2 Chronicleschapter 29
36 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the LORD. For eight more days they consecrated the house of the LORD itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a people whose worship had once been shut down by royal order for a generation. It opens the reign the book gives more room than any king after Solomon. The new king acts in his first month, and the work falls to the priests and Levites. Listen for how the king explains what went wrong before he gives any order. Follow the cleansing room by room, from the inside out. The last verse tells the first hearers where the speed of the work came from.
Context
- Who
- Judeans whose national worship had been shut down by royal order for a generation
- What
- Hezekiah's reopening of the temple, its cleansing by the priests and Levites, and the sacrifices and songs that restored its worship.
- Where
- The temple in Jerusalem, its inner rooms and court, and the Kidron Valley below the city.
- When
- About 716 or 715 BC, the first and second months of Hezekiah's first year.
- Why
- To show that the shutdown of worship ended by a decision to return to the LORD, beginning with confession.
Historical context
The chapter is Hezekiah's, and it opens with him twenty-five years old and one month into his reign. The men who carry the work are the priests and the Levites, and fourteen of them are named in verses 12 to 14.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is the first month of the first year of the reign, which Thiele's synchronisms place around 716 or 715 BC. The month and day are given exactly by the text itself, which is more than the parallel account supplies.
The place is the temple in Jerusalem, and the chapter moves through it in order. The priests go into the inner house, the Levites take what is carried out into the court, and from there it goes down to the brook Kidron.
The occasion is the reversal of a specific act. Ahaz had cut up the vessels of the house of God and shut its doors at 28:24, so the building had to be cleansed and its furniture restored before any offering could be made.
A first hearer knew several things the text does not stop to explain. The Levites were organised into courses by David, so the fourteen names in verses 12 to 14 were recognisable as offices rather than as volunteers. Sixteen days of cleansing ending on the sixteenth of the first month meant the Passover of the fourteenth had already passed. And a king who commanded the sons of Aaron to the altar without approaching it himself was keeping a line that Uzziah had crossed within living memory.
Significance
For Judah this chapter said that the shutdown was over and that it had ended by decision rather than by drift. The first act of a new reign was to open what the last reign had closed.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
It also put the disaster of the previous chapter into words the people could own. Hezekiah has the Levites say that their fathers trespassed and turned their faces away, so the reform begins with a confession rather than with a building programme.
The chapter's last sentence told them where to look for the cause of the speed. God had prepared the people, and the thing was done suddenly.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon, and the annual cycle of Torah portions and their Haftarot draws on other books. A Jewish reader meets this chapter in study rather than in a reading appointed for a Sabbath or a feast, and the site's own reading data records the same for every chapter.
The cleansing described here is a practice with fixed parts, and Rashi sets them out. The work took eight days on the house and another eight to the sixteenth of the month, because the walls had been painted with images that had to be destroyed (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:17:1). The priests alone went into the inner part, since a Levite may not enter there (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:16:1).
The song over the sacrifice is the practice this chapter is cited for. Rashi says the Torah nowhere requires music with an offering, and that the requirement came by the word of the Lord through his prophets (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:25:1). He gives the rabbinic derivation from the service of the service in Numbers. The Rabbis read that as a service needing another service beside it, the music of an instrument (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:25:1, citing Arakhin 11a). The trumpets stay with the priests, on the command given to the sons of Aaron (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:26:1). The thank offerings at the end are the kind the owner himself may eat (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:31:1).
How it is read
The word the king uses for what must be carried out of the sanctuary is read as the strongest word available. Rashi reports a midrashic reading that the text says the menstruant rather than the corpse, because that uncleanness is the more repugnant of the two (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:5:1).
The unusual numbers of the offering are read as a measure for one occasion. Rashi calls the seven of each kind "a temporary provision" and repeats the point when the sin offering is brought for all Israel (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:21:1, and 29:24:1). He notes that the standing law of Leviticus and Numbers asks for one bull, so the king's seven belong to the moment rather than to the rule.
Rashi also reports a Talmudic exchange about the vessels the previous king had cast aside. The question was whether vessels used elsewhere might serve in the house. The answer turns on reading the preparing of the vessels as their concealing, and the sanctifying as the making of others in their place (Rashi on II Chronicles 29:19:1, citing Avodah Zarah 52b).
Metzudat David comments at 29:4:1, 29:6:1, 29:8:1, 29:9:1, 29:18:1 and 29:27:1. Malbim comments at 29:10:1, 29:22:1 and 29:23:1, and Radak at 29:15:1 and 29:28:1. The corpus holds no English text for any of them, so all three stand cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-eight locators on this chapter and holds the locator alone for each. The Babylonian Talmud carries it at Arakhin 11b:10 and 11b:12, Avodah Zarah 52b:6 and 54b:1, Sukkah 51a:12 and Eruvin 105a:1. The Jerusalem Talmud carries it at Sanhedrin 1:2:27, Nedarim 6:8:7, Pesachim 4:1:4 and 9:1:5, Horayot 1:8:2 and Taanit 4:2:4. The halakhic midrashim carry it at Sifrei Devarim 34:5, 43:22 and 352:4 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 11:16:24. The Tanchuma carries it at Tetzaveh 15:3 and Beha'alotcha 10:1, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber at Beha'alotcha 19:1. The rest are Bamidbar Rabbah 15:16, Midrash Tehillim 13:3, Midrash Lekach Tov Numbers 10:1:1, Tractate Soferim 7:4, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 719:15, 724:1, 841:1 and 867:1. Last is Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Pesachim 60.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg (Sefaria, CC-BY); Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 29, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 29, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 29, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/29.json, fetched 2026-09-19; The reading data of this site, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Hezekiah opens the doors: my sons, be not now negligent
2 Chronicles 29:1-2
Hezekiah was twenty-five years old: Kings gives this reign three verses of formula before the high places and the bronze serpent at 2 Ki 18:1-4. Chronicles spends three chapters on the reopening the shorter account only assumes. Verse 2 measures him against David, the full comparison Henry notes several earlier kings were denied.
2 Chronicles 29:1
“The treatment of Hezekiah’s reign by the author of Chronicles is in marked contrast with that followed in the Book of Kings. The writer of Kings describes mainly civil affairs; the author of Chronicles gives a full account of Hezekiah’s religious reformation. 2 Chr. 29–31 contain matter, therefore, which is almost wholly new.”
just as his father David had done: Chronicles gives the same unqualified comparison to Josiah at 34:2, while Jehoshaphat at 17:3 walked in the earlier ways of David. Clarke points to 2 Kings 18:3. The account goes on at 18:5 to say no king of Judah before or after Hezekiah trusted the LORD as he did.
2 Chronicles 29:2
“Of several of his predecessors it had been said that they did that which was right, but not like David, not with David's integrity and zeal. But here was one that had as hearty an affection for the ark and law of God as ever David had.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
In the first month of the first year of his reign: Hezekiah acts “In the first month of the first year of his reign”, opening what Ahaz shut. Kings never records this date. The sixteen days of work in verse 17 run through Nisan, the month of Passover, which sets up the postponed feast of chapter 30.
2 Chronicles 29:3
“He in the first year of his reign, in the first month,.... And, as appears from 2Ch 29:17, on the first day of the month: opened the doors of the house of the Lord; which his father had shut, 2Ch 28:24. and repaired them; or strengthened them, the hinges, and other parts of them, being loosened and weakened; and ornamented them by overlaying them with gold, the plates of which very probably his father had taken off; for, certain it is, Hezekiah overlaid them, and very probably at this time, see 2Ki 18:16.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:3
“By “the first month” is meant (compare 2Ch 30:2-3) the month of Nisan, the first of the Jewish sacred year, not necessarily the first month of Hezekiah’s reign.”
2 Chronicles 29:4-5
gathered them in the square on the east side: Hezekiah gathers the priests and Levites “in the square on the east side” and gives one charge twice. The order sets the chapter's pattern, the priests reaching the inner house first and the Levites carrying what they find out to the Kidron.
2 Chronicles 29:4
“And he brought in the priests and Levites,.... The persons that officiated in the service of the temple: and gathered them together into the east street; which led to the eastern gate of the temple.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:4
“The east street - Rather, some open space before the eastern gate of the outer temple court is intended.”
Remove from the Holy Place every impurity: Barnes reads the order to consecrate themselves as David's own charge to the Levites at 1 Chronicles 15:12, given because the priests had contracted defilement. He takes the impurity of the Holy Place as both the dust of long neglect and the objects Ahaz brought in.
2 Chronicles 29:5
“Sanctify now yourselves - Compare the marginal reference. Hezekiah follows David’s example, knowing, probably, that the priests had in the preceding time of idolatry contracted many defilements. The “filthiness,” or “uncleanness” 2Ch 29:16, might consist, in part, of mere dust and dirt, in part, of idolatrous objects introduced by Ahaz before he finally shut up the temple 2Ki 16:10-16.”
2 Chronicles 29:6-7
turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD: Hezekiah confesses the sin of the generation before: “our fathers were unfaithful” and “turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD”. The list of failures is concrete, doors shut, lamps put out, no incense and no burnt offering, and it matches the shut doors of 28:24.
extinguished the lamps: The lamps burned from evening to morning at Exodus 27:20-21, incense was offered each morning and evening at Exodus 30:7-8. The burnt offering was made twice daily at Numbers 28:3-4. Matthew Henry reads the lamps as a figure of Scripture and the incense as a figure of prayer.
2 Chronicles 29:7
“The lamps were not lighted, and incense was not burnt. There are still such neglects as these, and they are no less culpable, when the word is not duly read and opened (for that was signified by the lighting of the lamps ) and when prayers and praises are not duly offered up, for that was signified by the burning of incense.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 29:8-9
an object of terror, horror, and mockery: The wrath and the “terror, horror, and mockery” name what the chapter before already showed, 120,000 slain and 200,000 carried captive at 28:6-8. Hezekiah binds the neglected temple and the national disaster together as cause and effect. He names “our sons and daughters and wives” still “in captivity”.
2 Chronicles 29:8
“He hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment - He probably refers here chiefly to that dreadful defeat by the Israelites in which a hundred and twenty thousand were slain, and two hundred thousand taken prisoners; see the preceding chapter, 2Ch 28:6-8 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity: Gill notes that the captives at 28:8 had been sent home, so the families held abroad were probably those the Edomites carried off at 28:17. Matthew Henry takes Hezekiah's words as a model for a nation under trouble, which should ask first whether the worship of God has been neglected.
2 Chronicles 29:9
“For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword,.... Of the kings of Syria and Israel, even great numbers of them, 2Ch 28:5. and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this; for this idolatry; or they were, though afterwards dismissed, 2Ch 28:8 and some of them were still in captivity, perhaps such as were carried captive by the Edomites, 2Ch 28:17.”
2 Chronicles 29:10-11
Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD: Hezekiah's resolve echoes the renewals Asa led at 15:12 and Jehoiada at 23:16, a pattern Chronicles returns to whenever a reign turns. Verse 11 addresses the Levites by their calling: “the LORD has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him”. What Hezekiah warns against is negligence.
2 Chronicles 29:10
“Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel,.... To renew one, as Asa and Jehoiada had done, promising to serve the Lord, and worship him according to his will: that his fierce wrath might be turned from us; under the tokens of which they still continued, and might expect it to break forth in other instances, unless a reformation was made.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:10
“To make a covenant - To renew the covenant under which the whole people were constantly considered, and of which circumcision was the sign; and the spirit of which was, I will be your God: Ye shall be my people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the LORD has chosen you to stand before Him: Gill marks Hezekiah's address, my sons, the word of a father to his household from a king of twenty-five. The duties run from standing before the LORD to burning incense, which the law kept for Aaron's sons at Numbers 16:40. The charge takes in the priests along with the Levites.
2 Chronicles 29:11
“And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into 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 the L ORD : so they sanctified the house of the L ORD in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Sixteen days spent carrying out the filthiness
2 Chronicles 29:12-14
Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah from the Kohathites: Fourteen Levites answer the summons by name. They are the courses David organized in 1 Chr 23-26, reporting for their first work since Ahaz's reign began. Barnes notes the sons of Elizaphan as a distinct branch of Kohath with standing privileges going back to the wilderness census at Numbers 3:30.
2 Chronicles 29:12
“On the triple division of the Levites, see 1Ch 23:6; and on the musical Levites, see 1Ch 25:1-6. 2Ch 29:13 The descendants of Elizaphan - a grandson of Kohath Exo 6:22, and chief of the Kohathites at the time of the census in the wilderness Num 3:30 - appear at all times to have formed a distinct branch of the Kohathites with special privileges 1Ch 15:8.”
Zechariah and Mattaniah from the Asaphites: The Elizaphanites stand for Elizaphan, whom Moses set over the Kohathites at Numbers 3:30. The Asaphites are the first of the singing families David organized at 1 Chronicles 25:1-2. Matthew Henry notes the speed with which these men went to work, beginning on the first day of the first month.
2 Chronicles 29:13
“The expedition with which they did this work was very remarkable. They began on the first day of the first month, a happy beginning of the new-year, and one that promised a good year. Thus should every year begin with the reformation of what is amiss, and the purging away, by true repentance, of all the defilements contracted the foregoing year.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Shemaiah and Uzziel from the Jeduthunites: The Hemanites and Jeduthunites complete the three singing families David appointed at 1 Chronicles 25:1-6, so each guild of temple music sends two men. Heman is called the king's seer at 1 Chronicles 25:5. Matthew Henry reads the work these fourteen began as a revival of ordinances long neglected.
2 Chronicles 29:15-17
When they had assembled their brothers: They begin “on the first day of the first month”, reach “the portico of the LORD” on the eighth and finish on the sixteenth. That runs two days past the fourteenth of Nisan, the day of Passover. Chapter 30 keeps the feast in the second month under Num 9:10-11.
2 Chronicles 29:15
By the words of the Lord - Rather, as suggested in the margin, “According to the commandment of the king in the business (or matters) of the Lord.”
carried them out to the Kidron Valley: Barnes explains the division of labor: only priests could enter the temple building, so they carried the unclean things to the court. The Levites, who could go no further than the inner court, took them from there. Asa had burned his mother's Asherah pole in the Kidron Valley at 15:16.
2 Chronicles 29:16
“And the priests went - The priests and Levites cleansed first the courts both of the priests and of the people. On this labor they spent eight days. Then they cleansed the interior of the temple; but as the Levites had no right to enter the temple, the priests carried all the dirt and rubbish to the porch, whence they were collected by the Levites, carried away, and cast into the brook Kidron; in this work eight days more were occupied, and thus the temple was purified in sixteen days.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month: The work falls into two equal parts. Clarke notes that the Targum names the first month as Nisan, the month of Passover under Exodus 12:2-6. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Levites went to report once the second eight days were done, the report verse 18 records.
2 Chronicles 29:17
“On the first day - “They began on the first day of the first month Nisan.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 29:18-19
The Levites report by inventory. They have consecrated “all the articles that King Ahaz in his unfaithfulness cast aside”, now “in front of the altar of the LORD”. Clarke cites the Targum's reading that Ahaz had hidden some of the vessels, which would make these the original pieces.
2 Chronicles 29:18
“Then they went in to Hezekiah the king,.... In his palace: and said, we have cleansed all the house of the Lord; the several parts of it, and apartments belonging to it: and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof; which they cleansed and scoured, and put in their proper place, and which Ahaz had removed: and the shewbread table, with all the vessels thereof; which had lain neglected and profaned, but were now put in order.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:18
“23 And they brought forth the he goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation; and they laid their hands upon them: 24 And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
that King Ahaz in his unfaithfulness cast aside: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the articles as vessels Ahaz had removed to common use in his palace, now returned and consecrated again. The verse sets the restoration against 28:24. With the vessels placed before the altar, the report leaves the house ready for the offerings of verses 20-24.
2 Chronicles 29:19
All the vessels, which King Ahaz - The Targum says, “All the vessels which King Ahaz had polluted and rendered abominable by strange idols, when he reigned in his transgression against the Word of the Lord, we have collected and hidden; and others have we prepared to replace them; and they are now before the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A sin offering for all Israel, sung with the song of the LORD
2 Chronicles 29:20-21
Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the city officials: The king brings “seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats”, and Wesley takes seven as the number of completeness in sacred things. Hezekiah commands “the priests, the descendants of Aaron” to offer them, directing the worship without doing the priest's part, the line Uzziah crossed at 26:16-21.
2 Chronicles 29:20
“Then Hezekiah the king rose early,.... Took the first opportunity to attend the worship of God, and set an example to his people: and gathered the rulers of the city; the elders of the people, the chief magistrates in Jerusalem: and went up to the house of the Lord; the temple, to worship there.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:20
“At the close of the special services of the occasion, namely, the offering of atonement sacrifices, the king and all civic rulers who were present joined in the worship.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 29:20
“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 mine heart to make a covenant with the L ORD God of Israel, that his fierce wrath may turn away from us.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah: Matthew Henry reads the three objects of the offering as the princes, the priests and the people, since all three had corrupted their way. The law of Leviticus 4 provides sin offerings for the anointed priest, the whole congregation and a ruler, and this offering answers all three.
2 Chronicles 29:21
“Hezekiah commenced his restoration of the Yahweh-worship with an unusually comprehensive sin-offering, embracing the four chief kinds of sacrificial animals, and seven animals of each kind: he intended to atone for the sins, both conscious and unconscious, of the king, the priests, the people of Judah, and the people of Israel. After the completion of these expiatory rites, he proceeded to the offering of the burnt-offering 2Ch 29:27.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:21
“Seven - The number seven is customary in sacred matters, and is here used in regard of the vast numbers and various kinds of sins, the guilt whereof yet lay upon the kingdom, which was now to be expiated. Indeed, in case of one particular sin of ignorance done by the people, there was but one bullock to be offered, but here the sins were many and presumptuous.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 29:22-24
So they slaughtered the bulls: The king and the assembly lay their hands on the goats, and Gill reads the gesture by the pattern of substitution Leviticus 1 sets out. Hezekiah already reaches toward the northern tribes, the reach that becomes a letter to Ephraim and Manasseh in chapter 30.
2 Chronicles 29:22
“So they killed the bullocks,.... The seven bullocks, that is, the priests killed them: and the priests received the blood; into basins provided for that purpose: and sprinkled it on the altar; according to the law of Moses, Lev 1:5 and so they did with the rams and lambs.”
who laid their hands on them: Barnes reads the goats as the part of the sin offering held back to the last. The king and the assembly lay their hands on the goats themselves, following Leviticus 4:15. Matthew Henry notes that the burnt offerings gave glory to God while the sin offering made atonement.
2 Chronicles 29:23
“And they brought forth the he goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation,.... Which were to make atonement for the sins of both: and they laid their hands on them; signifying thereby that they were vicarious sacrifices to be offered up in their own room and stead, and that they deserved to die, as these creatures would: transferring as it were hereby their sins unto them, for which they were to be sacrificed, and to make atonement, as an emblem of the imputation of the sins of the Lord's people to Christ, sacrificed in their stead.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:23
“The he goats for the sin offering - Rather, “the he goats of the sin offering” - that portion of the Sin offering which had been reserved to the last.”
to make atonement for all Israel: Barnes reads the king's order as the first step of a plan to bring the northern tribes back into one worship. The plan takes shape at 30:5. Matthew Henry sets the widened offering beside 1 John 2:2, where Christ is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
2 Chronicles 29:25-26
according to the command of David: Three names stand behind the order Hezekiah restores. The verse says “the command had come from the LORD through His prophets”, putting the temple music on the footing of the written pattern. Clarke notes that Moses commanded no instruments for the tabernacle.
The Levites stood with the instruments of David: The Levites play the instruments David made for praise, and the priests blow the trumpets the LORD ordered Moses to make at Numbers 10:2. Gill draws both links. Numbers 10:10 appoints the trumpets to be sounded over burnt offerings on days of gladness, the use they are put to here.
2 Chronicles 29:26
“And the Levites stood with the instruments of David,.... Which were invented, directed, and ordered to be used by him, and are the same as in the preceding verse: and the priests with the trumpets; which were made by the direction of Moses, according to the order of God, Num 10:2.”
2 Chronicles 29:27-28
When the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD: Barnes calls it a burst of music giving notice to the people as the old worship resumes after the years of shut doors under Ahaz. The singers Jehoshaphat sent ahead of an army at 20:21 appear here in the sanctuary, and the song runs “until the burnt offering was completed”.
2 Chronicles 29:27
“All had hitherto been preparatory. Now Hezekiah gave orders that “the burnt offering” - i. e. the daily morning sacrifice - should be offered upon the brass altar in front of the porch, thus restoring and reinstituting the regular temple-service. A burst of music gave notice to the people of the moment when the old worship recommenced.”
All this continued until the burnt offering was completed: Gill describes each group in turn: the assembly bowed in worship, the Levites sang with voice and instrument, and the priests sounded the silver trumpets. Matthew Henry notes that the whole assembly took part in the worship itself, and he stresses that God asks for the worship of the heart.
2 Chronicles 29:28
“And all the congregation worshipped,.... Bowed their heads as a token of divine adoration: and the singers sang; both with vocal and instrumental music, who were the Levites: and the trumpeters sounded; their silver trumpets; these were the priests: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished; with all appertaining to it, the meat and drink offerings.”
2 Chronicles 29:29-30
When the offerings were completed: Hezekiah and his officials order the Levites to sing “in the words of David and of Asaph the seer”. Asaph is the singer David set over the ark's service. The title seer gives the songs a prophetic standing, as 1 Chr 25:1 does for singers who prophesy with harps.
2 Chronicles 29:29
“And when they had made an end of offering,.... Both the sin offering and the burnt offering: the king and all that were with him bowed themselves and worshipped; towards the place where the ark was, giving thanks for the purging of the temple, and restoring the worship of it.”
in the words of David and of Asaph the seer: The command to sing comes from the king and his officials together. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the civil rulers joined the worship themselves. Matthew Henry reads the day as a beginning, the service set up again so that it could be kept up without a break.
2 Chronicles 29:30
“Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord, with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer,....”
Too few priests for so many offerings, and the thing done suddenly
2 Chronicles 29:31-33
The response is free, for “all whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings”, the same willing giving that marks the gifts at 1 Chr 29:9. Gill notes that the totals run smaller than the dedication offerings of David and Solomon, from a nation poorer after Ahaz.
2 Chronicles 29:31
“Hezekiah addresses, not the priests, but the congregation: “Now that by the atoning sacrifice which has been offered for you, you are consecrated once more to be a holy people to the Lord, approach with confidence and offer your free-will offerings as of old.” Burnt offerings - The term thus translated is applied especially to those victims which were to be wholly consumed upon the altar.”
seventy bulls, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs: These burnt offerings belonged wholly to the LORD, and Gill notes that the worshipers ate no part of them, so the gift expressed thanks alone. Matthew Henry explains that in peace and thank offerings the fat burned on the altar while the priests and offerers shared the meat.
2 Chronicles 29:32
“And the number of the burnt offerings which the congregation brought were seventy bullocks, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs; all these were for a burnt offering to the Lord. Of which they had no part to feast but were wholly devoted to the Lord, by way of thankfulness to him.”
six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep: Gill takes them as peace offerings, in which the owners kept a share of the meat for a meal before the LORD under Leviticus 7:15. Matthew Henry suggests that memory of their sacrifices on the high places made the people readier to bring them to the LORD's altar now.
2 Chronicles 29:33
“And the consecrated things,.... Which were devoted for peace offerings, of which the owners had a part: were six hundred oxen, and three thousand sheep; which was a much lesser number than what were offered upon occasion in the times of David and Solomon, the nation being poorer; and besides, these were only the oblation of two tribes, they of all Israel.”
there were not enough priests to skin all the burnt offerings: There were too few priests to skin the burnt offerings. The Levites helped with work the law gave to Aaron's sons, which Clarke calls a case of necessity. The verse states the reason without softening it: “the Levites had been more diligent in consecrating themselves than the priests had been”.
2 Chronicles 29:34
“They could not flay all the burnt-offerings - Peace-offerings, and such like, the Levites might flay and dress; but the whole burnt-offerings, that is, those which were entirely consumed on the altar, could be touched only by the priests, unless in a case of necessity, such as is mentioned here. The Levites were more upright in heart - The priests seem to have been very backward in this good work; the Levites were more ready to help forward this glorious reformation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:34
“Many of them, it is likely, were suspended and laid aside as polluted and uncanonical, for having sacrificed to idols in the last reign, and the rest had not the zeal that one might have expected upon such an occasion.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 29:35-36
the burnt offerings were abundant: Verse 35 closes the account of the day. Verse 36 gives two causes for the joy, “what God had prepared for the people” and that “everything had been accomplished so quickly”. Wesley sets the speed of the change beside a people who had followed Ahaz's idolatry only a generation before.
2 Chronicles 29:35
“And also the burnt offerings were in abundance, with the fat of the peace offerings, and the drink offerings, for every burnt offering,....”
because everything had been accomplished so quickly: Gill notes that king and people rejoiced together, and the verse gives God the credit for the readiness the people showed. The whole work took little more than two weeks after years of shut doors under Ahaz. The Passover of 30:26 brings the greatest joy Jerusalem had known since Solomon.
2 Chronicles 29:36
“And Hezekiah rejoiced - Both he and the people rejoiced that God had prepared their hearts to bring about so great a reformation in so short a time; for, it is added, the thing was done suddenly. The king’s example and influence were here, under God, the grand spring of all those mighty and effectual movements. What amazing power and influence has God lodged with kings! They can sway a whole empire nearly as they please; and when they declare themselves in behalf of religion, they have the people uniformly on their side.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 29:36
“Rejoiced - It was, as a very great, so a sudden change, that the people, who but the other day were so ready to comply with wicked Ahaz in his idolatrous presumptions, were now so free and forward in God's service: whereby it plainly appeared to be the work of God, changing their hearts by his Holy Spirit.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A narrative of one reform, dated to the day and built as a sequence of orders carried out, with a charge, a cleansing, an atonement and a restored liturgy, as John Gill, with Keil classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The first year, the first month, the first day | The chapter dates itself four times over. The reform opens in the first year and the first month at verse 3. The cleansing begins on the first day of the first month at verse 17, the priests reach the porch on the eighth day, and the house is finished on the sixteenth. The site's exposition note on 29:15 to 17 records what the last date leaves standing, two days past the appointed Passover of the fourteenth.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 29:15 to 17. | 2 Chronicles 29:3, 2 Chronicles 29:17 |
| Sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house | Hezekiah gives one charge twice in one sentence at verse 5, and the chapter follows it in that order. The men are set apart before the building is. The site's exposition note on 29:4 to 5 records that the same order governs the work. The priests reach the inner house first, and the Levites carry what they find out to the brook Kidron at verse 16.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 29:4 to 5. | 2 Chronicles 29:5, 2 Chronicles 29:15, 2 Chronicles 29:34 |
| Fourteen Levites named before any work begins | Verses 12 to 14 name two men from each of the three Levitical houses and two more from each of the four song guilds. The site's exposition note on those verses reads the list as the courses David organised in 1 Chronicles 23 to 26 reporting for their first work since Ahaz came to the throne. Albert Barnes notes the sons of Elizaphan as a branch of Kohath with standing that reaches back to the wilderness census at Numbers 3:30.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 29:12 to 14. | 2 Chronicles 29:12, 2 Chronicles 29:13, 2 Chronicles 29:14 |
| For all Israel, said before the letters go north | Verse 24 states the scope of the sin offering in the king's own order, that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all Israel. Judah alone is under Hezekiah's rule, and the offering already reaches past his border. The site's exposition note on 29:22 to 24 records that the same reach becomes an open letter to Ephraim and Manasseh in the next chapter.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 29:22 to 24. | 2 Chronicles 29:21, 2 Chronicles 29:24, 2 Chronicles 30:1 |
The historical value
14 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter records an administrative recovery rather than a battle or a building, and its outside corroboration is indirect. The book's dossier carries five archaeological finds, and the two that bear on this reign, the Siloam tunnel and the Lachish remains, belong to chapter 32. What this chapter offers a historian is a detailed picture of how a Judean temple establishment was organised. It names the three Levitical houses, the four song guilds, the courses, and the chain of hands that carried uncleanness out to the brook Kidron.
The manuscript witness that touches these chapters is 4Q118, the only Chronicles manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The dossier records that it carries text corresponding to the end of 2 Chronicles 28 and the beginning of 29. The opening of this chapter is therefore the one stretch of the book with a Qumran witness.
The debated concept
The chapter is one of the clearest cases of the question the book page carries as its second contested point, whether the Chronicler's expansions are independent record or theological shaping. Kings gives the reform a verse and Chronicles gives it three chapters, with dates, names and inventories that stand nowhere else.
The pedagogical reading holds that the Chronicler is writing for a community rebuilding a temple, and that his interest in courses and vessels is the interest of his readers. Selecting true material toward that end is compositional method. The critical reading, which the guide associates with Sara Japhet, holds that some of the Chronicler's added material is written to account for judgments and blessings the older account leaves unexplained. The guide's own flag names where the two meet. Arranging true material for teaching is method, and the observation about that method stands apart from doubt about the events themselves.
A second and smaller question stands in verse 34. The Levites do work the law gives to Aaron's sons, because the priests were too few. The site's exposition note on that verse records Adam Clarke reading it as a case of necessity rather than a new rule. The note also records the reason the text gives plainly, that the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests. The site states the comparison and adds nothing to it.
The divine connection
The chapter names its own cause in its last two verses. Hezekiah rejoices, and the reason given is that God had prepared the people, and that the thing was done suddenly. The site's exposition note on 29:35 to 36 records John Wesley reading the suddenness itself as evidence. A people who had gone along with Ahaz's idolatry a generation earlier were now free and forward in the LORD's service. Adam Clarke adds that a king's example can move a whole nation, and the note records that the text names its own cause first.
The atonement of verses 20 to 24 carries the chapter's theology in its ritual. Hands are laid on the goats before they are killed. The site's exposition note on 29:22 to 24 records John Gill reading that as the substitution pattern of Leviticus 1, and records that the verse states the gesture and no more. The scope widens in one verse from the kingdom to the sanctuary to Judah, and then to all Israel at verse 24.
One line of the chapter marks a boundary the book enforces elsewhere. Hezekiah commands the sons of Aaron to the altar and does not go to it himself. The site's exposition note on 29:20 to 21 sets that beside Uzziah at 26:16 to 21, who crossed the same line and was struck with leprosy in the same scene.
How the rest of Scripture reads this chapter
The parallel is 2 Kings 18:1 to 6, which carries the formula and the removal of the high places and says nothing of the cleansing. Anything in this chapter that a reader wants checked against a second account has no second account to be checked against, which the site says plainly rather than implying a parallel that is absent.
The chapter reaches back into the book's own first half at nearly every step. The song courses of verse 25 are the arrangement of David, Gad the king's seer and Nathan the prophet, which the verse calls the commandment of the LORD by his prophets. The site's exposition note on 29:25 to 26 sets that beside 1 Chronicles 28:19, where David says the pattern was given him in writing by the LORD's hand upon him. The same note records Adam Clarke's observation that Moses commanded no instruments for the first tabernacle. The covenant Hezekiah says is in his heart at verse 10 follows the renewals of Asa at 15:12 and Jehoiada at 23:16.
Asaph, named at verse 30, is the singer David set over the service before the ark at 1 Chronicles 16:4 to 7. The chapter calls him a seer, which the site's exposition note on 29:29 to 30 reads with 1 Chronicles 25:1, where the singers prophesy with harps.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
John Gill, with Keil, Exposition of the Old Testament and The Books of the Chronicles, cited together by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 29:3 and the site's 2 Chronicles guide, the APEX table of `src/components/book/guides/2-chronicles/Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx`, the Hezekiah panel at 29:1 to 32:33.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.