Matthew Henry on 2 Chronicles 29:1-11
Here is, I. Hezekiah's age when he came to the crown. He was twenty-five years old. Joash, who came to the crown after two bad reigns, was but seven years old; Josiah, who came after two bad reigns, was but eight, which occasioned the delay of the reformation; but Hezekiah had come to years, and so applied himself immediately to it. We may well think with what a sorrowful heart he beheld his father's idolatry and profaneness, how it troubled him to see the doors of the temple shut, though, while his father lived, he durst not open them. His soul no doubt wept in secret for it, and he vowed that when he should receive the congregation he would redress these grievances, which made him do it wi…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Chronicles 29:6
our fathers have trespassed--Ahaz and the generation contemporary with him were specially meant, for they "turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord," and whether or not they turned east to the rising sun, they abandoned the worship of God. They "shut up the doors of the porch," so that the sacred ritual was entirely discontinued.
Adam Clarke on 2 Chronicles 29:2
He did that which was right - See the note on Kg2 18:3.
John Gill on 2 Chronicles 29:7
Also they have shut up the doors of the porch,.... So that there was no entering into the temple, 2 Chronicles 28:24.
and put out the lamps; for the priests not being able to go in morning and evening to light them, and dress them, they in course went out; the Jews say (n), that on the eighteenth of Ab, which answers to part of July and August, the western lamp was extinct in the days of Ahaz, for which a fast was kept on that day:
and have not burnt incense, nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place unto the God of Israel; but had done these in the high places to idols, 2 Chronicles 28:3.
(n) Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 580. sect. 2.
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