Hezekiah‘s Restoration of Hope

2 Chronicles 29:1-19

    1 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. 2 And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done.

   3 In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them. 4 Then he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them in the East Square, 5 and said to them: "Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. 6 For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the LORD our God; they have forsaken Him, have turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD, and turned their backs on Him. 7 They have also shut up the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore the wrath of the LORD fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has given them up to trouble, to desolation, and to jeering, as you see with your eyes. 9 For indeed, because of this our fathers have fallen by the sword; and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity.

    10 "Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. 11 My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense."  12 Then these Levites arose: Mahath the son of Amasai and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi and Azariah the son of Jehallelel; of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah and Eden the son of Joah; 13 of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeiel; of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah; 14 of the sons of Heman, Jehiel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.

    15 And they gathered their brethren, sanctified themselves, and went according to the commandment of the king, at the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD. 16 Then the priests went into the inner part of the house of the LORD to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the LORD to the court of the house of the LORD. And the Levites took it out and carried it to the Brook Kidron.

    17 Now they began to sanctify on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the vestibule of the LORD. So they sanctified the house of the LORD in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished.  18 Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, "We have cleansed all the house of the LORD, the altar of burnt offerings with all its articles, and the table of the showbread with all its articles. 19 Moreover all the articles which King Ahaz in his reign had cast aside in his transgression we have prepared and sanctified; and there they are, before the altar of the LORD."

Hezekiah Restored the house of the LORD, the temple of worship and sacrifice which had been defiled and nearly destroyed by his predecessor, Ahaz.  For this new king Hezekiah was one who did what was right by God’s standards and not anyone else’s, not even his own.  He imitated the life example of king David in following God by heart and not by anyone or any reasoning apart from God’s word.  He was faithful to trust and obey.  He began by opening up the shuttered doors of God’s house, tasking the priests to clean up the desecrated mess and to sanctify it and its contents again to their LORD.  He acknowledged the sins of their fathers and how they had turned their backs on their God, ceasing the required worship, sacrifices, and ceremonies which pleased God and atoned for those very same sins.  He was restoring hope.  The defeat of God’s people by their enemies was the just due for their rejection, while that dereliction of Him was forgetting their only hope of reconciliation.  Hezekiah therefore made a new covenant with the LORD to set themselves apart to God to serve and minister to Him again, and they began by cleaning the idolatrous mess and restoring the right and holy worship with sacrifice.  The team of Levites finished the task of clearing and cleansing to sanctify, to make holy and set aside for the LORD, preparing again the articles cast aside by the blasphemous king Ahaz before Hezekiah came to set things back in place.  They prepared the altar of sacrifice and for worship of the one true God once more.  We see this in a similar manner to the reformers of the church which culminated in the stand against the idolatry and false worship of the established and corrupted Roman church in Luther’s time.  They went back to God’s word and wanted to clean out all that was not holy in displeasing God.  Unfortunately, it did not reform that corrupt institution with its idolatry, but ended up creating a separate group of churches who sought to clean the church as the temple so long before them was by Hezekiah.  May we not ever wander so far away again in our New Covenant in Christ’s blood that we forget true worship, but that we continually reform our wandering ways in alignment back to the straight path of His word, restoring hope and pleasing God.  Amen.