preceded the first day of the month, and that only the accomplishment of that which had been resolved upon and commanded by the king fell in the first month, as is more accurately stated in 2Ch 29:17.
Verses 4-6
Hezekiah gathered the priests and Levites together “into the open space of the east,” i.e., in the eastern open space before the temple, not “in the inner court” (Berth.), - see on Ezr 10:9 -and called upon them (2Ch 29:5) to sanctify themselves, and then to sanctify the house of the Lord. To purify the temple they must first sanctify themselves (cf. 2Ch 29:15), in order to proceed to the work of sanctifying the house of God in a state of Levitical purity. The work was to remove all that was unclean from the sanctuary. הנּדּה is Levitical uncleanness, for which in 2Ch 29:16 we have הטּמאה; here the abominations of idolatry. The king gave the reason of his summons in a reference to the devastation which Ahaz and his contemporaries had wrought in the house of God (2Ch 29:6, 2Ch 29:7), and to the wrath of God which had on that account come upon them (2Ch 29:8, 2Ch 29:9). “Our fathers” (2Ch 29:6), that is, Ahaz and his contemporaries, for only these had been guilty of displeasing God in the ways mentioned in 2Ch 29:6 and 2Ch 29:7, “have turned away their face from the dwelling of Jahve, and turned their back (upon it).” These words are a symbolical expression for: they have ceased to worship Jahve in His temple, and exchanged it for idolatry.
Verse 7
Even (גּם) the doors of the porch have they shut, and caused the service in the sanctuary, the lighting of the lamps, and the sacrifices of incense, to cease; see on 2Ch 28:24. The words, “and they brought not burnt-offerings in the sanctuary to the God of Israel,” do not imply the complete cessation of the legal sacrificial worship, but only that no burnt-offerings were brought to the God of Israel. Sacrifices offered upon the altar of burnt-offering built after a heathen pattern by Ahaz were not, in the eyes of the author of the Chronicle, sacrifices which were offered to the God of Israel; and it is also possible that even this sacrificial worship may have more and more decayed. קדשׁ, 2Ch 29:7, is the whole sanctuary, with the court of the priests.
Verses 8-9
Wherefore the wrath of the Lord came upon Judah and Jerusalem. Cf. for the expression, 2Ch 24:18; 2Ch 32:25; on 2Ch 29:8, cf. Deu 28:25, Deu 28:37; Jer 24:9; Jer 25:9, etc. “As ye see with your eyes.” The shameful defeats which Judah had sustained under Ahaz from the Syrians, Ephraimites, Philistines, and Edomites, and the oppression by the Syrian king (2Ch 28:5., 2Ch 28:17-21),
