God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 29:4-11 Sweeping out the filth

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, May 19, 2025

4 He brought the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the courtyard on the east side 5 and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the House of the LORD, the God of your fathers. Remove all the filth from the holy place. 6 Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the dwelling of the LORD and turned their backs on him. 7 They also shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore, the wrath of the LORD is upon Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of terror, and horror, and hissing, as you can see with your own eyes. 9 You have seen it! Our fathers have fallen by the sword and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity. 10 Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. 11 Now my sons, do not be negligent, for you are the ones the LORD has chosen to stand before him and minister to him, to be his ministers and to burn incense.”

Our author presents King Hezekiah in a new way. Instead of a chapter, or half a chapter, as with most of the others, Hezekiah is given four chapters; only in the final four verses does he show a flaw. He is, in one man’s words, presented “like a new Solomon.”

Having opened the doors of the temple, he wasn’t going to be able to celebrate the Passover. The Passover date was less than two weeks away, and he and his people didn’t know how long it would take to get the temple cleaned up, to purify the building and utensils, re-consecrate what had been defiled, and then invite the nation using runners to spread the news. But all of that could wait a moment. First it was time to simply get started on the work, and to worry about dates and invitations later.

The king gathered the Levites in the big open courtyard east of, that is, in front of the temple, and told them to consecrate themselves to this work, and consecrate the temple to do what it was built to do. To “consecrate” is to sanctify, or set apart as holy. Jesus prayed that is followers would be sanctified by the truth, that is, by the Word of God, for it is through faith in the word that we are set apart as holy in God’s sight (John 17:17-19).

The king reminded them that the LORD is the God of their fathers, and then he commanded them to remove the filth from the holy place. In this case, “holy place” could be a reference to the main room of the sanctuary where the lampstands and the bread of the presence were kept, or it could be a more general reference to “this holy place,” meaning the entire temple complex. Either way, they had work to do. The idea of removing the filth was to clean up everything that wasn’t part of the building itself. Every stone, every bit of garbage, every remnant of a burnt offering, all had to go. It was defiled by the sins of Hezekiah’s father Ahaz.

One of the sins of Ahaz was that he “put out, extinguished,” the lamps. While cabah in the piel is an example of an intransitive verb being made transitive by the stem, the context also presents a more rare use of the piel stem, which is to make what is normally sacred into a profane act. The lamps were normally allowed to be extinguished in the morning each day (Exodus 27:21), but Ahaz had sinfully extinguished them permanently.

Hezekiah does not try to hide the sins that were on the heads of Israel on account of his father the king. He keeps confessing that sin, and urging the Levites to help him get the temple in working order once again. Why? So that the sacrifices of a truly broken spirit could be made (Psalm 51:17); so that the Lord would see the faith of the nation and turn aside his anger. The king describes the guilt of the people with three terms: “an object of terror, and horror, and hissing.” The terror is the result in the bodies of the guilty. The horror or “waste” is the visible result that everyone can see, and most especially the Lord himself can see. The “hissing” is the reaction of outsiders, who shout their boos and their other derision at the fallen people of Judah, who (if this continued) would be destroyed completely by the very God they had turned from. Israel was already gone. What was going to happen to Judah and Jerusalem?

Verse 11 presents the word “minister” in two ways. This is the same word used for Joshua’s service to Moses, and for Elisha’s service to Elijah (1 Kings 19:21). Also, it is one of the words we see of the angels in their service to the Lord (compare Daniel 7:10, although an Aramaic word is used there).

Hezekiah reminds the Levites and priests that they were chosen to minister and also to burn incense. The offering of incense was not simply to mask the smell of blood in the temple. The incense represented the prayers of God’s people (Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4). One of the primary duties of a priest is to pray on behalf of God’s people and to pray for them. God’s ministers still carry out this role today, but all Christians should equally do this for one another, and for themselves. Luther wrote:

“To vex the devil, I say, we should always have God’s holy name in our mouth, so that Satan may not be able to injure us as he wishes. For this end it is also of service that we form the habit of daily commending ourselves to God, with soul and body, wife, children, servants, and all that we have, against every need that may occur; whence also the blessing and thanksgiving at meals, and other prayers, morning and evening, have originated and remain in use. Likewise the practice of children to cross themselves when anything monstrous or terrible is seen or heard, and to exclaim: ‘Lord God, protect us!’ ‘Help, dear Lord Jesus!’ and so on. Thus, too, if anyone meets with unexpected good fortune, however trivial, that he say: ‘God be praised and thanked; this God has bestowed on me!’, as opposed to what formerly happened when the children were accustomed to fast and pray to St. Nicholas and other saints. This would be more pleasing and acceptable to God than all monasticism and other attempts at sanctity.” (Large Catechism I:72-74).

May God bless us and help us as we sweep out the spiritual filth from our lives. This is one step in consecrating ourselves to his service. Reading and hearing his word is another, and being refreshed by his sacraments is also the great medicine for our souls. Help us, Lord, for Jesus’ sake!

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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