praises unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer.
And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and
worshipped. 31. Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye have
consecrated yourselves unto the Lord, come near, and bring sacrifices
and thank-offerings into the house of the Lord. And the congregation
brought in sacrifices and thank-offerings; and as many as were of a
free heart burnt offerings.--2 CHRON. xxix. 18-31.


Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, had wallowed in idolatry, worshipping any and
every god but Jehovah. He had shut up the Temple, defiled the sacred
vessels, and 'made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem.' And the
result was that he brought the kingdom very near ruin, was not allowed
to be buried in the tombs of the kings, and left his son a heavy task
to patch up the mischief he had wrought. Hezekiah began at the right
end of his task. 'In the first year of his reign, in the first month,'
he set about restoring the worship of Jehovah. The relations with
Syria and Damascus would come right if the relations with Judah's God
were right. 'First things first' was his motto, and perhaps he
discerned the true sequence more accurately than some great political
pundits do nowadays. So neglected had the Temple been that a strong
force of priests and Levites took a fortnight to 'carry forth the
filthiness out of the holy place to the brook Kidron,' and to cleanse
and ceremonially sanctify the sacred vessels. Then followed at once
the re-establishment of the Temple worship, which is narrated in the
passage.

The first thing to be noted is that the whole movement back to Jehovah
was a one-man movement. It was Hezekiah's doing and his only. No
priest is named as prominent in it, and the slowness of the whole