Hezekiah was trying to bring the nation back to God after years of idolatry under his father Ahaz.
He decided to keep the Passover in Jerusalem and call the whole land back to the house of the Lord. But before the big day could happen, the Bible tells us plainly what stood in the way.
2 Chronicles 30:3 “For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.”
The first problem was on the inside of the leadership.
The second problem was on the outside with the people.
Hezekiah did not ignore either one. He solved both, and God gave the assembly a joy that had not been seen in Israel since the days of Solomon (2 Chronicles 30:26).
If we want God to move in a big way in our churches, our ministries, and our homes, we have to be willing to name and solve these same two problems.
Problem One: The Leaders Were Not Sanctified
“The priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently.”
This was the harder of the two problems, and Hezekiah faced it first. The men whose job it was to lead the worship of God were not clean before God themselves. The priests were technically ordained. They had the title, and they wore the garments. But they had not gone through the process of being made right on the inside, and the Bible says they had not done it sufficiently.
That word “sufficiently” means they started but never finished.
Hezekiah’s father Ahaz had led the nation into deep idolatry. He shut the doors of the temple, and put up altars to false gods in every corner of Jerusalem. A whole generation of priests had grown up in that atmosphere, and the habits of cleansing, separation, and preparation had died. The men who were supposed to serve at the altar had let their walk with God go stale, and by the time Hezekiah called them back, they were not ready.
God will not accept unsanctified leadership. Leviticus 22:2 says the priests must “separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me.”
When leaders serve unclean, they profane the very thing they are trying to lead. If he had held the Passover with unclean priests, the whole offering would have been polluted. The room could have been full and God still would not have moved.
What Hezekiah did was move the date. Numbers 9:10-11 gave a Bible provision for keeping the Passover in the second month if the first month could not be observed. Hezekiah leaned on that provision and delayed the big day by thirty days. He was willing to lose a month rather than hold a big day with unclean leaders.
And it worked. 2 Chronicles 30:15 “Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the LORD.”
When the priests saw the king moving the date because of them, they were ashamed. That shame moved them to actually get right with God. They sanctified themselves. Then the offerings began, and the assembly was ready for God to move.
Problem Two: The People Had Not Gathered
“Neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.”
The second problem was on the outside. Even if the priests had been ready, the assembly was not there. The seats were empty and the court of the Lord’s house was quiet.
For years the northern tribes had been in rebellion against the house of David. The southern kingdom under Ahaz had been sunk in idolatry.
Ahaz had literally shut the doors of the temple (2 Chronicles 28:24). A whole generation had grown up without the habit of assembling for worship.
The people were scattered spiritually and physically, and that scattering had become the new normal. Nobody expected the people of God to gather anymore.
A generation that did not know the joy of gathering with the saints of God and behind all of that, a nation that had lost the very heart of what it meant to be the people of the Lord.
Hebrews 10:25 later warns Christians “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.” That warning has been true in every generation.
Hezekiah sent letters. He did not wait for the people to remember on their own. He did not put up a notice on the door of the temple and hope.
He sent posts, which were runners carrying royal letters, from Beersheba to Dan. That is roughly 150 miles, the full length of the land, covering every settled part of Israel and Judah.
2 Chronicles 30:6 “So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel…”
He crossed the border into enemy territory, and wrote to Ephraim and Manasseh, tribes that had broken away and were being invaded by Assyria at that very moment. He sent letters begging them to come.
The response was mixed. 2 Chronicles 30:10-11 “So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.”
Some laughed and some mocked. Some humbled themselves and came.
But enough said yes that verse 13 calls the crowd “a very great congregation.”
If the leaders are not sanctified, the room can be full and God will not move. If the people have not been gathered, the leaders can be clean and there will be no one to move. Both problems have to be solved, and neither one solves itself.
Hezekiah moved the date to get the leaders clean, and he sent the letters to gather the people, and God did the rest.
Every Christian who is leading anything for God, whether in a church, in a ministry, or in a home, has to be willing to face both walls honestly. Am I clean before God? And am I actively gathering the ones He has given me? If the answer to either one is no, we know where to start. Get clean and send the letters. Trust the hand of God to give the assembly one heart.
2 Chronicles 30:27 “Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even unto heaven.”
The prayer of the people rises up to heaven, and God hears it. That is what we are after. That is the real big day.
