Scripture Daily

Context No. 1643 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 29:1-11: in context

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.”

Hezekiah becomes king of Judah after the disastrous reign of his father Ahaz, who had shut the doors of the temple and let the worship of God fall into ruin. And in the very first month of his first year, Hezekiah acts. He reopens the doors of the temple and repairs them, gathers the priests and Levites, and charges them: sanctify yourselves and the house of the LORD, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place. He reckons honestly with the unfaithfulness that brought disaster, and resolves to make a covenant with the LORD, that his anger might turn away.

What stands out is where Hezekiah began. Inheriting a kingdom under judgment and a temple shut and defiled, the first thing he did, in the first month, was to reopen and cleanse the house of God. Before anything else, before political or military concerns, he made the restoration of worship his first priority, clearing out the accumulated filthiness from the holy place and calling the people back to God. He understood that the root of the nation's trouble was its broken relationship with God, and that the place to begin setting things right was there. There is a lesson in that about priorities when we want to set things right. When a life, or a family, or a community has drifted and fallen into disorder, the temptation is to address the symptoms, the visible problems, first; Hezekiah began instead with the root, the relationship with God, reopening the temple, clearing out the filthiness, restoring worship. He knew that until that was set right, nothing else would be. And notice the honesty with which he reckoned with the past: our fathers were unfaithful, they shut the doors and turned their backs; the disaster was the fruit of forsaking God. He did not pretend the problem away but named it, and then began the restoration at its source. There is wisdom in Hezekiah's order for our own reformations. When we want to set our lives right, the place to begin is not with the symptoms but with the root, reopening the doors we have shut on God, clearing out the filthiness that has accumulated, restoring first our relationship with him. Set that right, and the rest can follow; leave it shut, and no amount of addressing symptoms will heal the source.

When I want to set my life right, do I begin with the symptoms or, like Hezekiah, with the root, reopening the doors I have shut on God and clearing out the filthiness that has accumulated, restoring first my relationship with him, from which the rest must follow?

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