2 Chronicles 29:12-24 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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Removing Uncleanness

2 Chronicles 29:12-24

The names of the assisting Levites are specially mentioned, because their obedient cooperation counted for so much in the national reconstruction. For eight days the priests and they wrought in the great work of cleansing the Temple of the filthiness which had accumulated through neglect. The drift of the sand-storm, the havoc of weeds, the multitudes of living things that come from the air and the earth to brood and breed in neglected buildings, had wrought sad disfigurement and dilapidation in the holy and beautiful house which David and Solomon had built for God.

Deterioration of heart and life, of Church and State, is the sure result of neglect. The garden of the sluggard could hardly be more useless or perilous to the ordered cultivation around, than is the heart of man, when it neglects the culture of its spiritual affinities. We were made for God and cannot be perfectly healthy or happy apart from Him. These sins must be expiated by blood. A deep lesson is contained in 2 Chronicles 29:20-24. See Hebrews 9:22.

Related Commentaries of 2 Chronicles 29:12

2 Chronicles 29:12-24

12 Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites: and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehalelel: and of the Gershonites; Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah:

13 And of the sons of Elizaphan; Shimri, and Jeiel: and of the sons of Asaph; Zechariah, and Mattaniah:

14 And of the sons of Heman; Jehiel, and Shimei: and of the sons of Jeduthun; Shemaiah, and Uzziel.

15 And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the wordsb of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD.

16 And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the LORD, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the LORD. 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 LORD: so they sanctified the house of the LORD in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.

18 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 shewbread 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 forthc 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.