2 Chr 29:1-11 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
Hezekiah was a king of Judah. Second Kings introduces him like this: “Now in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign” (2 Kgs 18:1). “He removed the high places, broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it” (2 Kgs 18:4). The passage also says: “He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him” (2 Kgs 18:5).
When his father Ahaz was king, he had done this: “Ahaz gathered together the vessels of God’s house, cut the vessels of God’s house in pieces, and shut up the doors of the LORD’s house” (2 Chr 28:24).
Second Chronicles chapter 28 ends with the death of Ahaz, “and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place” (2 Chr 28:27). This lesson reads the very next chapter, 29: once Hezekiah became king, what was the first thing he did?
1Hezekiah began to reign 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.
2He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done.
3In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the LORD’s house and repaired them.
4He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together into the wide place on the east,
5and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place.
6For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in the LORD our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs.
7Also 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 to the God of Israel.
8Therefore the LORD’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment and a hissing, as you see with your eyes.
9For behold, 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, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us.
11My sons, don’t be negligent now; for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers and burn incense.”
Becoming king. “Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem” (v. 1). “He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done” (v. 2).
The first month. “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the LORD’s house and repaired them” (v. 3). This was his first year as king, and its first month. The doors had been shut: his father Ahaz had “shut up the doors of the LORD’s house” (2 Chr 28:24).
Sanctify. He called together the priests and the Levites (v. 4) and said to them: “Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place” (v. 5). First they were to sanctify themselves, then the house of God.
Our fathers. Hezekiah says ‘our’: “For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in the LORD our God’s sight, and have forsaken him” (v. 6). He names what they did, one thing after another: “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 to the God of Israel” (v. 7). And he names what came of it: “For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this” (v. 9).
A covenant. “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us” (v. 10).
Don’t be negligent. He calls the Levites ‘my sons’ and says to them: “My sons, don’t be negligent now; for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers and burn incense” (v. 11). The doors had been shut and the lamps put out, and still he speaks of this choosing as something for ‘now.’
Afterward. The Levites “gathered their brothers, sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by the LORD’s words, to cleanse the LORD’s house” (2 Chr 29:15). “They sanctified the LORD’s house in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished” (2 Chr 29:17). The chapter ends: “Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because of that which God had prepared for the people; for the thing was done suddenly” (2 Chr 29:36).
In the years Hezekiah reigned, the kingdom of Israel in the north came to its end. Second Kings records: “In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it” (2 Kgs 18:9). “In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken” (2 Kgs 18:10). The passage gives the reason: “because they didn’t obey the LORD their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant” (2 Kgs 18:12).
Readers can see this: when Hezekiah told the Levites that “our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity” (v. 9), captivity was not a distant word. In the first years of his reign, the people of Israel in the north were carried away to Assyria (2 Kgs 18:11).
Perhaps you, too, have a door that has been shut for a long time. You may not have shut it on your own: a family, a church, or you yourself, year after year, let it close.
This lesson does not say that once you open the door, everything will be fine. What it shows you is this: a young man who had just become king did not wait; “in the first year of his reign, in the first month” (v. 3), he opened the doors of the LORD’s house. And he did not only blame others; he said, “our fathers were unfaithful” (v. 6). The prophet Malachi also brought God’s word: “From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you” (Mal 3:7).
This week: Think of a door you have kept shut for a long time. This week, open it once: read a chapter of the Bible, go to one gathering, or send a message to the person you have not been in touch with for a long time.
Scripture: World English Bible.