Hezekiah Opens the Temple Doors

Think of a house that has stood locked for years. Dust on every surface, rubbish piled in the corners, the lamps cold. The heir who finally gets the key has two choices: sell it as it is, or roll up their sleeves. Hezekiah comes to the throne of a Judah whose previous king, Ahaz, had shut the temple doors and put out the lamps. In the very first month of his reign, the new king opens the doors. He gathers the priests and Levites and gives them a job that is both spiritual and very physical: carry the filth out and down to the Kidron valley.

Where it sits in the story: The north has just fallen (2 Kings 17). Judah now stands alone, and Chronicles introduces Hezekiah as the first king since David and Solomon to be honoured so fully. Chronicles, written after the exile for a community rebuilding its temple, spends three chapters on his reform, where Kings uses only a few verses. For Chronicles, a restored temple and worship done 'as David commanded' is the sign of a king who seeks God.

What this chapter is doing: To show a king's reign beginning with repentance and the restoration of worship. The chapter also presents the temple, its sacrifices and its music as the centre of Judah's renewed life with God.

• 29:1–11 — Hezekiah, twenty-five years old, opens the temple doors in his first month. He calls the Levites to consecrate themselves and the house, admits that 'our fathers' had shut the doors and brought wrath on Judah, and asks them to help him make a covenant with God.
• 29:12–19 — Levites from each clan get to work. Over sixteen days they carry every unclean thing out to the Kidron valley, then report that the altar, the table and the utensils Ahaz had discarded are clean and restored.
• 29:20–30 — The king and city officials bring sin offerings for the kingdom, the sanctuary and Judah, 'for all Israel'. Levites with cymbals, harps and lyres, and priests with trumpets, play as David, Gad and Nathan had ordered, and the assembly bows in worship.
• 29:31–36 — The people bring so many offerings that the priests are too few to prepare them, so the Levites help. The writer notes the Levites had been more careful to consecrate themselves than the priests. Everyone rejoices at how quickly it all came about.

Key verse: 2 Chronicles 29:3  ·  So what: Renewal in this chapter starts with dull, dirty work: carrying rubbish out of a building for more than two weeks. Only after that do the singing and celebration come. Hezekiah also does not blame the past from a distance; he says 'our fathers' and owns it. Starting again usually means naming what went wrong honestly and then doing the unglamorous work of clearing it away.