God’s Word for You
2 Chronicles 30:1-5 A month late
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, May 24, 2025
30:1 Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the LORD, the God of Israel. 2 The king and his princes and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month. 3 They had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem. 4 The plan seemed right both to the king and to the whole assembly. 5 They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the LORD, the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written.
This passage is the first time that our author of Chronicles has mentioned the Passover at all. It feels like he’s been saving up for this moment to really celebrate what happened under King Hezekiah.
The Passover celebration had not disappeared, but it was not what it was supposed to be. Today, many Jews celebrate the Passover quietly, at home, with family and perhaps a friend or two. This is because not every city or town has a synagogue. But imagine a Jew celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem, but only as a small celebration, more like a private family birthday party than a church holiday or a big festival.
Hezekiah realized that it wouldn’t be possible to celebrate the Passover in the big national way it was supposed to happen on the correct day. For one thing, the temple clean-up wasn’t finished in time, even though they only took sixteen days to do it. They were two days too late. So he went ahead, as we have seen, with consecrating the temple and all its furnishings, and ordaining and consecrating the priests who would be serving.
Still, there was a question about the festival. Should they just wait until next year? The king consulted with all of the people: his princes, and the whole assembly, which included the priests and Levites and those who knew and copied the Scriptures. They all agreed that they could wait one month and celebrate then.
This was not what Moses had commanded, but there was a precedent. When someone was ceremonially unclean (for example, because they had been in contact with a dead body, such as a relative they had buried) or because they had been on a distant journey, they were permitted to celebrate the Passover in the second month, but also on the fourteenth day—Passover was supposed to be held on the fourteenth of the first month. These exceptions are spelled out in Numbers 9:9-11. Now, the Numbers passage also says that someone who blatantly just failed to observe Passover or refused was to be cut off from the people. But Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz, had made celebrating the Passover at the temple impossible by closing the temple after desecrating it (2 Chronicles 28:24). Now that the temple was once again able to be used, they could do what had not been done for a very long time.
The king did not just invite the people of Judah. He also sent messengers into the cities and towns of the northern kingdom to invite the people there, as well. There had been about seven years since the Assyrians had burned their cities, torn down their walls, and forced many thousands of prisoners to walk, bound hand and foot, into exile. 2 Kings 17:6 tells us that they were sent to places such as Halah, Habor, the river Gozan, and the cities of the Medes. The Medes possessed the remnant of the old kingdom of Urartu, which was to the north of the Tigris River. The names Halah and Habor can sometimes be found in old maps of that region, along the north bank of the Tigris, with that part of the Tigris, Mount Ararat to the northeast and the Black Sea to the northwest forming an inverted triangle.
The people who were left behind in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh were being invited to put themselves once again under the protection of the King of Judah, but also and more importantly under the protection of the Lord their God. The king wanted the people to be one in faith more than anything else.
From this passage we have an example of following the true spirit of God’s law while not seeming, to some, to keep the Law to the letter. This helps us to understand why it is not a sin to worship on a day that is not Friday at sundown, as commanded by the Lord to Moses, but to set aside a regular time to worship. For what does the Lord truly seek from us under the Third Commandment? “We should fear and love God that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.”
This is most certainly true.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.