Hezekiah's Revival

Hezekiah inherited a shut temple. His father Ahaz had cut up the sacred vessels and closed the doors of the house of the LORD, and set up altars on every corner in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 28:24). Hezekiah was twenty-five when he began to reign (2 Chronicles 29:1). Isaiah was already prophesying in the land.

He did not wait. In the first month of the first year of his reign he opened the doors and repaired them (2 Chronicles 29:3). Then he gathered the priests and Levites into the east square and told them plainly what had gone wrong: our fathers have trespassed, shut the doors, and turned their backs on the dwelling of the LORD (29:6–7). His order was not a sermon. It was a job: sanctify yourselves, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place (29:5).

The cleanup took sixteen days. They began on the first day of the first month, reached the porch on the eighth day, and finished on the sixteenth (2 Chronicles 29:17). Everything unclean was carried out to the brook Kidron. Before any music, before any crowd, the revival looked like men hauling rubbish downhill.

Then the offering. Seven bullocks, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats for a sin offering for the kingdom, the sanctuary, and Judah (2 Chronicles 29:21–24). The Levites stood with cymbals, harps, and psalteries — set in place, the chronicler says, by the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet (29:25). When the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD began with it, and the trumpets, and the whole assembly worshiped until the offering was finished (29:27–28). They sang the words of David and of Asaph with gladness, and bowed their heads (29:30).

Two details keep the account honest. There were not enough consecrated priests to handle the offerings, and the Levites had to help — because the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests (2 Chronicles 29:34). And Hezekiah rejoiced that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly (29:36). Neither man nor clergy gets the credit in the text.

The Passover came next, kept in the second month rather than the first, because too few priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not gathered in time (2 Chronicles 30:2–3) — a provision the law itself allowed (Numbers 9:10–11). Hezekiah sent runners with letters from Beersheba to Dan, and into Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting the survivors of a northern kingdom Assyria had just broken. Many laughed them to scorn and mocked them (30:10). Some of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came (30:11).

Crowds of them arrived unclean and ate the Passover anyway, contrary to what was written. Hezekiah prayed for them: the good LORD pardon every one that prepares his heart to seek God, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people (2 Chronicles 30:18–20). They kept the feast seven days, then the whole assembly agreed to keep seven more — and there was not the like in Jerusalem since the time of Solomon (30:23, 26).

The proof came after everyone went home. When it was finished, they went out to the cities and broke the images, cut down the poles, and threw down the high places and altars all through Judah and Benjamin, and into Ephraim and Manasseh (2 Chronicles 31:1). Hezekiah broke the bronze serpent Moses had made, because Israel had been burning incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan — a piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4). The tithes came in until they lay in heaps, and Azariah the chief priest told the king they had enough and plenty left over (31:10).

Dates here are approximate. Hezekiah's reign is usually placed around 715–686 BC, though some chronologies push his accession earlier through a co-regency with Ahaz; the record's own marker is simply “the first year of his reign, in the first month.” And the story does not end tidy. After God healed him, his heart was lifted up, and wrath came on him and on Judah until he humbled himself again (2 Chronicles 32:24–26). His son Manasseh rebuilt almost everything his father tore down (2 Chronicles 33:3).