Matthew Henry on 2 Chronicles 29:12-19
We have here busy work, good work, and needful work, the cleansing of the house of the Lord.
I. The persons employed in this work were the priests and Levites, who should have kept the temple clean, but, not having done that, were concerned to make it clean. Several of the Levites are here named, two of each of the three principal houses, Kohath, Gershon, and Merari (Ch2 29:12), and two of each of the three families of singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, Ch2 29:13, Ch2 29:14. We cannot think these are named merely because they were chief in place (for then surely the high priest, or some of the heads of the courses of the priests, would have been mentioned), but because they were more zealo…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Chronicles 29:12
THE HOUSE OF GOD CLEANSED. (2Ch. 29:12-36)
Then the Levites arose--Fourteen chiefs undertook the duty of collecting and preparing their brethren for the important work of cleansing the Lord's house. Beginning with the outer courts--that of the priests and that of the people--the cleansing of these occupied eight days, after which they set themselves to purify the interior; but as the Levites were not allowed to enter within the walls of the temple, the priest brought all the sweepings out to the porch, where they were received by the Levites and thrown into the brook Kedron. This took eight days more. At the end of this period they repaired to the palace and announced that not only had the…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on 2 Chronicles 29:17
Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify,.... Either of the reign of King Hezekiah, or rather of the year; the month Ab or Nisan, as the Targum expresses it:
and on the eighth of the month came they to the porch of the Lord; they seem to have begun cleansing the inner part of the temple first, and so came forward until they came to the porch which led into it:
so they sanctified the house of the Lord in eight days; the holy place, and it may be the most holy place, and the court of the priests:
and on the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end; it took them eight days more to cleanse the outward porch, and the buildings and chambers belonging to the temple…
