Then Hezekiah the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD.
Then Hezekiah the king rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city. His anxiety to enter upon the expiatory service with all possible despatch, now that the temple had been properly prepared for it, prevented his summoning the whole representatives of Israel. The requisite number of victims having been provided, and the officers of the temple having sanctified themselves according to the directions of the law, the priests were appointed to offer sacrifices of atonement successively "for the kingdom," - i:e., for the sins of the king and his predecessors; "for the sanctuary" - i:e., for the sins of the priests themselves, and for the desecration of the temple: "and for Judah" - i:e., for the people, who, by their voluntary consent, were involved in the guilt of the national apostasy.
When the nation had ignorantly fallen into the sin of idolatry, the sacrifice of a single bullock or goat was prescribed, with the addition of another bullock as a burnt offering. But when the apostasy had been general and aggravated, involving not only the neglect of the appointed rites of religion, but also the adoption of foreign and pagan observances, both a bullock and a goat [on the use of the word tsaapiyr (H6842), he-goat, see 'Introduction' to Chronicles] were required as particular sacrifices, with the added bullock for the burnt offering, which betokened the revival of the ancient ritual.
Thus, Hezekiah, on re-opening the temple after it had been for some time closed and many foreign superstitions introduced, offered for the two offences an expiating sacrifice of bullocks and goats. Animals of the kinds used in sacrifice were offered by sevens-that number indicating completeness. The Levites were ordered to praise God in their several choirs, divided into different classes, among which there seems to have been a female choir (see the note at 1 Chronicles 25:5); and with musical instruments, which, although not originally used in the tabernacle, had been enlisted in the service of divine worship by David, on the advice of the prophets Gad and Nathan, as well calculated to animate the devotions of the people.
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. A grand anthem was sung (2 Chronicles 29:30) by the choir, consisting of some of the Psalms of David and Asaph (the name of Asaph, as a writer of sacred songs, is still famous in the East, particularly in Affghanistan and the valley of Cashmere: Wolff's 'Missionary Researches,' p. 493), and a great number of thank offerings, praise offerings, and free-will burnt offerings were presented at the invitation of the king.
Thus, at the restoration of the divine service in the time of Hezekiah, the sacred odes or hymns of David were publicly recognized as part of the divinely-appointed worship of Zion. But, as Saalschutz observes ('Archaeol. der Hebr.,' 1:, p. 299), no notice is taken of women with timbrels, and dances (see the notes at 2 Samuel 6:14; 2 Samuel 6:20; 2 Samuel 6:22), so that this element was discontinued after David's death.