'Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed
all the house of the Lord, and the altar of burnt-offering, with all
the vessels thereof, and the shew-bread table, with all the vessels
thereof. 19. Moreover, all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign
did cast away in his transgression, have we prepared and sanctified,
and, behold, they are before the altar of the Lord. 20. Then Hezekiah
the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up
to the house of the Lord. 21. And they brought seven bullocks, and
seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats, for a sin-offering
for the kingdom, and for the sanctuary, and for Judah. And he
commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar
of the Lord. 22. So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received
the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: likewise, when they had
killed the rams, they sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed
also the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar. 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. 25. And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord
with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the
commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the
prophet: for so was the commandment of the Lord by His prophets. 26.
And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests
with the trumpets. 27. And Hezekiah commanded to offer the
burnt-offering upon the altar. And when the burnt-offering began, the
song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the
instruments ordained by David king of Israel. 28. And all the
congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters
sounded: and all this continued until the burnt-offering was finished.
29. And when they had made an end of offering, the king and all that
were present with him bowed themselves, and worshipped. 30. Moreover,
Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing
praises unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer.
And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and
worshipped. 31. Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have
consecrated yourselves unto the Lord, come near, and bring sacrifices
and thank-offerings into the house of the Lord. And the congregation
brought in sacrifices and thank-offerings; and as many as were of a
free heart burnt offerings.--2 CHRON. xxix. 18-31.
Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, had wallowed in idolatry, worshipping any and
every god but Jehovah. He had shut up the Temple, defiled the sacred
vessels, and 'made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem.' And the
result was that he brought the kingdom very near ruin, was not allowed
to be buried in the tombs of the kings, and left his son a heavy task
to patch up the mischief he had wrought. Hezekiah began at the right
end of his task. 'In the first year of his reign, in the first month,'
he set about restoring the worship of Jehovah. The relations with
Syria and Damascus would come right if the relations with Judah's God
were right. 'First things first' was his motto, and perhaps he
discerned the true sequence more accurately than some great political
pundits do nowadays. So neglected had the Temple been that a strong
force of priests and Levites took a fortnight to 'carry forth the
filthiness out of the holy place to the brook Kidron,' and to cleanse
and ceremonially sanctify the sacred vessels. Then followed at once
the re-establishment of the Temple worship, which is narrated in the
passage.
The first thing to be noted is that the whole movement back to Jehovah
was a one-man movement. It was Hezekiah's doing and his only. No
priest is named as prominent in it, and the slowness of the whole
order is especially branded in verse 34. No prophet is named; was
there any one prompting the king? Perhaps Isaiah did, though his
chapter i. with its scathing repudiation of 'the burnt offerings of
rams and the fat of fed beasts,' suggests that he did not think the
restoration of sacrifice so important as that the nation should 'cease
to do evil and learn to do well.' The people acquiesced in the king's
worship of Jehovah, as they had acquiesced in other kings' worship of
Baal or Moloch or Hadad. When kings take to being religious reformers,
they make swift converts, but their work is as slight as it is speedy,
and as short-lived as it is rapid. Manasseh was Hezekiah's successor,
and swept away all his work after twenty-nine years, and apparently
the mass of his people followed him just as they had followed
Hezekiah. Religion must be a matter of personal conviction and
individual choice. Imposed from without, or adopted because other
people adopt it, it is worthless.
Another point to notice is that Hezekiah's reformation was mainly
directed to ritual, and does not seem to have included either theology
or ethics. Was be quite right in his estimate of what was the first
thing? Isaiah, in the passage already referred to, does not seem to
think so. To him, as to all the prophets, foul hands could not bring
acceptable sacrifices, and worship was an abomination unless preceded
by obedience to the command: 'Put away the evil of your doings from
before Mine eyes.' The filth in the hearts of the men of Judah was
more 'rank, and smelt to heaven' more offensively, than that in the
Temple, which took sixteen days to shovel into Kidron. No doubt
ceremonial bulked more largely in the days of the Old Covenant than it
does in those of the New, and both the then stage of revelation and
the then spiritual stature of the recipients of revelation required
that it should do so. But the true religious reformers, the prophets,
were never weary of insisting that, even in those days, moral and
spiritual reformation should come first, and that unless it did,
ritual worship, though it were nominally offered to Jehovah, was as
abhorrent to Him as if it had been avowedly offered to Baal. Not a
little so-called Christian worship today, judged by the same test, is
as truly heathen superstition as if it had been paid to Mumbo-Jumbo.
But when all deductions have been made, the scene depicted in the
passage is not only an affecting, but an instructive one. Strangely
unlike our notions of worship, and to us almost repulsive, must have
been the slaying of three hundred and seventy animals and the offering
of them as burnt offerings. Try to picture the rivers of blood, the
contortions of the dumb brutes, the priests bedaubed with gore, the
smell of the burnt flesh, the blare of the trumpets, the shouts of the
worshippers, the clashing cymbals, and realise what a world parts it
from 'They went up into the upper chamber where they were abiding ...
these all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer, with the
women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren'!
Sacrifice has been the essential feature in all religions before
Christ. It has dropped out of worship wherever Christ has been
accepted. Why? Because it spoke of a deep, permanent, universal need,
and because Christ was recognised as having met the need. People who
deny the need, and people who deny that Jesus on the Cross has
satisfied it, may be invited to explain these two facts, written large
on the history of humanity.
That brings us to the most important aspect of Hezekiah's great
sacrifice. It sets forth the stages by which men can approach to God.
It is symbolic of spiritual facts, and prophetic of Christ's work and
of our way of coming to God through Him. The first requisite for
Judah's return to Jehovah, whom they had forsaken, was the
presentation of a 'sin offering.' The king and the congregation laid
their hands on the heads of the goats, thereby, as it were,
transferring their own sinful personality to them. Thus laden with the
nation's sins, they were slain, and in their death the nation, as it
were, bore the penalty of its sin. Representation and substitution
were dramatised in the sacrifice. The blood sprinkled on the altar
(which had previously been 'sanctified' by sprinkling of blood, and so
made capable of presenting what touched it to Jehovah), made
'atonement for all Israel.' We note in passing the emphasis of
'Israel' here, extending the benefit of the sacrifice to the separated
tribes of the Northern Kingdom, in a gush of yearning love and desire
that they, too, might be reconciled to Jehovah. And is not this the
first step towards any man's reconciliation with God? Is not
'My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,'
the true expression of the first requisite for us all? Jesus is the
sin-offering for the world. In His death He bears the world's sin. His
blood is presented to God, and if we have associated ourselves with
Him by faith, that blood sprinkled on the altar covers all our sins.
Then followed in this parabolic ceremonial the burnt offering. And
that is the second stage of our return to God, for it expresses the
consecration of our forgiven selves, as being consumed by the holy and
blessed fire of a self-devotion, kindled by the 'unspeakable gift,'
which fire, burning away all foulness, will make us tenfold ourselves.
That fire will burn up only our bonds, and we shall walk at liberty in
it. And that burnt-offering will always be accompanied with 'the song
of Jehovah,' and the joyful sound of the trumpets and 'the instruments
of David.' The treasures of Christian poetry have always been inspired
by the Cross, and the consequent rapture of self-surrender. Calvary is
the true fountain of song.
The last stage in Hezekiah's great sacrifice was 'thank-offerings,'
brought by 'as many as were of a willing heart.' And will not the
self-devotion, kindled by the fire of love, speak in daily life by
practical service, and the whole activities of the redeemed man be a
long thank-offering for the Lamb who 'bears away the sins of the
world'? And if we do not thus offer our whole lives to God, how shall
we profess to have taken the priceless benefit of Christ's death?
Hezekiah followed the order laid down in the Law, and it is the only
order that leads to the goal. First, the atoning sacrifice of the
slain Lamb; next, our identification with Him and it by faith; then
the burnt-offering of a surrendered self, with the song of praise
sounding ever through it; and last, the life of service, offering all
our works to God, and so reaching the perfection of life on earth and
antedating the felicities of heaven.