2 Chronicles 30:1–31:1 (NIV)✞: Hezekiah Celebrates the Passover
Passage
In the last passage Hezekiah had the Temple purified, ready for service to the LORD again. In this passage he does something that, to my understanding, is equally important to the spiritual lives of the people in Judah: he reinstates celebration of the Passover. Passover is the most important celebration in the lives of God’s people at the time1, but they hadn’t been celebrating it for years.
Interestingly, however, Hezekiah doesn’t just reinstate Passover for the people of Judah, he also sends messengers throughout Israel, to the North, inviting them to come, too. Throughout this passage I see the author(s) stressing this point, calling out the fact that there are people from Israel there, not just people from Judah.
But part of that reason might be something the author(s) of Chronicles left out (which was covered in Kings): at this point the nation of Israel has already been conquered by Assyria. Here’s the letter Hezekiah has sent throughout Israel:
6 At the king’s command, couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and from his officials, which read:
“People of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7 Do not be like your parents and your fellow Israelites, who were unfaithful to the LORD, the God of their ancestors, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see. 8 Do not be stiff-necked, as your ancestors were; submit to the LORD. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. 9 If you return to the LORD, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the LORD your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”
Unfortunately, we’re told in verse 10✞ that, in general, the people of Israel scorn and ridicule Hezekiah’s messengers, but some take it seriously, and come to Jerusalem to celebrate. (The people of Judah, on the other hand, seem to be united in this purpose.)
So, many people gather in Jerusalem for the celebration. But before they do, they have another task to perform:
They removed the altars in Jerusalem and cleared away the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
Hezekiah is doing very well at bringing the people back into worship of God, and he’s done a good job with the Temple, but… there is still idol worship happening in Judah!
Anyway, back to the passage…
Passover was supposed to be celebrated at a particular time, the first month of Moses’ calendar, but there weren’t enough priests consecrated at that point, nor had the people assembled yet, so they decide to celebrate Passover in the second month instead. And it turns out that the priests weren’t the only ones who weren’t prepared for celebrating the Passover:
17 Since many in the crowd had not consecrated themselves, the Levites had to kill the Passover lambs for all those who were not ceremonially clean and could not consecrate their lambs to the LORD. 18 Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the LORD, who is good, pardon everyone 19 who sets their heart on seeking God—the LORD, the God of their ancestors—even if they are not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.” 20 And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people.
The Passover is celebrated for seven days—which, I believe, is the prescribed time—but then everyone decides to keep celebrating for another seven days. In fact, verse 26✞ tells us that nothing like this had been celebrated by God’s people since the days of David and Solomon.
All of which leaves one final thing for the people to do, after the celebrations are done:
When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property.
Thoughts
The first thought that occurs to me in reading this passage is what a joyous event this is! It’s easy to read descriptions of the Passover in the Old Testament and get an impression of a dour, somber event (and Jewish celebrations of Passover in modern times are often pictured that way too, though I’ve never been to an actual Passover celebration so I have no idea if that’s an accurate depiction), but that’s far from what is pictured here. The people of God aren’t following a ritual, in this passage, they’re holding a celebration.
I view the Old Testament celebration of Passover very similar to how Christians now view the cross—or maybe it’s more apt to compare to celebration of communion (or the Lord’s Table or whatever your preferred term is)—in that it’s both joyous and somber at once. Yes, when we partake in communion we see Jesus dying, which is somber; we see that He had to die on our behalf because we’re so sinful that no other option could have been a possibility for getting us into a relationship with God, which is also somber. The people of God in the Old Testament celebrating Passover also looked back on a dire situation in which only the intervention of God could prevent their destruction, with an emphasis on how Holy He is. But in both cases, looking back on the cross (through communion or otherwise) or celebrating Passover, we also see a God who loves and cares for His people so deeply that He provided salvation for them out of his own power. This is joyous.
Yes, the nation of Israel has been conquered by Assyria; the people of Israel who are in Jerusalem celebrating Passover are keenly aware of what has happened, but they can also celebrate God in this moment, full of joy. During these two weeks of celebration, I think the people were well beyond following a ritual, they were celebrating who God is, and what He has done.
Of course, that being said, there are not one but two mentions in this passage of the people having to get rid of idols and altars and other “sacred” items used in the worship of other gods. They get rid of a bunch of stuff in Jerusalem before the celebration, and then go throughout the country and do the same after. The Old Testament is full of examples like this: no matter how well the reader thinks the people of God are doing, the author(s) keep mentioning that, no, the people still aren’t completely following God. They still have worship of other gods mixed in with their worship of the True and Living God. (This mixing of religions is called syncretism.)
Though it looks different for the modern-day Christian, I’d argue that this is still a problem for us now. Yes, we believe in Jesus and his work on the cross, and we’re trusting in Him for our salvation – but we’re also trusting in our money as our real safety net. We trust in Christ for getting meaning in our lives – but we also trust in our work, or in our identity as parents, or in something else to get our real meaning. We don’t have little altars sitting on our desks, where we sacrifice (or burn incense) to other gods, but we’re letting ourselves off the hook too easily if we take that as proof that our hearts are wholly devoted to God.
The final thought I have on this is about priests being consecrated and the people being ceremonially clean, as they’re supposed to be, to properly celebrate the Passover. But if we look carefully, Hezekiah handles these two situations differently:
- For the priests, even though there is no rule or regulation in Moses’ law about this situation, Hezekiah decides to make an executive decision and push out celebration of Passover for a month, to give them time to consecrate themselves.
- For the people, even though there was a rule about how to handle this situation (i.e. people who weren’t ceremonially clean were to celebrate the Passover two weeks later than the prescribed time), Hezekiah makes an executive decision to let them celebrate anyway, with the priests covering for them (in a sense) by doing some of the work on the unclean people’s behalf.
If Hezekiah was following the literal rule of the law, we could make the case that he wasn’t allowed to make either of those decisions. (It might not even be the place of the king to make such decisions in the first place – wouldn’t that be a High Priest kind of decision?) But the passage doesn’t give any indication that Hezekiah was doing anything wrong. In fact, verse 30:20✞ indicates that, when Hezekiah prays about the people who are unclean, the LORD “heals” them, which feels like tacit approval. In this case, it seems that strict, literal adherence to the rules is less important than the larger picture of having the people coming together to worship God.
That being said, however, again, we should notice that Hezekiah treats these situations differently:
- The people aren’t all ceremonially clean? Let them worship anyway, and we’ll try to have the priests handle it the best they can.
- The priests aren’t consecrated? We need to push things off, until they are.
I don’t want to try and draw direct comparisons between these two situations and modern-day equivalents—I think any comparisons would be too messy—but I do see Hezekiah wrestling with “important” vs. “unimportant” (or less important) violations of the rules. He feels worship of the LORD is more important than adhering to the full letter of the Law, yet, at the same time, recognizes that one doesn’t simply come before the Holy, Holy, Holy God any old way one wants to, so having the priests be consecrated properly (along with the Temple itself, which was covered in the last passage), seems to be very important to him, to ensure that they aren’t just approaching God joyously (which is important) but also respectfully (which is just as—or maybe even more—important).