin were committed, that forgiveness should be granted, and if the people fail before the face of the enemy because of sin that they also should be pardoned; that if heaven be shut up on the same ground, upon repentance the dearth should end.
Then he concludes in a more personal petition to Him:
Then what prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man, or of all Thy people Israel, when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house:
Then hear Thou from Heaven Thy dwelling place, and forgive (2Ch 6:29-30).
These are only samples of the long petition that followed the dedicatory sermon. They wind up with a sentence like this: O Lord God, turn not away the face of Thine anointed: remember the mercies of David Thy servant (2Ch 6:42). It is a model prayer; it is the petition of a sincere soul; it is the cry of one who knows that the mercy and love of God are the only grounds of hope.
The further text records Solomons fame and death. That fame was based upon Solomons wisdom, accentuated doubtless by the magnificence of the temple, but made more honorable still in the extent of his organization, the luxury of his court and the wealth of his treasury.
Evidently, among the rulers of the earth, the queen of Sheba held conspicuous place, and when the fame of Solomon reached her, she came to prove him with her questions, and impress him with her own riches and glory. The difficult questions were satisfactorily answered, the temple was adequately shown, the table of the king groaned with its good meats, the apparel of the servants was profoundly impressive, and the queen said to the king,
It was a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom:
Howbeit I believed not their words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me: for thou exceedest the fame that I heard.
Happy are thy men, and happy are these thy servants, winch stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom.
Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne, to be king for the Lord thy God (2Ch 9:5-8).
The compliment to the king is followed with a statement of Solomons annual income, the magnificence of his throne, the rich appointments of the palace, the extensive commercial importance of his kingdom, and the willing tributes of the earths lesser lords.
Then, as if the task of telling all was too great, we have this record,
Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?
And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.
And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead (2Ch 9:29-31).
It is a surprising end, and yet strangely true to human history. How many men spend all their days in preparing to live, and when the preparation seems almost complete, proceed to die? The last enemy is no respecter of persons. His bow is drawn against the great as well as the humble, the rich as well as the poor, the wise as well as the ignorant. Death respects neither thrones nor kings; he holds the key to the palace room, and even to the throne room. Kings may command their humbler fellows, and even counsel their equals; but where death calls, they also obey.
REHOBOAM AND THE DIVISION
The emptying of a throne is forever fraught with perils. The eternal and pertinent question is this, Who shall come after the king? The tenth chapter answered that concerning the throne of Israel. The answer was an ill omen! Rehoboams tyrannical spirit split the kingdom. When Jeroboam and all Israel came to him, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou somewhat the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee (2Ch 10:4), they delicately referred to the increased taxation to which the luxurious court and the personal orgies of Solomon had given rise. They thought, as people commonly do, that the new rule would prove the peoples friend. Their hope was in vain.
The old men, former counselors of Solomon, advised kindness and compassion; but the young bloods, spoiled by their fellowship with royalty, counseled increased oppression; and under their influence he said,
My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add thereto: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions (2Ch 10:14).
It was enough. The war was on; and that war has never ended until this day, for Israel and Judah are not yet one. A man who divides brethren and sets them to battle, little understands the infinite reach of his mischief. The father of Modernism in America, when he fell asleep at a comparatively early age, little dreamed that he had set influences to work that would divide every denomination on the continent, destroy the fellowship of men who loved one another as twins are commonly supposed to love, wreck schools and churches by the thousand, and start a war that may easily exceed the famous Hundred Year War of history.
Israel and Judahblood brothersbecame the bitterest of enemies. For some reason Second Chronicles pays little attention to Israel, but proceeds to trace Judahs history to the year of Cyrus, king of Persia, or through a period of almost a half millennium. The family feud occasionally projects itself into the record, but for the most part, Israel is forgotten, and the doings of Judah are recorded in detail.
The explanation of this is found in the circumstance that Jeroboam rejected the worship of Jehovah (2Ch 11:14-15). When God is once put away, when Gods priest is disposed of, and His minister is heard no more, then degeneracy compels a declining record.
Unitarianism three quarters of a century ago denied the Lord. Its history has amounted to little; and if it were recorded, it would simply prove, as the Jeroboam movement, a breeding place of apostasy; and yet this record regards not one apostasy only, but two.
The man of many favors may forget God.
When Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the Law of the Lord, and all Israel with him (2Ch 12:1).
What a sad commentary on the uncertainty and unstability of human nature! The explanation of Rehoboams failure has fitted thousands, yea millions of cases. He did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord (2Ch 12:14). Of all disappointments, none exceed thisto begin well and end badly; to give promise and create disappointment; to be the subject of Divine favor, and become the slave of Gods adversary.
THE HISTORY OF JUDAH
Chapters 11 to 36 contain the roster of kings. The fortunes of the country answer accurately and inevitably to the characters of their rulers. On the whole, the history is a down-grade. In that respect, it runs true to form. The doctrine of evolution may find an illustration in national life if it goes from the simple to the complex, but in so far as it contends for improvement, history fails to illustrate it. Degeneracy of nations has more often taken place than has social and moral progress.
The foundations of Judah were laid under David; the kingdoms glory appeared under Solomon. From that moment until this, one word expresses Judahs coursedecline.
Africa was once an advanced nation, now a heathen one; Italy once ruled the world, now she holds an inconspicuous place; Greece once represented the climax of physical and mental accomplishment, now she boasts neither. The reasons for decline are varied, but in Judah they were one the God who had made her great was too often forgotten, too willingly offended. When the nations neglect the source of their strength, weakness naturally ensues. Judahs strength was in the Lord, and when her kings forgot Him, despised His Word, entered into unholy alliances that were followed by the people, her fame declined, and her land fainted.
The mixed social condition manifested her sinfulness. We have a phrase, Like people, like priest. We can paraphrase that, Like princes, like people. The study of these kings results in no compliment to human nature. Some of them were utterly evil; most of them were a mixture of the good and bad; two or three of them were sound. Among the utterly evil ones, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Manasseh, Amon and Jehoiakin held first place. The ones that represent a mixture of good and bad were Jeroboam, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jehoiakim; while the truly good consisted of Jotham, Hezekiah and Josiah. In all probability the reign of each of these good kings was profoundly affected and made spiritually fruitful by the ministry of Isaiah, the greatest preacher among Old Testament Prophets. It is perhaps a fact of history that no rulers have ever proven faithful to God without the stimulating and salutary influence of the Gospel ministry.
The judgments and mercies of Second Chronicles alike vindicate Jehovah. In this record wickedness does not go unpunished; and yet it is a marvelous revelation of Divine mercy.
There is never the least sign of penitence on the part of the ruler and the people without an immediate and generous response from Jehovah.
When Jehoshaphat declined in his loyalty and effected a sinful coalition with Ahab, judgment fell; but instantly upon his repentance, mercy was shown. Judgment is always and everywhere Gods strange work, the work in which He takes no pleasure. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Eze 33:11).
Mercy is His nature, His essential character, for to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy (Pro 28:13).
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.] Preparations for Passover (2Ch. 30:1-12); the keeping of Passover (2Ch. 30:13-17); H.S prayer for unclean persons (2Ch. 30:18-22); the solemnities of the second seven days.
2Ch. 30:1-12.Preparations for Passover. Sent messengers. Special letters to remote and near tribes (cf. ch. 2Ch. 29:24 for object in sending them). 2Ch. 30:2. Second month, a time which allowed for purification of priests, proclamation to be made through all Israel and for absentees. 2Ch. 30:3. Other reasons assigned. Pleased, i.e., arrangements made. 2Ch. 30:5. Order made and proclaimed from Dan to Beer., i.e., the extent of Israel; for they had not (for some time) kept the Passover in full numbers, as required (written) by law. 2Ch. 30:6. Posts, runners or bearers of letters (ch. 2Ch. 23:1-2). Remnant, portions of people had been removed by Assyrian invasions to Asshur (2Ki. 15:20), the rest now tributary (2Ki. 17:1-4). 2Ch. 30:8. Stiffnecked, hardening neck (Deu. 10:16); gesture of disobedience (2Ki. 17:14; Ezr. 10:19; Eze. 17:18). Yield, lit., give the hand, i.e., submit (1Ch. 29:24; Lam. 5:6). 2Ch. 30:9. Find, shall be for compassion before your captors. 2Ch. 30:10. Zeb., extreme north. 2Ch. 30:11. Divers, certain; representatives of five tribes sent. 2Ch. 30:12. Hand, direct ascription to God for united national response.
2Ch. 30:13-17.The keeping of Passover. 2Ch. 30:14. Altars which Ahaz had erected in city (ch. 2Ch. 28:24) partly for victims and partly for incensea sign of earnestness. 2Ch. 30:15. Ashamed, behind in zeal for worship or given to idolatry, put now to blush by forwardness of people; received burnt-offerings from offerers at doors of inner court, and took them to brazen altar in front of porch. 2Ch. 30:16. Hand, Levites being obliged to help in slaying numerous victims. 2Ch. 30:17. Charge, because unsanctified people could not do it themselves.
2Ch. 30:18-22.His prayer for unclean. Otherwise, i.e., contrary to Mosaic rites. 2Ch. 30:19. Prepareth, so is sincere. 2Ch. 30:20. Healed, forgave (sin) uncleanness and delivered from physical or moral consequences. 2Ch. 30:21. Seven, according to requirement (Exo. 12:18; Exo. 23:15); loud, strong instruments, ascribing might to the Lord. 2Ch. 30:22. Comfortably, encouragingly to heart. Confession of past sin and keeping feast full appointed time.
2Ch. 30:23-27.Solemnities of second seven days. Took, resolved to imitate Solomons feast at dedication of temple (1Ki. 8:65). 2Ch. 30:24. Give, lit., gave as heave-offering (cf. ch. 2Ch. 35:7). Thousand, victims liberally offered by kings and princes, many priests sanctified themselves to overtake this extraordinary abundance. Strangers responded to invitation, and not such a national feast since time of Solomon (cf. Josiahs Passover, 2Ki. 23:22-23). 2Ch. 30:27. Blessed, benediction of priests, who were entitled to bless, reached to heaven itself (cf. Num. 6:24-26).
HOMILETICS
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE PASSOVER.2Ch. 30:1-12
Division of kingdom, disorders which followed, and prevalent idolatry prevented national observance for long time. Hezekiah desired to revive it, consulted princes and chief men, met with hearty response, and resolved to proclaim it.
I. The invitation to keep the passover.
1. Official, from kings and princes.
2. Special, by decree (2Ch. 30:5).
3. Pressing, by letters and proclamation.
4. Universal, to Israel as well as Judah. Indicating zeal, generosity, and love.
5. Timely, though temple, priests, and people not duly sanctified by 14th day of first month Nisan. Yet only postponed till 14th day of second month, not a whole year.
II. The motives to comply with this invitation. In passionate language he urges personal obedience and ready response.
1. Their covenant relation urged them. God forsaken, though the Lord God of their fathers and the Lord their God.
2. Their present condition urged them. Trans-Jordanic region desolate. Two tribes in captivity would find compassion from their captors (Psa. 106:46), and God would return unto the remnant.
3. If they complied God would be gracious. Gracious and merciful, &c. (2Ch. 30:9). His fierce wrath would be turned away if they sought him (Joe. 2:13).
4. If they refused God would be angry.
III. The response which was given to the invitation. A twofold reception.
1. Some were ready and willing. Divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. In Judah Gods power seen in zeal and unanimity of people.
2. Others mocked and insulted. Not merely refused, but openly derided. Laughed them to scorn. A type of gospel message, a savour of life unto life or of death unto death. Which to you? Neutrality impossible. Are you refusing or yielding? They mocked the messengers of God and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
HEZEKIAHS INVITATION.2Ch. 30:1-12
Hezekiah determined to keep passover not in selfish spirit within narrow limits of Judah or Jerusalem, but commanded that the burnt-offering and the sin-offering should be made for all Israel. In this we learn
I. The centre of unity for all Gods people. The house of the Lord. The sanctuary the centre round which all Israel should gather. Through Jeroboams act three centres, Jerusalem, Bethel, and Dan. Hezekiah pointed out one. Turn again to the Lord God of your fathers. Not places of worship, cities of refuge, creeds or denominations, but Christ the centre and bond of unity. One Lord, one table, one object.
II. The method of securing this unity.
1. Cherish and cultivate a spirit of love. Hezekiah not cold and exclusive, thought not of his own people merely, but of those in connection with him. Too much sectarianism and bigotry separate true believers one from another and repel the world.
2. By personal effort endeavour to bring it about. Discountenance everything that promotes separation. Encourage and incite in minds of all Christians a desire to be found together. Not the purpose of God that his people should be scattered abroad in bitter feelings, sectarian feuds, and selfish actions. Working to secure the unity of the body, we co-operate with God for a divine object. That he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
THE OBSERVANCE OF THE PASSOVER.2Ch. 30:13-26
I. At an unusual though legal time. In the second month. At that time (in the first month, ch. 2Ch. 29:3), they could not keep passover, because priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient numbers, nor had the people assembled. King and princes consulted not to delay another year, but to hold it second month. Zeal of people might cool down. Present benefit desired. Let circumstances give way to realities. Never neglect a greater for a smaller good.
II. By an unprecedented number of victims. Hezekiah gave a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep. The princes gave a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep. These besides the stock of sacrificial animals brought by the people which soon were exhausted. Pious example should ever incite. Rich will never be poorer for genuine liberality.
III. By the great numbers who attended. Some refused, but others gladly observed passover. All Judah with priests and Levites, some from Israel, the northern kingdom, and strangersprobably proselytes from both Judah and Israel. A very great congregation (2Ch. 30:13), to whom Gods arm was revealed (Isa. 53:1), and who were made willing in the day of Gods power. No passover like this since the great festival of Solomon, which lasted fourteen days, for excess of Levitical zeal, unbounded joy, and extent of duration.
HEZEKIAHS PRAYER.2Ch. 30:18-20
Passover kept, but remarkable is the description, otherwise than it was written. Many involved in ceremonial or moral uncleanness, and unfit to slay their own lambs; needed intercession of the king, who proved himself to be a true ruler and a true priest for the people. Learn
I. That purity of heart is required for sanctuary worship. Outward cleansing of Old Testament a symbol of inward. Truth in the inward parts, sincerity of heart and mind needful. Worship is not sensual, but a living fellowship with Christ; for this, preparation must be made. If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands towards him, &c. (Job. 11:13).
II. That the best preparation in sanctuary worship is defective. Not what law requires, not up to spiritual ideal, according to the purification of the sanctuary. Iniquity cleaves to our holy things, and there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not. Best offerings, holiest worshippers unworthyneed the intercession, the incense of the great High-Priest.
III. That when the heart is sincere God will hear prayer. God is Jehovah the good, kind and merciful; proclaiming goodness in forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. Prayer to Him will be heard. And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah. God ever condescending to the upright in shortcomings and defects. But this no excuse for negligence in preparation, for reliance upon duty performed as well as we can perform it, nor any ground for despair on account of weakness or imperfection. If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.
A SECOND JOYFUL MONTH.2Ch. 30:23-26
A voluntary service made in addition to requirements of law, a fruit and sign of abundant zeal and gladness. This illustrates
I. The true method of deliverance from sectarianism. No form prescribed. Law not exactly obeyed. The sweetness of unity in decided hostility to separation, idolatry, and narrow-mindedness. Hospitality warmed, the nation enthusiastic and one; numbers grow, and pardon multiplies at the feast.
II. The true principle of all reformation. Not to pull down what is false, but to build up what is true. Assemble Israel round the altar, lead them into the presence of the God of their fathers; then a mighty power will go forth from Jerusalem to sweep the land from idols, upset the seats of superstition, and confirm righteous works. Not to resuscitate fallen religion by novel measures, to promote excitement, and raise up a denomination, but to return to appointed means, regularly, orderly, and reverently observe divine worship, and restore to freedom and efficiency old institutions by which God will raise the Church and bless the nation.
III. The only way to secure service out of worship. When all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, &c. (ch. 2Ch. 31:1). Altars not destroyed in going up to Jerusalem. They needed the experience of the feast, the blessings of worship. Hezekiah began with God in sanctuary, Israel pursued the same order. Power to reform and execute judgment derived from Gods presence. Luther and Knox prayerful in closet, therefore successful in reform. Not by might, &c.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
2Ch. 30:14-17. Removal of altars.
1. Destruction after construction. Evil taken away before good accomplished.
2. Official lukewarmness to remove evil. Its widespread and its future end.
3. Personal revival to stir up others.
2Ch. 30:18-20. Hez.s prayer.
1. Sin brings sickness. Ceremonial uncleanness exposure to danger. In consequence of transgression they had cause to fear physical and moral disease (Lev. 15:31).
2. God the physician. Will heal this moral sickness. The Lord healed and restored to penitence and health. This revealed probably by a prophet (cf. 2Ki. 19:20; 2Ki. 20:5).
2Ch. 30:22. Hez.s encouragement to Levites. Work holy and great. Unity and resources of all to accomplish it. Hence H. spake comfortably. I. Qualifications required. (a) Knowledge, good and extensive, ritual and musical. (b) Wisdom to execute and consecrate it to Gods service, (c) Humility before God. Knowledge is proud because she knows so much, wisdom humble because she knows no more. II. The advantages of possessing these qualifications, (a) Ability to encourage others. (b) Facility to arrange and conduct public worship.
2Ch. 30:1-27. Reviewing whole, we haveI. A revival of theocratic spirit. II. Destruction of idolatrous customs. III. Establishment of true unity in public worship. IV. A pattern Reformation, in its benevolent design, in the spirit in which it was conducted, and in the priestly blessing it secured. Benedictions fell from lips of leaders, praises of the people ascended to heaven, the nation restored to God and great joy.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 30
2Ch. 30:1-12. Zeal (My sons, be not negligent) should be inspired by principles, not by circumstances. Yet the value of circumstances must not be underrated, for they are means which God employs to awaken our attention to duty. It is not difficult to trace the course of events through which the dying embers of religious zeal, and especially of zeal for Christian missions, have been kindled by the breath of God. We may not overlook the happy results from the commanding influences of leading men and the powerful impressions produced on the lethargy into which the public mind is ever sinking, by the stirring appeals of pulpit, platform, and press. By such means it has pleased God, in a degree, to conquer public opinion, and they must continue to be plied with unabating energy till the conquest is complete [W. H. Stowel, D.D.].
2Ch. 30:22. Confession.
What better can we do than to the place
Repairing where he judged us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg with tears [Milton].
2Ch. 30:23-27. Universal joy. I am not unmindful of the assertion that the God of the Hebrews is usually thought of as a Being of preternatural severity, overwhelming men by his majesty, begetting profound and soul-filling awe by his greatness, dwelling in the thick darkness, making clouds his chariot, and sweeping down on his foes like a cyclone. But this representation is one-sided and unfair to a religion which had more festivals than fasts, more psalms than prophecies, and more triumphs than despairs. By the side of intolerance of sin there is mercy that reacheth to the very heavens, and near to the righteousness that is like the great mountains there is a forgiveness that inspires hopeful petition, even out of depth of sufferings and misfortune [Dr. J. Clifford].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
14. THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH (2932)
TEXT
2Ch. 29:1. Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old; and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: and his mothers name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah 2. And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done. 3. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of Jehovah, and repaired them. 4. And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the broad place on the east, 5. and said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites; now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Jehovah, the God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. 6. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Jehovah, and turned their backs. 7. Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt-offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel. 8. Wherefore the wrath of Jehovah was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to be tossed to and fro, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as ye see with your eyes. 9. For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. 10. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with Jehovah, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us. 11. My sons, be not now negligent; for Jehovah hath chosen you to stand before him, to minister unto him, and that ye should be his ministers, and burn incense.
12. Then the Levites arose, Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of 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 gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by the words of Jehovah, to cleanse the house of Jehovah. 16. And the priests went in unto the inner part of the house of Jehovah, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of Jehovah into the court of the house of Jehovah. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad to the brook Kidron. 17. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of Jehovah; and they sanctified the house of Jehovah in eight days: and on the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end. 18. Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace, and said, We, have cleansed all the house of Jehovah, and the altar of burnt-offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the table of showbread with all the vessels thereof. 19. Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away when he trespassed, have we prepared and sanctified; and, behold, they are before the altar of Jehovah.
20. Then Hezekiah the king arose early, and gathered the princes of the city, and went up to the house of Jehovah. 21. And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats, for a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of Jehovah. 22. So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: and they killed the rams, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar. 23. And they brought near the he-goats for the sin-offering before the king and the assembly; and they laid their hands upon them: 24. and the priests killed them, and they made a sin-offering with their blood upon the altar; to make atonement for all Israel; for the king commanded that the burnt-offering and the sin-offering should be made for all Israel.
25. And he set the Levites in the house of Jehovah with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the kings seer, and Nathan the prophet; for the commandment was of Jehovah by his prophets. 26. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. 27. And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt-offering upon the altar. And when the burnt-offering began, the song of Jehovah began also, and the trumpets, together with the instruments of David king of Israel. 28. And all the assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded; all this continued until the burnt-offering was finished.
29. And when they had made an end of offering, the king and all that were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped. 30. Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises unto Jehovah with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped.
31. Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have consecrated yourselves unto Jehovah: come near and bring sacrifices and thank-offerings into the house of Jehovah. And the assembly brought in sacrifices and thank-offerings; and as many as were of a willing heart brought burnt-offerings. 32. And the number of the burnt-offerings which the assembly brought was threescore and ten bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs: all these were for a burnt-offering to Jehovah. 33. And the consecrated things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep. 34. But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt-offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the priests had sanctified themselves; for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests. 35. And also the burnt-offerings were in abundance, with the fat of the peace-offerings, and with the drink-offerings for every burnt-offering. So the service of the house of Jehovah was set in order. 36. And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, because of that which God had prepared for the people: for the thing was done suddenly.
2Ch. 30:1. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto Jehovah, the God of Israel. 2. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the assembly in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. 3. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. 4. And the thing was right in the eyes of the king and of all the assembly. 5. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto Jehovah, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: for they had not kept it in great numbers in such sort as it is written. 6. So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant that are escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7. And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, who trespassed against Jehovah, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation, as ye see. 8. Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto Jehovah, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve Jehovah your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. 9. For if ye turn again unto Jehovah, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that led them captive, and shall come again into this land: for Jehovah your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.
10. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. 11. Nevertheless certain men of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. 12. Also upon Judah came the hand of God to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes by the word of Jehovah.
13. And there assembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great assembly. 14. And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away, and cast them into the brook Kidron. 15. Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt-offerings into the house of Jehovah. 16. And they stood in their place after their order, according to the law of Moses the man of God: the priests sprinkled the blood which they received of the hand of the Levites. 17. For there were many in the assembly that had not sanctified themselves: therefore the Levites had the charge of assembly that had not sanctified themselves: therefore the Levites had the charge of killing passovers for every one that was not clean, to sanctify them unto Jehovah. 18. For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, The good Jehovah pardon every one 19. that setteth his heart to seek God, Jehovah, the God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. 20. And Jehovah hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people. 21. And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness; and the Levites 22. And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that had good understanding in the 22. And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that had good understanding in the service of Jehovah. So they did eat throughout the feast for the seven days, offering sacrifices of peace-offerings, and making confession to Jehovah, the God of their fathers.
23. And the whole assembly took counsel to keep other seven days; and they kept other seven days with gladness. 24. For Hezekiah king of Judah did give to the assembly for offerings a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the assembly a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests sanctified themselves. 25. And all the assembly of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the assembly that came out of Israel, and the sojourners that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. 26. So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem. 27. Then the priests, the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy habitation, even unto heaven.
2Ch. 31:1. Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake in pieces the pillars, and hewed down the Asherim, and brake down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.
2. And Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses, every man according to his service, both the priests and the Levites, for burnt-offerings and for peace-offerings, to minister, and to give thanks, and to praise in the gates of the camp of Jehovah. 3. He appointed also the kings portion of his substance for the burnt-offerings, to wit, for the morning and evening burnt-offerings, and the burnt-offering for the sabbaths, and for the new moons, and for the set feasts, as it is written in the law of Jehovah. 4. Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might give themselves to the law of Jehovah. 5. And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel gave in abundance the first-fruits of grain, new wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly. 6. And the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of dedicated things which were consecrated unto Jehovah their God, and laid them by heaps. 7. In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month. 8. And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed Jehovah, and his people Israel. 9. Then Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps. 10. And Azariah the chief priest, of the house of Zadok, answered him and said, Since the people began to bring the oblations into the house of Jehovah, we have eaten and had enough, and have left plenty; for Jehovah hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store.
11. Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of Jehovah; and they prepared them; 12. and they brought in the oblations and the tithes and the dedicated things faithfully. And over them Conaniah the Levite was ruler, and Shimei his brother was second; 13. and Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah, were overseers under the hand of Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by the appointment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah the ruler of the house of God. 14. And Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, the porter at the east gate, was over the freewill-offerings of God, to distribute the oblations of Jehovah, and the most holy things. 15. And under him were Eden, and Miniamin, and Jeshua, and Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah, in the cities of the priests, in their office of trust, to give to their brethren by courses, as well to the great as to the small: 16. besides them that were reckoned by genealogy of males, from three years old and upward, even every one entered into the house of Jehovah, as the duty of every day required, for their service in their offices according to their courses; 17. and them that were reckoned by genealogy of the priests by their fathers houses, and the Levites from twenty years old and upward, in their offices by their courses; 18. and them that were reckoned by genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation: for in their office of trust they sanctified themselves in holiness. 19. Also for the sons of Aaron the priests, that were in the fields of the suburbs of their cities, in every city, there were men that were mentioned by name, to give portions to all the males among the priests, and to all that were reckoned by genealogy among the Levites.
20. And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah; and he wrought that which was good and right and faithful before Jehovah his God. 21. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and prospered.
2Ch. 32:1. After these things, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib, king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, and thought to win them for himself. 2. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, 3. he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city; and they helped him. 4. So there was gathered much people together, and they stopped all the fountains, and the brook that flowed through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water? 5. And he took courage, and built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised it up to the towers, and the other wall without, and strengthened Millo in the city of David, and made weapons and shields in abundance. 6. And he set captains of war over the people and gathered them together to him in the broad place at the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, 7. Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him; for there is a greater with us than with him: 8. with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Jehovah our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
9. After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem (now he was before Lachish, and all his power with him), unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying, 10. Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide the siege in Jerusalem? 11. Doth not Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, Jehovah our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 12. Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and upon it shall ye burn incense? 13. Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands in any wise able to deliver their land out of my hand? 14. Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand? 15. Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you after this manner, neither believe ye him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
16. And his servants spake yet more against Jehovah God, and against his servant Hezekiah. 17. He wrote also letters, to rail on Jehovah, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of the lands, which have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of my hand. 18. And they cried with a loud voice in the Jews language unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city. 19. And they spake of the God of Jerusalem, as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of mens hands.
20. And Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven. 21. And Jehovah sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth from his own bowels slew him there with the sword. 22. Thus Jehovah saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. 23. And many brought gifts unto Jehovah to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.
24. In those days Hezekiah was sick even unto death: and he prayed unto Jehovah; and he spake unto him, and gave him a sign. 25. But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of Jehovah came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
27. And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honor: and he provided him treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all manner of goodly vessels; 28. store-houses also for the increase of grain and new wine and oil; and stalls for all manner of beasts, and flocks in folds. 29. Moreover he provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him very much substance. 30. This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works. 31. Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.
32. Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his good deeds; behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 33. And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the ascent of the sepulchres of the sons of David: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. And Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.
PARAPHRASE
2Ch. 29:1. Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became the king of Judah, and he reigned twenty-nine years, in Jerusalem. His mothers name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah 2. His reign was a good one in the Lords opinion, just as his ancestor Davids had been. 3. In the very first month of the first year of his reign, he reopened the doors of the Temple and repaired them. 4, 5. He summoned the priests and Levites to meet him at the open space east of the Temple, and addressed them thus: Listen to me, you Levites. Sanctify yourselves and sanctify the Temple of the Lord God of your ancestorsclean all the debris from the holy place. 6. For our fathers have committed a deep sin before the Lord our God; they abandoned the Lord and his Temple and turned their backs on it. 7. The doors have been shut tight, the perpetual flame has been put out, and the incense and burnt offerings have not been offered. 8. Therefore the wrath of the Lord has been upon Judah and Jerusalem. He has caused us to be objects of horror, amazement, and contempt, as you see us today. 9. Our fathers have been killed in war, and our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity because of this. 10. But now I want to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. 11. My children, dont neglect your duties any longer, for the Lord has chosen you to minister to him and to burn incense.
12. 13, 14. Then the Levites went into action: From the Kohath clan, Mahath (son of Amasai) and Joel (son of Azariah); From the Merari clan, Kish (son of Abdi) and Azariah (son of Jehallelel); From the Gershon clan, Joah (son of Zimmah) and Eden (son of Joah). From the Elizaphan clan, Shimri and Jeuel; From the Asaph clan, Zechariah and Mattaniah; From the Hamanite clan, Jehuel and Shime-i; From the Jeduthun clan, Shemaiah and Uzziel. 15. They in turn summoned their fellow Levites and sanctified themselves, and began to clean up and sanctify the Temple, as the king (who was speaking for the Lord) had commanded them. 16. The priests cleaned up the inner room of the Temple, and brought out into the court all the filth and decay they found there. The Levites then carted it out to the brook Kidron. 17. This all began on the first day of April, and by the eighth day they had reached the outer court, which took eight days to clean up, so the entire job was completed in sixteen days. 18. Then they went back to the palace and reported to King Hezekiah, We have completed the cleansing of the Temple and of the altar of burnt offerings and of its accessories, also the table of the Bread of the Presence and its equipment. 19. Whats more, we have recovered and sanctified all the utensils thrown away by King Ahaz when he closed the Temple. They are beside the altar of the Lord.
20. Early the next morning, King Hezekiah went to the Temple with the city officials, 21. taking seven young bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the nations and for the Temple. He instructed the priests, the sons of Aaron, to sacrifice them on the altar of the Lord. 22. So they killed the young bulls, and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar, and they killed the rams and sprinkled their blood upon the altar, and did the same with the lambs. 23. The male goats for the sin offering were then brought before the king and his officials, who laid their hands upon them. 24. Then the priests killed the animals and made a sin offering with their blood upon the altar, to make atonement for all Israel as the king had commandedfor the king had specified that the burnt offering and sin offering must be sacrificed for the entire nation.
25, 26. He organized Levites at the Temple into an orchestral group, using cymbals, psalteries, and harps. This was in accordance with the directions of David and the prophets Gad and Nathanwho had received their instructions from the Lord. The priests formed a trumpet corps. 27. Then Hezekiah ordered the burnt offerings to be placed upon the altar, and as the sacrifice began, the instruments of music began to play the songs of the Lord, accompanied by the trumpets. 28. Throughout the entire ceremony everyone worshiped the Lord as the singers sang and the trumpets blew. 29. Afterwards the king and his aides bowed low before the Lord in worship. 30. Then King Hezekiah ordered the Levites to sing before the Lord some of the psalms of David and of the prophet Asaph, which they gladly did, and bowed their heads and worshiped.
31. The consecration ceremony is now ended, Hezekiah said. Now bring your sacrifices and thank offerings. So the people from every part of the nation brought their sacrifices and thank offerings, and those who wished to, brought burnt offerings too, 32, 33. In all, there were 70 young bulls for burnt offerings, 100 rams, and 200 lambs. In addition, 600 oxen and 3,000 sheep were brought as holy gifts. 34. But there were too few priests to prepare the burnt offerings so their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was finishedand until more priests had reported to workfor the Levites were much more ready to sanctify themselves than the priests were. 35. There was an abundance of burnt offerings, and the usual drink offering with each, and many peace offerings. So it was that the Temple was restored to service, and the sacrifices offered again. 36. And Hezekiah and all the people were very happy because of what God had accomplished so quickly.
2Ch. 30:1. King Hezekiah now sent letters throughout all of Israel, Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh, inviting everyone to come to the Temple at Jerusalem for the annual Passover celebration. 2, 3. The king, his aides, and all the assembly of Jerusalem had voted to celebrate the Passover in May this time, rather than at the normal time in April, because not enough priests were sanctified at the earlier date, and there wasnt enough time to get notices out. 4. The king and his advisors were in complete agreement in this matter, 5. so they sent a Passover proclamation throughout Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, inviting everyone. They had not kept it in great numbers as prescribed. 6. Come back to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, the kings letter said, so that he will return to us who have escaped from the power of the kings of Assyria. 7. Do not be like your fathers and brothers who sinned against the Lord God of their fathers and were destroyed. 8. Do not be stubborn, as they were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his Temple which he has sanctified forever, and worship the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. 9. For if you turn to the Lord again, your brothers and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the Lord your God is full of kindness and mercy and will not continue to turn away his face from you if you return to him.
10. So the messengers went from city to city throughout Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as Zebulun. But for the most part they were received with laughter and scorn; 11. However, some from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun turned to God and came to Jerusalem. 12. But in Judah the entire nation felt a strong, God-given desire to obey the Lords direction as commanded by the king and his officers.
13. And so it was that a very large crowd assembled at Jerusalem in the month of May for the Passover celebration. 14. They set to work and destroyed the heathen altars in Jerusalem, and knocked down all the incense altars, and threw them into Kidron Brook. 15. On the first day of May the people killed their Passover lambs. Then the priests and Levites became ashamed of themselves for not taking a more active part, so they sanctified themselves and brought burnt offerings into the Temple. 16. They stood at their posts as instructed by the law of Moses the man of God; and the priests sprinkled the blood received from the Levites. 17, 18, 19. Since many of the people arriving from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially impure because they had not undergone the purification rites, the Levites killed their Passover lambs for them, to sanctify them. Then King Hezekiah prayed for them and they were permitted to eat the Passover anyway, even though this was contrary to Gods rules. But Hezekiah said, May the good Lord pardon everyone who determines to follow the Lord God of his fathers, even though he is not properly sanctified for the ceremony. 20. And the Lord listened to Hezekiahs prayer and did not destroy them. 21. So the people of Israel celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem for seven days with great joy. Meanwhile the Levites and priests praised the Lord with music and cymbals day after day. 22. (King Hezekiah spoke very appreciatively to the Levites of their excellent music.) So, for seven days the observance continued, and peace offerings were sacrificed, and the people confessed their sins to the Lord God of their fathers.
23. The enthusiasm continued, so it was unanimously decided to continue the observance for another seven days. 24. King Hezekiah gave the people 1,000 young bulls for offerings, and 7,000 sheep; and the princes donated 1,000 young bulls and 10,000 sheep. And at this time another large group of priests stepped forward and sanctified themselves. 25. Then the people of Judah, together with the priests, the Levites, the foreign residents, and the visitors from Israel, were filled with deep joy. 26. For Jerusalem hadnt seen a celebration like this one since the days of King Davids son Solomon. 27. Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed the people, and the Lord heard their prayers from his holy temple in heaven.
2Ch. 31:1. Afterwards a massive campaign against idol worship was begun. Those who were at Jerusalem for the Passover went out to the cities of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh and tore down idol altars, the obelisks, shame-images, and other heathen centers of worship. Then the people who had come to the Passover from the northern tribes returned again to their own homes.
2. Hezekiah now organized the priests and Levites into service corps to offer the burnt offerings and peace offerings, and to worship and give thanks and praise to the Lord. 3. He also made a personal contribution of animals for the daily morning and evening burnt offerings, as well as for the weekly Sabbath and monthly new moon festivals, and for the other annual feasts as required in the law of God. 4. In addition, he required the people in Jerusalem to bring their tithes to the priests and Levites, so that they wouldnt need other employment but could apply themselves fully to their duties as required in the law of God. 5, 6. The people responded immediately and generously with the first of their crops and grain, new wine, olive oil, money, and everything elsea tithe of all they owned, as required by law to be given to the Lord their God. Everything was laid out in great piles. The people who had moved to Judah from the northern tribes and the people of Judah living in the provinces also brought in the tithes of their cattle and sheep, and brought a tithe of the dedicated things to give to the Lord and piled them up in great heaps. 7, 8. The first of these tithes arrived in June, and the piles continued to grow until October. When Hezekiah and his officials came and saw these huge piles, how they blessed the Lord and praised his people! 9. Where did all this come from? Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites. 10. And Azariah the High Priest from the clan of Zadok replied, These are tithes! We have been eating from these stores of food for many weeks, but all this is left over, for the Lord has blessed his people.
11. Hezekiah decided to prepare storerooms in the Temple. 12, 13. All the dedicated supplies were brought into the Lords house. Conaniah, the Levite, was put in charge, assisted by his brother Shime-i and the following aides: Jehiel, Azariah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, Benaiah. These appointments were made by King Hezekiah and Azariah the High Priest. 14, 15. Kore (son of Imnah, the Levite), who was the gatekeeper at the East Gate, was put in charge of distributing the offerings to the priests. His faithful assistants were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah. They distributed the gifts to the clans of priests in their cities, dividing it to young and old alike. 16. However, the priests on duty at the Temple and their families were supplied directly from there, so they were not included in this distribution. 17, 18. The priests were listed in the genealogical register by clans, and the Levites twenty years old and older were listed under the names of their work corps. A regular food allotment was given to all familes of properly registered priests, for they had no other source of income because their time and energies were devoted to the service of the Temple. 19. One of the priests was appointed in each of the cities of the priests to issue food and other supplies to all priests in the area, and to all registered Levites.
20. In this way King Hezekiah handled the distribution throughout all Judah, doing what was just and fair in the sight of the Lord his God. 21. He worked very hard to encourage respect for the Temple, the law, and godly living, and was very successful.
2Ch. 32:1. Some time later, after this good work of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Judah and laid siege to the fortified cities, planning to place them under tribute. 2, When it was clear that Sennacherib was intending to attack Jerusalem, 3. Hezekiah summoned his princes and officers for a council of war, and it was decided to plug the springs outside the city. 4. They organized a huge work crew to block them, and to cut off the brook running through the fields. Why should the king of Assyria come and find water? they asked. 5. Then Hezekiah further strengthened his defenses by repairing the wall wherever it was broken down and by adding to the fortifications, and constructing a second wall outside it. He also reinforced Fort Millo in the City of David, and manufactured large numbers of weapons and shields. 6. He recruited an army and appointed officers and summoned them to the plains before the city, and encouraged them with this address: 7. Be strong, be brave, and do not be afraid of the king of Assyria or his mighty army, for there is someone with us who is far greater than he is! 8. He has a great army, but they are all mere men, while we have the Lord our God to fight our battles for us! This greatly encouraged them.
9. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria, while still besieging the city of Lachish, sent ambassadors with this message to King Hezekiah and the citizens of Jerusalem: 10. King Sennacherib of Assyria asks, Do you think you can survive my siege of Jerusalem? 11. King Hezekiah is trying to persuade you to commit suicide by staying thereto die by famine and thirstwhile he promises that the Lord our God will deliver us from the king of Assyria! 12. Dont you realize that Hezekiah is the very person who destroyed all the idols, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem to use only the one altar at the Temple, and to burn incense upon it alone? 13. Dont you realize that I and the other kings of Assyria before me have never yet failed to conquer a nation we attacked? The gods of those nations werent able to do a thing to save their land! 14. Name just one time when anyone, anywhere, was able to resist us successfully. What makes you think your God can do any better? 15. Dont let Hezekiah fool you! Dont believe him. I say it againno god of any nation has ever yet been able to rescue his people from me or my ancestors; how much less your God!
16. Thus the ambassador mocked the Lord God and Gods servant Hezekiah, heaping up insults. 17. King Sennacherib also sent letters scorning the Lord God of Israel. The gods of all the other nations failed to save their people from my hand, and the God of Hezekiah will fail, too, he wrote. 18. The messengers who brought the letters shouted threats in the Jewish language to the people gathered on the walls of the city, trying to frighten and dishearten them. 19. These messengers talked about the God of Jerusalem just as though he were one of the heathen godsa handmade idol!
20. Then King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet (son of Amoz) cried out in prayer to God in heaven, 21. and the Lord sent an angel who destroyed the Assyrian army with all its officers and generals! So Sennacherib returned home in deep shame to his own land. And when he arrived at the temple of his god, some of his own sons killed him there. 22. That is how the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem. And now there was peace at last throughout his realm. 23. From then on King Hezekiah became immensely respected among the surrounding nations, and many gifts for the Lord arrived at Jerusalem, with valuable presents for King Hezekiah, too.
24. But about that time Hezekiah became deathly sick, and he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord replied with a miracle. 25. However, Hezekiah didnt respond with true thanksgiving and praise, for he had become proud, and so the anger of God was upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. 26. But finally Hezekiah and the residents of Jerusalem humbled themselves, so the wrath of the Lord did not fall upon them during Hezekiahs lifetime.
27. So Hezekiah became very wealthy and was highly honored. He had to construct special treasury buildings for his silver, gold, precious stones, and for his shields and gold bowls. 28, 29. He also built many storehouses for his grain, new wine, and olive oil, with many stalls for his animals, and folds for the great flocks of sheep and goats he purchased; and he acquired many towns, for God had given him great wealth. 30. He dammed up the Upper Spring of Gihon and brought the water down through an aqueduct to the west side of the City of David sector in Jerusalem. He prospered in everything he did. 31. However, when ambassadors arrived from Babylon to find out about the miracle of his being healed, God left him to himself in order to test him and to see what he was really like. 32. The rest of the story of Hezekiah and all of the good things he did are written in The Book of Isaiah (the prophet, the son of Amoz), and in The Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 33. When Hezekiah died he was buried in the royal hillside cemetery among the other kings, and all Judah and Jerusalem honored him at his death. Then his son Manasseh became the new king.
COMMENTARY
Hezekiahs appearance in Judahs history was indeed timely and by divine appointment.[71] How could a man as corrupt as Ahaz be the father of a son who was as godly as Hezekiah? Hezekiah means Jehovah has strengthened. We wonder who it was that named him. Whatever good he accomplished, he had no spiritual heritage from his father upon which to build. Again in history here is Gods man for the hour. He began his reign at the age of twenty five and led Judah through twenty nine years. The Zechariah named in 2Ch. 29:1 cannot be identified with certainty. The name Abijah means Jehovah is my father. This woman was Ahaz wife and Hezekiahs mother. A wife with such a godly name apparently had no good influence on Ahaz. Perhaps she influenced Hezekiah in his godly disposition. The Davidic pattern of righteousness was Hezekiahs ideal. David is called father in the sense that the new king was his direct lineal descendant. Ahaz had shut the doors to the Temple. One of the first official acts of Hezekiah was to open the doors of the house of Jehovah. If religious reformation was to be realized, the king knew that the religious leaders (priests and Levites) had to set the example. In the presence of the Temple the king met these men and told them to concern themselves with sanctification (genuine holiness), sanctify yourselves and sanctify the house of Jehovah (2Ch. 29:5). The term filthiness has to do with everything associated with Ahaz idolatries. Hezekiah showed his awareness of Judahs crisis as he reviewed the recent history of his people. Gods people had trespassed (disregarded Jehovahs rights), forsaken God, turned their backs upon the Lord, put out the lamps in His Temple. Jehovah had permitted His people to be tossed about like a ball. Even Judahs enemies were astonished at the sufferings to which Jehovahs people had been subjected. Judah had become as a hissing in that they were regarded as shameful even by the nations. As Moses had predicted (Deu. 28:28; Deu. 28:32; Deu. 28:36-37), the sword and captivity had been experienced in some measure already. Hezekiah enlisted the support of the priests and Levites in the renewal of the covenant with Jehovah.
[71] Elmslie, W. A. L., The Interpreters Bible, Vol III, p. 519
A very hearty response was made by the ministering priests and Levites. (The student is reminded that every serving priest was a Levite. All Levites could not serve as priests. To serve at the altar and to burn incense, one had to be a Kohathite Levite within certain age limits, and physically perfect. The Merarite and Gershonite Levites could do other tasks related to Temple service if they met certain requirements.) Since all three Levitical families are named here, Kohath, Merari, and Gershon; it is evident that all of the Levites supported Hezekiahs reformation.[72] Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun were Levites who had special responsibility for music and singing in the Temple services in Davids day. In Hezekiahs time their descendants joined the great program of religious renewal in Judah. It should be observed that the priests and Levites, first of all, sanctified themselves. They certified their own ceremonial cleanness. They washed their bodies and changed their garments. They committed themselves to God. Next in order, they proceeded with a general house cleaning of the Temple. They began in the inner part of the house and they continued through the court removing every suggestion of idolatry, every foreign object with which Ahaz had defiled the Temple, All of this filthiness and uncleanness was dumped in the valley of the Kidron to the East of the Temple. The work just described required a total of sixteen days. Sanctifying the house of Jehovah also meant that all of the sacred furniture and vessels had to be washed. The holy vessels which Ahaz had removed had to be brought out of store rooms and cleansed and replaced in the Temple proper.
[72] Spence, H. D. M., The Pulpit Commentary, II Chronicles, p. 360
If this was the first month of the religious year, it was Abib or Nisan. The Passover was to be kept on the fourteenth day of that month. The keeping of the Passover is not mentioned in this account. This would not mean that it was not observed. The overriding consideration at this time was the cleansing of the Temple and opening the doors to the house of Jehovah. When the priests and Levites reported that all preparations had been made, Hezekiah gathered the princes about him and they met at the Temple. The burnt offering was the basis of all offerings made at the altar (2Ch. 29:24). It signified complete devotion to Jehovah in that the entire animal was consumed in the fire. The sin offering was made for the kingdom and the sanctuary and for Judah (2Ch. 29:21). The king and the princes (the kingdom), the priests and Levites (the sanctuary), and all of the people (Judah) were included in these offerings. The sin offering was a confession of guilt and a sincere request for pardon. When the blood of the animals was sprinkled on the altar it was displayed before Jehovah and those who offered the sacrifices. The blood was the symbol of life, but it could not be so displayed until there had been death. When the king and other responsible leaders laid their hands (2Ch. 29:23) on the animals, they designated these particular animals for the blood atonement and recognized that the animals were their substitutes. So atonement for all Israel was made according to the prescriptions recorded in the book of Leviticus.
The historian is careful to note that all of Hezekiahs actions were according to the best Hebrew tradition. He had named the ancient Levitical families. He had mentioned the chief musicians of Davids day. He now refers to the commandment of David, of Gad, and of Nathan (2Ch. 29:25). Sacred music was very important in this religious reformation. Percussion instruments (cymbals), strings (harps, psaltery), wind instruments (trumpets), and the great Levitical choir were all used in the praise of Jehovah. The burnt offering would smoulder on the altar throughout the day. Through this period the choir and orchestra sang and played. At twilight another lamb would be placed on the altar to burn slowly through the night (Exo. 29:38-39). Hezekiah and all of the princes joined in humble worship of Jehovah.
When the priests had sanctified themselves and the king and princes had given themselves completely to the Lord, then the congregation was charged to do likewise. The thank offering was a variation of the peace offering. It usually followed the burnt and sin offerings and meant that the offerer was in a happy covenant relationship with Jehovah. Because of the great number of persons who wanted to share in the religious services and the correspondingly large number of sacrifices, the priests needed more help. So Levites who were not priests were allowed to help in these services on this particular day. To flay an animal meant to kill it, catch the blood, remove the animals hide, cut the animal into proper portions and lay it out on the altar. Some of the persons who were qualified by birth and family to serve as priests were hesitant to sanctify themselves for this work. Drink offerings (2Ch. 29:35) were brought with the burnt offerings. They consisted of wine which was poured out as a libation at the base of the altar of burnt offering. This was one of the truly memorable days in Judahs history because Jehovahs house was set in order. By Gods grace and through Hezekiahs leadership the doors of the Temple once more were opened.
LESSON TWENTY-THREE 3033
HEZEKIAH AND THE PASSOVER REORGANIZATION OF TEMPLE PROCEDURES ASSYRIAN INVASION THE REIGNS OF MANASSEH AND AMON
14. THE REIGN OF HEZEKIAH-Continued (2932)
INTRODUCTION
The passover was kept and Hezekiah led in a genuine religious reformation. The Temple became the real house of God again. Priests served and worshipers brought their tithes. God delivered Hezekiah and his people from the Assyrians. Manasseh destroyed much of the good his father had accomplished.
TEXT
(Scripture text in Lesson Twenty-two)
PARAPHRASE
(Scripture text in Lesson Twenty-two)
COMMENTARY
The celebration of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread received Hezekiahs immediate attention. That which was attempted by the king had not been done among Jehovahs people since Solomons day. He dared to hope that all of the Hebrews, both southern and northern kingdoms, would gather in Jerusalem for the Passover and the week of worship and feasting that followed. One of the main concerns of Jeroboam I was to keep the people of the northern kingdom from attending these celebrations at the Temple. So he had made idolatrous worship convenient and readily available for his people. The summons to the feast were sent out through the length and breadth of the land. From Beersheba to Dan (2Ch. 30:5) covered all of Canaan from south to north, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. The posts (swift runners) carried the good news calling for genuine repentance, for faithfulness to Jehovah, the God of the Hebrew patriarchs. In the invitation was expressed the hope that the northern kingdom might not be completely lost to the Assyrians who at that time had led many northern Hebrews captive. The kings appeal was that these northern brethren remember their relationship in the common parentage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hezekiah urged them not to be stiffnecked (recklessly stubborn); but rather to return (to repent) to Jehovah. Hezekiahs runners remind us of the men sent out by Jesus to the villages of the Jews to tell them He was coming. The posts were as far north as Asher which bordered Phoenicia. Their brethren in the north subjected them to ridicule. A few of the northern Israelites accepted the invitation. The people of Judah showed a willingness to follow Hezekiahs leadership.
The time of the keeping of the Passover as this was done by Hezekiah is a matter of interest. This feast was supposed to be kept during the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month, Abib (Exo. 12:18). When the Hebrews were preparing to leave Mount Sinai the time came for the Passover to be observed. Some of the people were ceremonially unclean and could not share in the feast. For such persons an appointment was made whereby they could keep the Passover one month later on the same day of the month (Num. 9:11). In Hezekiahs day the decision was made, apparently with Jehovahs approval, that the Passover be kept in the second month, Iyar, because there was a need for more sanctified priests and because a general announcement of the celebration needed to be published.
Many of the priests did what was necessary to qualify themselves to serve in Gods House. By special dispensation they were assisted in the preparation of the offerings by the Levites. Gods Word required that one be ceremonially clean in order to keep the Passover. Due to the special circumstances of this Passover, some of the ceremonial requirements were relaxed. Hezekiah personally prayed for the whole assembly. He asked Jehovahs forgiveness. The Lord heard the kings prayer; He healed the people (2Ch. 30:20). The Feast of Unleavened Bread followed immediately upon the Passover and lasted seven days (Exo. 12:15). These were days of worship and of unrestrained joy in the offering of sacrifices to Jehovah. The joyful spirit of the whole assembly is well demonstrated in their request that the usual seven day period be doubled. Many sacrifices were presented to Jehovah and it was truly a religious holiday in Jerusalem.
There had been a concerted effort to destroy every suggestion of idolatry in the city of Jerusalem. When the feast days had passed, attention was given to the destruction of images throughout Judah and even in Ephraim and Manasseh to the North.
Due to Ahaz utter disregard of the Temple and of Jehovah worship the priesthood was seriously disorganized. David, in his time, had carefully set up the courses of priests and Levites. Hezekiah determined to follow Davids example in this matter. Priests were appointed and the king made certain that they were well acquainted with every part of their work. He made all provisions for the daily sacrifices. There was to be an offering on the altar day and night. The people were taught to bring their tithes to the Temple and thus provide for their ministers, the priests and Levites, so the ministers could give themselves to the law of Jehovah. Grain, wine, oil, honey, sheep and oxen were brought to the Temple. By the third month, Sivan, the harvest of barley and wheat was completed. By the seventh month, Tisri, the vintage, flax, and olive harvest had been gathered. Out of these materials the heaps were fashioned. Hezekiah was well pleased with the popular acceptance of his leadership. Azariah, the chief priest, made a good report on the peoples oblations (offerings). The priests and Levites had all necessary provisions and the peoples lives were blessed.
Rooms were provided at the Temple for the storage of the material of the tithes. The Levites who were specially appointed to attend to the storage and use of the tithes are named in this account. Kore had the special assignment of administering the free will offerings. These were associated with the peace offering and were the only offerings for which an imperfect animal would be accepted. In Joshuas day forty eight Levitical cities were appointed throughout Palestine. With the division of the kingdom, the number of these cities was greatly reduced. Kore and his associates were to fair and were not to respect persons in administering the tithe. All of the Levitical families were to share in the Temple provisions. The serving priests and Levites at this time began their ministries at the age of twenty years. The sons of Aaron were those priests who were of high priestly lineage. The suburbs were the pasture lands surrounding each Levitical city. The chronicler commends Hezekiah. His work was good, right, faithful. He sought God with his whole heart.
A more complete record of Hezekiahs encounter with Sennacherib is given in 2Ki. 18:13 through 2Ki. 19:37 and in Isaiah, chapters 36 and 37. We have here a summary of these experiences. In Isaiahs day the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser and Sargon had captured Samaria (722721 B.C.) and had over-run the northern kingdom. Jerusalem and Judah were to feel the threat of Assyrian dominion when Sennacherib led a powerful army into Judah and camped in the Philistine plain. Sennacherib had already taken several Judean villages and was busy marshaling his forces for an attack on Jerusalem. Hezekiah reasoned that his captial would soon be under siege. He cut off the water supply that might aid the enemy and very skillfully diverted the water so as to bring it into reservoirs within the city.[73] He strengthened the walls of the city, provided his army with necessary weapons, and called them to trust in Jehovah.
[73] Spence, H. D. M., The Pulpit Commentary, II Chronicles, p. 384
As Sennacherib planned his assault on Jerusalem his army was at Lachish about thirty five miles southwest of the capital. He sent a captain named Rabshakeh[74] to threaten Hezekiah and his people and to offer the opportunity of surrender. Rabshakeh said they would besiege the city. He said that Hezekiah had deceived the Hebrew people. He made his fatal mistake when he defied Jehovah by challenging His power to deliver Jerusalem and Judah from the Assyrians. This defiance of Jehovah had proved to be Goliaths ruin in Davids day. Sennacherib would have come against the city at once, but he had to meet an attack by the Ethiopians under Tirhakah, their king. So Rabshakeh had come and without respect for king or people heaped his insults on his hearers in their own language. Letters were brought from the Assyrian field headquarters which were just as insolent as Rabshakehs words. Hezekiah spread these scrolls before Jehovah and prayed for guidance. Jehovah answered through Isaiah, the prophet, and predicted that the Assyrians would not build a mound against Jerusalem or shoot an arrow at a Hebrew soldier. In one night one hundred eighty five thousand Assyrian soldiers died in their camp at the hands of an angel (2Ch. 30:21). Sennacherib hurriedly fled to Nineveh, his capital. While he worshiped his god, Nisroch, his two sons killed him and fled to the region of Ararat. Jehovah vindicated His holy name and spared His people.
[74] A Babylonian title meaning Chief Prince.
Hezekiahs boil (cancer) threatened his life. He heard Gods word, Set your house in order. You are to die. He asked the Lord for some more time to complete his reformation and to father a son. Jehovah told him He would add fifteen years to his life and confirmed the same by causing the shadow to reverse on the sun dial (two sun-rises in one day). Hezekiah was a great and good king; but he did not perfectly follow Jehovah. Terrible times were in store for Jerusalem and Judah; but Jehovah was merciful in sparing Hezekiah from the sorrow of those days.
Many internal improvements were made in the kingdom during Hezekiahs time. He added to the national treasury. He built cities. He promoted agriculture. He employed his engineering genius in providing water for Jerusalem. When the visitors came from Babylon, Hezekiah failed to ask Jehovahs will. He treated them like brethren. Jehovah sent Isaiah to condemn Hezekiah in this matter and to tell him that these very people would come at a later day and ruin Jerusalem. God left him in this matter because the king did not seek His counsel. Even in this instance, however, Hezekiah graciously resigned himself to Jehovahs will. He accepted the judgment of the Lord.
Isaiah was well qualified by character and personal knowledge to write about the life and times of Hezekiah. This king was honored in his death. He had been one of Judahs strongest leaders since Davids reign.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXX.
HEZEKIAHS PASSOVERTHE ROYAL SUMMONS TO ALL ISRAEL FROM DAN TO BEER-SHEBA (2Ch. 30:1-12).
(1) Sent to. al, i.e., el. (Jer. 26:15; Neh. 6:3.)
Letters.Iggrth. Apparently a word of Persian origin. (Comp. engre, something written; engrden, to paint or write; from which comes the Greek , a royal messenger; Est. 9:26; comp. Mat. 5:41.) Only used in late Hebrew.
To Ephraim and Manasseh.That is, the northern kingdom. (Comp. 2Ch. 30:10.)
To keep (make) the passover unto the Lord.Exo. 12:48 (same phrase); LXX., (Pascha). The first year of Hezekiah was the third of Hoshea, the last king of Samaria, who is described as a better king than his predecessors. Doubtless, therefore, Hoshea did not actively oppose Hezekiahs wish for a really national Passover. (See 2Ki. 18:1; 2Ki. 17:2.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
THE CELEBRATION OF THE PASSOVER.
1. Hezekiah sent to all Israel Already had he caused an atonement to be made for “all Israel,” (2Ch 29:24,) and now he seeks by special invitations to urge the several tribes of the northern kingdom to unite with Judah at the ancient temple in keeping the passover. Ephraim and Manasseh, though a part of all Israel, are specifically mentioned because of their historical importance.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ch 30:2 For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month.
2Ch 30:2
Lev 23:5, “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover.”
Num 9:5, “And they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at even in the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.”
Num 28:16, “And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the passover of the LORD.”
Deu 16:1, “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.”
2Ch 30:6 So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.
2Ch 30:6
2Ch 30:7 And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see.
2Ch 30:8 2Ch 30:8
2Ch 30:8 “and serve the LORD your God” – Comments – This refers to obedience.
2Ch 30:10 So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.
2Ch 30:10
2Ch 30:12 Also in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of the LORD.
2Ch 30:13 2Ch 30:13
2Ch 30:26, “So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem.”
2Ch 30:20 And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.
2Ch 30:20
Jas 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
In Mat 21:14, Jesus also healed in the Temple.
Mat 21:14, “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them.”
2Ch 30:20 “and healed the people” – Comments – 2Ch 30:20 is an excellent example of the promise that God made with the children of Israel in 2Ch 7:14. Hezekiah led the children of Israel into national repentance. Therefore, God was able to heal them.
2Ch 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
2Ch 30:21 And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness: and the Levites and the priests praised the LORD day by day, singing with loud instruments
unto the LORD.
2Ch 30:22 2Ch 30:22
Luk 19:47, “And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,”
2Ch 30:27 Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.
2Ch 30:27
Psa 24:3-4, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Festival Proclaimed by the King
v. 1. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, v. 2. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, v. 3. For they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently; v. 4. And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation.
v. 5. So they established a decree, v. 6. So the posts, v. 7. And be not ye like your fathers and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see; v. 8. Now, be ye not stiff-necked as your fathers were, v. 9. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, v. 10. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun, v. 11. Nevertheless, divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem; v. 12. Also in Judah,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
This chapter contains the account of Hezekiah’s arrangements after the restoration for the observance of the Passoverarrangements more than ordinarily interesting to notice in respect of, first, the unusual time appointed for the celebration; and, second, the determined and brave attempt of the good king to win again to the worship of Jerusalem (though, as was no doubt anticipated, it subjected his royal proffers to scorn, 2Ch 30:10) the separated people of “all Israel” (2Ch 30:1-12); and further, the celebration itself, the happy omen (2Ch 30:14) with which it opened, its duration; and certain several other incidents attending it (2Ch 30:13-27).
2Ch 30:1
Hezekiah sent wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh. Some have sought to bring into the appearance of harmony the two first clauses of this verse by supposing that the former clause purports to say that Hezekiah sent messengers to all Israel and Judah, and in particular letters in addition to Ephraim and Manasseh, the chief tribes of the northern kingdom and the Joseph tribes. Verses 6 and 10, however, seem to dispose effectually of this offer of explanation; while another explanation, that the names of the two tribes are simply to be taken as equivalent to “all Israel,” seems true, though, in fact, it may be to advance us no way at all. We should prefer in the difficulty, unimportant though it is, yet one facing us, rather to assume that the verse wishes to say that Hezekiah sent (i.e. sent messengers, which prove to be the runners, rendered the “posts”) to all Israel and Judah, and to Ephraim, Manasseh, and the rest of their allied tribes by implication, but not to Judah wrote letters also which were carried by the posts (or runners). It is true that verse 6 may negative even this conjecture for getting over the difficulty, but not necessarily no, for it only says that the posts went throughout Israel and Judah with the letters, which they may be supposed to have dropped only to some, not to all, and those some Israel, or Ephraim, Manasseh, and brethren. There will have been to hand other, the usual methods of communication with Judah, from Jerusalem its metropolis, and from its king. The thing different from “letters” that was circulated may have been just the “proclamation” of verse 5. It has been suggested that the now King of Israel, Hoshea, was very probably a captive of Assyria at this exact time (2Ki 17:4).
2Ch 30:2
This and the following verse are well explained by Num 9:6-13, where the particular instance of the “defilement by a dead body” simply exemplified other legitimate instances of defilement or non-sanctification (2Ch 29:5, 2Ch 29:15, 2Ch 29:34), and where absence on a journey similarly exemplified other unavoidable absence.
2Ch 30:3
At that time. The words seem like a reminiscence of the “at that day,” twice occurring in 2Ch 30:6 of Num 9:1-23. But anyway the meaning is plain “at the appointed season.”
2Ch 30:4
This verse betokens the careful consideration on the part of “king, princes, and all the congregation,” that had been given to the distinct question, whether the exact present circumstances legitimately fell under the description of Num 9:6-13; and the issue was that they decided that they did, they “ruled the thing right” ( )
2Ch 30:5
Of a long time. Though the idea expressed in this rendering must, under any circumstances, attach to this passage, yet it can scarcely be understood to be given in the one Hebrew word we have here (); out of nearly a hundred and fifty occurrences of the word, and often with its present preposition, this is the solitary occasion of its being turned into a mark of time. The translation should read, for they had not kept it in multitude, i.e. in proper multitudes, and in the multitude of an undivided and holy kingdom. The force of the reference lies in the fact just stated, that Hezekiah, ignoring all the worse precedents of now many generations, and ignoring the iniquity of the duality of the kingdom, manfully caused his writ to run from south to north unchecked! As it was written; i.e. in the book of the Law of Moses. So runs the full and frequent and honoured phrase: (2Ki 14:6; 1Ki 2:3; Jos 3:1-17 :34; 2Ch 35:26, etc.).
2Ch 30:6
So the posts (see note on 2Ch 30:1). The remnant of you escaped of Assyria. Hezekiah had, no doubt, already made his account with the fact that the injured and crushed state of the northern kingdom might be of salutary omen for the attempt on his part to bring them to a sense of their past sins, specially perhaps of omission. Of the calamities of Israel, and their captivity in large part, and in the rest subjection by tribute to Assyria, there is clear testimony in 2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 17:1-6.
2Ch 30:7
A strange and significant snatch of corroborating history is to be found in 1Ch 5:23-26.
2Ch 30:8
Be ye not stiff-necked (see Deu 16:1-22, Deu 17:1-20). Yield yourselves; literally, give the hand (see 1Ch 29:24; Ezr 10:19, etc.). Which he hath sanctified for ever (see Psa 132:13, Psa 132:14).
2Ch 30:10
Through Ephraim and Manasseh. The way in which the names of these two tribes are here used may explain in part the use of them in brief for simple reasons of the convenience of brevity in verse 1. They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. These two words speak significant description of the exact moral state in which Israel’s tribes were now to be found. Even unto Zebulun. What of the country lay north of Zebulun had been so wasted by Assyria that practically Zebulnn is spoken of as what was most northerly.
2Ch 30:11
Adding the tribes of Ephraim and Issachar mentioned in 2Ch 30:18, and bearing in mind the contents of our 2Ch 30:7 (with note), we have really only to account for Dan, which was no longer classed with Israel, and Naphtali and Simeon. The probable significance of the passage is not to lay stress upon the tribes represented, but on the scattered, though sparse, attendants at the Passover who came.
2Ch 30:12
Also in Judah the hand of God was. Considering the difference of preposition, this expression can perhaps scarcely cite as its parallel Ezr 7:9. “The hand of God” here means rather his effectual working, which effectual working produced a hearty unanimity, that contrasted well with the bearing of the northern tribes.
2Ch 30:13
This verse purports to say that the total, at any rate, of the attendance on the Passover was very large.
2Ch 30:14
Took away the altars the brook Kidron (see 2Ch 28:24; 2Ch 29:16).
2Ch 30:15
Were ashamed; Hebrew, . This word, occurring in one conjugation or another thirty-eight times, expresses in every instance a genuine shame. It now was the forerunner of a practical repenting. And brought in into; better rendered, and carried up to the house of the Lord.
2Ch 30:16
They stood in their place after their manner (see Le 2Ch 1:11-13, and many other references in Leviticus).
2Ch 30:17
Therefore the Levites had the charge (see Lev 1:1-17; etc; which repeatedly affirms that the original directions of Moses were that the person who brought the victim to offer it was to slay it, and to bring the blood).
2Ch 30:18
So also the original Law of Moses prescribed that the uncleansed must not eat the Passover (Num 9:6).
2Ch 30:20
Healed the people. The Hebrew word here is the strict word for physical healing, and is a slight but significant indication of the reality of the spiritual view contemplated in Moses’ Law in this matter.
2Ch 30:21
See Exo 12:18, and many repetitions of the same matter, respecting the duration of the Passover and eating of unleavened bread. With loud instruments. Some render this, “instruments ascribing might to Jehovah.” There seems no necessity for this; and the plain Hebrew text is “instruments of might,” i.e. strong or loud instruments.
2Ch 30:22
Spake comfortably; literally, to the heart of, etc. That taught the good knowledge. This rendering is in some error, and is awkward in not indicating the direction of the knowledge. A better rendering (see Revised Version) will be, who were well skilled in rendering such service to Jehovah. And perhaps the simplest rendering, “who served with good service to Jehovah,” will be the most correct to the real meaning of the Hebrew text (Psa 111:10; Pro 13:15). Making confession; i.e. the confession or uttering forth of praise (so Psa 75:2; Psa 92:1; 1Ch 16:4, 1Ch 16:7, 1Ch 16:35, 1Ch 16:41; 1Ch 23:30; 1Ch 25:3; 2Ch 5:13; 2Ch 7:3, 2Ch 7:6; 2Ch 31:2).
2Ch 30:23
This and the following verso should read as one. Hezekiah no doubt wished, by prolonging the feast and the joy, to make the more lasting impression on the people and the more hopeful conversion of them.
2Ch 30:24
Did give. This is an inadequate rendering. Revised Version reads, did give for offerings; others read, “gave as an heave offering.” In the light of our 2Ch 35:7-9, the Revised Version rendering seems sufficient.
2Ch 30:25
The strangers. Some consider this describes “proselytes from Israel, who were non-Israelites.” But this seems a most gratuitous supposition. The Hebrew does, in fact, purport only “sojourners,” and is frequently so translated, and our next clause corroborates this view. The interesting aspect of it is, that probably the persons described had emigrated from their own tribes, as they longed for Jerusalem, “their chief joy.”
2Ch 30:26
Since the time of Solomon. The reference is to Solomon’s “Feast of Tabernacles” (2Ch 7:9).
2Ch 30:27
The priests the Levites; i.e. the priest-Levites, and not other Levites (Deu 17:18; Jos 3:3). The Septuagint, therefore, is wrong in inserting “and.” A parallel expression in the New Testament is “Men brethren” (Act 1:16; Act 2:29, etc.). The priests were those authorized to bless (Num 6:23-26; 1Ch 23:13).
HOMILETICS
2Ch 30:1-27
The celebration of the Passover, with its sacred suggestions.
The whole of this chapter is concerned with Hezekiah’s call of priests, Levites, princes, and congregation of the people to observe and celebrate with himself the grand solemnity of the Passover. From the analogy of the precedent provided for individual cases of certain kinds of necessity (Num 9:10), this celebration for the whole nation is fixed for the fourteenth day of the second month instead of the first. This was the fourth of the seven special occasions, of which description with detail is given us in Scripturethe first of all in Egypt (Exo 12:1-51.), the first in the desert (Num 9:1-23.), and that of Joshua at Gilgal, after the circumcision of the people and when the manna ceased (Jos 5:1-15.), being the three which preceded; and those that came after being the Passover celebrated by Josiah (ch. 35.), by Ezra on the return from the captivity at Babylon (Ezr 6:1-22.), and that ever-memorable one, the last of our blessed Lord’s life on earth. The Passover was the first in time of the three great annual feasts which called together to Jerusalem allyes, in happier times, allfrom Dan even to Beersheba, the other two being the Feasts of Pentecost and of Tabernacles. It was also the first in the lifetime of the nation, and always the first in solemn significance. Not only the energy and earnestness, therefore, of Hezekiah in carrying through this celebration from first to last, but his Diviner wisdom and piety in determining and appointing it, may be noted, and dwelt upon in useful and suggestive detail as adapted to modern days. That great revival, for instanceone of the greatest the world and Church have ever seenof modern Church-life, familiarly known to ourselves, was rooted in, and has grown up proportioned to, zealous attention to the sacraments, faith in them, and faithful observance of them. This goes to the root of all a nation’s evil and malady! “If once” thought Hezekiah”if but once a healthy breeze could pass over this erring and idolatrous, fevered and long-forlorn people, all might yet be well!” At his prayer, and as the reward of his effort, the breeze came, and swept over the land. It refreshed weary and parched wastes; and some signs of healthiness, mingled with some signs of suspiciousness, appeared. Perhaps all was too late; the disease too deep, and gone too far, too long! Nevertheless, it was none the less right on the part of Hezekiah to have tried the religious means, and used the highest of them. We may notice in themnot as matter of historic interest in the life of another nation merelyhow, in virtue mainly of the presence of the Passover, they were fitted to touch all that was deepest, all that haply might “remain” (Rev 3:2) deepest and best in the hearts of the people. For instance, the Passover was undoubtedly
I. THE VIVID MEMORIAL OF AN UNPRECEDENTED BIRTH OF A NATION, Nor can it be said that this was an instance of a “nation born in a day.” It gives more point, and it is just and true, to remember, that now it may be said of it that it was a nation born in a night! One supreme, extraordinary effort of faith and obedience ushered that nation out of darkness into light. It might, indeed, have been hoped that this would stamp it for ever with the corresponding native and hereditary grand qualities. There are senses in which it may be said that the nation had received in yet earlier ages its existence. Certainly the promise and the earnest of this had been fact. The germ of its existence had been in Abraham, and God’s covenant with him. It showed to view in distinctness and separateness at the time and in the fact of its compact corporate descent into Egypt. There was a semblance of truth to support this, and there would have been real truth in it, if a family could be called a nation. “Israel” went into Egypt “three score and ten souls” (Gen 46:27); Israel came out of Egypt a nation born, that night of the Passovera vast separate nation, a peculiar people. Hezekiah’s celebration of the Passover, therefore, at this time suggested to every feeling and instinct of honest national love and pride that king, priests, and people should live worthily of their origin, raise the fortunes and restore the glory of the nation that had so greatly declined (verse 6).
II. THE VIVID MEMORIAL OF THE GREAT DELIVERANCE WHICH GOD WROUGHT FOR HIS PEOPLE, FROM SORE BONDAGE, UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES OF AN EXTRAORDINARY NATURE. The power and the pity of God were alike demonstrated by the rescue of the hosts of Israel from the midst of Egypt. His pity heard their groanings, his power subdued their oppressors. Of such things as these the people needed at this time the teaching and the inspiriting influences. Every observance of the Passover was a commemoration and rehearsal of this great deliverance, and suggested the long and thick succession of Divine interpositions during a period of now nearly eight centuries.
III. BOTH THE OUTCOME AND THE FOUNDATION OF A COVENANT. The Passover marked a foregoing faith and obedience on the part of Moses, Aaron, and all the houses of the rescued, and it inferred an unending continuance of the same, so often as they should be called for on special occasions, as well as for the rule of every day’s life. Upon these conditions being met on the one side, God’s great deliverance and his continued protection took effect on the other side. Upon this practical aspect it is evident that Hezekiah laid great stress (verses 7-9). The remembrance of the saving of all the firstborn of the Hebrews, by the side of the slaying of all the firstborn of the Egyptians, both man and beast, was fitted to be a most powerful incentive of loyalty to him who had thus bought a people to himself most significantly. This was an inevitable memory of the sprinkled blood of the Paschal lamb in every celebration.
IV. THE FORESHADOWING OF THE ONE ETERNAL SACRIFICE. For the devout Hebrew, the Israelite who was “an Israelite indeed,” even in these most degenerate days of the nation, the Passover must have taken a leading share among all other sacrifices, in teaching and shadowing forth “the good things to come;” the “better hope;” the “better covenant;” the “better sacrifices” (Heb 7:19, Heb 7:22; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:23). The “foreshadowing” itself was indeed plain and powerful, which used such a designation for the central fact of all the observances of the Passover, as “my sacrifice” (Exo 23:18; Exo 34:25); and nothing can be deducted from our estimate of the meaning of such passages, and generally of the typical virtue of the whole celebration, when we remember the language of St. Paul respecting “Christ our Passover” (1Co 5:7). The faith of the people of Israel and their sacrament were looking forward to this Passover, as our faith and our sacrament look back to it, and of a truth ever upward! The suggestions that St. Paul awakes within us by the fulness of the last-quoted verse, as well as the time and all the circumstance of the death of Christ, compel us indeed to see in the entire features and services of the completed Passover the type of our One sacrifice and our second sacrament! The peace offering, the thank offering, the solemn dedication of ourselves, as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” the unbroken “unity of the body“ (Exo 12:46; Joh 19:36), the “keeping of the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” and all the sacred, unbounded eucharistic enjoyments of that feast,in a word, the need of deliverance, the Deliverer, and our joyful acknowledgment of the same, are all outlined for us in the Hebrew’s Passover, and according to the measure of his faith and illumination were once all outlined for him, even in Hezekiah’s time and celebration.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
2Ch 30:1, 2Ch 30:10, 2Ch 30:11
Letters to Ephraim: generosity.
Hezekiah now took a very bold and decided course. There had been no direct dealings between the king or court of Judah and the people of Ephraim (Israel) since the kingdom of David was rent in twain. If we understand that this action was taken in the first year of his reign, while Hoshea was on the throne of Samaria, it certainly was bold even to audacity, and was calculated to rouse the resentment of that ruler. If, however, we hold (with Keil and others) that it was not until the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, when Shalmaneser had wrought his will with the sister kingdom, that the great Passover was held, the measure taken by the pious king is still one of considerable vigour and of no little generosity. We learn therefrom
I. THAT A RIGHT COURSE WILL PROVE ONE OF SPIRITUAL ENLARGEMENT. Had not Hezekiah been a faithful servant of Jehovah, he would not have concerned himself about the moral and spiritual condition of Ephraim and Manasseh. He might have rejoiced in anything that would degrade and therefore enfeeble them. But as the servant of God, and therefore of the truth and of righteousness, he looked with sorrow upon the separation of those tribes of Israel from the God of their fathers, and it was “in his heart” (2Ch 29:10) to take a step that might restore them to the faith they had abandoned and to the favour they had lost. His “heart was enlarged toward them” (2Co 6:11). There was nothing that was singular, but everything that was natural and usual in this. Let a man determine to take the right course, to set his whole life as well as rule his whole nature by principles which he believes to be Divine, and for him there will be a very blessed spiritual enlargement. He will come to see truths which had been quite out of sight, and to cherish feelings to which he had been a stranger, and to proceed upon lines high and far above the old levels. His life will be lifted up, himself will be enlarged and enriched abundantly.
II. THAT ADVANCES TOWARDS ESTRANGED RELATIVES ARE PECULIARLY HONOURABLE. It probably cost Hezekiah and his counsellors some considerable effort to make overtures to Israel. These tribes had revolted from the kingdom; they had lately inflicted a most severe and humiliating defeat upon Judah (2 Chronicles:6-8). It may be taken that there existed a strong, if not an intense, animosity between those so nearly related to and yet so distinctly divided from one another (see Joh 4:9; Luk 9:52, Luk 9:53). Nevertheless, they were regarded and treated as brethren. It is here where we so often fail in the illustration of Christian principles. We can show magnanimity toward those who are afar off, who belong to a different nation, or to another Church, or to a separate family; but we find it hard, perhaps impossible, to make advances toward those of our own people, of our own community, of our own family, between whom and ourselves some estrangement has come. Truly said the wise man, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.” And wisely says our English poet that
” to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
“They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder.
(Coleridge.)
But there is one thing that can bring together the divided hearts and lives of brethrenthe generous heart which takes its rule of life and which gains “the spirit of its mind” from Jesus Christ.
III. THAT WE SHOULD NOT BE DETERRED FROM THE NOBLER COURSE BY THE POSSIBILITY OR EVEN THE LIKELIHOOD OF REPULSE. Hezekiah and his council faced this probability, and they ventured, notwithstanding. Their messengers did meet with much scornful rejection (verse 10); but on this they must have Counted, and by it they were not moved. In spite of all the mockery they encountered, they went through the land as they proposed. If we are careful to Count all the possible consequences to ourselves, we shall never do noble deeds. The soldier does not weigh the chances of his being wounded as he goes into the battle; he does not mind if he goes home with some sears upon his countenance. Nor will the good soldier of Jesus Christ.
IV. THAT WE SHALL NOT GO UNREWARDED IF WE TAKE THIS GENEROUS COURSE. “Nevertheless divers humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem ‘ (verse 11). The mission was not altogether a failure, even judged by its visible and calculable results. Any serious and generous attempt to heal old wounds and restore broken friendships, or to bring back to God those estranged from him, will not be unrewarded.
1. If it does not succeed wholly, it will in part. If it does not win affection and reopen fellowship, it may weaken resentment and make return easier another time. It may avail with one or two, if not with all. It may succeed in time, if not at once.
2. It will certainly result in some spiritual advancement on our own part. No true act of Christian love is ever lost to the agent himself.
3. It will win the smile and benediction of the magnanimous Saviour.C.
2Ch 30:6-9
Four reasons for repentance.
The letters which Hezekiah sent throughout the cities and villages of Israel contained an earnest exhortation to repentance; they urged upon the inhabitants of that distressed land that, for the strongest reasons, they should return from their idolatrous ways, and worship the true and living God in his own temple. These considerations are fourfold.
I. IT IS TO THE GOD OF THEIR FATHERS THEY WERE EXHORTED TO RETURN. “Children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Israel” (2Ch 30:6). It was not to the house of a strange deity they were now invited; it was to the God of Israelto him to whom their own ancestors bowed the knee; it was to him who ever called himself by the very name they bore, in whom their illustrious father put his trust and found his heritage. Whom should they serve but that One whom Israel himself acknowledged as the Lord his God (Gen 28:16-22)? To those who have gone astray to vanities, to the pursuits of earth, to human attachments, to perishable treasures, and who have forsaken the Divine Source of all good and joy, we have to say, “Return unto the Lord God of your fathers. He to whom and to whose service we invite your return is no strange God in your house. It is he whom your father, whom your mother, has loved and served these many years; whom they are worshipping and serving now in the upper sanctuary. It is their tones that may be recognized in our voice, if you have an ear to hear, saying, ‘Return unto our God, unto our Saviour, unto our heritage, unto our home.'”
II. REBELLION MEANS NOTHING BUT RUIN. “Who trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation” (2Ch 30:7). Assuming the (more probable) theory that the country was now in the hands of the Assyrians, there was “desolation” indeed; to most of their families (and to the best of them) captivity or bereavement; to the nation, as such, utter subjection, humiliation, ruin. This was the penalty of their rebellion against Jehovah, its natural and inevitable end (Deu 29:22-28). To those who are estranged from God we have to say,” Return unto God, for distance from him is spiritual ruin.”
1. It is the forfeiture of the true heritage of the human soul, the heritage it has in the favour and the friendship of God.
2. It is the endurance of his most serious displeasure.
3. It is a spiritual bondage, the bondage of sin.
4. It is the beginning of death eternal.
III. THERE IS NO DANGER OF REPULSE. “The Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him” (2Ch 30:9). The people of this idolatrous realm might well ask whether they had not hopelessly separated themselves from Jehovah, whether their rebelliousness had not gone such lengths that mercy was not to be looked for. But Hezekiah charged them to dismiss all such fears from their minds; their repentance would meet with a gracious response from the forgiving God of their fathers. It is one of the strongest inducements we have to offer to those now spiritually estranged, that their genuine repentance, the turning of their heart toward the God of their fathers, and their seeking his mercy in Jesus Christ the Divine Saviour, is certain to be attended with his abundant mercy, and to he followed by their restitution to the favour they have lost, to the home they have left, to the blessedness they have thrown away. There is absolutely no fear of a repulsethat is a moral impossibility; the unchangeable Word of the faithful God is the immovable pledge that return means reconciliation.
IV. RECONCILIATION FOR THEMSELVES MEANS MERCY FOR THEIR RELATIONS. “Your brethren and your children shall find compassion,” etc. (2Ch 30:9). This was their one and only hope. If God had mercy upon Israel that was in Israel, he might, he would, recall their brethren and children from the land of their captivity; otherwise these must perish in “a strange land,” in the land of the enemy. Our message to men is not unlike this; we have to say to them, “If you will consult the well-being of those in whom you are most interested and for whom you are most responsible; if you will care for the salvation of those nearest and dearest to you, of your brethren and your children; then do you live the life of the holy, do you give the best and strongest evidence that you believe in the excellency of the service of Christ, do you turn from the transient and the unsatisfying treasures of earth, and seek your heritage in the favour of the heavenly Father, in the love and the friendship of the Saviour of mankind. Therefore “yield yourselves unto God” (2Ch 30:8); enter his sanctuary; accept the overtures of his Son; sit down at his table; take on you his Name and his vows.”C.
2Ch 30:17-20
The one essential thing.
A very interesting and instructive incident occurred in the celebration of this great Passover. Many who presented themselves and brought their lamb had not gone through the prescribed purifications before engaging in an act of sacrifice, and they were disqualified to slay the lamb. So the Levites, under the peculiar circumstances, took this part for them. It was a formal irregularity; it was not according to the letter of the Law; there had been a breach of the enactment. But Hezekiah prayed God on behalf of those who had transgressed, and his prayer was heard, and the Lord “healed the people” who had so done. There is one lesson which stands out from the others; but before we learn that, we may gather on our way the truths
I. THAT SUBSTITUTION AND INTERCESSION HAVE THEIR PLACE IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The Levites were permitted to take the parents’ place on this occasion, and Hezekiah’s prayer for the pardon of the irregularity was granted. We may do some things for our fellow-men, and we do well to pray God for their enlightenment and restoration. But it is not far that either of these two principles can be permitted. “Every man must bear his own Burden” of responsibility before God; must repent of his own sin; must approach his Maker in the spirit of self-surrender; must enter by himself the kingdom of Christ. The work we can do for others, though not without its value, is narrow in its range. To every human soul it belongs to realize his position, to hearken when Heaven is speaking, to make his final and decisive choice, to take his place among the friends or among the foes of Jesus Christ. We may not build on a brother’s help, nor presume even on a mother’s prayers.
II. THAT PRIVATION OF PRIVILEGE IS TAKEN INTO THE DIVINE CONSIDERATION. The principal if not the only defaulters here were the men of “Ephraim and Manasseh,” etc. (verse 18); i.e. those who had been living in the idolatrous kingdom of Israel, those who had been far from the temple of Jerusalem, and had lived with little (if any) instruction in the Divine Law. Much leniency might justly be accorded to these; and much allowance was made for them. God requireth of us “not according to that we have not, hut according to that we have.” From those to whom hut little privilege and opportunity are given, the slighter service will be demanded. Our God is just, considerate, gracious.
III. THAT SIN IS A VERY DISABLING THING. “The Lord healed the people.” By their offence against the Law they had lest their wholeness, their health, and needed to “be healed.” Sin is a moral sickness; it is the disorder of the spirit; it is that which weakens, which disables, which makes the sinner unable to be and to do what he was created to be and to do. But the main lesson is this
IV. THAT THE ESSENTIAL THING IS SPIRITUAL INTEGRITY. These transgressors were forgiven partly in virtue of Hezekiah’s prayer. But may we not say principally because the righteous Lord discerned in them the spirit of obedience t They had come up to Jerusalem that they might return upon Jehovah their God. It was in their heart to cast off their old and evil practices, and to begin a new life of uprightness before God: was their ceremonial irregularity to outweigh, in the estimate of the Just One, the integrity of their heart before him? The purpose of their soul was toward God and toward his service: was not that to be accepted, in spite of a legal impropriety or negligence? Certainly it was; and these men went down to their homes in Israel justified before the Lord. It is the spirit of obedience which our God demands of us, for which he looks in us. If that be absent, nothing else of any kind or magnitude will suffice. If that be present, we may be defaulters in many small particulars, but neither we nor our offering will be refused. To have a pure, deep, fixed desire to seek and to serve the Lord Christthat is the one essential thing.C.
2Ch 30:21-27
Religious enthusiasm.
This chapter reads as if written by an eyewitness of the scenes described, so vivid is the account, so much colour is in the picture. It was evidently a time of very great enthusiasm, of spiritual exuberance. These are very pleasant, and they may be very profitable occasions; but they need to be rightly directed and well controlled. Of religious enthusiasm, we may consider
I. ITS ONLY FIRM FOUNDATION. This is a true sense of the Divine favour. Unless God be with us, granting us his own approval, intending to further us with his blessing, all our congratulations are ill-timed and all our action will be fruitless. And it is needful that we know that we have his approval. It is too often assumed in its absence. Hezekiah and his people, with Isaiah among them, were resting in a well-grounded confidence. Without such prophetic guidance, we must inquire of ourselves whether our repentance and our faith are deep and real; whether we have in truth “yielded cur-selves unto the Lord” (verse 8), whether we are “Christ’s disciples indeed” (Joh 8:31).
II. ITS NATURAL ATMOSPHERE. Sacred joy. They “kept the feast with great gladness” (verse 21); “There was great joy in Jerusalem” (verse 26). There are many sources of happiness, reaching upwards from the most gross to the most spiritual and refined. There is none deeper or purer, none more elevated or enlarging, than the joy of the human spirit in the worship and service of the Supreme. To be holding hallowed fellowship with our Divine Father and Saviour, and to be so doing in unison with a multitude of our Christian brethren and sisters, or to be engaged with them in doing some earnest and faithful work,this is a source of truest and worthiest human joy.
III. ITS BEST MANIFESTATIONS.
1. In sacred song. The Levites “praised the Lord day by day” (verse 21). A large measure of spiritual fervour finds utterance in song, happily to ourselves and acceptably to God. There is no phase of sacred feeling which may not find fitting expression thus.
2. In wise and kind encouragement. Hezekiah “spake comfortably unto all the Levites” (verse 22). He no doubt congratulated them on their good spiritual estate and on their opportunity of service, and invited and urged them to exercise their sacred functions in all fidelity. A few words of timely encouragement from one that is in a higher position go a long way; such words constitute a stronger inducement to duty and devotion than many words of criticism or censure.
3. In religious instruction. “That taught the good knowledge of the Lord” (verse 22).
4. In re-dedication. “A great number of priests sanctified themselves.” Some of the priests, probably many, if not most of them, had shown slackness and had held back (2Ch 29:34); they had some reason for being ashamed (see verse 15). But in this hour of widespread enthusiasm they came forward and made themselves ready for their sacred functions. At such a time, much is gained if those who have become cool in the service of their Lord, whose faith is failing and whose zeal is dying down, re-consecrate themselves to him, take afresh upon them his vows, and solemnly and formally undertake to live and labour in his cause.
5. In expansiveness. Room was found for “the strangers that came out of the land of Israel”room in the hearts and at the tables of the people. Nothing can be better than that our own great gladness of heart in God should overflow to those beyond our own pale. By all means let there be a generous expansiveness at such a time; let the stranger, let the “outsider,” let the outcast, let the “abandoned,“ let those who have come to despair of themselves, be remembered, be sought out, be encouraged, be enlightened, be admitted and welcomed. We tread closely in the steps of our Leader when we act thus.
6. In liberality. In the generous use of our substance (see verse 24). When we are receiving freely of God’s good gift of sacred joy, we should give freely of the good he has entrusted to our care.C.
HOMILIES BY T. WHITELAW
2Ch 30:1-12
Preparations for a grand national Passover.
I. A PASSOVER DECIDED ON. (2Ch 30:1, 2Ch 30:5.)
1. By whom! Hezekiah, his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, with both of whom he had taken counsel. The important step, not adopted without deliberation, was concurred in by the entire body of the people (2Ch 30:4). If any in the nation held aloof, these were the priests and the Levites (2Ch 30:15).
2. For whom? All Israel and Judah. The contemplated Passover should not be sectional or provincial, but national. For “all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan”for the inhabitants of the two kingdoms, which ought never to have been divided, and in religion at least should ever have been one.
3. On what ground?
(1) That it was their duty to keep such a Passover. It was written in the Law of Moses that all the congregation of Israel should eat the Passover (Exo 12:47); that three times a year should all the males of the nation keep a feast unto the Lord, one of these feasts being that of Unleavened Bread, or the Passover (Exo 23:14, Exo 23:15); and that the Passover should be “sacrificed in the place which Jehovah should choose to set his Name there” (Deu 16:2).
(2) That such a Passover had not been observed by them either in great numbers (Revised Version), en masse, by the whole body of the people (Bertheau, Keil), or for a long time (Authorized Version, De Wette). Certainly since the division of the kingdom they had not observed the Passover; and even prior to that it is doubtful if the feast had been observed by such numbers as to amount to a national celebration. The unsettled state of the country during the period of the judges was not favourable to the carrying out of the Deuteronomic programme; and the same might be said (though perhaps in a less degree) of the early years of the monarchy; so that probably for a Paschal celebration on a truly national scale the historian must go back to the days of Joshua immediately after entering Canaan, and before the dispersion of the people had commenced (Jos 5:10, Jos 5:11).
II. THE TIME OF CELEBRATION FIXED. (Verse 2.)
1. In the second month.
(1) This not the regular or legal month, which was the first, or Abib (Exo 12:18; Le Exo 23:5, Exo 23:8), the month in which Jehovah brought his people out of Egypt (Deu 16:1, Deu 16:2).
(2) This, however, allowable in special circumstances, as e.g. when through absence on a journey or ceremonial uncleanness it could not be kept on the statutory day (Num 9:6-12). In the present instance the special circumstances were that when the decision to hold a Passover was arrived at, the 14th of Abib was too near to admit of either the priests getting themselves sanctified in sufficient numbers to do the necessary work, or the population of the country gathering at Jerusalem in time to give to the feast the character of a national celebration.
2. In the first or sixth (perhaps seventh) year of Hezekiah‘s reign.
(1) In favour of the former view (Bertheau, Jamieson), it may be urged that it is the most natural; that Hezekiah would more likely take advantage of the widespread religious enthusiasm evoked by the purification and re-dedication of the temple to appoint a Passover than delay for five if not six years; and that the difficulty of understanding how he got permission to send heralds through the northern kingdom may be overcome by remembering that Hoshea, the last King of Israel, was not so bad as his predecessors on the throne had been (2Ki 17:2), and that Hezekiah may have obtained his consent to the proposal of a grand Passover for all Israel and Judah (Bertheau). An obvious objection to this is that Hezekiah’s letters represented the inhabitants of Israel as “the remnant escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria” (verse 6), and that the siege of Samaria did not commence till Hezekiah’s fourth year (2Ki 18:9), while the only deportation of people from the northern kingdom before that was the removal of the trans-Jordanic tribes and Naphtalites by Tiglath-Pileser II. (2Ki 15:29)which would hardly have justified the strong language of Hezekiah with reference to Israel’s depleted condition. Another difficulty is that, as during the first years of Hezekiah’s reign Hoshea was becoming restive under the heavy tribute of ten talents of gold and a thousand of silver imposed on him by Tiglath-Pileser II., and was even negotiating with So (Sabako), King of Egypt, about throwing off the Assyrian yoke (2Ki 17:4), it is hardly to be supposed he would readily consent to the absence of all his male subjects at Jerusalem even for a limited time. Besides,. it is doubtful if a month was not too short a space to admit of the king’s runners travelling from Dan to Beersheba, and of the people assembling from all corners of the land at Jerusalem.
(2) In favour of the second view (Keil, Caspari), that the Passover was held after the capture of Samaria, in B.C. 720, and the deportation of its inhabitantsaccording to an inscription of Sargon, 27,280it may be pointed out that after that event the situation in Israel corresponded more exactly with the language of Hezekiah (verse 6), and that, Israel having no more an independent sovereign, Hezekiah may have deemed the moment opportune for attempting a reunion of the nations.
III. THE INVITATIONS ISSUED. (Verses 6-10.)
1. In whose name they were given. In that of Hezekiah and his princes. The absence of any reference to Hoshea points to a time subsequent to the captivity of Israel.
2. By whom they were carried. The pests, or runners, i.e. king’s messengers (Est 3:13, Est 3:15; Est 8:14), who may have been members of the royal body-guard (2Ch 12:10).
3. To what purport they ran.
(1) A threefold exhortation.
(a) To turn again to Jehovah, renouncing idolatry and embracing the religion prescribed by Moses (verse 6).
(b) Not to imitate the stubborn conduct of their fathers, who had been carried away captive (verses 7, 8).
(c) To resume attendance at the sanctuary, which Jehovah had sanctified for ever as the central place of his worship (verse 8).
(2) A four-fold argument.
(a) Duty. Jehovah was the Lord God of their fathers, even of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, as the one living and true, gracious, and covenant-keeping God, was entitled to their allegiance (verses 6, 7).
(b) Fear. If they continued rebellious, Jehovah’s anger would fall on and consume them who were but a remnant, as already it had fallen on and consumed their fathers.
(c) Clemency. If they returned to Jehovah, Jehovah would turn away the fierceness of his anger from them, and extend mercy to those who had been carried away captive, causing them to find favour in the eyes of their captors and even to return to their own land (verse 9).
(d) Hope. The certainty that they would thus be treated was guaranteed by the fact that Jehovah, whom they had forsaken, and to whom they were now invited to return, was a gracious and merciful God (verse 9). Or otherwise, Hezekiah pleaded with them to return on the grounds of national unityJehovah was Israel’s God as well as Judah’s; of historic continuityJehovah had been the Lord God of their fathers; of self-interestit was the only way to avert their total extinction; of brotherly compassionit was the most effectual means of helping their exiled brethren.
IV. THE RECEPTION ACCORDED TO THE MESSENGERS. (Verses 10-12.)
1. In Israel.
(1) From the main body of the population, laughter and scorn. Seemingly they ridiculed the idea of having to protect themselves from extermination by finding a sovereign in Hezekiah and a God in Jehovah. Tiglath-Pileser II; if the earlier date be adopted, had only overrun and laid waste a portion of their country, the trans-Jordanic tribes, with the land of Naphtali, and from these had carried away not all the population, but only the principal inhabitants; while, if the latter date be accepted as the more probable, Sargon in addition had removed only 27,280 persons (‘Records,’ 7:28). Hence as yet they perceived not the necessity of either abandoning hope for the kingdom or of repairing to Jerusalem to find a king and a God. So the ambassadors of a greater King than Hezekiah, wandering from city to city throughout the world and carrying to their fellows a better invitation than Hezekiah’s runners did to Israel, are frequently met with derision for themselves and their glad tidings; as e.g. Paul at Athens (Act 17:32), as Christ himself, God’s chief Ambassador and Plenipotentiary in the city of Jerusalem (Joh 1:11).
(2) From individuals, especially in Asher, Manasseh, Zabulon (verse 11), and Issachar (verse 8), the northern tribes contiguous to Naphtali, cordial acceptance. These, being country-people, were meek ones, not ashamed to humble themselves on account of their own and their nation’s wickedness, and to embrace the opportunity of becoming reconciled to Jehovah and their brethren in Judah. Accordingly they spurned not the invitation addressed to them, but “came to Jerusalem.” In like manner is the King’s letter in the gospel oftener welcomed and accepted by unlearned rustics than by gay and wise residents in cities; and always by the poor in spirit, who, conscious of their sin and misery, long to be reconciled to God (Mat 5:3-6).
2. In Judah. The people generally responded to their sovereign’s invitation.
(1) With unanimity. They were of one mind to do the commandment of the king and the princes. A united heart an invaluable preparation for obedience, whether for individual or for state (Jer 32:39; Eze 11:19, Eze 11:20).
(2) In a spirit of obedience. They recognized the king’s and princes’ commandment to be in accordance with the word of Jehovah (cf. ch. 29:15). The Word of God, in the Old and New Testaments, the supreme directory for faith and practice. “To the Law and to the testimony” (Isa 8:20). The Bereans searched the Scriptures (Act 17:11).
(3) In compliance with a heavenly impulse. That they were thus enlightened and unanimous was owing to Divine grace; “The hand of God was upon them” for good, as it always is upon them that seek him (Ezr 8:22).
Learn:
1. The unspeakable blessing to a land of a pious king and court.
2. The certainty that God will aid all who seek to extend his cause and kingdom.
3. The necessity of diligence, fidelity, sympathy, and courage on the part of all “runners” to the King of heaven.
4. The hopefulness with which divinely commissioned preachers may enter on their missionthere will always be found a remnant to hear and obey.
5. The excellence of a humble spirit in disposing one to listen to the gospel.W.
2Ch 30:13-27
A national Passover at Jerusalem.
I. THE CELEBRATING CONGREGATION.
1. Large. “Much people; a very great congregation” (2Ch 30:13). Though this was usual at the chief religious festivals of the nation, probably so vast a concourse of people as assembled at Jerusalem in answer to the king’s invitation, in the second month of the first or seventh year of his reign (see preceding homily), had not been witnessed since the days of Jehoiada (2Ch 23:2) or of Asa (2Ch 15:9, 2Ch 15:10). Something stimulating and impressive in the sight of a crowded city, even when its seething population drifts aimlessly about, much more when all are swayed by a common feeling and moved by a common impulse.
2. Mixed. Composed of
(1) all the congregation of Judah, i.e. of the inhabitants of the metropolis and of the country districts of Judaea, with the priests and the Levites;
(2) all the congregation that came out of Israel, viz. a multitude of people from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zabulon (verse 18); and
(3) the strangers, or proselytes who dwelt within the borders of Judah, and those who came from Israel or the northern kingdom (verse 25).
3. United. All actuated by one purposethat of keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread (verse 13), which probably none of them in their lifetime had ever done. It was such a festival as could be rightly celebrated only by a united people, and such as was fitted to draw closer the bonds of union between the celebrants.
4. Resolute. Prepared to undergo any sacrifices and attempt any labours necessary to carry the feast through with success, determined to be hindered by nothing and no one from their great act of religious homage to the Lord God of their fathers (verses 19, 22).
5. Joyous. Inspired with feelings of gladness (verse 23), even “great gladness” (verse 21), and “great joy” (verse 26), which found expression in peace offerings and penitential confessions (verse 22), accompanied by vocal and instrumental strains, and abated not during the seven days of the feast proper (verse 21), but sustained the people throughout seven superadded days (verse 23). Indeed, so high ran the enthusiasm, and so overflowing became the joy, that nothing like it had been witnessed since the days of Solomon, when the dedication of the temple had been celebrated by a double period of rejoicing (2Ch 7:1-10). The occasion certainly was fitted to excite gladnessthe return of the nation to its allegiance to Jehovah. So is the soul’s return to God in penitence, faith, and holy obedience a cause of jubilation not only in heaven (Luk 15:7,Luk 15:10), but also on earth (Act 8:8); and not among spectators merely, but also in the souls of them who return (Luk 24:52; Act 8:39; Rom 5:11). Moreover, the service of God and Christ should always be accompanied with gladness, as in gladness it will invariably result (Psa 64:10; Isa 48:18; Isa 51:11; Rom 14:17; 1Th 5:16).
II. THE CELEBRATED FESTIVAL.
1. The zeal of the people.
(1) Necessary preparation. This consisted of two thingsthe purgation of the city from idolatry, and the cleansing of themselves from defilement. The first they carried out with promptitude and decision”they arose and took away the altars” (verse 14); and with thoroughgoing energy and efficiency which allowed of no escape”they took them all away,” the altars for offering to heathen divinities, and the altars or “vessels” for incense, which Ahaz had erected in every corner of the city (2Ch 28:24), and cast them into the Kidron, where already the filth of the temple had been thrown (2Ch 29:16). Never in any previous reign had there been such a clearance of the instruments of idolatry as now occurred under Hezekiah. The second, though not mentioned, is implied, at least, of those who belonged to Judah (see verse 17; and cf. on verse 3). These, having had the means of self-sanctification at hand, most likely used them; those who came from Israel having not had such means, their want of sanctification was prayed for and overlooked (verses 17-20).
(2) Statutory adoration. They killed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the second month (see on verse 2). The heads of families in Judah who were sanctified killed their own Jambs and placed the blood in the priests’ hands; for such as had not been cleansed according to the purification of the sactuary, the Levites killed the Passovers, and delivered the blood into the hands of the priests (verse 17). These sprinkled the blood upon the altars.
2. The behaviour of the priests and Levites.
(1) Their sanctification of themselves. The priests and Levites were not those of Jerusalem merely who had taken part in the dedication of the temple, and of whom it is said (2Ch 29:34) that the Levites had been more forward to sanctify themselves than the priests, but the whole body of the priests and Levites who had come from Judah and Israel, among whom were many who did not immediately purify themselves from defilement as they ought to have done on convening at Jerusalem. Most likely at first half-hearted in the business, afterwards through beholding the zeal of the people they were shamed into repairing their neglect.
(2) Their discharge of official duties. Having sanctified themselves, they performed the statutory functions required of them in connection with their consecration: “They brought burnt offerings into the house of the Lord” (cf. Le 8:18; Num 8:12); or with the Passover: “They brought the [Authorized Version] burnt offerings” presented by the people “into the house of the Lord,” and “they stood in their places after their order according to the Law of Moses,” the priests sprinkling the blood upon the altar (Le 16:14-19), and the Levites, for the reason above explained, handing the blood to them.
3. The piety of the king.
(1) The king’s prayer (verses 18-20).
(a) To whom addressed. “The good Lord.” Goodness an attribute of the Divine nature (Psa 25:8; Psa 34:8; Nah 1:7), in its ideal character belonging only to him (Mat 19:17), infinite in its measure (Exo 34:6) and excellence (Psa 36:7), unwearied in its operation (Psa 33:5; Jas 1:5), ever-during in its continuance (Psa 52:1).
(b) For whom presented? “Every one that prepareth [Authorized Version, or ‘setteth’ Revised Version] his heart to seek the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary;” i.e. for every one who approached God with earnestness and resolution, “preparing and setting his heart”in the margin, “his whole heart” (2Ch 15:12; Psa 119:2); with humility and faith, seeking “the Lord God of his fathers” thereby acknowledging he believed in Jehovah as his rightful Lord, and had sinned in turning aside to idolatry (Jdg 10:10; 1Sa 12:10; 2Ch 6:37; Psa 106:6; Jer 14:7); with obedience and submission, embracing the right way of seeking God, in Jerusalem (Deu 12:5), at his temple (Exo 25:8), through the sacrificial worship by him appointed (Heb 9:13)as under the New Testament dispensation no one can approach God acceptably except through Christ (Joh 14:6), though with imperfection and defect in external ceremonialwhich showed that the be, t spirits in the Hebrew Church had some conception of the spirituality of all true worship of God, of the value of real heart-adoration even when accompanied by errors in form, and of the worthlessness of the most externally correct, complete, aesthetically beautiful, and perfect performance when divorced from the inner homage of the heart.
(c) What it sought. The pardon of every one who had approached the Divine altar without complying with the Divine prescription as to self-purification. A sin of ignorance in case of some, in that of others a sin of involuntary disability, it was nevertheless a violation of the divinely appointed order, as real though not as heinous as that of Uzziah (2Ch 26:18), and as such fitted to evoke a display of Divine anger similar to that which fell on Uzziah.
(d) How it fared. “The Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people” (verse 20); which may signify either that symptoms of bodily malady had begun to appear among the people, or that Hezekiah feared they would. In either case Hezekiah’s prayer was successful for his people, as afterwards was his supplication for himself (2Ch 32:24). Cf. the intercession of Abraham for the cities of the plain (Gen 18:23-32), of Moses for Israel (Exo 32:31, Exo 32:32), of David for his people (2Sa 24:17), of Daniel for Jerusalem (Dan 9:17-19), of Paul for his converts (Eph 3:14 19; Php 1:3-9).
(2) The king’s exhortation (verse 22).
(a) The recipients of it. “All the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord” (Authorized Version), i.e. “who were more skilled and able to instruct” others in the proper method of worshipping Jehovah (Piscator); or, more accurately, “all the Levites that were well skilled in the service of Jehovah” (Revised Version), or as regards Jehovah; i.e. “who had distinguished themselves by intelligent playing to the honour of the Lord” (Keil).
(b) The spirit of it. He spake comfortably, or to the heart, of all. No doubt there were degrees of excellence amongst the players and their music, but the king made no distinction in his treatment of them; he spake to the hearts of all His words of encouragement and good cheer were needed by all, perhaps most by those least skilled who yet were doing their best. Leaders of men, pastors of Churches, and such-like, sometimes forget this, and, by making distinctions between the more gifted and the less, do injury to bothinflate the former with pride, and cast down the latter with discouragement.
(3) The king’s liberality (verse 24). This was:
(a) Munificent. Hezekiah presented to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep.
(b) Catching. “The princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep.”
(c) Timely. It enabled the people to carry out their good resolution to prolong the feast for seven more days.
(d) Appreciated. It filled the people’s hearts with gladness, and doubtless contributed largely to entwine their affections round the person and the throne of the king.
Learn:
1. The duty of not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together for Divine worship (Heb 10:25).
2. The excellence of unity among the people of God (Psa 132:1; Act 4:32; 1Co 1:10).
3. The joyous character of all true worship (1Ch 16:27; Psa 32:11; c. 1, 2; Luk 24:52; Eph 5:18, Eph 5:19).
4. The acceptableness of sincere worship even when mingled with imperfection (Act 10:35).
5. The beauty as well as propriety of Christian liberality (Exo 23:15; 2Co 8:9).W.
2Ch 30:26
An ideal city: Jerusalem in the first days of Hezekiah.
I. ITS GOD WAS GRACIOUS. (2Ch 30:9.) Its people had a Divinity who was:
1. Propitious towards their persons. He had given them one heart (2Ch 30:12).
2. Propitious towards their sacrifices. He accepted them, although offered not in perfect accordance with the Law of Moses (2Ch 30:16).
3. Propitious towards their prayers. He heard the king’s intercession (2Ch 30:20), the priests’ prayers (2Ch 30:27), and the people’s confessions (2Ch 30:22).
II. ITS KING WAS RELIGIOUS, (2Ch 29:2.) This was manifested by:
1. His care for the institutions of religion. Exemplified in his purification and dedication of the temple, including his rearrangement of the Levitical orders of musicians.
2. His zeal in the observances of religion. Shown by his revival of the Passover ordinance, and the efforts made by him to secure a national observance of the same (2Ch 30:1).
3. His possession of the spirit of religion. Besides being a man of prayer (2Ch 30:18), he delighted to encourage others in good works (2Ch 30:22), and evinced his own sincerity by the abundance of his liberality (2Ch 30:24).
III. ITS MINISTERS WERE INDUSTRIOUS. (2Ch 30:17.)
1. In attending to their own personal sanctification. (2Ch 30:15.) This no ministers of religion under the New Testament dispensation can afford to neglect. He who cares nothing for the cultivation of piety in himself is not likely to be zealous in aiming at the good of others.
2. In discharging the public services of the sanctuary. Under the Hebrew economy these services were the offering of sacrifice and the blessing of the people (2Ch 30:27) by the priests, with the making of music by the Levites; under the Christian economy they are chiefly the preaching of the gospel, the conducting of worship, and the superintendence of the Church. Where the ordinances of religion fall into abeyance and neglect, and the ministers of religion are as heedless of the souls of others as of their own, it is idle to expect prosperity, in either Church or state, in city or in country.
IV. ITS INHABITANTS WERE JOYOUS. (2Ch 30:26.)
1. Exulting in Jehovah‘s favor. Without a conviction that they possessed this, the mere external celebration would not have filled them with such long-continued, deep, and exuberant emotion (Psa 33:21; Isa 12:2; Rom 5:11).
2. Observing the rites of religion. In turning from the worship of idols to serve the living God, they experienced an inward satisfaction which made them “sing in the ways of the Lord” (Psa 138:5).
3. Enjoying the affection of their brethren. Of one heart and mind, there was not a jarring note in their melody. They dwelt together in peace, and loved as brethren, each esteeming the other as better than himself, and all preferring one another and honouring one another.W.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
n. Hezekiah: The Prophet Isaiah,Ch. 2932
. Hezekiahs Beginnings; the Cleansing and Consecration of the Temple: 2 Chronicles 29
2Ch 29:1.Hezekiah became king when he was twenty and five years old, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem; and his mothers name was Abijah, daughter of Zechariah 2 And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.
3He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and renewed them. 4And he brought in the priests and Levites, and assembled them in the broad way of the east, 5And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites; now sanctify yourselves and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and remove the filthiness out of the holy place. 6For our fathers have transgressed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken Him, and have turned 7their face from the dwelling of the Lord, and shown the back. They have also shut the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt-offering in the holy place unto the God of Israel. 8And the displeasure of the Lord was against Judah and Jerusalem, and He delivered them to horror,1 to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with 9your eyes. And lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. 10Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that the hotness of 11His anger may turn away from us. My sons, now delay not; for the Lord hath chosen you to stand before Him to serve Him, and to be His ministers and incense-burners.
12Then the Levites arose, Mahath son of Amasai, and Joel son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish son of Abdi, and Azariah son of Jehalelel;2 and of the Gershonites, Joah son of Zimmah, and Eden son of Joah. 13And of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel;3 14and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah. And of the sons of Heman, Jehuel4 and Shimi; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel. 15And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came at the command of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord. 16And the priests went into the interior of the house of the Lord to cleanse, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord; and the 17Levites took it to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. And they began on the first of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the porch of the Lord; and they sanctified the house of the Lord eight days, and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made 18an end. And they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord, and the altar of burnt-offering and all its vessels, 19and the table of shew-bread and all its vessels. And all the vessels which King Ahaz in his reign cast away in his infidelity we have prepared and sanctified, and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.
20And Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the Lord. 21And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats for a sin-offering for the kingdom; and for the sanctuary, and for Judah, and he bade the sons of 22Aaron the priests to offer them on the altar of the Lord. And they killed the cattle, and the priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar; and they killed the rams, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar; and they killed the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar. 23And they brought the he-goats of the sin-offering before the king and the congregation, and they laid their hands upon them. 24And the priests killed them, and offered their blood for sin upon the altar, to atone for all Israel; for the king had ordered the burnt-offering and the sin-offering for all Israel. 25And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord, with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, by the command of David, and Gad the kings seer, and Nathan the prophet; for by the Lord was the commandment by His prophets. 26And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests 27with the trumpets. And Hezekiah said to offer the burnt-offering on the altar; and when the burnt-offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets,5 and after the instruments of David king of Israel. 28And all the congregation worshipped, and the song was sung, and the trumpets sounded;6 the whole until the burnt-offering was ended. 29And when they made an end of offering, the king and all that were with him bowed down 30and worshipped. And Hezekiah the king and the princes said to the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer; and they praised with gladness, and bowed down and worshipped.
31And Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have filled your hand unto the Lord, draw nigh and bring sacrifices and thank-offerings into the house of the Lord: and the congregation brought sacrifices and thank-offerings, and every one that was willing of heart, burnt-offerings. 32And the number of the burnt-offerings, which the congregation brought, was seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, two hundred lambs; all these for a burnt-offering to the Lord. 33And the consecrated things were six hundred oxen and three thousand 34sheep. Only the priests were too few, and they could not flay all the burnt-offerings, and their brethren the Levites assisted them till the work was ended, and till the priests had sanctified themselves; for the Levites were more upright of heart to sanctify themselves than the priests. 35And also the burnt-offering was in abundance, with the fat of the peace-offerings, and the libations for the burnt-offering: and the service of the house of the 36Lord was established. And Hezekiah and all the people were glad that God had prepared the people; for the thing was done suddenly.
. The Passover: 2 Chronicles 30
2 Chronicles 30. . 1And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to 2keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel. And the king took counsel with his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. 3For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, nor had the people gathered 4, 5to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the people. And they settled the thing, to issue a proclamation in all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, to come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem; 6for they had not kept it with a multitude as it was written. And the posts went with the letters from the hand of the king and his princes through all Israel and Judah, and at the command of the king, saying, Ye sons of Israel, return unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the escaped remaining to you from the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7And be not ye like your fathers and your brethren, who revolted against the Lord God of their fathers, and He gave them up to desolation, as ye see. 8Now be not stiff-necked like your fathers; yield yourselves to the Lord, and go into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your God, that the hotness of His anger may turn from you. 9For if ye return to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before their captors, and they shall return to this land; for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and He will not turn His face from you if ye return to Him.
10And the posts passed from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh 11and unto Zebulun; and they scoffed at them and mocked them. But some men of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves, and 12came to Jerusalem. Also the hand of God was upon Judah to give them one heart to do the command of the king and the princes, by the word of the Lord.
13And much people assembled at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. 14And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem; and all the altars for incense 15they took away, and cast into the brook Kidron. And they killed the pass-over on the fourteenth of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt-offerings into the house of the Lord. 16And they stood in their place after their rule, according to the law of Moses the man of God, the priests sprinkling the blood from the hand of the Levites. 17For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified; and the Levites took charge of the killing of the passovers for all that were unclean, to sanctify them unto the Lord. 18For a multitude of the people, many from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the passover not as it was written: for 19Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good Lord pardon7 every one That hath prepared his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though 20not in the cleanness of the sanctuary. And the Lord heard Hezekiah, and 21healed the people. And the sons of Israel that were in Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness; and the Levites and the priests were praising the Lord day by day, with instruments of might to the Lord. 22And Hezekiah spake to the heart of all the Levites who had good understanding of the Lord: and they ate8 the feast seven days, offering sacrifices of peace, and confessing to the Lord God of their fathers.
23And the whole congregation resolved to keep other seven days with gladness. 24For Hezekiah king of Judah gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep: and a great many priests sanctified themselves. 25And all the congregation of Judah, and the priests and Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers 26that came from the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, were glad. And there was great gladness in Jerusalem; for since the days of Solomon son of 27David king of Israel was not the like in Jerusalem. And the priests [and] the Levites9 arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling, to heaven.10
. Further Religious Reforms of Hezekiah: 2 Chronicles 31
2Ch 31:1.And when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the statues, and cut down the asherim, and pulled down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, and in Ephraim and Manasseh, completely: and all the sons of Israel returned, every man to his possession, unto their cities.
2And Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses, every man according to his service, of the priests and the Levites for burnt-offering and peace-offering, to minister, and to thank, and to 3praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord. And the kings portion of his property for burnt-offerings, for the burnt-offerings of the morning and of the evening, and the burnt-offerings for the sabbaths, and the new moons, and 4the set feasts, as it is written in the law of the Lord. And he said to the people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to give the portion of the priests and 5the Levites, that they might be stedfast in the law of the Lord. And when the word came forth, the sons of Israel brought abundantly the first-fruits of corn, must, and oil, and honey, and all the increase of the field; and the tithe 6of all they brought in abundance. And the sons of Israel and Judah that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things11 consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid them in heaps. 7In the third month they began to lay down the heaps, and 8in the seventh month they finished them. And Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, and they blessed the Lord and His people Israel. 9And Hezekiah inquired of the priests and Levites concerning the heaps. 10And Azariah the chief priest, of the house of Zadok, answered him and said, Since they began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have eaten and been satisfied, and left in abundance; for the Lord hath blessed His 11people, and this great store is left. And Hezekiah said to prepare chambers 12in the house of the Lord, and they prepared them. And they brought in the offerings and the tithe and the consecrated things faithfully; and over them Conaniah12 the Levite was ruler, and Shimi was second. 13And Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah were overseers under Conaniah12 and his brother Shimi, by the appointment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah 14the ruler of the house of God. And Kore, son of Jimnah the Levite, the porter toward the east, was over the freewill-offerings of God, to distribute 15the offering of the Lord, and the most holy things. And by him stood Eden, and Minjamin, and Jeshua, and Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shechaniah in the cities of the priests, with truth to give to their brethren, in the courses, to the 16great as to the small. Beside their register of males from three years old and upward, to every one that entereth into the house of the Lord, for the 17rate of each day, for their service in their charges by their courses. And the register of the priests by their father-houses; and the Levites from twenty years old and upward, in their charges by their courses. 18And to the register of all their little ones, their wives, sons, and daughters, for all the congregation; for in their faithfulness they sanctified themselves in the holy thing. 19And for the sons of Aaron the priests, in the fields of the suburbs of their cities, in every city [were appointed] men who were expressed by name, to give portions to every male among the priests, and to all the register of the Levites. 20And Hezekiah did thus in all Judah, and did that which was good and right and true before the Lord his God. 21And in every work which he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law and the commandment to seek his God, with all his heart he did, and prospered.
. Expedition of Sennacherib against Jerusalem, and averting of the threatened Danger by Divine Help: 2Ch 32:1-23
2Ch 32:1.After these events, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered into Judah, and besieged the fenced cities, and thought 2to break into them for himself. And Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and his face was for war against Jerusalem. And 3he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains, which 4were without the city; and they helped him. And much people was gathered, and they stopped all the fountains, and the brook that flowed through the land,13 saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? 5And he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it to the towers,14 and another wall without, and strengthened Millo in the city of David, and made weapons in abundance, and shields. 6And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them to him in the broad 7way at the gate of the city, and spake to their heart, saying, Be brave and strong, fear not nor be dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him; for with us is more than with him. 8With him is an arm of flesh; and with us is the Lord our God, to help us, and to fight our battles: and the people relied upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
9After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, and he himself stood against Lachish, and all his power with him, against Hezekiah king of Judah, and against all Judah that was at Jerusalem, saying, 10Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, and why sit ye in restraint in Jerusalem? 11Doth not Hezekiah mislead you to deliver you to die by hunger and thirst, saying, The Lord our God shall deliver us from 12the hand of the king of Assyria? Hath not this Hezekiah removed his high places and his altars, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, saying, Before one altar shall ye worship, and burn incense upon it? 13Know ye not what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Have the gods of the nations of the lands been at all able to deliver their lands from my hand? 14Who was there among all the gods of these nations, that my fathers extirpated, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to 15deliver you from my hand? And now let not Hezekiah deceive you nor seduce you in this way, neither believe him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people from my hand, nor the hand of my fathers; much more your God shall not deliver you from my hand. 16And his servants spake yet more against the Lord, and against Hezekiah His servant. 17And he wrote a letter to rail on the Lord God of Israel, and to speak against Him, saying, Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver His 18people from my hand. And they cried with a loud voice, in the Jewish tongue, to the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them and trouble them, that they might take the city. 19And they spake to the God of Jerusalem as against the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of mens hands.
20And for this Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet, 21prayed and cried to heaven. And the Lord sent an angel, and cut off every valiant hero and leader and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria: and he returned with shame of face to his own land; and he came into the house of his god, and they that came out of his own bowels15 there slew him with 22the sword. And the Lord saved Hezekiah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria, and from the hand of all,16 and defended them around. 23And many brought a gift to the Lord at Jerusalem, and jewels to Hezekiah king of Judah; and he was exalted in the eyes of all nations thereafter.
. Sickness, Remaining Years, and End of Hezekiah: 2Ch 29:24-33
24In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death, and he prayed unto the 25Lord: and He spake unto him, and gave him a sign. And Hezekiah repaid not according to the benefit done to him; for his heart became proud, and 26there was indignation against him, and against Judah and Jerusalem. And Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the indignation of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
27And Hezekiah had very much riches and glory; and he made himself treasuries for silver, and gold, and precious stones, and spices, and shields, and 28all articles of desire. And storehouses for the increase of corn, and must, and 29oil; and stalls for all kinds of cattle, and flocks for the folds.17 And he made him cities, and possession of flocks and herds in abundance; for God 30had given him very much substance. And this Hezekiah stopped the upper outflow of the water of Gihon, and led it18 straight down to the west of the 31city of David: and Hezekiah prospered in all his work. And so in the case of the ambassadors of the princes of Babel, who sent to him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, to know all that was in his heart.
32And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his kindness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz, in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 33And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the height of the sepulchres of the sons of David; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem gave him glory in his death: and Manasseh his son became king in his stead.
EXEGETICAL
Preliminary Remark.While the military and political side of the reign of Hezekiah, its relation to the Assyrian monarchy, its threatened annihilation by the invasion of Sennacherib, with the divine deliverance from this catastrophe, the later sickness and recovery of the king, and his proceedings with ambassadors of Babylon,while all this is much more fully narrated in the books of Kings (2Ki 18:8 to 2Ki 20:9), and in the parallel records of the book of Isaiah, than here, our author, on the contrary, treats much more fully and clearly of the reformation of worship by Hezekiah at the beginning of his reign, his cleansing and reconsecration of the temple, his grand and general celebration of the passover, in which many north Israelites participated, and his other measures for the order and purification of religious life. To the sections concerning this inner religious and theocratic side of the regin of Hezekiah, 2 Chronicles 29-31, correspond in 2 Kings merely the seven introductory verses of 2 Chronicles 18, so that almost the whole contents of those three chapters are peculiar to the Chronist.
1. Hezekiahs Beginnings: the Cleansing and Consecration of the Temple: 2 Chronicles 29.Hezekiah became king. , the fullest form of this name, signifies whom Jehovah strengthens, as the somewhat shortened , Isa 37:1 ff., or , 2Ki 18:1 ff., means strength of Jehovah. The Assyrian monuments present the form Ha–Za–ki–ya–hu, corresponding to that of Isaiah; see Schrader, p. 168 ff. Moreover, 2Ch 29:1-2 agree almost throughout with 2Ki 18:1-3. for the chronology see Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.
2Ch 29:3-19. The Cleansing of the Temple.He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, that is, in Nisan, the first month of the ecclesiastical year, not (as Caspari thinks, Beitrge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jesaia, p. 111) in the first month of the reign of Hezekiah. How long, that is, how many months, he had reigned when he in the first month of the new year began his measures of reform, remains uncertain; the assumption of Von Gumpach (Die Zeitrechn. der Babylonier und Assyrer, p. 99) and Bertheau, that Hezekiahs reign began with the first month (Tisri) of the previous year, appears a bare conjecture in face of the indefiniteness of the statement in our text.And renewed them, repaired thema renovating process which is more exactly described in 2Ki 18:16 as an overlaying with gold plate.
2Ch 29:4. And assembled them in the broad way of the east, not perhaps, in the inner court (Bertheau, Kamph.), but in an open area outside the whole temple building, on the south-east or east; comp. Ezr 10:9, Neh 8:1; Neh 8:3; Neh 8:16.
2Ch 29:5. Now sanctify yourselves, an indispensable prerequisite for a worthy and effectual performance of the business of cleansing the temple; comp. 2Ch 29:15 and Exo 19:10. On , filthiness as a designation of idolatry, comp. Lam 1:17; Ezr 9:11; and the synonym in 2Ch 29:16.
2Ch 29:6. For our fathers have transgressedAhaz and his contemporaries, for the statement in 2Ch 29:7 suits these only. On to turn the back (properly give), comp. Neh 9:29.
2Ch 29:7. They have also shut the doors of the porch, and thus of the whole temple, for only through the porch was there access to the holy and most holy place; comp. 2Ch 28:24, where also the new alter of burnt-offering erected by Ahaz in the court after the heathenish model is mentioned, which the Chronist, according to our passage (nor offered burnt-offering) regarded by no means as a lawful place of worship.
2Ch 29:8. And the displeasure of the Lord, etc.; comp. 2Ch 19:2; 2Ch 19:10, 2Ch 29:18, 2Ch 32:25; and for the following strong terms: horror, astonishment, and hissing, Deu 28:25; Jer 19:8; Jer 24:9; Jer 25:9; Lam 2:15; and also 2Ch 30:7. For 2Ch 29:9 comp. the Evangelical and Ethical Reflections on the verse before, No. 3
2Ch 29:10. Now it is in my heart; comp. 2Ch 6:7, 2Ch 9:1;1Ch 22:7; 1Ch 28:2.
2Ch 29:11. My sons, familiar, persuasive address, as in Pro 1:8, etc.Now delay not, literally, withdraw yourselves not (, Niph. of ; comp. Job 27:8). on b, comp. 2Ch 26:18; 1Ch 23:13; Deu 10:8.
2Ch 29:12. Then the Levites arose. Of the following fourteen names, Joah son of Zimmah, and Kish son of Abdi, occur already in the Levitical genealogy, 1Ch 6:5 f., 29; Mahath, Eden, and Jehiel recur in 2Ch 31:13-15.
2Ch 29:13. And of the son of Elizaphan, Shimri. That of this family two Levites are expressly mentioned, is explained by the high repute which Elizaphan or Elzaphan, son of Uzziel, son of Kohath (Exo 6:18), enjoyed as prince of the house of Kohath in the time of Moses (Num 3:30). Hence their co-ordination here, on the hand, with the three Levitical head families, and on the other with the three singing families of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun.
2Ch 29:15. And they gathered their brethren, the remaining Levites present in Jerusalem.At the command of the king by the words of the Lord; comp. 2Ch 30:12; 1Ch 25:5. The kings command was founded on the divine prescription of the law.
2Ch 29:16. And the priests brought out all the uncleanness into the court, all the sacrificial vessels employed in idolatry, perhaps also the remains of the idolatrous offerings, and the like. For , see on 2Ch 29:5; for the brook Kidron, comp. 2Ch 15:16, 2Ch 30:14.
2Ch 29:17. They began on the first of the first month. On the first eight days of the month they employed themselves in the cleansing of the court, the eight following in that of the temple itself, so that they ha finished on the sixteenth.
2Ch 29:19. And all the vessels which King Ahaz cast away; comp. 2Ch 11:14. These are the brazen altar of burnt-offering, the brazen sea, and lavers on the stands; see 2Ki 16:14; 2Ki 16:17. For , abbreviated form of (1Ch 29:16), see Ew. 196, b.And behold, they are before the altar of the Lord, the altar of burnt-offering.
2Ch 29:20-30. The sacrifices at the Reconsecration of the Temple.
2Ch 29:21. And they brought seven bullocks. The seven bullocks, rams, and lambs were, as the sequel shows, to serve as a burnt-offering, the seven he-goats, 2Ch 29:23, as a sin-offering; comp. Ezr 8:35.
2Ch 29:22. And the priests received the blood, took it, as in 2Ch 29:16.
2Ch 29:23. Laid their hands upon them, leaned their hands upon them, comp. Lev 1:4, from which it moreover follows that this laying on of hands took place also in the burnt-offerings. Perhaps it is specially mentioned only in the case of the sin-offering, because the circumstance that the king and the congregation (naturally its representatives, the princes) directly laid their hands on the sin-offering clearly exhibited the relation of the expiatory act to the whole of Israel; comp. the following verse.
2Ch 29:24. And the priests offered their blood for sin upon the altar, literally, made their blood to atone; , as in Lev 4:30; Lev 4:34; Lev 9:15. The whole of Israel is not merely the southern kingdom (Judah and Benjamin), but, as 2Ch 30:5 ff. shows, the whole of the twelve tribes; Hezekiahs great expiatory act was intended to affect even the Ephraimites.
2Ch 29:25. And he set the Levites with cymbals; comp. 1Ch 15:16, and with respect to the command of David, 2Ch 8:14. For Gad and Nathan as counsellors and assistants of David in his arrangement of the temple service, comp. 1Ch 21:29. By His prophets, by the hand of His prophets, is an explanatory apposition to , and denotes that the divine commandment is accomplished by the instrumentality of the prophets.
2Ch 29:26. With the instruments of David, with the instruments introduced into the divine service by David; comp. 1Ch 23:5; 1Ch 15:16.
2Ch 29:27. And when the burnt-offering began, the song of the Lord began, that is, the praise of the Lord by singing with musical accompaniment; comp. 1Ch 16:42; 1Ch 25:7.And after the instruments of David, literally, at the hands of the instruments of David; comp. 1Ch 6:16; 1Ch 25:2-3; 1Ch 25:6; 2Ch 23:18. The instruments of David appear, accordingly, as governing and leading the whole musical performance, according to a view of the relation between singing and music somewhat different from the modern.
2Ch 29:28. And the song was sung, properly, was singing, sounded. The sense of the whole verse is obvious: during the whole time of the offering the praising musical performance continued. Accordingly 2Ch 29:30 also must be understood not as if the Levites had struck up a song of praise on the close of the offering at the command of the king, but in the sense of a supplementary notice of this, that they were Davidic and Asaphic songs, which the Levitical singers performed during the solemnity. Asaph is here called a seer (), as elsewhere also Heman (1Ch 25:5) and Jeduthun (2Ch 35:15).And they praised with gladness, even unto gladness, as in 1Ch 15:16.
2Ch 29:31-36. The Presenting of Sacrifices, Thank-Offerings, and Free-Will Offerings, as the Closing Act of the Consecration.Now ye have filled your hand unto the Lord, have consecrated yourselves to His service; comp. 2Ch 8:9; Exo 28:41; Exo 32:29, etc. The words appear addressed only to the priests; but as the following sentence; Draw nigh and bring sacrifices and thank-offerings, etc., according to 2Ch 29:32 ff., applies to the whole community, this is to be considered as included with the priests, and participating in their office. Our passage belongs, therefore, to the Old Testament testimonies for the universality of the priestly dignity in the kingdom of God, like Exo 19:6; Hos 4:6; Isa 61:6.Sacrifices and thank-offerings, that is, perhaps, sacrifices even thank-offerings, or sacrifices as thank-offerings; for, according to Lev 7:11; Lev 7:16, the thank-offerings () appear as a special class of sacrifices ( or ), along with vows and free-will offerings.
2Ch 29:33. And the consecrated things,, the holy things; here the animals presented as thank-offerings. This is clear not only from 2Ch 29:32, but also from such passages as 2Ch 35:13; Neh 10:34.
2Ch 29:34. Only the priests were too few, and they could not flay all the burnt-offerings. In private burnt-offerings the flaying of the animal was the business of the worshipper, Lev 1:6; but in those presented on festivals in the name of the community, it was the business of the priests, in which, because it had no specially priestly character, the Levites might help (Keil).On , strengthen, here assist, comp. 2Ch 28:20; Ezr 6:22.For the Levites were more upright of heart to sanctify themselves than the priests, who, perhaps because they were nearer the court, were more deeply involved in the idolatrous movement under Ahaz. , properly, rectiores animo, better inclined, under a more righteous impulse.
2Ch 29:35. And also the burnt-offering was in abundance, the voluntary burnt-offerings, 2Ch 29:31 f. (70 oxen, 100 rams, 200 lambs in number), which were added to the proper sacrifice of consecration; and hence the burden of labour on the priests was very great. For the fat pieces next mentioned, comp. Lev 3:3-5; for the libations as an accompaniment of the burnt – offering, Num 15:1-16.And the service of the house of the Lord was established, prepared, arranged; comp. 2Ch 29:36; 2Ch 35:10; 2Ch 35:16. The service () is the regular sacrificial worship in the temple, not its cleansing and consecration, as Berth, thinks.
2Ch 29:36. Were glad that God had, etc.; = ; comp.1Ch 26:28. This refers not, perhaps, to the willingness of the people, which God effected by His grace (Ramb., Berth.), but the cleansing of the temple and restoration of the true theocratic worship, which was accomplished by the willing part taken by the people.For the thing was done suddenly, with unexpected readiness; comp. 2Ch 29:3.
2. The Passover: 2 Chronicles 30.
2Ch 30:1-12. Preparations for it.And wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, to those belonging to the northern kingdom, who are here named by their chief tribes; comp. 2Ch 30:5; 2Ch 30:10.
2Ch 30:2. And the king took counsel (comp. 2Ch 25:17) to keep the pass-over in the second month. Such an after-celebration of the passover is permitted by the law, Num 9:6-13, to those who, from Levitical defilement, or being on a journey, were prevented from celebrating it at the right time, on the 14th Nisan. On this decision of the law Hezekiah here rests in transferring the whole celebration from the first to the second month, because, as is expressly stated, 2Ch 30:3, those two cases of hindrance (impurity of the priests, and distance of the greater part of the people from Jerusalem) were actually involved. Peculiar, yet destitute of sufficient ground, is the assumption of Hitzig (Gesch. p. 219), that the law in Num 9:6 ff. was first occasioned by Hezekiahs after-celebration of the passover, even as almost all the laws of the fourth book of Moses originated in the times of Hezekiah.
2Ch 30:3. Because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently., compounded of , , and , signifies properly, to that which was enough, ad sufficientiam, and, in connection with , expresses here the thought that a sufficient number of sanctified Levitically clean priests could not be ready in the month of Nisan to celebrate the passover at that time ( ); comp. 2Ch 29:34. Observe, moreover, how clearly the contents of this verse, as well as the following, point to this, that the celebration of the passover, of which it treats, was to take place, and did take place, in the next month, after the consecration of the temple, and therefore in the first year of Hezekiahs reign. Comp. at the close of this chapter.
2Ch 30:5. And they settled the thing, resolved upon it; comp. 2Ch 33:8; Neh 10:33. For the proverbial form: from Beer-sheba even to Dan, to designate the whole territory of Israel, comp. Jdg 20:1; 1Sa 3:20; 2Sa 3:10, etc.; see above on 2Ch 19:4.For they had not kept it with a multitude; so is most probably to be taken. The celebration should take place with a numerous concourse of people; comp. 2Ch 30:13; Ezr 3:4. The explanation followed by Kimchi, then by Luther, and recently by de Wette: For not for a long time, is verbally inadmissible (comp. for , in the sense of in multitude, numerous, also 2Ch 30:24). A statement also follows in 2Ch 30:26 of the length of time during which the passover had not been celebrated by great numbers.
2Ch 30:6. And the posts went, the royal couriers (whether belonging directly to the kings guards is, notwithstanding 2Ch 23:1 ff., uncertain); comp. Est 3:13; Est 3:15; Est 8:14.Remaining to you from the hand of the kings of Assyria, of Tiglath-pileser and his viceroys (archons, eponyms); see on 2Ch 28:16. Pul (whether different from Tiglath-pileser, comp. on 1Ch 5:26) cannot be here intended, because he led no Israelites captive; see 2Ki 15:19. Neither can Shalmaneser be meant, as he came to the throne almost at the same time with Hezekiah, and his invasion took place in the sixth year of this king, while that which is here recorded belongs to the first year; see under 2Ch 30:27.
2Ch 30:8. Now be not stiffnecked like your fathers, since the time of Jeroboam. On making the neck stiff = being stiffnecked, comp. 2Ki 17:14; Neh 9:16 f.; on giving the hand, for yielding oneself, vowing allegiance to, 2Ki 10:15; Ezr 10:19; Eze 17:18 (as also 1Ch 29:24, Lam 5:6, submit to); for the close of the verse, 2Ch 29:10.Your brethren and your children shall find compassion before, literally, shall be for compassion before your captors; comp. Neh 1:11.
2Ch 30:10. And unto Zebulun; thus not quite to the extreme north border (not literally even to Dan, 2Ch 30:5). Observe the concrete historical character of this notice, by no means favouring the suspicion of a pure fiction of these reports on the part of our author. The messengers also might very easily reach Zebulun (and the southern Asher, 2Ch 30:11) in the interval between the 16th Nisan (2Ch 29:17) and the 14th of the following month; they could scarcely have travelled to the more northern Naphtali, next to Dan (Laish), and North Asher. But these most northern parts of the country had been quite wasted and depopulated by Tiglath-pileser; see 2Ki 15:29. That which is here stated (2Ch 30:10-11) agrees still less with the hypothesis of Caspari and Keil, that all that is related in our chapter happened in the time after the fall of Samaria (see under 2Ch 30:27), as the artificial attempts at adaptation by Keil show.
2Ch 30:12. Also the hand of God was upon Judah to give them one heart. The phrase: , here sensu bono of the blessed effect of the divine power (comp. Ezr 8:22), otherwise usually in the sense of judicial punishment (Exo 9:3; Deu 2:15, etc.).By the word of the Lord; comp. 2Ch 29:15.
2Ch 30:13-22. The Festival itself.Took away the altars; those erected by Ahaz for idolatrous burnt-offerings and incense; comp. 2Ch 28:24.
2Ch 30:15. And the priests and the Levites were ashamed; a clause referring to 2Ch 30:3, which points by way of supplement to this, that the present full participation of the Levitical spirituality, in contrast with the former deficiency (especially with regard to the priests, 2Ch 29:34), was owing to the feeling of shame meanwhile awakened in the whole order on account of their former participation in idolatry.
2Ch 30:16. And they stood in their place., place, stand, as 2Ch 35:10; Dan 8:17-18.After their rule; comp. 1Ch 6:17.The priests sprinkling the blood from the hand of the Levites, that is, the Levites handed them the blood to sprinkle on the altar. That the Levites here did this, whereas this handing of the blood was the part of the several worshipping householders (2Ch 35:6; Ezr 6:20), is explained, 2Ch 30:17, by pointing out that only the Levites were as yet all properly cleansed, and not the remaining multitude ( here, and 2Ch 30:18, a neuter substantive before the preposition, and not an adverb, as in Psa 120:6).
2Ch 30:18. Many from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun. The Chronist reports this not from an excess of national feeling, as if he wished to represent the whole northern kingdom as subjected to the Jewish king Hezekiah (H. Schultz, Theologie des Alten T. ii. 309), but simply because some of the tribes of the northern kingdom, then governed by Hosea, and already on the verge of total ruin, had sent representatives to the passover of Hezekiah, to signify that the feeling of national guilt was awakened in them in all its strength. That in 2Ch 30:11 the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun, but here Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, are named as humbled (returning penitent to the theocratic centre of worship), appears to rest on definite historical grounds, the nature of which we cannot now determine.Yet they ate the pass-over not as it was written, as Levitically unclean, and thus contrary to the precept, Num 9:6; comp. Josephus, de B. Jud.vi. 9.3, and under 2Ch 30:26.The good Lord pardon. With these closing words of 2Ch 30:18 ( ) are to be immediately connected, notwithstanding the Masoretic division of the verses, the initial words of 2Ch 30:19 : Every one that hath prepared his heart to seek God. stands thus before the relative sentence, 2Ch 30:19 [rather before ], without (as , 1Ch 15:12). On , in the sense of forgiving, comp. Psa 65:4; Lev 16:6; Lev 16:11.Though not in the cleanness of the sanctuary, though they did not strictly comply with the legal prescriptions concerning the purity to be observed in approaching the sanctuary. A remarkable mildness and almost evangelical freedom of view are expressed in these words.
2Ch 30:20. And healed the people, forgave their guilt, healed them in an ethical respect; comp. Psa 41:5; Hos 14:5; Jer 3:22. The healing of disease or of death, that was to be apprehended as punishment for their guilt (Lev 15:31), is scarcely intended (against Berth. and Kamph.).
2Ch 30:21. And the sons of Israel that were in Jerusalem, were found; comp. 2Ch 29:29, 2Ch 31:1.With instruments of might to the Lord, instruments by which they ascribed might to the Lord, glorified His might (comp. Psa 29:1), therefore with instruments for praising the might of the Lord. Interesting, but not quite certain, is the interpretation of Kamphausen, who takes by itself in the sense: with instruments of might, that is, with loud sound.
2Ch 30:22. And Hezekiah spake to the heart of all the Levites, spake hearty, loving, encouraging words to them.Who had good understanding of the Lord, of the service of the Lord.And they ate the feast seven days. We are scarcely to read, with the Sept. (see Crit. Note): And they completed the feast; for the reading: eat the feast, appears simply modelled after the known: eat the passover, as the following: offering sacrifices of peace, clearly shows (comp. also Psa 118:27). Moreover, the collective worshippers, not merely the Levites and priests, are the subject.And confessing to the Lord God of their fathers, namely, with praise and thanksgivingnot, perhaps, with penitent confession of their guilt, as some of the ancients thought. is quite the of the Hellenistic Greek (and so of the Sept. in our passage).
2Ch 30:23-27. The Feast of Seven Days after the Passover.Resolved to keep (make) other seven days with gladness. , adverbial accusative for
2Ch 30:24. For Hezekiah . . . gave to the congregation (properly, heaved, gave as a heave-offering; comp. 2Ch 35:7) a thousand bullocks, etc.; that is, the king and princes had contributed victims so liberally for the passover, that they had not consumed the whole during the seven days of the feast, but had still provision for so long an after-feast.And a great many priests sanctified themselves; the extraordinary abundance of offerings could thus be overtaken; comp. 2Ch 30:3; 2Ch 29:34.
2Ch 30:25. And the strangers that came from the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah. These strangers () from Israel and Judah are here, as certainly as they were distinct from the congregation that came out of Israel ( = Ephraim), that is, from the Ephraimites mentioned 2Ch 30:11; 2Ch 30:18, actually strangers, that is, proselytes. It is otherwise in 2Ch 15:9, where those dwelling as strangers among the Jews, from Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon, are simply the Israelites that have migrated thence.
2Ch 30:26. For since the days of Solomon was not the like in Jerusalem, no so fair and sublime a festival celebrated by so great a multitude. But the point of comparison is perhaps not any passover under Solomon, but rather the feast of the consecration of the temple under this king (2Ch 7:1-10). This resembles the passover of Hezekiah in this respect, that, with the feast of tabernacles following, it lasted also fourteen days. Because this only is intended, and not any passover of Solomon, there is no contradiction between our passage, or in general between that which is depicted in our chapter and 2Ch 35:18, and 2Ki 23:22. If in the latter passage it is said of Josiahs passover: There was not holden such a passover from the days of the Judges, this remark refers, in the first place, to the purity and legitimacy of the feast; and in this respect the present celebration by Hezekiah was defective, just as our author has expressly acknowledged.
2Ch 30:27. And the priests (and) the Levites arose; comp. Crit. Note. That the benediction of the priests was heard, and actually penetrated to His (Gods) dwelling in the heaven, our historian might conclude with sufficient certainty, from the further gladness and elevation of heart which he had to recount in the two following chapters of Hezekiahs reign (in its inner as well as outer aspect).
On the date of Hezekiahs passover, first Keil (Komment. zu den Bchern der Knige, 1845, p. 515 f.), then Caspari (Beitrge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jesaia, p. 109 ff.), and again Keil (Komment. zur Chron. p. 343 ff.), laid down the opinion that it was held not in the first year of his reign, in the next month after the cleansing of the temple, but considerably later, namely, after the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, in his sixth year. Against this assumption, and for the usual view, according to which the Chronist in our chapter means to report something immediately following the feast of the consecration described in 2 Chronicles 29 : speak1. The consec. in at the beginning of 2Ch 30:1; 2 Chronicles 2. The statement in 2Ch 30:3, that the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, which clearly refers to 2Ch 29:34, and does not at all permit the interposition of a period of six years between the two chapters; 3. The naming of the second month in 2Ch 30:2, which is certainly to be understood from 2Ch 29:3; 2Ch 29:17 (the first month, that is, Nisan, in the first year of his reign), and therefore to be referred to the first year of Hezekiah. To these in themselves decisive grounds, which Keil vainly endeavours in a long discussion to invalidate, are to be added, as further cogent arguments4. The circumstance that our author, if he had actually meant to represent the passover as instituted after the fall of Samaria and the destruction of the northern kingdom, and even with reference to the condition and necessity of the population occasioned by this catastrophe, must have expressly said so, as such an important motive for including the Ephraimites as partakers in the feast could not have been passed over in silence; 5. The circumstance that the manner in which these northern guests and their seats are mentioned in 2Ch 30:6; 2Ch 30:10 f. and 18 suits only the time after the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, not that after the fall of Samaria (see on these passages, especially 2Ch 30:11); 6. The circumstance that the description given in 2Ch 30:10-12 of the preparations for the festival, compared with the opening of the description of the feast itself in 2Ch 30:13, makes only a short duration of these preparations probable; 7. And lastly, the circumstance that the appearance of a not inconsiderable number of communicants from the northern kingdom agrees very well with that which is attested in 2Ki 17:2 of the comparatively pious and theocratic character of Hosea, the last king of Ephraim, and, on the contrary, can scarcely be reconciled with the report there, 2Ch 30:24 ff., given concerning the moral and religious condition of the population left in the northern kingdom after the defeat of Hosea and the fall of Samaria. The usual assumption, which makes the temple consecration and the passover to take place in immediate succession in the first year of Hezekiah, appears from all this to be most agreeable to the text, and alone truly corresponding with the historical relations that have to be taken into account.
3. Further Religious Reforms of Hezekiah: 2 Chronicles 31.On 2Ch 31:1, comp. 2Ki 18:4, where, however, on the one hand, the destruction of the images and altars also in Ephraim and Manasseh is not mentioned; on the other hand, the breaking of the figure of the brazen serpent (Nehushtan) is narrated, which our report does not expressly mention.All Israel that were present; comp. 2Ch 30:21. For the statues (monuments) and asherim, comp. on 2Ch 14:2.And in Ephraim and Manasseh completely. With reference to Ephraim and Manasseh, that is, the northern kingdom (comp. 2Ch 30:10), this completely ( ) is naturally to be understood cumgrano salis, and not to be pressed as a strictly literal statement. The report that in Manasseh and Ephraim also the places of idolatrous worship were removed, could scarcely, on account of 2Ki 17:24 ff., be brought into harmony with the assumption of Keil that these facts are to be placed after 722 b.C.
2Ch 31:2. And Hezekiah appointed . . . after their courses, according to the classification originating with David; comp. 1 Chronicles 24; 2Ch 8:14.Every man according to his service, properly, at the mouth of his service; comp. Num 7:5; Num 7:7.In the gates of the camp of the Lord, in the temple as well as in the court of the priests; comp: 1Ch 9:18 ff.
2Ch 31:3. And the kings portion of his property for burnt-offerings, that is, the king furnished what he had to contribute to the burnt-offering in victims out of his possession (which is described underneath, 2Ch 32:27 ff., as very great). Comp. the prescriptions of the law that here come into account, Num 28:3 ff; Num 29:1 ff.
2Ch 31:4. And he said to the people . . . to give the portion of the priests and Levites, namely, the firstlings and tithes of the increase of the cattle and the field; see Exo 23:19; Num 18:12; Num 18:21 ff.; Lev 27:30-33. The motive, that they might be stedfast in the law of the Lord, expresses the thought, that in order to fulfil their official duties they must be able to live free and untrammelled by earthly cares; comp. Neh 13:10 ff.; 1Co 9:4 ff.; 2Th 3:9; 1Ti 5:17 f.
2Ch 31:5. And when the word came forth, properly, spread forth; comp. Job 1:10. The sons of Israel there mentioned are first only the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as 2Ch 31:6 shows, for there first is mention made of the remaining sons of Israel (immigrants from the northern kingdom) and sons of Judah.
2Ch 31:6. And the tithe of holy things consecrated unto the Lord their God. If in Num 18:8 ff. not tithe () but heave-offerings () of all consecrated things, that is, of all the consecrated gifts of the Israelites, are said to fall to the Levites, this difference from our statement is only apparent, not warranting any emendation of the text after the reading of the Sept. ( , , etc.; see Crit. Note). This is merely a diversity of the phrase; what is called, Numbers 18, terumoth, is here designated tithe, because the terumoth were in like manner a remnant of that which was consecrated to the Lord, as the tithe was a remnant of all the cattle and field produce (rightly Keil. against Berth, and Kamph.).
2Ch 31:7. In the third month they began to lay down, or found; to form the heaps by gathering together the gifts in grain. The third month, in which Pentecost falls, is the time of the finished harvest, as the seventh month (with the feast of tabernacles) is that of the finished fruit and wine harvest. For the form , with dag. in , see Ew. 245 a.
2Ch 31:9-19. The Application and Preservation of the Collected Gifts.Inquired . . . concerning the heaps, he inquired how it came that so great a quantity of gifts was accumulated. Only to this meaning of his question does the following answer of the high priest correspond, especially the closing sentence of it.
2Ch 31:10. And Azariah the chief priest. Whether this be the same as the Azariah occurring, 2Ch 26:17, in the history of Uzziah, forty years before, is at least very uncertain.And this great store is left, literally, and that which is left (forms) this great store. Perhaps simply is to be read instead of (Kamph.).
2Ch 31:11. And Hezekiah said to prepare in the house of the Lord, perhaps not new store-rooms (, as 1Ch 9:26), but only a portion of those already built by Solomon (1Ki 6:5) for the reception of the stores (, as 1Ki 6:19).
2Ch 31:12. And they brought in the offerings, the first-fruits, 2Ch 31:5. On the word faithfully, conscientiously, comp. 2Ch 19:9.And over them, over the first-fruits, tithe, and consecrated things. For the name Conanjahu, comp. the Crit. Note; for the term second (next after him), , see 1Ch 5:12; 2Ki 25:18.
2Ch 31:13. And Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath. Two of these names, Jehiel and Nahath, occurred also in 2Ch 29:12; 2Ch 29:14; whether they refer to the same persons is doubtful.Overseers under Conaniah, literally, at the hand of Conaniah.By the appointment of Hezekiah, or by his order. The Azariah, ruler of the house of God, named along with the king is the high priest named 2Ch 31:10 (comp. 1Ch 9:11).
2Ch 31:14. And Kore . . . the porter toward the east; comp. 1Ch 9:18. It was his part to distribute the offering of the Lord, the portion of the peace-offering belonging to the Lord, and by him transferred to the priests (Lev 7:14; Lev 7:32; Lev 10:14 f.), and the most holy things, the part of the sin and trespass offerings to be eaten by the priests in the temple (Lev 6:10; Lev 6:22; Lev 7:6).
2Ch 31:15. And by him (properly, at his hand, 2Ch 31:13), under him, under his oversight.With truth (comp. 2Ch 31:12). This the Vulg. perhaps rightly connects with the following words: conscientiously to give, though against the accents. The object of this giving is that share of firstlings, tithes, and consecrated things which the Levites dwelling in the priestly cities were entitled by law to receive.
2Ch 31:16. Beside the register of males with the exception of the registered males from three years old and upwards who have entered into the house of the Lord, that is, are consecrated to the temple service in Jerusalem, and are therefore otherwise provided for (exempted from the provision in the priestly cities when they were at home); comp., for example, Samuel, etc.For the rate of each day; , as 2Ch 8:13 f.; Neh 11:23.
2Ch 31:17 is, like 2Ch 31:16, a parenthesis, referring to the registers of the priests and Levites.And the register of the priests. , according to Ew. 277, d; comp. Neh 9:34. On the twentieth year of the Levites, at the beginning of their official functions, comp. 1Ch 23:24; 1Ch 23:27.
2Ch 31:18 is connected with 2Ch 31:15, after the two parentheses 2Ch 31:16-17. With the dative there, , corresponds the , which likewise depends on , to give to their brethren, and to the register of all their little ones for all the congregation. This applies to the whole community of the Levites, including wives and children not merely to the priestly order (as S. Schmidt, Ramb., Kamph. intend).For in their faithfulness they sanctified themselves in the holy thing. , as 1Ch 9:22. The sanctifying themselves () refers to the disinterested and righteous distribution of the holy thing, that is, the offerings which they were entitled to receive.
2Ch 31:19. And for the sons of Aaron . . . in the fields of the suburbs of their cities; comp. Deut. 25:34; Num 35:5.Were appointed men, who were expressed by name, men of repute; comp. 2Ch 28:15; 1Ch 12:31. These officers, according to what follows, had the charge of the Levitical and priestly families occupying the land around the priestly cities, as those mentioned in 2Ch 31:15 had the charge of the priests and Levites in these cities.
2Ch 31:20-21. Close of the Report of Hezekiahs Reforms in Worship.And did that which was good and right (comp. 2Ch 14:1) and true before the Lord; , as in 2Ch 32:1; Zec 8:19.And in every work which he began . . . to seek his God, or also, seeking his God, while he sought Him; comp. 2Ch 26:5; Ezr 6:21.
4. Sennacheribs Expedition against Jerusalem, and End: 2Ch 32:1-23. Comp. the full parallel account in 2Ki 18:13 to 2Ki 19:37, and in Isaiah 36, 37, to which the present narrative, notwithstanding its parenetic, rhetorical brevity, makes some not unimportant additions. With the three parallel delineations is to be compared the full Assyriologic commentary of Schrader, pp. 168212.After these events and this faithfulness, Sennacherib, etc., properly, Sancherib (Sept.: in Chronicles, in 2 Kings and Isaiah), the Sin–ahi–irib or Sin–ahi–ir–ba (Sin, the moon-god, gives the brothers much) of the Assyrian inscriptions; according to the Assyrian canon of sovereigns, the son, reigning 705681 b.C., and successor of Sargon, the successor of Shalmaneser and conqueror of Samaria; comp. Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.And thought to break into them for himself, to take them; comp. 2Ch 21:17.
2Ch 32:2. And his face was for war against Jerusalem; comp. 2Ch 20:3; Luk 9:53.
2Ch 32:3. Took counsel . . . to stop the waters of the fountains, not to close them up wholly, but to cover them over (Luther, cover), and draw away their waters by subterranean channels.
2Ch 32:4. And they stopped . . . and the brook that flowed through the land, the Gihon, the brook of the valley of Ben-hin-nom; comp. 2Ch 32:30; 2Ki 20:20.Why should the kings of Assyria. . . find much water? On the phrase, comp. Isa 5:4; for the plural kings, above on 2Ch 28:16.
2Ch 32:5. And he strengthened himself (), as 2Ch 15:8, 2Ch 23:1.And built up all the wall that was broken; comp. Neh 4:1; Pro 25:28.And raised it to the towers, or, raised its towers, according to the probably original reading; see Crit. Note. The Masoretic text gives the quite unsuitable meaning, and rose upon the towers, or, and brought to the towers (the wall ? or the war engines?).And another wall without, he built or repaired. This refers to the wall enclosing the lower city, or Acra, which already existed, according to Isa 22:11, the repair of which is here noticed. For Millo, comp. on 1Ch 11:8; for the weapons made to defend these fortifications,arrows, missiles, and shields,comp. 2Ch 23:10, 2Ch 26:14.
2Ch 32:6. And gathered them to him in the broad way at the gate of the city; whether on the same open area at the gate as that mentioned 2Ch 29:4, toward the east, must, from the indefiniteness of the expression, remain uncertain; comp. also Neh 8:1; Neh 8:16.And spake to their heart; comp. 2Ch 30:22.
2Ch 32:7. For with us is more than with him; comp. 2Ki 6:16 and the following verse, which gives the particulars how there is more (, not a greater, as Luther translates with Hezekiah and the Israelites than with the enemy. On an arm of flesh as a designation of human impotence and apparent power comp. Isa 31:8, Jer 17:5, Psa 56:5; on to fight our battles, 1Sa 8:20; 1Sa 18:17.
2Ch 32:9-19. Sennacheribs Advance to Jerusalem. Comp. the more ample account, 2Ki 18:17-36.And he himself stood against Lachish; comp. 2Ch 25:27.And all his power with him, literally, all his sovereignty (); comp. Isa 34:1.
2Ch 32:10. Whereon do ye trust? literally, whereon are ye trusting and sitting in restraint? (distress; comp. Deu 28:53 ff.; 2Ki 24:10; 2Ki 25:2; Eze 4:7).
2Ch 32:11. Doth not Hezekiah mislead you? literally, is not Hezekiah misleading you (, as 2Ki 18:32), to deliver you to die by hunger? etc.On 2Ch 32:12, comp. 2Ki 18:22; on 2Ch 32:13-15, comp. 2Ki 18:35, Isa 36:20; Isa 37:11-13.
2Ch 32:16. And his servants spake yet more, the servants already, 2Ch 32:9, mentioned, whose Assyrian titles (Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh, 2Ki 18:17; on which comp. Schraders illustrations, p. 198 ff.) our author thinks fit not to adduce, as he omits the whole contents of their blasphemous speeches.
2Ch 32:17. And he wrote a letter. This was, according to 2Ki 19:14, at a later period, after Rabshakeh had reported to him the obstinate resistance of the Jewish people; whereas the speech here reported in 2Ch 32:18 of the servants of Sennacherib in the Jewish tongue is there (in 2 Kings) addressed to the Jews at the same time with the first negotiation. Our author has apparently traced the course of things in a real rather than a chronological order, because his aim was to exhibit an impressive advance in the steps (first a speech of the servants in the Assyrian tongue, then a letter of Sennacherib to Hezekiah, and lastly a demand to surrender in the Jewish tongue), from the same rhetorical motive that led him also before, on the occasion of the war with Syria and Ephraim, 2Ch 28:16 ff., to co-ordinate the facts not so much in a temporal as in a real sequence.
2Ch 32:20-23. Hezekiahs and Isaiahs Prayer, and the Divine Help; comp. 2Ki 19:14-35 ff.; Isa 37:15-19.And for this, , on account of this railing on the God of Israel, which they must have heard.
2Ch 32:21. And the Lord sent an angel; comp. 2Ki 19:35 ff., and Bhr on this passage. The valiant heroes destroyed by the angel are the common soldiers (comp. 2Ch 17:14), along with whom are then specially named the leaders and captains (officers and generals). On with shame of face, comp. Ezr 9:7, Psa 44:16; on they that came out of his own bowels = sons, comp. Gen 15:4; Gen 25:23, 2Sa 7:12; 2Sa 16:11; and see the Crit. Note.
2Ch 32:22. And defended them around, literally, led them around, (for which Berth, and Kamph., because the word is omitted in the Syr. and Arab., think ought to be read , and gave them rest around); comp., in the sense of protecting, Psa 31:4; Isa 34:10; Isa 51:18, etc.
2Ch 32:23. And many brought a gift to the Lord; comp. 2Ch 17:11, 2Ch 26:8; 2Ki 20:12. Among the many seem to be reckoned, as the following clause shows, members of the neighbouring nations, who had been delivered by the helpful interposition of the God of the Jews from the same calamity of war and danger of ruin.
5. Sickness, Remaining Reign, and End of Hezekiah: 2Ch 32:24-33.In those days Hezekiah was sick. Considerably fuller in 2Ki 20:1-11 and Isaiah 38 :
2Ch 32:25. And Hezekiah repaid not according to the benefit done to him, literally, according to the benefit in him; comp. Psa 116:12.For his heart became proud, literally, lifted itself up; comp. 2Ch 26:16. Wherein the proud uplifting consisted, namely, in the boastful exhibition of his treasures to the ambassadors of Babylon (2Ki 20:12 ff.), is not here said, but is briefly indicated in 2Ch 32:31; neither is the manner in which indignation came upon him (comp. 2Ch 19:10; 1Ch 27:24), namely, by a prophetic warning and announcement of punishment (Isa 39:5-7; 2Ki 20:16 ff.), more particularly defined. The mode of narrative in our section is generally that of the epitome. On 2Ch 32:26 comp. Isa 39:8; 2Ki 20:19.
2Ch 32:27-31. Hezekiahs Riches, and Building of Cities and Water-courses.And Hezekiah ha I very much riches; comp. 2Ki 20:13, and the earlier accounts in the reigns of David (1Ch 29:28), Solomon (2Ch 1:12 ff.), and Jehoshaphat (2Ch 18:1). Besides the metals themselves, are mentioned also among his treasures spices (as Dan 11:8) and shields, that is, costly gilded weapons and the like (comp. Isa 39:2).
2Ch 32:28. And storehouses for the increase of corn. (p. transpos. lit. for , from , heap up), magazines; comp. Exo 1:11; 1Ki 9:19; 2Ch 8:4And stalls for all kinds of cattle, literally, for all cattle and cattle., stalls, properly, racks; comp. the only orthographically different , 2Ch 9:25, and at the close of our verse, , which seems to mean folds. But perhaps the last clause is corrupt, and instead of flocks for the folds, rather (with the Sept. and Luther) an inversion of the terms is to be assumed; see Crit. Note
2Ch 32:29. And he made him cities, , perhaps watchtowers for the keepers of the cattle; comp. on 2Ch 26:10. and 2Ki 17:9.And possession of flocks and herds in abundance; comp. Job 1:3; for , possession, 2Ch 31:3
2Ch 32:30. This Hezekiah stopped; see on 2Ch 32:3-4.And led it straight down to the west of the city of David, led it, the water of the brook Gihon, flowing by the city on the east, by a subterranean channel westward into the city.
2Ch 32:31. And so in the case of the ambassadors of the princes of Babel. Instead of (that cannot be rendered, with Luther and others, in an adversative sense by but or though ) we expect or , only not. But the author does not intend to represent the interview with the ambassadors of Babylon as an exception to the otherwise prosperous career of the king, but rather as a confirmation of that which is said in this respect; and especially as Hezekiah was not punished for the perversity of his conduct at that time, but only humbled, and for himself, at least, spared the deserved judgment of God (comp. 2Ch 32:26). The plural princes of Babel, instead of the sing., which, according to 2Ki 20:12 ff., we might expect, is perhaps to be interpreted as the term kings in 2Ch 28:16, 2Ch 30:6, 2Ch 32:4. On the king Merodach-baladan, and on the chronology of this event, see Evangelical and Ethical Reflections, No. 3.
2Ch 32:32-33. Close of the History of Hezekiah.And his kindness, literally, kindnesses (, otherwise than 2Ch 6:42); comp. rather Neh 13:14 (against Keil).
2Ch 32:33. And they buried him in the height (or also the ascent; comp. 2Ch 20:16) of the sepulchres of, the sons of David, that is, in a place higher than the previous tombs of the kings, as in these, perhaps, there was no longer sufficient space.And gave him glory, namely, by the burning of spices and the like, as at the death of Asa (2Ch 16:14; comp. 2Ch 21:19).
Evangelical And Ethical Reflections And Apologetic Remarks. (especially With Regard To Chronology) On 2 Chronicles 29-32
1. The relation of our author concerning the history of Hezekiah includes in itself two unequal parts of tolerably heterogeneous materials,a detailed report of the reforms in worship with which the king began his reign (2 Chronicles 29-31), and an excerpted and compressed description of the chief warlike events and other public acts and occurrences of his reign (2 Chronicles 32). This plan, combining the supplementing with the excerpting process, clearly shows that it is Hezekiah the reformer of worship, and not the warlike prince and pious ruler, that he intends first and chiefly to depict. As a reformer of worship, Hezekiah deserves indeed to be held up along with Josiah, among all the kings from Solomon to the exile. The thoroughgoing spirit, strong faith, and energy displayed in his measures leaves all that had been formerly undertaken by Asa and Jehoshaphat far behind; and even the later Josiah, notwithstanding the character of stricter legality which his measures bore, cannot compare with him, inasmuch as the reforming activity of Hezekiah prepared the way for his own, and thus he stood, as it were, on the shoulders of Hezekiah, and had to look up to what was accomplished by the latter as his model. Between those less efficient and less decided predecessors and this successor, more zealous indeed, but less favoured by fortune, and aiming at no perpetuity of his labours, Hezekiah stands as the greatest hero of faith, as the purest evangelical character among the Jewish kings of the Old Testament. His work forms, by virtue of his powerful, ruthlessly stringent opposition to idolatry, and his honourable zeal for the law, coupled with sincere devotedness of heart to God, a striking typical parallel to that of the evangelical princes in the age of the Reformation,John the Constant, Philip the Magnanimous, Edward VI., Gustavus Vasa, etc.; while his predecessors, Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Joash, correspond merely to the better disposed kings and emperors of the Middle Ages maintaining a certain independence towards Rome (as Frederic Barbarossa, Louis ix. of France, etc.); but in Josiah is presented the type of such epigoni of the more potent manifestations of the Reformation period as Ernest the Pious of Saxe Gotha, Frederic iv. of Denmark, etc. So far as such parallels between Israelitish and Christian history are allowable,but that they should be instituted with great precaution and the most careful avoidance of the imminent danger of arbitrary trifling, is shown by very many warning examples, especially in the region of the Roman Catholic theological literature of recent times,19it is natural to set beside the great reformatory activity of King Hezekiah the contemporary movement of a powerful reform and revival of the whole religious and moral life by such heroes of prophecy as Isaiah, Micah (and as probably an older Zechariah, author of Zechariah 9-11), and to suppose the one conditioned and supplemented by the other,his action as the renovator of the religious life and the external theocratic order and discipline, and the endeavour of these prophetic men after the purification of the religious consciousness and the quickening of the moral conscience of their people. For certainly his religious reform would not have been practicable without the co-operation of this contemporaneous life-reform by his prophetic friends and counsellors; and we can as little separate the royal reformer Hezekiah from the royal seer, as those princes of the Reformation age from the Reformers Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Calvin, etc.20 Indeed, the circle of those wise men around Hezekiah, to whom, according to Pro 25:1, was due the then completed collection of the old Solomonic proverbial literature, and in reference to whom Hezekiah himself has been called the Pisistratus of the Israelitish literature (Delitzsch, Kommentar ber den Psalter, ii. 377), we may well assert to be a moment of the typical parallelism, and regard the work of these men as a type of the humanists contemporary with the Reformers, and often lending them support.
2. That in our author these manifestations, contemporaneous with Hezekiah, and co-operating with him, the importance of which certainly should not be undervalued, retire into the background, and that he mentions the prophet Isaiah only once in passing (2Ch 32:20), and those wise men of Hezekiah not at all, corresponds exactly with his character as a historian abiding always by the priestly and Levitical point of view. The credibility of his narrative cannot be disputed on account of this onesidedness. A great number of highly definite and concrete statements in the chapters peculiar to him attest the character of their contents as well founded, and free from any suspicion of fiction. Thus the names of the fourteen Levites in 2Ch 29:12-14 rest as undoubtedly on historical tradition as those of the others in 2Ch 31:12-15. And as little as these names can be invented, will that which is related, 2Ch 30:1 ff., (10 f., 18 ff., and 2Ch 31:1, concerning the participation of inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes in Hezekiahs religious acts and reforms bear a fictitious character. The authenticity of these statements is liable to no manner of doubt, view them chronologically as we willwhether we refer them, with Keil and Caspari (see on 2Ch 30:27), to events that happened after 722 b.C., or, with the majority of expositors, assign them a place in the first years of Hezekiahs reign. The excerpt also from 2 Kings 18-20 and Isaiah 36-39, which he presents in 2 Chronicles 32, proves, by its essential agreement with these fuller parallels, the conscientiousness and reliableness of the procedure of our author. Where he presents smaller supplements to the reports there,as, for example, in his accounts of the fortifications and measures of defence by Hezekiah in 2Ch 32:5 (comp. 2Ch 32:30),these supplements bear in themselves their warrant as actual and trustworthy. And where he, in accordance with his rather real than chronological grouping of events, makes alterations in the order of the facts to be related, as in 2Ch 32:16-18 (comp. also 2Ch 32:24-31), there never results a representation strictly contrary to history. We are to note, moreover, the circumstance, significant of his theocratic idealizing tendency, and recalling analogous omissions in the history of the reigns of David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, that he passes over various incidents less favourable to the character of Hezekiah as a specially fortunate and illustrious ruler; for example, the facts that Sennacherib not only besieged but took many Jewish cities (comp. 2Ch 32:1 with 2Ki 18:13); that Hezekiah was compelled to pay a large tribute to the same sovereign, and for this purpose to take off the gold plating of the temple doors (2Ki 18:16); that he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth (2Ki 19:1), etc., and, on the whole, reports only that which proves his glorious and happy government. His representation of the work of Hezekiah has thus received a peculiarly optimistic colouring, beside which that of the other fuller report looks almost like pessimism. But even the sharpest critic would scarcely be able to show that the Chronistic narrative, notwithstanding its idealistic onesidedness, involves any misstatement of facts or distortion of history.
3. An important and difficult inquiry, that, however, concerns the narrative of our book equally with the older parallel text, is involved in the synchronism of the history of Hezekiah in the sacred Scripture and in the contemporary Assyrian monuments. While the most important event of this history in a temporal or spiritual respect, the fall of Samaria or the destruction of the northern kingdom by Shalmaneser and Sargon (namely, by Shalmaneser [Salmanu-ser, God Salman is good] as beginner, and by Sargon [Sarrukin, mighty the king] as finisher of the besieging and destroying work),21 according to the unanimous testimony of both sources, is to be placed in the year 722 (or 721) b.C., with regard to the next more important event, the invasion of Sennacherib (2Ch 32:1-23, and the parallel), a difference is exhibited of not less than thirteen years between the statements of the Assyrian monuments and those of sacred Scripture. For those assign this expedition to the year 701, full twenty years after the accession of Sargon and the fall of Samaria; whereas the Bible (2Ki 18:13; Isa 36:1) places it in the 14th year of Hezekiah, only eight or nine years after the fall of Samaria, which took place in the sixth year of this king, 714 b.C. A reconciliation of these very diverse dates seems at present impossible; and as there is a great number of Assyrian inscriptions which agree in assigning the great Egypto-Palestinian expedition of Sennacherib to the fourth year of his reign (that is, as he must have reigned 705681, to the year 701), it seems necessary to abandon the biblical date as incorrect, and to substitute for the 14th the 27th or 28th year of Hezekiah as the date of the event. A further chronological difference appears to open between the Bible and the inscriptions with regard to the embassy of the Babylonian king Merodach-baladan to Hezekiah (2Ki 20:12 ff.; Isa 39:1 ff.). If we hold this Merodach-baladan (Assyro – Babylonian, Marduk–habal–iddina, Merodach bestowed the son; see Schrader, p. 213) to be identical with the of the Ptolemaic canon, the fifth king of Babylon according to this document, the whole transaction in question must, as the synchronism of the Assyrian inscriptions and of this canon determines the years 721710 as the period of this monarchs reign, be placed a number of years before the invasion of Sennacherib, on the presumption that this fell in 701. And even if we take, not that Mardokempad (or Marduk-habal-iddina), but a later sovereign of the same name reigning only a short time (six months), mentioned by Berosus (or Alexander Polyhistor) in Eusebius, Chron. Armen. i. p. 19, edit. Mai, for the Merodach-baladan of Holy Scripture, as is done by Winer, Knobel, Hitzig, and recently by Schrader (p. 213 ff.), yet the reign even of this second Merodach falls before 701, namely, according to the canon of Ptolemy, in the year 704 or 703. The transposition of the reports in question seems therefore unavoidable. The statement in Isaiah 39 (and 2Ki 20:12 ff.) concerning Hezekiahs display of his treasures before the ambassadors of Babylon must apparently be placed, with Oppert (Die biblische chronologie, festgestellt nach den assyrischen Keilinschriften, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1869, p. 137 ff.), Delitzsch (Komment. zu Jes. 2d edit. 1869), Diestel (on Knobels Isaiah , 4 th edit.), and Schrader (Keilinschriften, p. 218), before the account in Isaiah 36 f. 2 Kings 18 f.) of the expedition of Sennacherib, say about ten years, or (with Schrader) at least two or three years; and the full treasure-chambers which Hezekiah shows to the ambassadors must be regarded as those which Sennacherib had not yet emptied (2Ki 18:13 ff.), not (with Keil, Knobel, Thenius, Bhr, Neteler, and others) as replenished from the booty left on the part of the hastily retreating army of Sennacherib, nor even as remaining sufficiently full notwithstanding the contribution imposed by the Assyrians.The question, whether we are warranted or necessitated by the diverging dates of the monuments of profane history to assume so important chronological inaccuracies or perversions in the biblical sources, that is, in the here substantially agreeing reports of the second book of Kings, the book of Isaiah, and Chronicles, should scarcely be decided so hastily and unceremoniously in favour of the former testimonies, as has been done by Schrader (p. 292 ff.), in accordance with Diestel (pp. 169, 325), Rohling (in the Literar. Handweiser fr das Kathol. Deutschland, 1872, No. 124), and others. With regard, also, to the wide differences between the Assyrian and biblical chronology before the reign of Hezekiah, which amount,22 in the estimate of Assyriologists, sometimes to forty or fifty years, the greatest possible precaution and reserve is to be recommended in drawing conclusions unfavourable to the authority of Holy Scripture. For if not in the way proposed by Oppert (according to which a break in the list of Assyrian eponyms for nearly fifty years would have to be assumed, and the great difference for this early period derived therefrom; which, however, Schrader, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. 2 Chronicles 25 : p. 449 ff., declares to be inadmissible23), yet in some other way, sooner or later, a greater approximation of the divergent testimonies might easily be accomplished, and so the difference of the dates at least considerably reducedjust as the chronological deviations of the Egyptian monuments from the biblical statements were formerly held by many Egyptologists to be more considerable than is now generally the case, after a more thorough and extensive investigation of the existing sources. Neteler has made an attempt, in several respects untenable and precipitate, to reconcile the divergences on both sides in the parts of his Commentary on Chronicles that refer to chronology (pp. 195 ff., 224 ff, 263 ff.), in which he brings down the reigns of the Israelitish and Jewish kings from the division of the kingdom (which he dates at 933 instead of 975 b.C.) to Zedekiah by several decennia (from Josiah at least by several years), and accordingly makes Jehu reign 846819, Uzziah 786735, Ahaz 720705, Hezekiah 706678 (from 692 with his son Manasseh as co-regent), Josiah 637607. That this attempt, as well on the biblical sidehere chiefly by arbitrary assuming of various co-regencies, as of Amaziah with his father Joash, of Uzziah with Amaziah, of Hezekiah with Ahaz, and of Manasseh with Hezekiahas on the Assyriologic, rests on several untenable presuppositions (in the latter respect, for example, on the long-since refuted opinion of the identity of Sargon with Shalmaneser), needs no further demonstration. Comp. Schraders critical counter remark in his review of Netelers commentary in the Literarischen Centralblatt of the year 1872. As little can we certainly regard the onesided chronology of Schrader, founded on the Assyrian documents, as absolutely satisfactory, especially as it involves not a few uncertainties, and often rests on documents not yet fully interpreted.24
Footnotes:
[1] Kethib: (as in Jer 15:4, etc.); Keri: (as, for example, in Deu 28:25).
[2]For the name the Sept., c. Al., gives ; c. Vat., I; Vulg., Jalaleel.
[3] Kethib: Jeuel; Keri: Jeiel; comp. 1Ch 9:35, and elsewhere.
[4] Kethib: Jehuel; keri: Jehiel. The latter form in 2Ch 31:13 is the kethib.
[5]The Sept. does not express the before . The Vulg. and Syr. appear to have read it, but render very freely.
[6] kethib: ; Keri: ; as in 1Ch 15:24; 2Ch 5:12; 2Ch 7:6; 2Ch 13:14.
[7]The Sept., Vulg., and apparently the Syr., though it translates rather freely, give up here the Masoretic division of the verse, and join immediately with the following verse. So also R. Kimchi, and after him most of the moderns.
[8]For , and they ate, the Sept. appears to have read ( ).
[9]The before in some mss., and in the old versions (Sept., Vulg., Syr.), seems a gloss from 2Ch 30:25. Comp. for the asyndeton: the priests, the Levites, for example, 2Ch 23:18.
[10]For some mss. and old prints have (accus. of direction).
[11]For the Sept. ( ) seems to have read , and so named goats also along with oxen and sheep.
[12]For the Kethib has twice (2Ch 31:12-13) (so also Luther).
[13]Instead of the Sept. has read ; but the Masoretic reading is to be preferred on real grounds; comp. 2Ch 32:30; 2Ki 20:20; Sir 48:17.
[14]For (Words which the Sept. leaves untranslated), from the et exstruxit turres desuper of the Vulg., seems to have originally stood in the text (Ew., Keil, Kamph., etc.).
[15]The Kethib is miswritten for (contracted from and , constr. pl. of ), a form like , 1Ch 20:4
[16]Some mss. place after , a supplement which, unnecessary in itself, is not confirmed by the Sept. or Vulg.
[17]The Sept. ( ) appears to have had another reading; perhaps also the Vulg. (caulasque pecorum); comp. Luthers translation: and folds for the sheep.
[18] Kethib: (Pi.); Keri: (Pi. contracted).
[19]We refer especially to the writings of Phil. krementz (Present Bishop of Braunsberg),The Old Testament as the Type of the New (Coblenz, 1863); Israel the Type of the Church, attempt to elucidate the history of Christianity by the typical history of Israel (Mainz, 1865); The Gospel in the Book of Genesis, or the Life of Jesus typified by the History of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (Coblenz, 1867); The Life of Jesus the prophecy of the History of His Church (Freiburg, 1869): likewise to such works as that of the barefooted Carmelite Carl St. Aloysius, The History of Man, a Divine Work of Creation on the Region of the Moral World (Wrzburg, 1861), and so forth. A useful counterpart to the extravagances of these works, with their paralienstic trifling, is pointed our by W. J. Thiersch: Genesis, according to its Moral and prophetical Import (Frankfurt a M. 1869).
[20]Compare the remarks of Rudelbach on the typical relation of the Old Testament prophets to the Reformers in several of his writings; for example, in Reformation, Lutherthum, and Union; in his biography of Savonarola (p. 283 ff.); in the treatise, Die Grundtwigsche Theorie und die Lutherische Kirche (in the Zeitschrift fr die gesammte lutherische Theologie, 1857, i. p. 12). To this should be added the far and wide custom since the Reformation itself (for example, in Zwinglius in his letter ad Zasium, in Melanchthon, etc.) of drawing parallels between Luther and such prophets of the first rank as Elijah, Isaiah, etc. Comp. also Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, iii.1, pp. 321, 341.
[21]This relation of the Shalmaneser of 2 Kings to the Sargon of Isaiah 20, Oppert and Schrader (Stud. und Krit. 1870. p. 527 ff.: 1871, p. 679 ff.) have now finally established, against the identity or only nominal diversity of these two governors asserted by many (M. v. Niebuhr Dunker, Sayce, Riehm, ect.). Comp. also Diestel, in Knobels Isaiah , 4 th edit. p. 169.
[22]
Comp. the juxtaposition of some of the biblical with the corresponding Assyrian dates, as they are presented by Schrader, p. 299.
Assyrian Monuments.
Bible.
Ahab,
854
(battle at Karkar)
918896
(reign of Ahab)
Jehu,
842
(payment of tribute)
884857
( of Jehu)
Uzziah,
745739
(at war with Tiglath-pileser)
809759
( of Uzziah)
Menahem,
738
(payment of tribute)
771761
( of Menahem)
Pekah,
734
(conquered by Tiglath-pileser)
758738
( of Jehu)
Hosea,
728
(last year in which Ausih paid tributet Tiglath-pileser)
758738
( of Hosea)
Fall of Samaria,
722
722
(fall of Samaria)
Hezekiah,
701
(expedition of Sennacherib)
714
(expedition of Sennacherib)
Manasseh,
681673
(payment of tribute)
696642
(reign of Manasseh).
After differing at first about forty or fifty years, then about twenty or thirty, the Assyrian Chronology merges into the biblical in Hosea; in the fall of Samaria the two reckonings coincide; and so mainly in the reign of Manasseh; but with regard to the expedition of Sennacherib, a deviation of full thirteen years again takes place.
[23]Comp. also Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 300 f.: By this (granted that such an assumption [as the break of the list of eponyms for forty-seven years] were admissible) the difference between the Bible and the monuments would be expunged so far as the times of Ahab and Jehu are concerned; but john would have paid his tribute, which, according to Opperts calculation, must have been presented in the year 888, four years before his accession to the throne, 884. But in the time of Azariah and Menahem the omission of the forty-seven years would produce a still greater gap; at the most, twenty or thirty years would have to be cast off. etc.. . . And besides,. . . this whole notion of a break in the list of eponyms is untenable, and, irrespective of its internal improbability, is simply weecked on the parallel lists of reigns and the rotation of officers, extending over from the one reign to the other, which is thereby preserved to us.
[24]Comp., as the most recent attempt at a critical chronology of this period, the treatise of H. Brand: Die Knigs reihen von Juda und Israel nach den bibl. Berichten und den Keilinschriften, Leipzig 1873.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 424
HEZEKIAHS ZEAL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD
2Ch 30:1-11. And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.
INFLUENCE is a talent of vast importance; but it is often most abused, where it exists in the highest degree. Kings and princes are rarely to be found amongst those who are foremost in the work of reformation: and, where their exertions are used, they are actuated as much by political principles as by those which are religious. Here however we see a monarch uniting with all his princes in a work of piety, in which politics bore no part at all. Hezekiah, not content with calling on his own subjects to serve the Lord, sought to bring his very enemies to the same blessed state, even those enemies who not long before had smitten them with a great slaughter, even with a rage that reached up to heaven [Note: 2Ch 28:5; 2Ch 28:9.]. The account is so circumstantial and so beautiful, that I have comprised it all in my text; which will lead me to shew,
I.
The efforts he used in the service of his God
The object he sought to accomplish was one of primary importance
[The passover was the greatest of all the Jewish feasts, as the mercies which it was intended to commemorate were the greatest that had ever been vouchsafed to that people. The destruction of the Egyptian first-born was, as you know, confined to them. The Israelites throughout the whole land were exempt from the judgment inflicted on all others without exception. In order to their deliverance, they were to kill a lamb, and sprinkle the posts and lintels of their doors with its blood: and then the destroying angel was to pass over their houses without inflicting a stroke either on man or beast that was so protected. In commemoration of this wonderful event the passover was to be kept with great strictness in all future ages. But it had been shamefully neglected during the reign of his father Ahaz; and was now therefore appointed to be kept with peculiar solemnity. This ordinance above all others typified our redemption through the blood of Christ. The appointment of God was, that it should be kept at Jerusalem: and this command was as binding upon the ten tribes of Israel as it was upon Judah and Benjamin. He summoned all therefore, as well the tribes of Israel who were not under his government, as the two tribes who were his immediate subjects, to engage in this holy duty: and he spared neither trouble nor expense to attain his end.]
The way in which he endeavoured to accomplish his end was peculiarly amiable and praiseworthy
[Though a king, he used not so much the language of authority as of affectionate counsel and entreaty: Turn again, said he, unto the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel. Be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were. He reminds them of the bitter consequences of their past departure from God, consequences which they could not but trace to that source, since the very judgments which Gods prophets had denounced against them were actually visible in the desolations that were come upon them, a great part of their nation having been already taken captive by the king of Assyria. He then urges every argument that could influence an ingenuous mind. He assures them, that God would still be gracious to them, if they would but return to him: yea, that he would even restore to their own land those who had been taken captive, if they would but seek him with their whole hearts. In a word, he entreats them to yield up themselves unreservedly unto God, in an assured expectation, that, if they returned to him in a way of penitential sorrow, he would return to them in a way of love and mercy.
Now the whole of this affords as bright a pattern of wisdom, and piety, and love, as is to be found in all the Jewish records.]
Let us then proceed to contemplate,
II.
The success with which those efforts were attended
This was far from being so complete as might have been expected. Some only mocked his messengers, and laughed them to scorn
[However closely we examine the message which he sent, we shall find in it nothing that could give just occasion for ridicule or contempt. But ungodly men, even in self-defence, deride every thing which savours of piety. They have done so in every age. When Lot entreated his sons-in-law to escape out of Sodom, he seemed, we are told, as one who mocked to his sons-in-law, so ridiculous were his exhortations in their eyes. In precisely the same way were all the messages delivered by the prophets regarded; till God was provoked to give up his people to utter desolation [Note: 2Ch 36:16.]. It might be supposed that the infinite perfections of our blessed Lord should disarm such malice; and that his words at least would be universally received. But many who heard them regarded him only as a deceiver and a demoniac. The very Pharisees, who from their knowledge of the Scriptures might have been supposed to form a more correct judgment, derided him as much as others; because they were addicted to the sins which he reproved [Note: Luk 16:14.]. The holy Apostles shared the same fate with their Divine Master; and when most speaking the words of truth and soberness were most virulently derided as babblers and as fools [Note: Act 26:24-25.]. And thus it is at the present hour. Every man who seeks to reclaim a world that lieth in wickedness will be reproached and persecuted, and, generally speaking, will be persecuted in proportion to his fidelity.]
Some however complied with his exhortations
[Among the tribes of Judah and Benjamin there was a great unanimity in turning to the Lord, because the hand of God was with them, to give them an obedient heart. And from amongst the tribes of Israel also many humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. These kept the feast with great joy and gladness [Note: ver. 21.]: yea, so did they delight in the pious work, that when they had fulfilled the week which God had appointed for the celebration of the feast, they were anxious of themselves to continue it another week [Note: ver. 23.], notwithstanding the protracting of the period interfered with the pressing engagements of the harvest. Say whether this was not a rich compensation to Hezekiah for all the ridicule which the contemners of his piety had cast upon him? Yes, if one soul be of more value than the whole world, no doubt but that the welfare of so many souls was in his eyes an abundant recompence for all his toil and labour.]
That we may not confine our thoughts to the events of that day, but may render them profitable to our own souls, I shall consider myself as a messenger sent on a similar occasion to you, not from an earthly monarch, but from the King of kings
[You would I call to keep a paasover unto the Lord: for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. O consider the benefits you derive from his blood sprinkled on your souls! Think of yourselves as the very first-born whom he has redeemed unto God, and who are Lords peculiar portion Think how grievously this mystery has been neglected by you and by all around you And how manifest is his indignation against the contemners of his love and mercy! See, and tell me, are not the great mass around you enslaved by sin, and carried captive by the devil at his will? Have not you yourselves too much reason to fear his displeasure on account of your multiplied iniquities? Turn then unto him in penitence and prayer; yea, turn unto him with your whole hearts. I would urge this by every consideration that is proper to influence the human mind. Think how gracious your Redeemer is, and ready both to receive you to mercy, and to deliver you out of the hands of your spiritual enemies Think too how awful will be the consequence of continuing to rebel against him Be no longer stiff-necked, but turn to him, and yield yourselves entirely to him. This is your reasonable service [Note: Rom 12:1.]: and if ungodly men deride and mock your piety, let it suffice you that you shall at least have the approbation of your God
And to you who have influence let me say, Exert that influence in behalf of all to whom it can extend. Use it abroad as well as at home; amongst enemies, as well as friends. Seek to recover the dispersed of Israel and of Judah to the service of their God, that they may participate with you the mercies purchased for them by the blood of the Paschal Lamb ]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS
This chapter relates the continuance of Hezekiah’s good reign. He proclaims a passover. The people are earnest in destroying the idols.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
It should seem that in consequence of the general defection of the people from the worship of the Lord, the holy service of the passover had not been punctually observed. And at the time when Hezekiah set up this reform in the opening of his reign the season of the paschal feast was over. Unwilling to let so refreshing a service pass by until another year, the king availed himself of a permission in the law which was made for persons under uncleanness, that when by reason of this they could not observe it at its proper season, they might keep it in the second month instead of the first. Num 9:10-11 . The king therefore having taken counsel on this subject, and it meeting the general approbation both of the princes and the congregation, the celebration of the passover was determined upon. Reader! what a superiority in point of privilege are we of the gospel church called to, in that we have our holy supper, in commemoration of Christ our passover sacrificed for us every month, and if occasion offers, every day, and like the primitive church may daily in the temple, or from house to house, be engaged in the sweet service of breaking of bread and of prayer. Yes! dearest Jesus! thy people whom thou hast made kings and priests to God and the Father, are supposed to be daily carrying about in their body the dying of the Lord Jesus! Act 2:46 ; 2Co 4:10 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Hezekiah: A True Priest
2Ch 30
WE have seen what a wonderful reformation was wrought by Hezekiah. We have been startled to find how much can be done by one man when he gathers himself up into his whole strength, and moves step by step under the inspiration of sacred conviction. Everything was repaired, restored, returned to its place, and now Hezekiah longs to see all Israel at worship. The idea is familiar to us, but it was novel under the circumstances indicated in this chapter. “Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah” ( 2Ch 30:1 ). Can there be anything more? A very significant line follows “and wrote letters also.” Blessed be God for that extending, including, pathetic term! such an extension of the invitation as includes others. “And wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh.” He would have the northern kingdom included; he would forget all separations and boundaries; his enthusiam should overbear all mere details, and would weld together into one sacred consolidation the whole family of Israel. That family had been split up, had gone to war with itself, had become haughty as between one branch and another, and had receded with the object of founding competitive kingdoms or provinces. Under the inspiration of a sublime religious enthusiasm, Hezekiah would have them all meeting en masse. If anything can overcome littleness, bitterness, bigotry, sense of transient or permanent wrong, it is a great pentecostal enthusiasm. It is not a little fire that can melt some metals; we need a whole furnace, with men to watch it that it do not lose a single degree of its heat, that it be kept up to its highest possible atmosphere, so that the most stubborn metals may give way and flow out like oil. When the nation is caught in a pentecostal enthusiasm in relation to the cross, men will forgive one another all round with multiplied pardons; yea, they will so forgive as not to know they have done it, as a merely mechanical act; it will be part of their very worship, an essential feature of their own personal and spiritual life. Here is the operation of a noble instinct. When men are truly hospitable and plan a feast, how the list of guests grows! At first the proposition is for a definite number, but as a sense of hospitality warms the heart, the heart thinks of one more, and another; then suddenly the intending host says, What if this be the time for inviting ? and then after a pause he names an alienated member of the family, saying, in hopeful monologue, This may be the time for reconciliation: who can tell? At all events he shall have a letter: that letter may be as a gospel both to him and to me. And then he bethinks himself of another who may as well be invited, until he has exhausted his space, until he has called “all Israel and Judah,” and written “letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel.” There is a hospitality that is evangelistic. There is a movement of the heart in hospitable directions, which being properly interpreted means that God has sent forth his messengers to all hungering and thirsting men, saying that his banquet is ready. Have we lost enthusiasm? Are we still only bigots and not believers? Are we still but constables of orthodoxy, and not the preachers of the great redemption? Is the Old Testament to exceed the New in largeness of thought, in inclusiveness of generosity? Is it better to be citizens of an empire that never saw Christ in the flesh, than to be citizens of a commonwealth which boasts his name? It would be hard work to outdo Old Testament saints in anything that is good; they stand well on the page of history; and when they were true of heart what music they made in the wilderness, and in the city, and in the house of God! When they sang, the only thing they were short of was space; it seemed as if such a surging song needed a new creation for a theatre. A pity it is if we are living retrogressively, backing out of the world, instead of going forward with the step and the port of conquerors.
The passover was held. A most remarkable statement is made in connection with that event. True worship had utterly gone down; it was impossible to keep the passover at the time, and to keep it in the appointed way, but still it was kept, at a time and after a fashion peculiarly its own. Read these words
“Yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written” ( 2Ch 30:18 ).
There is a prescribed religion, an orderly worship, a programme lined out in most minute detail. The passover was to be eaten upon a certain day, and was to be eaten multitudinously, that is to say, all the people were to be there in their thousands. It was not to be eaten personally and individually, or snatched at in any irregular form; it was meant to be the feast of the nation. But for various reasons the law could not be carried out literally. What did the people then do? Just what we are called upon to do: they did what was possible. We must not stand too much upon literal ceremony. If we cannot all come together to worship God in one mass, those who can come must come and do their best. If men cannot all come on the appointed day sweet, queenly Sabbath day let them come in at some odd time and touch the altar; it shall be as if they had come on the appointed morning; God will accept their time; God will put himself at the disposal of men whose time is not their own: He is a merciful God; he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust; he knows all the conditions which surround us and limit us, and when we cannot rise to the rigorous requirements of the law he will meet us more than half-way. Jesus answered prayers on the roadside. There was a temple and there was an hour of prayer: “Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer.” That was right. But Jesus Christ did a great deal of irregular work; he made the hedgeside a sanctuary, he made the open turnpike a way that lay straight up to heaven and ended at the very throne of God. When blind men cried to him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us!” he did not refer to the temple or to the hour of prayer. Where the prayer was the answer was; where needy man is Christ will not be absent. The one condition of his presence is conscious need. Let the soul say, I want him, I pine for him O that I knew where I might find him! and he will be there. He loves the heart that yearns for him. We need not be alone. Our solitude is a proof of our impiety. Faith lives in perpetual fellowship, hope is never out of society, yet never in it in any sense that trammels its liberty or beclouds its outlook. On the other hand, we need not make ourselves eccentric worshippers merely for the sake of being eccentric. Under the circumstances detailed in the narrative the people could do no other. Things had so disordered themselves, and all religious life had fallen into such desuetude or dilapidation, that it was impossible to keep up a punctilious observance of times and numbers and places. So the passover was eaten “otherwise than it was written.” If we do not urge this term “otherwise” to false issues it may really be a most comfortable word in the matter of religious education. Apply it to irregular places, and it covers them and consecrates them. Men who cannot get to the altar in the temple may find an altar at their work, even when they have to work on the Sabbath day, as on the sea and in difficult circumstances colonial life, wilderness life, relations that involve anxiety and danger. A man may be in church when he is thousands of miles away from any building known by that name. Let us apply this idea to other things. It is an extraordinary thing that all men do not think alike. But they are as little divided upon religion as they are upon many other subjects which are great. Men are even divided in their political thoughts, strange as it may appear citizens of the same country, patriots of the same empire, living and dying for the land in which they were born; yet sometimes even politicians speak loudly to one another, and loudly about one another. So in the religious world there is no monotony. Every man builds a universe for himself, even when he says nothing about it. There is a chamber of imagery in the heart, in the soul, in that spiritual mystery which lies within and makes us men. But where we are sincere, not according to the light we have, but sincere in desiring more light, we shall eat the passover, though we may eat it “otherwise than it is written “: no formal Church may recognise us, no well-organised community may look upon us otherwise than with suspicion; yet all the while we may be eating bread with the Lord and having our hunger grow by what it feeds on, for having tasted that he is gracious we want to eat and to drink abundantly, endlessly, saying, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
Hezekiah showed himself to be a true priest as well as a true king, for recognising the irregularity of the work he prayed for them, saying,
“The good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary” ( 2Ch 30:18-19 ).
Did the whole matter end in spiritual excitement? Was this enthusiasm a swelling billow which, having heaved itself to the utmost, subsided with more or less of foam as it broke upon the shore? No. Out of this enthusiasm came iconoclasm, image-breaking, the spirit of destruction. That is the real meaning of salvation. The meaning of salvation is destruction, as well as preservation. As saints go up in their structure, and in all spiritual value and nobleness, devils go down: as heaven enlarges, hell curtails would God its last cinder would burn itself out and leave the universe clear of its awful smoke!
Note
Hezekiah (“strength of Jehovah”), twelfth king of Judah, son of the apostate Ahaz and Abi (or Abijah), ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, b.c. 726. Since, however, Ahaz died at the age of thirty-six, some prefer to make Hezekiah only twenty years old at his accession, as otherwise he must have been born when Ahaz was a boy of eleven years old. This indeed is not impossible; but, if any change be desirable, it is better to suppose that Ahaz was twenty-five and not twenty years old at his accession.
Hezekiah was one of the three most perfect kings of Judah ( 2Ki 18:5 ). His first act was to purge, and repair, and reopen, with splendid sacrifices and perfect ceremonial, the Temple, which had been despoiled and neglected during the careless and idolatrous reign of his father. This consecration was accompanied by a revival of the theocratic spirit, so strict as not even to spare “the high places,” which, although tolerated by many well-intentioned kings, had naturally been profaned by the worship of images and Asherahs ( 2Ki 18:4 ). A still more decisive act was the destruction of a brazen serpent, said to have been the one used by Moses in the miraculous healing of the Israelites ( Num 21:9 ), which had been removed to Jerusalem, and had become, “down to those days,” an object of adoration, partly in consequence of its venerable character as a relic, and partly perhaps from some dim tendencies to the ophiolatry common in ancient times. To break up a figure so curious and so highly honoured showed a strong mind, as well as a clear-sighted zeal, and Hezekiah briefly justified his procedure by calling the image “a brazen thing.” When the kingdom of Israel had fallen, Hezekiah extended his pious endeavours to Ephraim and Manasseh, and by inviting the scattered inhabitants to a peculiar Passover kindled their indignation also against the idolatrous practices which still continued among them. This passover was, from the necessities of the case, celebrated at an unusual, though not illegal ( Num 9:10-11 ) time, and by an excess of Levitical zeal, it was continued for the unprecedented period of fourteen days. For these latter facts the chronicler (2Ch 31 ) is our sole authority, and he characteristically narrates them at great length. It would appear at first sight that this passover was celebrated immediately after the purification of the Temple; but careful consideration makes it almost certain that it could not have taken place before the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, when the fall of Samaria had stricken remorseful terror into the heart of Israel (2Ch 31:1 ; 2Ch 30:6 , 2Ch 30:9 ). Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.
Prayer
Almighty God, fill our hearts with thy light; establish our confidence in thy righteousness; lead us in the paths of uprightness for thy name’s sake. All the work is thine; we cannot do it, it is too great for us; but thou hast made us willing in the day of thy power that thou shouldest do it within us and for us altogether. We would yield ourselves to thy ministry, thou holy Spirit; we want light, rest, peace, hope. Thou knowest how many things are against us, always fighting against our prayer and our best desire and our tenderest longing; but they that are for us are more than they that be against us. We will trust in the living God, we will look unto the Almighty for defence, we will stand within the sanctuary of thy righteousness, and thy love, and thy pity; then shall we be comforted, how dark soever the sky may be, and how uncertain soever may be the blessings of this life. Teach us the right method of looking at all things; may we not be busy here and there, and let the king pass by without seeing him; for then we should play the fool before God, and spend our industry in vanity. Give us to feel what is important, and what is not important; and may we, having ascertained that the soul is more than the body, and the future more than the present, and the spiritual greater than the material, betake ourselves with faithful constancy to the reading of thy will, and to obedience to all thy precepts. The time past should more than suffice, for we have wasted it: O that we had hearkened unto thy law and kept thy commandments! for then had our peace flowed like a river, and our righteousness like the waves of the sea. We bless thee for the power to repent, we thank thee that we are not reduced to the callousness which does not feel how wicked we have been; whilst we can thrill under thy rebukes, we shall have hope in thy mercy; because we know the terrors of thy judgment, we shall surely be led to the tenderness of thy cross. Grant unto us a manifold Christian experience, rich, noble, generous; may we be able to appreciate all the way of life, and to sympathise with all men in all the variety of their experience; then shall we be shepherds appointed by Christ, inspired by the Spirit of Christ, and accepting Christ as the one guide and Lord. Blessed Saviour, mighty Son of God, wounded but not destroyed, buried but risen again, to thee we come with full hearts, with memory charged with thankfulness, and again we make oath and say that by the grace of God we will be Christ’s evermore. Help us through the weariness of life; whisper to us that life is but a poor dull grey day which prepares the way for the dawn of heaven; then shall we be patient, resigned, quiet, and our ears shall be quickened to hear the sounds of our Lord’s coming, and many a time we shall be surprised into sudden and ecstatic joy. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XVI
THE REIGNS OF HOSHEA (OF ISRAEL) AND HEZEKIAH (OF JUDAH)
2Ki 16:20-17:41
The reign of Hoshea is another new dynasty since Pekah was murdered; his dynasty has ended and Hoshea comes to the throne. Tiglath-Pileser says in his inscriptions that it was at his instigation that Hoshea rose up against Pekah and murdered him, and that it was upon his word that Hoshea was placed upon the throne and established there. So say the monumental inscriptions. This is the last dynasty and the last king in this awful history of the downfall of Israel. We come now to look at the first six years of the reign of Hezekiah. From this part of his reign we gather the following points:
First of all, let us look at his character as described thus: “He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him and he prospered whithersoever he went forth.” On Sunday night when I was a young pastor in Waco, I announced that as my text, “Nehushtan,” meaning, “It is only a piece of brass.” Moses made the serpent and it served admirably for -the healing of the people, and it was right to wish to keep a memorial of such a marvelous thing as the deliverance from the snakes in the desert, but there is a spirit in the world to worship the antique, to gather relics and to worship them, and so in later days that happened. The serpent that Moses had made became an object of worship. It became one of their gods. Now Hezekiah says, “It is just a piece of brass,” and he brake it in pieces. In the sermon I applied that to the misuses that are made of baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that when a priest stands over a wafer and mumbles a few words and says to the bread, “Thou art my God,” then it is time to say, “It is just a piece of bread”; time to say, “Nehushtan,” and when a man magnifies baptism until he finds the remission of his sins in a pool of water, and when it becomes such a sacrament that just to touch a wet finger to the brow of an unconscious babe will make it a member of Christ, then it is time to say, “Nehushtan.” That was the direction of my sermon.
Now let us see the great things done by Hezekiah. In his reformation he destroyed those high places throughout the whole country, so that Jehovah only was worshiped. Second, he destroyed not only the brazen serpent but he brought about a widespread spirit of iconoclasm. “Icon” means an image, and “Iconoclast,” an image breaker. One of the most notable features of the revolts against the Spaniards and against Rome in the lower countries was that the Iconoclasts came to the front. Crosses, images, anything in the world that men bow down to and worship violates the command, “Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image and bow down before it to worship it”; all these the Iconoclasts broke to pieces. It intensified the bitterness between the Protestants in the Low Country and the Spaniards, and there were periods of Iconoclastic outbreakings in many other countries, but Hezekiah determined so far as he was concerned in the sense of his responsibility to God that no image however sacred in its memory, even as sacred as that of the brazen serpent, should be the object of worship, and to prevent it he would destroy the image. Image worship is exceedingly convenient. History tells us about an ancient people whose god was a piece of dough, flour dough, molded into form. There was this virtue about that god: that in a time of famine they could eat him. Isaiah uses sarcasm where he describes the image worship and how those gods were made; that having eyes they see not, and having ears they hear not. Bob Ingersoll was fond of quoting rather than originating the saying, “A god is the noblest work of man.” In other words, he was saying that gods are made by men, and not men by gods. Well, anyhow, the gods that men make are not deities and we should break them as fast as we come to them.
The next thing that he did was to cleanse and renovate the Temple, inasmuch as his father had defiled it by putting in a new altar and closing up the holy place and breaking up all the services. So Hezekiah cleansed the Temple with great formality and publicity, and then reconsecrated it to the service of God. He put all of its furniture back into its proper place. He revised every important part of the worship, even the service of music. He re-established the Levitical choir and the Levitical instruments of praise and the use of the psalter was in existence before Hezekiah’s time. Then as the clouds were darkening around the Northern Kingdom, as their doom was impending, he sent out an invitation to all the true worshipers of God in the Northern Kingdom inviting them to come and join him in the great passover to be celebrated according to the law of Moses, and the record tells us that a multitude of the Northern Kingdom did come and align themselves with him in the observance of the Passover, and in connection with that we have this Scripture: “A multitude of the people even men of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written; but Hezekiah prayed for them saying, The Lord God pardon every one, that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, and the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.” I call attention to that passage particularly on account of the use made of it by pedobaptists in replying to Baptists on the subject of communion. They say, “You Baptists insist upon the water cleansing before communion; that a man should not partake of the communion unless there has been the previous ablution of baptism. And as the communion was established on a Passover occasion it meant a transition from the Passover of the Old Testament to the Lord’s Supper of the New Testament, and as here in the days of Hezekiah were people who did partake of the Passover not according to the law, and God forgave them, so it ought to be in the communion.” The Baptist reply to it is, “You should not plead in defense of a custom of historical violation of the law, confessed to be a violation of the law, confessed to be a sin, a sin that had to be presented to God and for which pardon had to be obtained. Your Hezekiah case is against you.” So the Baptists have the best of it in this case.
Following that Passover he kept an additional seven days and this is said about it: “So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem. Then the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people; and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to the holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.” To me this account of the reformation wrought by Hezekiah has always been a most interesting section of the Bible to read and a most profitable one. I never read it without being impressed in my mind profoundly with the good that comes in going back to the first principles, in going back to God’s written word and there on the strength of that word sending up a petition to the throne of grace for mercy and being convinced that mercy and help and the power of God will come down upon us.
The next item in his reformation is that he restores all the original Levitical services and the whole tithe system for the support of those services. Now that is all I have to say here about the reign of Hezekiah.
We learn from the prophets that three mighty natural events occurred in this period. In Amo 1:1 we have the statement that Amos commenced his prophecy in the second year before the great earthquake. There was an earthquake that figured in the memory of the people for a long time. In Zechariah 14 a much later prophecy, we find a reference to that great earthquake that came to pass during this period. Then in Amo 8:9 we have an account of an eclipse of the sun at midday which took place in this period, about 763 B.C. The sun went down at noon. That eclipse is not only mentioned in the Bible, but we find in the inscriptions on the monuments raised by neighboring nations a reference to that eclipse at that very date. Not only that, but modern astronomers by a mathematical calculation prove that just at that date an eclipse became visible to all parts of Palestine, a total eclipse of the sun.
Another great event that occurred during this period was the visit of the locusts set forth in Joel, one of the most vivid descriptions in human literature. There is much literature on the subject of locust plagues, from Moses’ account of them in the plague on Pharaoh to the latest account by travelers in Africa, but Joel’s description is the most remarkable in the world, except the one in Revelation which is a plague of symbolic locusts.
In connection with the reigns of Uzziah, Ahaz, and Hezekiah there comes out on the stage the greatest of the prophets. The most evangelistic of all the prophets, Isaiah. The record tells us that he wrote the latter part of the history of Uzziah. Now it is in Isaiah particularly that we find the best description of the moral condition of the people during this period.
Now let us turn to Hoshea and the Northern Kingdom. In order to maintain the integrity of his kingdom, Hoshea pays tribute to Tiglath-Pileser. On the death of Tiglath-Pileser and the ascendancy of Shalmaneser he continues to pay a heavy tribute: “Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant and brought him presents,” which means the paying of heavy tribute. He might have been secure upon his throne for years had he continued to pay this tribute, but he did not. He began to conspire with Egypt to throw off the yoke of Shalmaneser: “And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to the king of Egypt, and offered no presents to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year.” He conspired with the king of Egypt and refused to pay his tribute to Shalmaneser. This is the occasion of the downfall of Hoshea and of the end of the Northern Kingdom. Shalmaneser at once set in motion his armed force. Samaria is encompassed and besieged, and after a terrible siege with all the horrors attendant upon a siege in that country and age, Samaria fell into the hands of Shalmaneser. Shalmaneser dies and is succeeded by Sargon who captures Samaria and deports the inhabitants, and he says in one of his inscriptions that he carried off 27,290 people and placed them in the land of Assyria, leaving only the poorer classes in the country. This occurred in 722 B.C., the date of the fall of Samaria, and the end of the Northern Kingdom. We have the causes which led to it pictured in the prophecies of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. Hoshea’s conspiring with Egypt and refusing to pay tribute to Assyria is the occasion for the destruction of the kingdom.
Notice the repeopling of the country: “And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Awa, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.” Now notice that the population is so scattered that the wild animals increase, the lions become so plentiful that they devour them, and the people feel that they haven’t the right god. They do not know the god of these hills, and they want to be taught how to worship him in the right way. So they appeal to the king of Assyria and he sends them a priest to teach them how to worship the good of this land, and the result is that we have a mixture, a conglomeration, a mongrel race, and a mongrel religion, described thus: “Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. . . . They feared the Lord and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.” They feared Jehovah whom they thought to be the god of this hill country, but they served other gods. So we have the strange mixture of these people brought from the various parts of Assyria, Jews who were residents of Israel, and all these other various forms of gods mixed up with Jehovah worship, a strange mixture indeed. These were the forerunners, or ancestors of the Samaritans, whom we find in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and in the New Testament. We know something of their attitude toward Israel. They have remained there from the time they were transported by Sargon unto this day, and today there is a colony of them there, about one hundred and seventy people, the remnant of this old mongrel race. They still have their old customs, their patriarchs, the Pentateuch, the law of Moses, and they keep the sabbath even more strictly than the Pharisees did. This closes the history of northern Israel.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was the last king of Israel and what was his character?
2. Who was king of Judah when Israel was carried into captivity and what was his character?
3. What did he do that no other king had done since the division of the kingdom?
4. What relic of Moses was worshiped by Israel and what did he do with it?
5. In what particulars did his religious reformation consist?
6. What were the essential points in the cleansing of the Temple?
7. Describe the reconsecration service.
8. Describe his keeping of the Passover, (1) as to the preparation, (2) as to celebration, (3) as to “other seven days,” (4) as to the results.
9. What were the essential points in Hezekiah’s further religious
10. What three remarkable events fall within this period and what their significance? .
11. What great prophet comes on the stage here and what was his greatest characteristic? , .
12. What was his relation to Uzziah and to this period of history!
13. What was the condition of Israel at this time, how did Hoshea try to extricate himself and what was the result?
14. Who was the king of Assyria at this time and where did he carry the children of Israel? .
15. What were the sins of Israel for which they were carried away into captivity? . .
16. What were God’s efforts to save them from their sins and what were the results?
17. How was Samaria repeopled?
18. What was their idea of God?
19 How did God rebuke the disregard of him by the new inhabitant?
20. What of the mixed character of the religion of the Samaritans?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
2Ch 30:1 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel.
Ver. 1. To Ephraim and Manasseh. ] That is, To all that were left of the ten tribes under king Hoshea, who, being rather atheist than idolater, and brought very low by the Assyrian, hindered not the people’s going up to the temple. The good of our brethren in other kingdoms mast also be minded.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2 Chronicles Chapter 30
But Hezekiah was not content with this (chap. 30). “He sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem to keep the passover unto Jehovah God of Israel.” This seemed, no doubt, a very bold thing, and I have not a doubt that they considered that the king was behaving in a very presumptuous manner. What business had he to send to all Israel? He was only the king of Judah! Why should he not be content with his own people? He was proselyting. They did not like it. They thought it was exceedingly improper to be taking away the Israelites to Jerusalem. But Hezekiah was thinking of God. Hezekiah was filled with a sense of what was due to the claims of Jehovah. Jehovah had set His house in one place for all Israel.
Now there is nothing that gives a person such boldness as this, and nothing, also, that sets love to work so earnestly as this. If we are merely contending for doctrines of our own, it does seem rather strong to expect other people to receive them. If it is merely my own doctrine, I had better make myself happy with my own affairs. But if it is God’s grace, if it is God’s worship, if it is God’s way, has it not a claim upon all that are God’s? The moment you see that, you can go forward; and you can appeal to the conscience of all that belong to God, that they should be faithful to God’s own will and Word. And what I want the children of God to see now clearly, and all the children of God as far as He is pleased to give it efficacy, is that they are set not merely upon something better than what other people have, but upon what is God’s will, because that must be the best of all; and inasmuch as they have got the Bock of God, they can see and are responsible to find this out for themselves. Anything that is herein has a claim upon a child of God – and more particularly as regards the worship of God. I grant you that in human things what is of man has a claim; but not so in divine things. “Render, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
I think it was in this spirit, therefore, not trying to be a Caesar over Israel, or even recalling Israelites to their allegiance to himself, which perhaps he might have done, that Hezekiah so acted. He was a man of faith, and he knew well that it was of God, the rending of the ten tribes from the house of David; and therefore he did not ask the tribes for himself, but he did ask them for God. He sent out “to all Israel and Judah” (chap. 30). And so should we do now. We ought not to desire the world. Let men, if they will, seek the world and the pretended worship of the world. Let them seek “the masses,” as they say. Let them have the masses if they will, and if the masses are weak enough to follow them. But the business of faith is to call upon all who have faith in the name of the Lord, and to get them to follow His Word. So did Hezekiah now, according to what God gave him. “And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation.” What I call your attention particularly to is this: nobody thought of all this for all these years – nobody thought of it but Hezekiah. The more you draw near to God, the more you love the people of God. It was because God was so great in Hezekiah’s eyes that the people of God were so dear to Hezekiah; and so he claimed them for God, and called them to come out from their abominations. “They established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto Jehovah God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written!” How quickly people departed from what was written!
“So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel” – not merely, “Ye children of Judah,” but “Ye children of Israel” – “turn again unto Jehovah God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers and like your brethren which trespassed against Jehovah God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation as ye see. Now, be ye not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto Jehovah, and enter into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified for ever.” God’s principles do not change. It is all a mistake that because the apostles are gone, the apostles’ truth is gone. Not so; it abides, and forever. It is always binding on the people of God. So here with the sanctuary in Jerusalem. “So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them.”
As it was then, so it is now. The more true, the more it be according to God, so the more is the contempt of men who have chosen to blend the world with Christ. “Nevertheless, divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.” In the most unlikely and distant quarters, and where no one could possibly look for them, there are those that have humbled themselves and have come. “Also in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king, and of the princes, by the word of Jehovah.” And there they assembled. “And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for incense took they away and cast them into the brook Kidron. Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of Jehovah, and they stood in their place” – because this was in consequence of some not being ready. The priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently. The second month was the gracious provision that God made in the case of uncleanness in the wilderness, as we may see in Num 9:10 , Num 9:11 .
How good is the word of the Lord! They must keep the passover; but, on the other hand, they could not keep it if they were unclean. This provision came in, therefore, when they were consciously unclean, that they might purify themselves and keep it so new. But there is no lowering the standard. There ought to be consideration for the weakness, and there is given them time to learn; but the standard must not be lowered. And so we find, further, that “the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness: and the Levites and the priests praised Jehovah day by day, singing with loud instruments unto Jehovah. And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites”; and, in fact, there was a happy and a holy time come, “for Hezekiah king of Judah did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests sanctified themselves. And all the congregation of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the congregation that came out of Israel, and the strangers that came out of the land of Israel, and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced. So there was great joy in Jerusalem.”
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
2 Chronicles
A LOVING CALL TO REUNION
2Ch 30:1 – 2Ch 30:13
The date of Hezekiah’s passover is uncertain, for, while the immediate connection of this narrative with the preceding account of his cleansing the Temple and restoring the sacrificial worship suggests that the passover followed directly on those events, which took place at the beginning of the reign, the language employed in the message to the northern tribes 2Ch 30:6 – 2Ch 30:7 , 2Ch 30:9 seems to imply the previous fall of the kingdom of Israel, If so, this passover did not occur till after 721 B.C., the date of the capture of Samaria, six years after Hezekiah’s accession.
The sending of messengers from Jerusalem on such an errand would scarcely have been possible if the northern kingdom had still been independent. Perhaps its fall was thought by Hezekiah to open the door to drawing ‘the remnant that were escaped’ back to the ancient unity of worship, at all events, if not of polity. No doubt a large number had been left in the northern territory, and Hezekiah may have hoped that calamity had softened their enmity to his kingdom, and perhaps touched them with longings for the old worship. At all events, like a good man, he will stretch out a hand to the alienated brethren, now that evil days have fallen on them. The hour of an enemy’s calamity should be our opportunity for seeking to help and proffering reconciliation. We may find that trouble inclines wanderers to come back to God.
The alteration of the time of keeping the passover from the thirteenth day of the first month to the same day of the second was in accordance with the liberty granted in Num 9:10 – Num 9:11 , to persons unclean by contact with a dead body or ‘in a journey afar off.’ The decision to have the passover was not taken in time to allow of the necessary removal of uncleanness from the priests nor of the assembling of the people, and therefore the permission to defer it for a month was taken advantage of, in order to allow full time for the despatch of the messengers and the journeys of the farthest northern tribes. It is to be observed that Hezekiah took his subjects into counsel, since the step intended was much too great for him to venture on of his own mere motion. So the overtures went out clothed with the authority of the whole kingdom of Judah. It was the voice of a nation that sought to woo back the secessionists.
The messengers were instructed to supplement the official letters of invitation with earnest entreaties as from the king, of which the gist is given in 2Ch 30:6 – 2Ch 30:9 . With the skill born of intense desire to draw the long-parted kingdoms together, the message touches on ancestral memories, recent bitter experiences, yearnings for the captive kinsfolk, the instinct of self-preservation, and rises at last into the clear light of full faith in, and insight into, God’s infinite heart of pardoning pity.
Note the very first words, ‘Ye children of Israel,’ and consider the effect of this frank recognition of the northern kingdom as part of the undivided Israel. Such recognition might have been misunderstood or spurned when Samaria was gay and prosperous; but when its palaces were desolate, the effect of the old name, recalling happier days, must have been as if the elder brother had come out from the father’s house and entreated the prodigal to come back to his place at the fireside. The battle would be more than half won if the appeal that was couched in the very name of Israel was heeded.
Note further how firmly and yet lovingly the sin of the northern kingdom is touched on. The name of Jehovah as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, recalls the ancient days when the undivided people worshipped Him, and the still more ancient, and, to hearers and speakers alike, more sacred, days when the patriarchs received wondrous tokens that He was their God, and they were His people; while the recurrence of ‘Israel’ as the name of Jacob adds force to its previous use as the name of all His descendants. The possible rejection of the invitation, on the ground which the men of the north, like the Samaritan woman, might have taken, that they were true to their fathers’ worship, is cut away by the reminder that that worship was an innovation, since the fathers of the present generation had been apostate from the God of their fathers. The appeal to antiquity often lands men in a bog because it is not carried far enough back. ‘The fathers’ may lead astray, but if the antiquity to which we appeal is that of which the New Testament is the record, the more conservative we are, the nearer the truth shall we be.
Again, the message touched on a chord that might easily have given a jarring note; namely, the misfortunes of the kingdom. But it was done with so delicate a hand, and so entirely without a trace of rejoicing in a neighbour’s calamities, that no susceptibilities could be ruffled, while yet the solemn lesson is unfalteringly pointed. ‘He gave them up to desolation, as ye see.’ Behind Assyria was Jehovah, and Israel’s fall was not wholly explained by the disparity between its strength and the conquerors’. Under and through the play of criminal ambition, cruelty, and earthly politics, the unseen Hand wrought; and the teaching of all the Old Testament history is condensed into that one sad sentence, which points to facts as plain as tragical. In deepest truth it applies to each of us; for, if we trespass against God, we draw down evil on our heads with both hands, and shall find that sin brings the worst desolation-that which sheds gloom over a godless soul.
We note further the deep true insight into God’s character and ways expressed in this message. There is a very striking variation in the three designations of Jehovah as ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel’ 2Ch 30:6, ‘the god of their [that is, the preceding generation] fathers’ ver. 7, and ‘your God’ 2Ch 30:8. The relation which had subsisted from of old had not been broken by man’s apostasy, Jehovah still was, in a true sense, their God, even if His relation to them only bound Him not to leave them unpunished. So their very sufferings proved them His, for ‘What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?’ But strong, sunny confidence in God shines from the whole message, and reaches its climax in the closing assurance that He is merciful and gracious. The evil results of rebellion are not omitted, but they are not dwelt on. The true magnet to draw wanderers back to God is the loving proclamation of His love. Unless we are sure that He has a heart tender with all pity, and ‘open as day to melting charity,’ we shall not turn to Him with our hearts.
The message puts the response which it sought in a variety of ways; namely, turning to Jehovah, not being stiff-necked, yielding selves to Jehovah, entering into His sanctuary. More than outward participation in the passover ceremonial is involved. Submission of will, abandonment of former courses of action, docility of spirit ready to be directed anywhere, the habit of abiding with God by communion-all these, the standing characteristics of the religious life, are at least suggested by the invitations here. We are all summoned thus to yield ourselves to God, and especially to do so by surrendering our wills to Him, and to ‘enter into His sanctuary,’ by keeping up such communion with Him as that, however and wherever occupied, we shall still ‘dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives.’
And the summons to return unto God is addressed to us all even more urgently than to Israel. God Himself invites us by the voice of His providences, by His voice within, and by the voice of Jesus Himself, who is ever saying to each of us, by His death and passion, by His resurrection and ascension, ‘Turn ye! turn ye! why will ye die?’ and who has more than endorsed Hezekiah’s messengers’ assurance that ‘Jehovah will not turn away His face from’ us by His own gracious promise, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.’
The king’s message met a mingled reception. Some mocked, some were moved and accepted. So, alas! is it with the better message, which is either ‘a savour of life unto life or of death unto death.’ The same fire melts wax and hardens clay. May it be with all of us as it was in Judah-that we ‘have one heart, to do the commandment’ and to accept the merciful summons to the great passover!
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
sent. This was before the Removal of Israel.
all Israel. See note on 2Ch 30:24 and App-67.
also. He wrote letters, as well as sent messengers. the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
keep the passover. One of the ten observances of this feast. See note on Exo 12:28.
God Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 30
And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and to Judah, they wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, [this is up in the northern] that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto Jehovah God of Israel. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the congregation in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. Inasmuch as they could not keep it at this time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. And the thing pleased the king and all the congregation. So they established a decree to make the proclamation from Israel, from Beersheba [which is in the southern portion towards the desert] even unto Dan ( 2Ch 30:1-5 ),
Which is up almost at the base of Mount Hermon in the northern part of the Hula Valley above the Sea of Galilee.
So the messengers went out with letters from the king and his princes throughout all of Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, they said, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto Jehovah the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria ( 2Ch 30:6 ).
So notice, they are now addressing themselves to the remnant that had escaped out of the hand of the king of Assyria. And they were up there in the northern tribes, Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon and all.
And be not you like your fathers, and like your brothers, which trespassed against Jehovah God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as you see. Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him ( 2Ch 30:7-9 ).
Now Hezekiah’s sending out this letter. You see, the Assyrians had come and they have taken now the northern kingdom. They have taken the people captive and just a remnant of people were left. He writes to them and he says, “Look, come and let’s turn back to God. If we’ll just turn back to God, God will work and your families that have been carried away captive they can be returned again. Let’s really turn with all of our hearts to God. Come on down and let’s worship God.” And it was an endeavor to unite again the people and draw those from the northern kingdom back to the worship of the Lord, a very beautiful attempt on the part of Hezekiah. Then his statement to them, “If you will do this, surely God will bless. For God is gracious and merciful.”
There is a false concept that the Bible actually portrays two Gods-the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament being a God of wrath and vengeance, and the God of the New Testament being a God of love. Not so. In the Old Testament God is revealed as a God of compassion, and as Hezekiah said, “For God is gracious and merciful.” And He is presented in the Old Testament as a gracious, merciful, compassionate God.
However, for those that reject His grace and mercy, their own lives bring upon themselves destruction. God is compassionate; God is merciful. But God will not shield you forever. And ultimately, the fruit of your own wickedness is going to catch up with you. And then people want to blame God for the judgment. The judgment that is constantly around them. And the only thing that keeps you from that judgment is God’s protecting hand.
Now in the New Testament, God is portrayed as a God of love, yes. “God so loved the world… ” But also a God of judgment. If you want to read Revelation chapters 6-18, you’ll find all about the God of justice and the God of judgment, as He allows to come upon the earth the fruit of their own rebellion. And as He pours out His wrath against the ungodly.
So those people who say, “Well, there are two Gods revealed in the Bible; the God of wrath in the Old Testament and the God of love in the New,” just really don’t know the Bible. They’ve never really done a serious study of the Bible. It’s ridiculous to say that there are two Gods revealed. One God. He is a God of love, a God of mercy, a God of compassion, revealed both in the Old and the New Testament. But He is also a God of righteousness, of justice.
And so Hezekiah’s encouragement, “Turn to the Lord.”
Nevertheless, the people in the northern kingdom just sort of laughed at the messengers who came. Sort of put them down. Put down their message. However, many of them came on down to celebrate the Passover and a great multitude gathered in Jerusalem. This was going to be a momentous event. Here the worship of God had been forsaken for so long and now a great holy day, the day of Passover. And they were going to gather together and the multitudes gathered together in Jerusalem for this Passover. And even to gather for the Passover it was necessary to go through a purification rite. They had… what you’d have to do is actually shave your head and then you’d have to come into the temple everyday and go through certain bathings and so forth to be sanctified, to cleanse yourself, really, from the defilement of the Gentile world. And this was especially true of those who had been living in Gentile nations and would come back to Jerusalem for the holy days. It was necessary to sort of cleanse yourself from all of the pollution of the Gentiles, so they had this whole purification rite.
You remember when Paul returned to Jerusalem and the feast day was coming and Paul wanted to participate in the feast day in Jerusalem as long as he was there. And so he started into the purification rites and he started sponsoring a couple young men in the purification rites, because you couldn’t work during this time so you really needed someone to sort of sponsor you if you didn’t have the bucks yourself. And so James said, “Now, Paul, I hear that you’ve been stringing up the Jews in the Gentile cities and you’re not really being a good Jewish boy and you’ve been falling into the practices of the Gentiles and all. Now a lot of the church is quite upset. They hear that you’re sort of radical and out there among the Gentiles. So why don’t you just sort of settle them all down and take the part of a good Jew boy and just go ahead and go through the rites and sponsor these two boys and show everybody that you know you’re still a Jew.”
So Paul, to keep peace went into the temples, went through the purification rites. But it was there that some of the Jews from Asia who were also being purified saw Paul and they said, “This is the fellow who has created all the problems through Asia and all.” And a big tumult where Paul was saved, actually, from a lynching mob by the Roman guard and taken into the fortress of Antonio where, as he was going in, he said to the guard, “Let me talk to these people a minute.” And the guard said, “Okay.” And so Paul began to preach to these people. Waved his hand, “Quiet, folks.” They were all out there yelling and screaming, “Kill him! Get rid of him!” And, “Let me talk to you fellows. Quiet a minute.” And they all hushed and Paul began to tell them. “Hey, look, I know how you feel. I know where you’re at. I was just like you are. The Pharisees will testify. I was one of them. In fact, I was persecuting the church. I thought I was doing God a service, just like you do today. I know where it’s at. I know exactly how you feel. In fact, it was when I was on my way to Damascus that I was apprehended by Jesus Christ. And He said, ‘Why are you persecuting Me?’ And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord, that I might serve You?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus whom you’re persecuting.'” And Paul said, “And so He spoke to me and said that He was going to send me to the Gentiles.”
Now when he said the word Gentiles, things just broke loose. People began to rip off their clothes, throw dirt in the air, started screaming and all. And he was talking to the people in Hebrew so that the Roman captain couldn’t understand. He was, of course, knew Latin, but he didn’t know what Paul had said. And the crowd started rushing and he said, “Grab him inside quick!” And they took Paul inside the fortress there. And he said, “Find out what he said to those people. Scourge him! Make him tell.”
Now the scourging was actually the Roman third degree. They would take and whip you with this leather whip with little bits of lead imbedded in it, and broken glass. And they would lay it across your back, ripping open your back until you’d scream out your crime or whatever. And so he said, “Examine him by scourging. Find out what he said.” Created such a tumult out there. And so Paul was going through this same purification thing.
Now the people had come. But here they were straggling in and the time for the ceremony had arrived and they just came. They didn’t have time to go through the whole ritual of sanctifying themselves. So Hezekiah said, “Lord, have mercy on these poor people. They’ve come so far and here they are to worship You. Let them get by without the rites. Let’s bypass the whole ritual and just receive them, Lord.” And the Lord spoke and said that He would receive them without the rituals for them to go ahead and observe the Passover. And so it was a turning point again for the people and turning them back to God.
And Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good LORD pardon every one ( 2Ch 30:18 )
I like that.
That prepares his heart to seek God, Jehovah God of the fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and he healed the people. And the children of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with great gladness ( 2Ch 30:19-21 ):
Such great celebration they decided to go on for another seven days. And so they went on for seven more days worshipping the Lord.
And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the LORD: and they did eat throughout the feast for seven days, offering peace offerings, making confession to the LORD God of their fathers ( 2Ch 30:22 ).
And then determined to go on for seven more days.
So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon there had never been an occasion like this in Jerusalem ( 2Ch 30:26 ).
For many, many years.
Then the priests and the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to the holy dwelling place, even unto heaven ( 2Ch 30:27 ).
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
2Ch 30:1-9
2Ch 30:1-9
HEZEKIAH LEADS ISRAEL IN OBSERVANCE OF PASSOVER;
AN INVITATION SENT TO ALL ISRAEL TO COME TO JERUSALEM FOR THE PASSOVER
“And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto Jehovah, the God of Israel. For the king had taken counsel, and his princes, and all the assembly in Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the second month. For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, neither had the people gathered themselves together at Jerusalem. And the thing was right in the eyes of the king and of all the assembly. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto Jehovah, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: for they had not kept it in great numbers in such sort as it is written. So the posts went out with letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, who trespassed against Jehovah, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked as your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto Jehovah, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve Jehovah your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto Jehovah, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that led them captive, and shall come again unto this land: for Jehovah your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.”
This wonderful invitation from Hezekiah is a remarkable testimony. It came following the fall of the Northern Israel to Assyria in 722 B.C., a disaster that Hezekiah attributed to their forsaking the true worship of God in Jerusalem. This is proof that long before the times of Josiah God had commanded the centralization of his worship in Jerusalem. Note also the significant words as it is written (2Ch 30:5). The Book of the Law (the Pentateuch) was appealed to by Hezekiah in these words. It is also significant that Hezekiah admits here that the passover had indeed been kept previously but by small numbers of people (2Ch 30:5).
“The king had taken counsel … to keep the passover in the second month” (2Ch 30:2). The divine instructions for the passover required its observance in the first month (Exo 12:1-3); but the urgency of Hezekiah in his efforts to rally all Israel to a rebirth of their loyalty to God prompted this technical violation. Note also that not even the priests of Judah and Jerusalem had bothered to sanctify themselves for the legal passover a month earlier.
E.M. Zerr:
2Ch 30:1. The 10 tribes had recently been taken off into captivity by the Assyrians; the details of that event are given in 2 Kings 17. But a number of individuals had escaped and got back into the home land, and were scattered through the different territories that had been the possession of the tribes. (2Ch 30:6.) This explains the reference to Israel and Judah. The letters of Hezekiah were addressed to them as a whole, with specification of the ones who had descended from Joseph, namely, Ephraim and Manasseh. The first of the national feasts required by the law was the passover, which normally was observed in the first month.
2Ch 30:2-3. Hezekiah was not a religious official exclusively, so it was appropriate that he hold a consultation with his leading citizens on so important a matter as the great feast. Their conclusion was that the conditions called for the provision made in the law for a substitute date. Num 9:6-11 stipulates that if the people are disqualified by uncleanness to partake of the feast in the first month, it should be done in the second. 2Ch 29:17; 2Ch 29:34 tells of that condition which was in the way of observing it on the original date. Another thing, on account of the general state all over the country, the people had not come together at Jerusalem. Therefore, the decision was to notify the Jews in the scattered districts to come to that city.
2Ch 30:4. The king and the whole congregation (those already in the city) were in agreement on the subject, which caused them to be pleased.
2Ch 30:5. Established a decree means it was decided officially by the assembly to make the invitation apply to the whole country. Beer-sheba was at the southern, and Dan at the northern extremity of the original kingdom of Israel. A reference to these cities was a figurative way of referring to the whole country. The passover had been neglected for a long time and not observed as the written law required.
2Ch 30:6. Posts were persons sent out in a hurry on any mission at hand. In the present instance it was to take the letters of proclamation that had just been decided upon by the consultation between the king and his princes. These letters were not invitations merely; they were the commandment of the king. The letters were addressed to the children of Israel as a whole, for a reference was made to the common ancestors of them all, Abraham, Isaac and Israel. (Jacob.) This is the place that tells us some of the captives had escaped from the Assyrians, and were back in their original home country in the several possessions.
2Ch 30:7. God made a distinction between the leaders of the nation, and the individuals in the nation who could not prevent the public transgressions. When we come to the books of the prophets this will manifest itself many times. These letters recognize this distinction, and exhort the escaped captives to profit by the mistakes of their leaders and not fall into the condemnation of God.
2Ch 30:8. Stiff-necked is a figurative word for being stubborn. The opposite of it is to be willing to yield yourselves unto the Lord. For ever means “through the age,” and it denotes that the sanctuary or temple was to be regarded as holy through that age or dispensation. The wrath of God will be turned away from all his faithful ones.
2Ch 30:9. The fate of their brethren still in captivity was somewhat dependent on the conduct of these escaped ones. If they will turn to the Lord, he will see that their fellow citizens still in the land of captivity shall be given compassion, so that they too may return to their own country.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
For a long time the proper feasts of the Lord had not been observed. Hezekiah made arrangements to keep the Passover. It is very beautiful to see how his heart took in the whole nation. In all probability, this Passover was observed before the final passing of the northern kingdom into captivity; and Hezekiah sent messengers throughout Israel as well as Judah, asking them to come up to Jerusalem and take part in the feast. The hopeless corruption of Israel is seen in the statement that “the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun; but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.”
Nevertheless, a remnant even out of Israel gathered to Judah, and took part in the sacred, solemn observance. It was a motley crowd that gathered, multitudes of the people were utterly ignorant of the divine arrangements for preparation. Again Hezekiah’s tenderness was shown in his pity for these people and the prayer he offered. His prayer was answered, and the imperfect method was not punished in the case of those who set their hearts to seek the Lord.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
a Summons to the Nation
2Ch 30:1-12
Though one of the most important feasts, the Passover had long been neglected. When a spiritual revival takes place, men naturally begin to observe the old sacred institutions, through which religious feeling can express itself. As the proper month for observing it had gone, rather than miss the whole year, the king and his people resolved to observe their annual festival in the second month, as provided in Num 9:10-11. The quickened life of Judah revealed itself in a fervent yearning for national unity, and the invitation to share in celebrating the Passover was distributed from Dan to Beersheba. Many mocked, imputing Hezekiahs appeal to low motives of ambition and self-aggrandizement. We cannot doubt that Isaiah prompted the king to suggest that if Israel would accept the invitation and join in a common act of penitence and faith, it would probably lead to the rehabilitation of their national life. In putting aside this suggestion, Israel not only flouted the royal proposal, but destroyed one of the last methods of undoing the ruin which had already commenced in the Northern Kingdom.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
2Ch 30:18
For Jewish festivals think of Christian ordinances, and apply the principle of the text to their observance. Take the two great ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism by water will save no man; neither will eating and drinking, the symbolical elements at the Lord’s Table. The vital baptism is the baptism of the Holy Ghost; the saving act is eating and drinking the body and the blood of Jesus Christ by faith. Far be it from me to assert that a man cannot have the spiritual because he has not had the material baptism, or that a man cannot have partaken spiritually and savingly of Jesus Christ because he has never attended what is known as the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. At the same time, those who have had the opportunity of fulfilling such ordinances and have neglected to do so need to be prayed for as having omitted services which are full of spiritual meaning and privilege. Apply this thought (1) to church attendance; (2) to Church membership; (3) to various methods of thinking.
Parker, The Ark of God, p. 230.
References: 2Ch 30:18-20.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 232. 2Ch 30:21.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 96. 2Ch 30:27.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 310. 2Ch 31:1.-Ibid., Sermons, vol. v., No. 238.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 30 The Passover
1. Preparations for the great Passover (2Ch 30:1-14)
2. The celebration of the Passover (2Ch 30:15-22)
3. The concluding festive days (2Ch 30:23-27)
The Passover is next celebrated. It was, so to speak, the birthday of the nation, and typified the great redemption by the blood of the true Passover-Lamb. It had not been kept for a long time and as the proper yearly time for its celebration had passed, the first month, they concluded to keep it in the second month. The law had made provision for that and therefore what they did was according to the Word. (See Num 9:6-13 and the annotations given there.) And the king recognized the unity of the people of God and their need. Therefore he sent letters to all Israel and Judah, also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel. The posts went with the letters throughout the entire land. The letter in itself is beautiful and was addressed to the children of Israel, not mentioning the sad division which had taken place. A considerable part of the house of Israel, the ten tribes, had already been carried into captivity. The letter reached, therefore, only the remnant which escaped out of the hand of the Kings of Assyria (30:6; 2Ki 15:19; 1Ch 5:26). It was the Spirit of God who would bring all the people of God together around the table of the great feast. He always unites Gods people. And the posts passing along even unto Zebulun with the God-given message of the king, were treated by some of the remnant with mockery. But others humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Without such humbling a coming together of the people of God is not possible.
The great feast then was kept by the great multitude after they had taken away the false altars. They killed the passover. The priests sprinkled the blood, which they had received from the Levites. Many of them who had come were not cleansed; Hezekiah prayed for them. The good LORD pardon every one. And the LORD hearkened and healed the people, so that the divine threat was not carried out (Lev 15:31). The feast of unleavened bread was also kept for the appointed seven days with great gladness; yet throughout the days of gladness and remembering Jehovah confession was made to the LORD (verse 22). Everything shows that the Spirit of God was in the great revival. Other festive days followed with more gladness. The king gave great gifts and the princes did likewise, while a great number of priests gave their continued service. Not since the days of Solomon, when he had dedicated the house and reigned over Israel, had Jerusalem seen anything like it. The whole scene ended by the priests blessing the people (Num 6:23-27). Heaven heard and rejoiced with His people.
Dispensationally the great revival foreshadows what will take place when the King of Israel will occupy the throne and reign, when all Israel is united and back in the land (Ezek. 37), when His people will worship and praise the Holy One of Israel.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Israel: 2Ch 11:13, 2Ch 11:16
Ephraim: 2Ch 30:10, 2Ch 30:11, 2Ch 25:7, 2Ch 35:6, Hos 5:4, Hos 7:8, Hos 7:9, Hos 11:8
to the house: Deu 16:2-6
to keep: Exo 12:3-20, 1Co 5:7, 1Co 5:8
Reciprocal: 1Ki 8:1 – assembled 2Ki 23:22 – of the kings 2Ch 15:9 – the strangers 2Ch 31:1 – Now when 2Ch 34:6 – in 2Ch 35:1 – Josiah Ezr 6:19 – kept Jer 29:1 – of the letter Hos 11:7 – are bent
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
MANASSEH TO THE CAPTIVITY
MANASSEH AND AMON (2 Chronicles 33)
The history of the first-named is divided into three parts: (1) the outline of his character and reign down to the crisis of his punishment (2Ch 33:1-10); (2) his affliction and repentance in Babylon (2Ch 33:11-13); and (3) his later career and death (2Ch 33:14-20). The first part was considered in Kings. For the reference to groves and the host of heaven, compare Deu 16:21; Deu 17:3. It was in such groves, and on the high hills, and under the trees, that the heathen were guilty of their idolatrous practices. As a comment on verse 6 see Deu 18:9.
2Ch 33:7 is a forerunner of what we read of the Antichrist in Daniel 7-9 (see also Matthew 24, 1 Thessalonians 2, Revelation 13, etc.).
God is merciful and long-suffering, but without avail (2Ch 33:10). The Assyrian king was Esarhaddon, son and successor to Sennacherib. Among thorns may mean that Manasseh was hiding in such a thicket, but some versions have another Hebrew expression translated among the living, as intended to show only that he was taken alive. His condition was humiliating indeed, hands manacled and ankles fastened together with rings and a bar.
Observe the process of his repentance affliction, supplication, humility, mercy, spiritual apprehension, restoration, reformation, zeal, prosperity, (2Ch 33:12-16). Here is a good outline for an expository discourse. It was some political motive that induced the Assyrian to restore him to his kingdom, perhaps to use him as an ally against Egypt, but God overruled the measure for higher purposes.
The story of Amon calls for no comment.
JOSIAH (2 Chronicles 34-35)
The first ten years of this reign (2Ch 34:1-7) are distinguished by a reformation and revival more thorough than that of Manasseh, and suggesting the one
under Hezekiah. The exact chronological order is not followed but the great facts are the same as in Kings. That a king of Judah should have such influence among the tribes of Israel, is explained by the fact that the captivity of the latter had taken place, and the remnant remaining in the land kept in touch with Judah as their protector (2Ch 34:6). Mattocks has been translated deserts and may mean the deserted localities or suburbs of these tribes.
The remainder of this chapter has been alluded to sufficiently in Kings. The first half of 35 is the account of the great passover, the origin of which was treated in Exodus 12, but a few features call for attention here. For example, the holy place in this case (2Ch 35:5) means the court of the priests where the animals were sacrificed, and the people admitted according to their families, several households at a time. The Levites stood in rows from the slaughtering places to the altar, passing the blood and fat from one of the officiating priests to another. The Levites, both here and at Hezekiahs passover, did more than the law authorized them to do, but the peculiar conditions in each case justified the liberty. The singers (2Ch 35:15) were chanting Psalms 113-118, and doubtless repeating them over and over as each group entered the holy place. The comparison with Samuels passover (2Ch 35:18) suggests that of Hezekiahs and Solomons (30:26), the distinction being found in the terms on which the comparisons are based. One perhaps on the grandeur of the ceremonies, and the other on the ardor of the people.
In the story of Josiahs death (2Ch 35:20-27), we repeat what was said in Kings. Egypt and Assyria are rivals for world power, and Palestine is the buffer between them. Judah is Assyrias vassal, and it is Josiahs duty to oppose her enemys advances. The valley of Megiddo is identical with the plain of Esdraelon of which we shall hear later. Nechos reference to Gods command (2Ch 35:21) may not mean Jehovah, but some false god of Egypt, and yet 2Ch 35:22 raises a doubt about it. For this reason, some think Jeremiah, who was a contemporaneous prophet in Judah, may have communicated such a revelation to the Egyptian king. If so, it adds a new cause for Josiahs death, for if the prophet revealed it to Necho, he would hardly have kept it a secret from Josiah.
Jeremiahs lamentation is not recorded (2Ch 35:25) except as it may be found unidentified in his book of Lamentations. The event is thought to be again referred to in Zec 12:11.
JEHOAHAZ (2Ch 36:1-4)
This was the popular choice to succeed Josiah, but being his younger son, there was a question of its legitimacy, which may explain, in part, his removal by the king of Egypt and the substitution of his older brother. His reign was short, and as we learn from 2Ki 23:32, it was also wicked.
JEHOIAKIM (2Ch 36:5-8)
His brother was no improvement (compare Jer 22:13-19). At first the vassal of Egypt, he subsequently sustained the same relationship to Babylon, which had now become the head of the Assyrian empire, and had finally driven the Egyptians out of Asia. Rebelling against Babylon later on, the latter punished him (2Ch 36:6-7). Daniel was taken captive at this time (Dan 1:1-6). Jehoiakim himself was not taken prisoner however, although that seems to have been Nebuchadnezzars original intention. (Compare with 2Ch 36:6, 2Ki 24:2-7, Jeremiah as above, and also 2 Chron. 36:30.)
JEHOIACHIN (2Ch 36:9-10)
This king is Coniah and Jeconiah in Jeremiah (chaps. 22-23), and according to 2Ki 24:8, was eighteen years old instead of eight when he began to reign. This age seems corroborated by what our lesson says of him (2Ch 36:9). Compare also Eze 19:1-9. When the year was expired (2Ch 36:10), means when the spring had come, and its opportunity for military campaigning.
ZEDEKIAH (2Ch 36:11-21)
As we know from Kings, Zedekiah was not the brother, but the uncle of his predecessor. He was called brother in accordance with Hebrew latitude in speaking of family relationships. Note the distinction given a prophet of God, implying both inspiration and authority (2Ch 36:12). Note carefully 2Ch 36:21. We learned in the Pentateuch that the land was to lie fallow every seventh year in Israel as a sacred rest unto the Lord. But the greedy people had disregarded this law. Now they were to pay the penalty, per Lev 26:33-35. Judah, providentially, was not colonized by other peoples, as was Israel, so that at the close of seventy years there might be a return (Jer 25:12-13).
This book concludes with an account of that return (2Ch 36:22-23), showing it was written after that event. The story of the return is detailed in Ezra.
QUESTIONS
1. Outline Manassehs history.
2. How does he become a type of the Antichrist?
3. Who succeeded Sennacherib in Assyria?
4. How do you explain Josiahs influence in Israel as well as Judah?
5. What are the Passover psalms?
6. Name four great passovers of the people after entering Canaan.
7. What testifies to the peoples love for Josiah?
8. Name Judahs kings, and give their relationship, from Manasseh to the captivity.
9. What hint is given in this book that it was written after that event?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
2Ch 30:1. Hezekiah sent to all Israel To all the persons of the ten tribes who were settled in his kingdom, as well as to those of the tribe of Judah. And wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh To all the remainder of the ten tribes, (2Ch 30:5,) here expressed by the names of Ephraim and Manasseh, as elsewhere by the name of Ephraim only. But he names these two tribes, because they were nearest to his kingdom, and a great number of them had long since, and from time to time, joined themselves to the kingdom of Judah, 2Ch 15:8-9. That they should come to the house of the Lord Admonishing them of their duty to God, and persuading them to comply with it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ch 30:2. To keep the passover in the second month, one month later because the apostate priests were as yet unclean. See the calendar in Exodus 12. To defer the passover eleven months would have chilled the rekindling zeal which now animated the nation, seeing God had given them so good a king.
2Ch 30:6. So the posts went with the letters. Swift-footed men. The mail, to this day, is made up at Bombay for overland, so as to form the turban of the post. One half sheet of thin paper is allowed for each letter. The postmen almost fly from office to office till they reach Bagdad, and thence to Europe.
2Ch 30:22. Hezekiah spake comfortably to all the levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord. They read the whole law at those festivals, and in different places, one reader succeeding another.
2Ch 30:25. The strangers, the proselytes from all places flocked like doves to their windows.
REFLECTIONS.
We have seen Hezekiah burning with holy zeal to serve the Lord. He began in haste with his capital; and now he extends the blessing by command to all Judah, and by letters of invitation to all of Israel willing to come; for many of the other tribes had sought protection under Davids house. 2Ch 5:8-9. And though the season for the passover was passed; yet regarding the duty more than the day, he commanded it to be celebrated one month later. He thought it sinful or unwise to delay another year, for it had been neglected many years; and pious purposes postponed are apt to vanish away. Hence we learn that with God the spirit of devotion is more than the observance of days, and punctilious forms of worship. Hence also we learn, that it was very uncharitable and wicked in the Roman pontificate to excommunicate the whole Greek church because they did not keep Easter on the same Sunday as the Latin church; but on the fourteenth day of the moon.
A vineyard run to ruin is difficult to restore. We have to lament that many of the cities of Israel, ignorant, hardened and neglected, mocked at the servants of the king, though their letters were purely religious, and breathed the spirit of genuine piety and reformation. When sinners mock at mercy, it is in Gods account the last of crimes. Well, let the filthy worshippers of Priapus mock onbut remember, as your prophets have said, Isa 10:5-6, that the Assyrian sword shall shortly address you in ruder accents. So also they mocked our Lord, and his apostles; and the sword of the Romans cut them off.
While many mocked, more obeyed. If we may judge of the multitude who in one week ate eleven thousand oxen and seventeen thousand sheep, it could not be less than half a million. How glorious to see a whole nation formally abjure wickedness, and renew its covenant with the Lord. How glorious to see Jerusalem filled with people, and surrounded with camps, not for war, but for worship. How glorious to see a thousand scribes stand up to read the neglected law, and to hear amens and responses from every tongue. The seeds of truth were sown at large, the fruits were peace of conscience, and righteousness of life.The altar smoked, the music resounded, psalms followed, and the blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the crowd. Thus for a whole week they had a daily feast for the body, and more joyful delight for the soul. Hence we learn the utility and great importance of high example in religious concerns. It was the princes or elders who had corrupted Joash; it was the same order who had corrupted Ahaz, and then Ahaz corrupted them. The people will follow, if properly led. How great then is the account which the nobility and gentry must give to God, for spending their fortunes and time in a way so unworthy of the christian name; who riot in luxury and pride, affect the infidel, and exalt their dogmas above the maxims of revelation.
On the last day, the priests and levites stood up on the usual eminences, and blessed the people. Return, oh blessed and happy people, rescued from the vanity of idols and the power of sin. Return, blessed and happy Israel, having the blood of the covenant sprinkled upon you, and the grace of the covenant written on your heart. Return in peace to your houses, and fear not the growing power of the Assyrian empire; no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Return, oh happy people, under a most religious and gracious king, and serve your God in psalms and prayers at home, and every blessing of the covenant shall follow on you, and on your children.Here is an example worthy to be followed by every christian church and nation. And as an encouragement to the duty, we have proof abundant in the sacred writings that the Israelites never renewed their covenant without having a tide of blessings following on all the land; and they never forsook the covenant without being chastised with the calamities which it threatened. See Deuteronomy 28.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ch 29:1 to 2Ch 32:33. The Reign of Hezekiah (see notes on 2Ki 18:2 f., 2Ki 18:13-37; 2Ki 18:19; 2Ki 20:1-21).The Chronicler in this long section writes, from his own point of view, much that is quite unhistorical. The three main subjects treated by him here are Hezekiahs reopening of the Temple, the Passover, and the appointment of the Temple officials. In 2Ch 32:1-23 the invasion of Sennacherib is described; this, though corresponding to a large extent with 2Ki 18:13 to 2Ki 19:37, seems to be an independent account; it is probable that another source (or sources?) was utilised by the Chronicler, but he himself is evidently responsible for many of the variations.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
KEEPING THE PASSOVER
(vv.1-27)
The concern of Hezekiah to honour the Lord was then extended to his purpose that the Passover should be kept and that all Israel should be invited to this feast. Therefore he sent letters to Ephraim and Manasseh (in fact, announcing it throughout all Israel, v.6), to invite them to come to the only centre where God had ordered that the Passover should be kept, Jerusalem. At this time the ten tribes had been so overrun by enemies that they had no king reigning over them, but Hezekiah in great compassion for them, desired that individuals at least should be awakened to recognise God’s centre and come to honour Him by keeping the Passover.
However, being so concerned as Hezekiah was, the time was too late to gather the people together on the first month of the year, which was the stipulated time. But God had allowed that if anyone was unable to keep the Passover in the first month because of uncleanness or travelling away from home, he might keep the Passover in the second month. Hezekiah took advantage of this provision to announce the Passover in the second month (v.2).
Runners then took the message to all Israel and Judah, urging them as “children of Israel” to return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, assuring them that if so, God would return to them, the small remnant that had not been taken captive by the kings of Assyria. Further, they were told, “Do not be like your fathers and your brethren who trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, so that He gave them up to desolation, as you see.” For the idolatry that the ten tribes chose was a refusal of God’s centre, Jerusalem. Now at least let them recognise that centre and God would bless them for it. It was necessary that they should be told not to be stiff-necked, as their fathers were, but to yield themselves to the Lord (vv.7-8). If they would show the faith to return to Jerusalem, they would not be refused permission to enter God’s sanctuary (not the holiest of all, of course), but would be welcomed to the house of God.
Though the message was one of kindness and grace (v.9), when it was brought to Ephraim, Manasseh and Zebulun, it was received with only contempt and mockery, on the part of the people generally (v.10). The Lord had largely broken down their false worship, yet when the opportunity was given them to return to God’s true centre of worship, Jerusalem, they foolishly and proudly refused.
Nevertheless, there were some who responded to the invitation, from Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun, and humbly came to Jerusalem. Also, God disposed the hearts of the people of Judah to willingly obey the command of Hezekiah, so that there was a large gathering in the city in the second month (v.13).
But as soon as the Passover was contemplated, it was clearly seen that the idolatrous altars raised by former kings must be allowed no place. These were taken away and thrown into the Brook Kidron. Similarly, when we desire to honour the Lord by remembering Him in the breaking of bread, we shall want to get rid of all those forms and relics of humanly devised worship and give the Lord Jesus His place of supreme honour.
The Passover lambs were then slaughtered on the 14th day of the second month (v.15). It is noted that the priests and Levites were ashamed and sanctified themselves. It appears that the contemplation of the Passover woke them up to the shame of their previous laxity, for surely they ought to have purified themselves immediately if there was defilement, just as we too ought to confess our wrongs and be restored just as soon as we have done the wrong. At least they became ashamed enough to sanctify themselves. The Passover was kept “according to the law of Moses the man of God” (v.16). We too should keep the Lord’s supper in accordance with its institution by the Lord Jesus on the night of His betrayal. The simplicity of that institution is beautiful, yet many churches have added such ritual and ceremony to it today that it cannot be recognised as the same service the Lord introduced.
The ordinance of the Passover required that those who were defiled by a dead body could not eat of the Passover until they were sanctified from this (Num 9:9). Because of some being defiled at the time of the Passover in Numbers, God had made an allowance for them the keep the Passover in the second month (Num 9:10-11). However, since it was the second month that Hezekiah arranged the Passover, and there were large numbers from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun who had not been purified, yet they were allowed to eat the Passover, though it was contrary to the Word of God. This was a marked exception, and Hezekiah prayed for them, that the Lord would provide atonement for this infraction of the law. The Lord accepted this prayer and healed all the people (vv.19-20). In explanation of this, would it not have been cruel to refuse their participation in the Passover after having invited them to come from so far for this purpose, and after these people had shown such faith as to come to God’s centre in order to honour the Lord? This was the exception of pure grace.
All those present at Jerusalem at this time kept the feast for seven days, with great gladness, and the priests and Levites daily praised the Lord in singing with the accompaniment of musical instruments (v.21). Instrumental music is pleasant to the human ear, though it is not really worship in spirit and in truth (Joh 4:23-24), as the Lord insists that worship should be in this present age, in contrast to the “carnal (or fleshly) ordinances” prescribed for Israel (Heb 9:9-10). The New Testament is silent as to the use of musical instruments in the service of God. When the Lord instituted the Lord’s supper, it is recorded that they sang a hymn (Mar 14:26), but there is no mention of any musical instrument. Why? Because true worship is from the heart, and though one plays an instrument well, this is not worship, for worship is for the Lord, not for people. The people may enjoy the instrumental music, but it is not worship of God. A gospel meeting is for the benefit of people, and instrumental music may attract people to hear, but this is not worship.
But Hezekiah acted according to the times in which he lived, and he encouraged the Levites during the feast to teach the knowledge of the Lord, for the feast was seven days long (v.22). However, the assembly agreed to keep it up for seven days more, which gave opportunity for much teaching as well as offering peace offerings and making confession to the Lord (v.23). Their history under previous kings surely called for such confession.
Hezekiah himself gave to the assembly 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for offerings, and the leaders of Judah gave 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep. A great number of priests sanctified themselves so that they could help in the offering of all these (v.24).
Thus the whole assembly of Judah rejoiced together with the priests and Levites and the number who came from Israel. There had been no occasion like this since the time of Solomon (vv.25-26), so that it was a unique revival after years of failure on the part of the kings. The prayer of the priests and Levites came up to God’s holy dwelling place, to heaven. God was vitally interested and heard their prayer with glad approval.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
30:1 And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to {a} Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel.
(a) Meaning, all Israel, whom Tiglath Pilesar had not taken away into captivity, 2Ki 15:29.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. Hezekiah’s Passover 30:1-31:1
"Following the restoration of the temple and its services in ch. 29, the emphasis now falls heavily upon Hezekiah’s strenuous efforts to reunite in worship the hitherto separated peoples of the north and south." [Note: Williamson, 1 and 2 . . ., p. 360.]
Hezekiah wanted all the Israelites, namely, those left in the Northern Kingdom following its captivity, as well as the Judahites, to rededicate themselves to Yahweh (2Ch 30:1-9). Many in Israel had no interest in doing this (2Ch 30:10), but some responded positively, as did many of the people in Judah (2Ch 30:11-12). The complete repentance of the Israelites in the north might have resulted in God setting free many of the captive exiles (2Ch 30:9).
"Sometimes people refuse to repent out of a sense of hopelessness, but Hezekiah reminds that it is never too late to return to God." [Note: Thompson, p. 353.]
Large numbers of the people who came to the feast had not prepared themselves as the Mosaic Law specified. This group included priests and Levites who were ashamed of their uncleanness (2Ch 30:15). This revelation shows how the people had disregarded the Law. God pardoned ritual uncleanness if the worshipper’s heart was right (2Ch 30:18-20; cf. Joh 7:22-23; Joh 9:14-16). The heart attitude is more important than ritual cleanliness.
The feast was such a success that Hezekiah extended the celebration another week (2Ch 30:23). Great joy followed return to the Lord and His temple (2Ch 30:26).
"Hezekiah is portrayed here as a second Solomon (2Ch 30:26), and the celebration of the Passover is a watershed between the disruption of Israel after Solomon’s death and a return to the spiritual conditions that existed in Solomon’s day." [Note: Ibid., p. 350.]
God paid attention to the prayers of the rededicated Israelites (2Ch 30:27). Josiah carried out his Passover (2Ch 35:1-19) in stricter conformity to the Mosaic Law, but Hezekiah’s Passover was the greatest-in terms of participation and spiritual renewal-since Solomon’s reign (2Ch 30:26).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
HEZEKIAH: THE RELIGIOUS VALUE OF MUSIC
2Ch 29:1-36; 2Ch 30:1-27; 2Ch 31:1-21; 2Ch 32:1-33
THE bent of the chroniclers mind is well illustrated by the proportion of space assigned to ritual by him and by the book of Kings respectively. In the latter a few lines only are devoted to ritual, and the bulk of the space is given to the invasion of Sennacherib, the embassy from Babylon, etc., while in Chronicles ritual occupies about three times as many verses as personal and public affairs.
Hezekiah, though not blameless, was all but perfect in his loyalty to Jehovah. The chronicler reproduces the customary formula for a good king: “He did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done”; but his cautious judgment rejects the somewhat rhetorical statement in Kings that “after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”
Hezekiahs policy was made clear immediately after his accession. His zeal for reformation could tolerate no delay; the first month of the first year of his reign saw him actively engaged in the good work. It was no light task that lay before him. Not only were there altars in every corner of Jerusalem and idolatrous high places in every city of Judah, but the Temple services had ceased, the lamps were put out, the sacred vessels cut in pieces, the Temple had been polluted and then closed, and the priests and Levites were scattered. Sixteen years of licensed idolatry must have fostered all that was vile in the country, have put wicked men in authority, and created numerous vested interests connected by close ties with idolatry, notably the priests of all the altars and high places. On the other hand, the reign of Ahaz had been an unbroken series of disasters; the people had repeatedly endured the horrors of invasion. His government as time went on must have become more and more unpopular, for when he died he was not buried in the sepulchers of the kings. As idolatry was a prominent feature of his policy, there would be a reaction in favor of the worship of Jehovah, and there would not be wanting true believers to tell the people that their sufferings were a consequence of idolatry. To a large party in Judah Hezekiahs reversal of his fathers religious policy would be as welcome as Elizabeths declaration against Rome was to most Englishmen.
Hezekiah began by opening and repairing the doors of the Temple. Its closed doors had been a symbol of the national repudiation of Jehovah; to reopen them was necessarily the first step in the reconciliation of Judah to its God, but only the first step. The doors were open as a sign that Jehovah was invited to return to His people and again to manifest His presence in the Holy of holies, so that through those open doors Israel might have access to Him by means of the priests. But the Temple was as yet no fit place for the presence of Jehovah. With its lamps extinguished, its sacred vessels destroyed, its floors and walls thick with dust and full of all filthiness, it was rather a symbol of the apostasy of Judah. Accordingly Hezekiah sought the help of the Levites. It is true that he is first said to have collected together priests and Levites, but from that point onward the priests are almost entirely ignored.
Hezekiah reminded the Levites of the misdoings of Ahaz and his adherents and the wrath which they had brought upon Judah and Jerusalem; he told them it was his purpose to conciliate Jehovah by making a covenant with Him; he appealed to them as the chosen ministers of Jehovah and His temple to co-operate heartily in this good work.
The Levites responded to his appeal apparently rather in acts than words. No spokesman replies to the kings speech, but with prompt obedience they set about their work forthwith; they arose, Kohathites, sons of Merari, Gershonites, sons of Elizaphan, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun-the chronicler has a Homeric fondness for catalogues of high-sounding names – the leaders of all these divisions are duly mentioned. Kohath, Gershon, and Merari are well known as the three great clans of the house of Levi; and here we find the three guilds of singers-Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun-placed on a level with the older clans. Elizaphan was apparently a division of the clan Kohath, which, like the guilds of singers, had obtained an independent status. The result is to recognize seven divisions of the tribe.
The chiefs of the Levites gathered their brethren together, and having performed the necessary rites of ceremonial cleansing for themselves, went in to cleanse the Temple; that is to say, the priests went into the holy place and the Holy of holies and brought out “all the uncleanness” into the court, and the Levites carried it away to the brook Kidron: but before the building itself could be reached eight days were spent in cleansing the courts, and then the priests went into the Temple itself and spent eight days in cleansing it, in the manner described above. Then they reported-to the king that the cleansing was finished, and especially that “all the vessels which King Ahaz cast away” had been recovered and reconsecrated with due ceremony. We were told in the previous chapter that Ahaz had cut to pieces the vessels of the Temple, but these may have been other vessels.
Then Hezekiah celebrated a great dedication feast; seven bullocks, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats were offered as a sin-offering for the dynasty, for the Temple, for Judah, and (by special command of the king) for all Israel, i.e., for the northern tribes as well as for Judah and Benjamin. Apparently this sin-offering was made in silence, but afterwards the king set the Levites and priests in their places with their musical instruments, and when the burnt-offering began the song of Jehovah began with the trumpets together with the instruments of David king of Israel. And all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded, and all this continued till the burnt-offering was finished.
When the people had been formally reconciled to Jehovah by this representative national sacrifice, and thus purified from the uncleanness of idolatry and consecrated afresh to their God, they were permitted and invited to make individual sacrifices, thank-offerings and burnt-offerings. Each man might enjoy for himself the renewed privilege of access to Jehovah, and obtain the assurance of pardon for his sins, and offer thanksgiving for his own special blessings. And they brought offerings in abundance: seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs for a burnt-offering; and six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep for thank-offerings. Thus were the Temple services restored and re-inaugurated; and Hezekiah and the people rejoiced because they felt that this unpremeditated outburst of enthusiasm was due to the gracious influence of the Spirit of Jehovah.
The chroniclers narrative is somewhat marred by a touch of professional jealousy. According to the ordinary ritual, {Lev 1:6} the offerer flayed the burnt-offerings; but for some special reason, perhaps because of the exceptional solemnity of the occasion, this duty now devolved upon the priests. But the burnt-offerings were abundant beyond all precedent; the priests were too few for the work, and the Levites were called in to help them, “for the Levites were more upright in heart to purify themselves than the priests.” Apparently even in the second Temple brethren did not always dwell together in unity.
Hezekiah had now provided for the regular services of the Temple, and had given the inhabitants of Jerusalem a full opportunity of returning to Jehovah; but the people of the provinces were chiefly acquainted with the Temple through the great annual festivals. These, too, had long been in abeyance; and special steps had to be taken to secure their future observance. In order to do this, it was necessary to recall the provincials to their allegiance to Jehovah. Under ordinary circumstances the great festival of the Passover would have been observed in the first month, but at the time appointed for the paschal feast the Temple was still unclean, and the priests and Levites were occupied in its purification, But Hezekiah could not endure that the first year of his reign should be marked by the omission of this great feast. He took counsel with the princes and public assembly-nothing is said about the priests-and they decided to hold the Passover in the second month instead of the first. We gather from casual allusions in 2Ch 30:6-8 that the kingdom of Samaria had already come to an end; the people had been carried into captivity, and only a remnant were left. in the land. From this point the kings of Judah act as religious heads of the whole nation and territory of Israel. Hezekiah sent invitations to all Israel from Dan to Beersheba. He made special efforts to secure a favorable response from the northern tribes, sending letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, i.e., to the ten tribes under their leadership. He reminded them that their brethren had gone into captivity because the northern tribes had deserted the Temple; and held out to them the hope that, if they worshipped at the Temple and served Jehovah, they should themselves escape further calamity, and their brethren and children who had gone into captivity should return to their own land.
“So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun.” Either Zebulun is used in a broad sense for all the Galilean tribes, or the phrase “from Beersheba to Dan” is merely rhetorical, for to the north, between Zebulun and Dan, lay the territories of Asher and Naphtali. It is to be noticed that the tribes beyond Jordan are nowhere referred to; they had already fallen out of the history of Israel, and were scarcely remembered in the time of the chronicler.
Hezekiahs appeal to the surviving communities of the Northern Kingdom failed; they laughed his messengers to scorn, and mocked them; but individuals responded to his invitation in such numbers that they are spoken of as “a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun.” There were also men of Asher among the northern pilgrims. {Cf. 2Ch 30:11; 2Ch 30:18}
The pious enthusiasm of Judah stood out in vivid contrast to the stubborn impenitence of the majority of the ten tribes. By the grace of God, Judah was of one heart to observe the feast appointed by Jehovah through the king and princes, so that there was gathered in Jerusalem a very great assembly of worshippers, surpassing even the great gatherings which the chronicler had witnessed at the annual feasts.
But though the Temple had been cleansed, the Holy City was not yet free from the taint of idolatry. The character of the Passover demanded that not only the Temple, but the whole city, should be pure. The paschal lamb was eaten at home, and the doorposts of the house were sprinkled with its blood. But Ahaz had set up altars at every corner of the city; no devout Israelite could tolerate the symbols of idolatrous worship close to the house in which he celebrated the solemn rites Of the Passover. Accordingly before the Passover was killed these altars were removed.
Then the great feast began; but after long years of idolatry neither the people nor the priests and Levites were sufficiently familiar with the rites of the festival to be able to perform them without some difficulty and confusion. As a rule each head of a household killed his own lamb; but many of the worshippers, especially those from the north, were not ceremonially clean: and this task devolved upon the Levites. The immense concourse of worshippers and the additional work thrown upon the Temple ministry must have made extraordinary demands on their zeal and energy. {Cf. 2Ch 29:34; 2Ch 30:3} At first apparently they hesitated, and were inclined to abstain from discharging their usual duties. A passover in a month not appointed by Moses, but decided on by the civil authorities without consulting the priesthood, might seem a doubtful and dangerous innovation. Recollecting Azariahs successful assertion of hierarchical prerogative against Uzziah, they might be inclined to attempt a similar resistance to Hezekiah. But the pious enthusiasm of the people clearly showed that the Spirit of Jehovah inspired their somewhat irregular zeal; so that the ecclesiastical officials were shamed out of their unsympathetic attitude, and came forward to take their full share and even more than their full share in this glorious rededication of Israel to Jehovah.
But a further difficulty remained: uncleanness not only disqualified from killing the paschal lambs, but from taking any part in the Passover; and a multitude of the people were unclean. Yet it would have been ungracious and even dangerous to discourage their newborn zeal by excluding them from the festival; moreover, many of them were worshippers from among the ten tribes, who had come in response to a special invitation, which most of their fellow-country-men had rejected with scorn and contempt. If they had been sent back because they had failed to cleanse themselves according to a ritual of which they were ignorant, and of which Hezekiah might have known they would be ignorant, both the king and his guests would have incurred measureless ridicule from the impious northerners. Accordingly they were allowed to take part in the Passover despite their uncleanness. But this permission could only be granted with serious apprehensions as to its consequences. The Law threatened with death any one who attended the services of the sanctuary in a state of uncleanness. {Lev 15:31} Possibly there were already signs of an outbreak of pestilence; at any rate, the dread of Divine punishment for sacrilegious presumption would distress the whole assembly and mar their enjoyment of Divine fellowship. Again it is no priest or prophet, but the king, the Messiah, who comes forward as the mediator between God and man. Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “Jehovah, in His grace and mercy, pardon every one that setteth his heart to seek Elohim Jehovah, the God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the ritual of the Temple. And Jehovah hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people,” i.e., either healed them from actual disease or relieved them from the fear of pestilence.
And so the feast went on happily and prosperously, and was prolonged by acclamation for an additional seven days. During fourteen days king and princes, priests and Levites, Jews and Israelites, rejoiced before Jehovah; thousands of bullocks and sheep smoked upon the altar; and now the priests were not backward: great numbers purified themselves to serve the popular devotion. The priests and Levites sang and made melody to Jehovah, so that the Levites earned the kings special commendation. The great festival ended with a solemn benediction: “The priests arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and their prayer came to His holy habitation, even unto heaven.” The priests, and through them the people, received the assurance that their solemn and prolonged worship had met with gracious acceptance.
We have already more than once had occasion to consider the chroniclers main theme: the importance of the Temple, its ritual, and its ministers. Incidentally and perhaps unconsciously, he here suggests another lesson, which is specially significant as coming from an ardent ritualist, namely the necessary limitations of uniformity in ritual. Hezekiahs celebration of the Passover is full of irregularities: it is held in the wrong month; it is prolonged to twice the usual period; there are amongst the worshippers multitudes of unclean persons, whose presence at these services ought to have been visited with terrible punishment. All is condoned on the ground of emergency, and the ritual laws are set aside without consulting the ecclesiastical officials. Everything serves to emphasize the lesson we touched on in connection with Davids sacrifices at the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite: ritual is made for man, and not man for ritual. Complete uniformity may be insisted on in ordinary times, but can be dispensed with in any pressing emergency; necessity knows no law, not even the Torah of the Pentateuch. Moreover, in such emergencies it is not necessary to wait for the initiative or even the sanction of ecclesiastical officials; the supreme authority in the Church in all its great crises resides in the whole body of believers. No one is entitled to speak with greater authority on the limitations of ritual than a strong advocate of the sanctity of ritual like the chronicler; and we may well note, as one of the most conspicuous marks of his inspiration, the sanctified common sense shown by his frank and sympathetic record of the irregularities of Hezekiahs passover. Doubtless emergencies had arisen even in his own experience of the great feasts of the Temple that had taught him this lesson; and it says much for the healthy tone of the Temple community in his day that he does not attempt to reconcile the practice of Hezekiah with the law of Moses by any harmonistic quibbles.
The work of purification and restoration, however, was still incomplete: the Temple had been cleansed from the pollutions of idolatry, the heathen altars had been removed from Jerusalem, but the high places remained in all the cities of Judah. When the Passover was at last finished, the assembled multitude, “all Israel that were present,” set out, like the English or Scotch Puritans, on a great iconoclastic expedition. Throughout the length and breadth of the Land of Promise, throughout Judah and Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh, they brake in pieces the sacred pillars, and hewed down the Asherim, and brake down the high places and altars; then they went home.
Meanwhile Hezekiah was engaged in reorganizing the priests and Levites and arranging for the payment and distribution of the sacred dues. The king set an example of liberality by making provision for the daily, weekly, monthly, and festival offerings. The people were not slow to imitate him; they brought first-fruits and tithes in such abundance that four months were spent in piling up heaps of offerings.
“Thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah; and he wrought that which was good, and right, and faithful before Jehovah his God; and in every work that he began in the service of the Temple, and in the Law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and brought it to a successful issue.”
Then follow an account of the deliverance from Sennacherib and of Hezekiahs recovery from sickness, a reference to his undue pride in the matter of the embassy from Babylon, and a description of the prosperity of his reign, all for the most part abridged from the book of Kings. The prophet Isaiah, however, is almost ignored. A few of the more important modifications deserve some little attention. We are told that the Assyrian invasion was “after these things and this faithfulness,” in order that we may not forget that the Divine deliverance was a recompense for Hezekiahs loyalty to Jehovah. While the book of Kings tells us that Sennacherib took all the fenced cities of Judah, the chronicler feels that even this measure of misfortune would not have been allowed to befall a king who had just reconciled Israel to Jehovah, and merely says that Sennacherib purposed to break these cities up.
The chronicler has preserved an account of the measures taken by Hezekiah for the defense of his capital: how he stopped up the fountains and water-courses outside the city, so that a besieging army might not find water, and repaired and strengthened the walls, and encouraged his people to trust in Jehovah.
Probably the stopping of the water supply outside the walls was connected with an operation mentioned at the close of the narrative of Hezekiahs reign: “Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on the west side of the city of David.” {2Ch 32:30} Moreover, the chroniclers statements are based upon 2Ki 20:20, where it is said that “Hezekiah made the pool and the conduit and brought water to the city.” The chronicler was of course intimately acquainted with the topography of Jerusalem in his own days, and uses his knowledge to interpret and expand the statement in the book of Kings. He was possibly guided in part by Isa 22:9; Isa 22:11, where the “gathering together the waters of the lower pool” and the “making a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool” are mentioned as precautions taken in view of a probable Assyrian siege. The recent investigations of the Palestine Exploration Fund have led to the discovery of aqueducts, and stoppages, and diversions of watercourses which are said to correspond to the operations mentioned by the chronicler. If this be the case, they show a very accurate knowledge on his part of the topography of Jerusalem in his own day, and also illustrate his care to utilize all existing evidence in order to obtain a clear and accurate interpretation of the statements of his authority.
The reign of Hezekiah appears a suitable opportunity to introduce a few remarks on the importance which the chronicler attaches to the music of the Temple services. Though the music is not more prominent with him than with some earlier kings, yet in the case of David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat other subjects presented themselves for special treatment; and Hezekiahs reign being the last in which the music of the sanctuary is specially dwelt upon, we are able here to review the various references to this subject. For the most part the chronicler tells his story of the virtuous days of the good kings to a continual accompaniment of Temple music. We hear of the playing and singing when the Ark was brought to the house of Obed-edom; when it was taken into the city of David; at the dedication of the Temple; at the battle between Abijah and Jeroboam; at Asas reformation; in connection with the overthrow of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Meunim in the reign of Jehoshaphat; at the coronation of Joash; at Hezekiahs feasts; and again, though less emphatically, at Josiahs passover. No doubt the special prominence given to the subject indicates a professional interest on the part of the author. If, however, music occupies an undue proportion of his space, and he has abridged accounts of more important matters to make room for his favorite theme, yet there is no reason to suppose that his actual statements overrate the extent to which music was used in worship or the importance attached to it. The older narratives refer to the music in the case of David and Joash, and assign psalms and songs to David and Solomon. Moreover, Judaism is by no means alone in its fondness for music, but shares this characteristic with almost all religions.
We have spoken of the chronicler so far chiefly as a professional musician, but it should be clearly understood that the term must be taken in its best sense. He was by no means so absorbed in the technique of his art as to forget its sacred significance; he was not less a worshipper himself because he was the minister or agent of the common worship. His accounts of the festivals show a hearty appreciation of the entire ritual; and his references to the music do not give us the technical circumstances of its production, but rather emphasize its general effect. The chroniclers sense of the religious value of music is largely that of a devout worshipper, who is led to set forth for the benefit of others a truth which is the fruit of his own experience. This experience is not confined to trained musicians; indeed, a scientific knowledge of the art may sometimes interfere with its devotional influence. Criticism may take the place of worship; and the hearer, instead of yielding to the sacred suggestions of hymn or anthem, may be distracted by his esthetic judgment as to the merits of the composition and the skill shown by its rendering. In the same way critical appreciation of voice, elocution, literary style, and intellectual power does not always conduce to edification from a sermon. In the truest culture, however, sensitiveness to these secondary qualities has become habitual and automatic, and blends itself imperceptibly with the religious consciousness of spiritual influence. The latter is thus helped by excellence and only slightly hindered by minor defects in the natural means. But the very absence of any great scientific knowledge of music may leave the spirit open to the spell which sacred music is intended to exercise, so that all cheerful and guileless souls may be “moved with concord of sweet sounds,” and sad and weary hearts find comfort in subdued strains that breathe sympathy of which words are incapable.
Music, as a mode of utterance moving within the restraints of a regular order, naturally attaches itself to ritual. As the earliest literature is poetry, the earliest liturgy is musical. Melody is the simplest and most obvious means by which the utterances of a body of worshippers can be combined into a seemly act of worship. The mere repetition of the same words by a congregation in ordinary speech is apt to he wanting in impressiveness or even in decorum; the use of tune enables a congregation to unite in worship even when many of its members are strangers to each other.
Again, music may be regarded as an expansion of language: not new dialect, but a collection of symbols that can express thought, and more especially emotion, for which mere speech has no vocabulary. This new form of language naturally becomes an auxiliary of religion. Words are clumsy instruments for the expression of the heart, and are least efficient when they undertake to set forth moral and spiritual ideas. Music can transcend mere speech in touching the soul to fine issues, suggesting visions of things ineffable and unseen.
Browning makes Abt Vogler say of the most enduring and supreme hopes that God has granted to men, “Tis we musicians know”; but the message of music comes home with power to many who have no skill in its art.