2 Chronicles 31:2-21

2 Chronicles 31:2–21 (NIV)✞: Contributions for Worship

Passage

In Chapter 29 Hezekiah purified the Temple, and then in the last chapter he had the nation (including their Israelite neighbours) celebrate the Passover. In this chapter he handles a very practical matter: ensuring that the people’s contributions for the Temple are coming in properly (and then being dispensed properly).

I won’t go into detail on a step-by-step breakdown of the chapter, but it’s kind of split into three sections, to my eye:

• Verses 2–13✞ cover Hezekiah’s efforts to get the contributions flowing into the Temple, including himself setting an example for the people
• Verses 14–19✞ cover the way the contributions were distributed to the priests and Levites
• Verses 20–21✞ summarize: “This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.”

Thoughts

I have two main thoughts on this passage, the first being that it probably seems very prosaic to many people. Maybe even a bit… unspiritual? I mean, the whole thing is talking about taxes! Why so much focus on Temple taxes?

But Hezekiah understood a couple of things:

1. You can’t claim to value the Temple unless you’re actually funding it, anything else is just words, and
2. The human heart and the human wallet are intricately connected.

In other words, we spend our money on the things we care about and we care about the things we spend money on. So, given these points, yes, it’s important to ensure that the Temple’s contributions are being properly collected. Both to ensure the work of the Temple can continue and to keep the people oriented toward the Temple as something important in their lives.

The other thing that strikes me, however, is the amount of space devoted to how the contributions are distributed – more specifically, how the portions that are supposed to be assigned to the priests are distributed. In similar Old Testament passages about the Temple—especially after restorations or purifications—I’m used to getting lists of all of the different gold implements that needed to be created, or repairs that are made, or that kind of thing, but in this passage the focus is more on the priests/Levites¹ (and their families), and how things are distributed to them.

I’m wondering if this is an extension of the first point; properly taking care of the Temple means properly collecting the contributions, but it also means taking care of the people who are responsible for keeping the Temple running. If a priest is worried about providing for his family because he’s not being taken care of the way he’s supposed to be, how is he going to be able to properly work at and care for the Temple?

And, of course, this relates to a law given in Deuteronomy 25:4✞: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” This is one of those rules that’s buried in the middle of a bunch of other rules, but the New Testament authors are consistent in reading this as being about full-time servants of God – not just about oxen. See, for example, 1 Corinthians 9✞, especially this section:

⁷ Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? ⁸ Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? ⁹ For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? ¹⁰ Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.

1 Corinthians 9:7–10✞, emphasis added

This is written by Paul, who revisits the topic from a slightly different lens in 1 Timothy 5✞:

¹⁷ The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. ¹⁸ For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”

1 Timothy 5✞, emphasis added

I’m lucky to worship at a church where the leadership wants to properly take care of our paid people—including and especially the Pastors—but I’ve heard tell of churches where the leadership didn’t feel that way; “keep ‘em poor and keep ‘em humble” is sometimes the attitude, which doesn’t seem, to me, to align with Biblical standards.

Footnotes

1: I keep lumping “priests and Levites” together because I’m not always sure on the difference between the two, or the different responsibilities. Maybe after another dozen readings of the Old Testament I’ll be more clear on it…