The Lord has chosen His priests to stand before Him, to serve Him, and to sacrifice to Him.
It’s helpful to note that the religious reforms under Hezekiah recorded in the three chapters of 2 Chronicles 29–31 are only briefly mentioned in 2 Kings 18:1-7. The account in the Kings of Hezekiah’s influence mainly stresses the civil and political matters of the kingdom. In fact, Scripture’s biography of Hezekiah takes more chapters than any king since David and Solomon. It has been calculated that his influence is felt in 77 chapters of our Bible! Why is he so important? Before he ascended the throne, the conditions in Israel and Judah were almost identically abysmal. And what happened to Israel? They were swept away by the Assyrian army into captivity in Mesopotamia. Hezekiah, through his dependence on the Lord, spared Judah from the same fate, and laid a sufficient foundation under the southern kingdom that Judah was able to continue for another 135 years. It was not enough to clear away the rubbish of his father’s idolatry, however. Here was Hezekiah’s plan to restore Judah. “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel” (2 Chron 29:10). The secret of all true restoration comes with a fresh beginning of obedience to God. Unlike his great-grandfather Uzziah the king understood there were some things he could not do. So to the priests he said, “My sons,…the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense” (v 11). How similar this is to the privilege we share today: “Just as He chose us in Him…that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love…to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph 1:4-6). May our hearts be like burning censers from which the incense of our worship rises to Him!