God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 30:21-27 Up to heaven

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, May 27, 2025

21 The Israelites who were in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing, while the Levites and priests sang to the LORD every day, accompanied by the LORD’s loud musical instruments. 22 Hezekiah encouraged the hearts of all the Levites, who showed good understanding of the service of the LORD. For the seven days they ate their assigned portion and offered fellowship offerings and gave thanks to the LORD, the God of their fathers. 23 Then the whole assembly agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days; so for another seven days they celebrated gladly. 24 Hezekiah king of Judah provided a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats for the assembly.
    The princes also brought up a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. A great number of priests consecrated themselves. 25 The whole assembly of Judah rejoiced, along with the priests and Levites and all who had assembled from Israel, including the aliens who had come out of the land of Israel as well as those who lived in Judah. 26 There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. 27 The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and their voice was heard, for their prayer went up to heaven, his holy dwelling place.

There is an unexpected phrase in verse 21 at the beginning of this section. It is the caley-oz, “the loud instruments.” It is confusing when some commentators make this say “instruments of power” and that they were singing about the power of the Lord. The phrase is “powerful (loud) instruments.” There is often a desire in some of our musicians to want the congregation to silently meditate on the music played before worship by the organist or by some other musician, and in an ideal world this might be a good thing. We have found that our people like to visit and talk before the service starts, and that silencing the people would not really profit them or our fellowship in any way. Also, I find many passages that talk about Christians greeting one another—half of the New Testament epistles do this—but I am unable to find any passage that bids us to solemnly reflect before we worship (although I have heard terrible misapplications of such passages as 1 Samuel 15:14 by men who should have known better). Sometimes I want to meditate before worship, but I’ve never been all that disturbed by the noise of the “church militant.” I’m especially pleased when I hear babies crying and fussing or talking during worship, because those children are in the house of the Lord, and they are the future of the holy Christian Church. Let them come. Let them fuss and giggle and be used to sitting in the Lord’s house. Everyone will be better off for it. Some “loud instruments” are young vocal chords. And if our people want to greet one another because worship is the place when they see each other, this is a fine and godly thing, too. If it’s disrespectful to talk during a prelude, perhaps we should rethink the value of a prelude as opposed to God’s people greeting one another. Which is better in the long run?

The people of Judah and the “aliens” (verse 25) of Israel decided that another seven days of this noisy, cacophonous celebration was just what they all wanted. And so seven more days it was.

There is a curious break in the Hebrew text of verse 24, a paragraph break in the middle of the verse, between the number of animals brought by King Hezekiah and the number of animals brought by his princes. I believe that the reason for this strange paragraph break is obvious. There are many examples in Hebrew of a word that is written twice in a row in the same sentence. Actually, there is an example of this here up in verse 21, where our phrase “every day” is written “day – day.” In order to keep a scribe who is copying the text (remember that all copies were hand written in ancient times) a stroke called a paseq is placed between them, which tells the scribe, “There are supposed to be two of these here, don’t think that one of them is a mistake.” The paragraph break in verse 24 is a much bigger version of that thought. It doesn’t affect the reading or understanding of the text, nor does it change the meaning at all. What it does is tell the scribe, “These big numbers of offerings are very similar, don’t think that one of them is a mistake.” So this assures us that yes, the king brought a thousand bulls and many thousand sheep (seven thousand, in fact) and yes, the princes also brought another thousand bulls and many thousand (ten thousand, in fact) sheep and goats. And so we see some of the efforts that the ancient scribes made to preserve the text without making any changes to it—indeed, they made efforts to be sure that changes would not be made.

In the final verse of the chapter, the priests and Levites stand and bless the people. The construction of the verse makes it clear that while many men spoke this blessing (surely the one from Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you”), it was this one blessing that was heard in heaven, “his” (that is, God’s) holy dwelling place. The reason we pay attention to this is that we often have a question as to how one speaker might address a large crowd in the Bible, such as when Paul was speaking to a houseful of people, or the apostles spoke to crowds outdoors in various places. One possible method is by repeater voices. This means that once the speaker had said a sentence or two, he pauses, and assistants set in various places out among the crowd, repeat what has been said, and so on. So many voices spoke the blessing, and “their voice was heard.” This shows the grace of God, for even when we show that we are sinful, and continue to sin—such as those among the Israelites who appeared before the Lord ceremonially unclean, and did other things that deserved to have them put outside the fellowship of Israel and God’s holy people, it is faith that God counts as righteousness. This does not give us a license to do as we please or to sin in whatever way we are tempted without fear for our souls, but it shows us that God is merciful and just, and that his mercy is what motivates our desire to please him, to follow in his way, and to obey his commands.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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