2 Chronicles 29:12 - Meaning and Application

Here we have busy work, good work, and needed work, the cleansing of the house of the Lord.

The priests and Levites did this work. They should have kept the temple clean in the first place, but since they had failed to do that, they were now concerned to make it clean again. Several Levites are named, two from each of the three main families, Kohath, Gershon, and Merari (2 Chronicles 29:12), and two from each of the three families of singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun (2 Chronicles 29:13, 2 Chronicles 29:14). They are not named only because they were chief in rank, for then surely the high priest, or some leaders of the priestly divisions, would have been mentioned. They are named because they were more eager and active than the rest. When God has work to do, he raises up leading men to guide it. And it is not always the people with the highest rank who are most fit for service or most willing to serve.

These Levites did more than work themselves, they also gathered their brothers and urged them on to do what the king commanded by the word of the Lord. Notice that they obeyed the king’s command, but they did so with God’s word in view. The king only commanded what was already their duty from Scripture. So God’s word was their rule, and the king’s command was a push to help them do it.

The work itself was the cleansing of God’s house. First, they removed the ordinary dirt that had built up while the temple was shut, dust, cobwebs, and rust on the vessels. Second, they removed the idols and idol altars that had been set up there. Even if those things had been kept clean, they would have polluted the temple far more than if it had been turned into the city sewer.

The priests are not named as the leading men in this work, yet only they dared to go into the inner part of the house, even to clean it. The high priest may even have gone into the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, to cleanse it. And though the Levites had the honor of leading the work, they did not think it beneath them to serve the priests according to their office. What the priests brought out into the court, the Levites carried to the Kidron Valley, a brook east of Jerusalem. Let no man’s usefulness, however great, make him forget his proper place.

The speed of their work is also worth noting. They began on the first day of the first month, a happy start to the new year and a hopeful sign for the year ahead. Every year should begin with setting right what is wrong and with cleansing away, by true repentance, the defilements left from the year before. In eight days they cleansed the temple, and in eight more they cleansed the courts of the temple (2 Chronicles 29:17). Those who do good work should learn to work quickly and finish it well. What is wrong should be corrected without delay.

Their report to Hezekiah was very welcome (2 Chronicles 29:18, 2 Chronicles 29:19). They told him what they had done because he had set them to the work. They did not boast of their own care and effort, and they did not come asking for reward. They came to tell him that everything that had been profaned was now made holy again according to the law, and was ready to be used whenever he wished.

They knew the good king had set his heart on God’s altar and longed to attend to it. So they especially told him that the altar vessels had been cleaned and made bright. Those vessels that Ahaz, in his rebellion, had thrown away as if they were useless, they had gathered up, set apart for holy use again, and put back in their place before the altar. Though the vessels of the sanctuary may be profaned for a time, God will find a time and way to make them holy again. Neither his ordinances nor his people will be allowed to fail forever.