order is especially branded in verse 34. No prophet is named; was
there any one prompting the king? Perhaps Isaiah did, though his
chapter i. with its scathing repudiation of 'the burnt offerings of
rams and the fat of fed beasts,' suggests that he did not think the
restoration of sacrifice so important as that the nation should 'cease
to do evil and learn to do well.' The people acquiesced in the king's
worship of Jehovah, as they had acquiesced in other kings' worship of
Baal or Moloch or Hadad. When kings take to being religious reformers,
they make swift converts, but their work is as slight as it is speedy,
and as short-lived as it is rapid. Manasseh was Hezekiah's successor,
and swept away all his work after twenty-nine years, and apparently
the mass of his people followed him just as they had followed
Hezekiah. Religion must be a matter of personal conviction and
individual choice. Imposed from without, or adopted because other
people adopt it, it is worthless.

Another point to notice is that Hezekiah's reformation was mainly
directed to ritual, and does not seem to have included either theology
or ethics. Was be quite right in his estimate of what was the first
thing? Isaiah, in the passage already referred to, does not seem to
think so. To him, as to all the prophets, foul hands could not bring
acceptable sacrifices, and worship was an abomination unless preceded
by obedience to the command: 'Put away the evil of your doings from
before Mine eyes.' The filth in the hearts of the men of Judah was
more 'rank, and smelt to heaven' more offensively, than that in the
Temple, which took sixteen days to shovel into Kidron. No doubt
ceremonial bulked more largely in the days of the Old Covenant than it
does in those of the New, and both the then stage of revelation and
the then spiritual stature of the recipients of revelation required
that it should do so. But the true religious reformers, the prophets,