So what was Hezekiah’s first act as the new King of Judah?
His first act was to reopen the Temple doors.
The Temple had so fallen apart under his papa’s administration that there was major restoration work that had to be done.
I ain’t just talking about surface-level cosmetic restoration.
There were structural repairs that had to be taken care of first.
But even before that, over the years, the inside of the HEKAL (the Holy Place) had accumulated a ton of trash.
It literally took a whole week to clear out the garbage alone.
And it had to be done by a team of priests!
After that, all of the precious vessels and ritual implements that had been stolen had to be recovered.
Of course, not all of them could be recovered or bought.
So quite a few of them had to be remade from scratch again.
Finally, after all of this work was done, Hezekiah executed a rededication ceremony.
That kicked things off with a BANG!
The first observance after the dedication was PESACH (Passover).
Hezekiah also ordered that all of the BAMOT be torn down.
These pagan altars had been erected all over the freakin’ place in Jerusalem.
They later started popping up all over Judah as well.
Hezekiah was on a streak with tearing down the BAMOT.
So intense was his zeal that he even went down into Ephraim territory (the northern kingdom) and started destroying some of the heathen altars that had been built there.
So what’s the takeaway here?
The takeaway is that when you decide to sincerely repent and return to the Lord after a season of unkosher living…
The first thing you gotta do is undergo a purge of all of the ungodly things that have been in your life up to that point.
Delete those porno files from your hard drive.
Get rid of those curry packets that you know contain pork extract in ’em.
Get rid of all of those Law of Attraction books (Napoleon Hill and Esther Hicks bs) that promise all of the riches your greedy heart desires if you will just somehow vibrate correctly and tune into the universe.
Man, what a bunch of bs those books are!
This process reminds me of how Israel was commanded to remove all leaven from their homes for seven days before their exodus from Egypt.
Later biblical writers connected this process with removing sin and hypocrisy.
So, it’s interesting that the first observance Hezekiah held following the rededication was Passover.
Alrighty, I’ll leave it at that for today.
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