2 Chronicles 29:20–36

Read the passage.

With the temple cleansed, Hezekiah and the people are ready to worship the Lord in His house again. The first thing they do is offer a sin offering on behalf of the entire kingdom. Seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven goats are provided for this purpose. These animals were the atonement for the people’s sin, which was very great. They were given not only for Hezekiah and the people in attendance, but for the whole kingdom of Judah and all of Israel as well. Symbolically, the people’s sin was transferred to the kid goats by the laying of hands before they were slaughtered and their blood sprinkled on the altar. The animals’ lives were given so that the people could live.

Two thousand years after Jesus died on the cross, the sacrificial system seems strange and foreign to our culture and way of life. But our God is still the same God today as He was then, with the same character, holiness, and justice. Placing the hands on the head of the sacrificial animal to show that it takes on your sin, and then watching it take the punishment you deserve was a literally visceral reminder of how seriously God expects us to obey Him.

After the sin offering, the people gave the burnt offering, which involved many, many more sacrifices and also music and singing. The instruments that King David had appointed for use in temple worship were employed. Trumpets were blown, and the Levites sang praises to the Lord from the book of Psalms.

So many sacrifices for the burnt offering were provided that there weren’t enough consecrated priests available to process them. The Levites had to step in to provide the extra labor needed. What baffles me is the reason there weren’t enough priests: “for the Levites were more upright in heart than the priests in consecrating themselves.” (v. 34) This is, perhaps, a danger of making a job qualification out of membership in a certain family. However, these men are supposed to be the ones who are most in tune with God’s standards for conduct and ritual cleanliness. On the other hand, if they had been faithful to the Lord as they should have been, then maybe the rest of the people would not have followed after the Baals for so long.

Help those of us in positions of leadership to lead our charges towards You and not astray.