Bird's-eye view
This single verse captures the immediate and explosive fruit of genuine worship. Having just concluded a magnificent, nation-uniting Passover celebration under King Hezekiah, the people of God do not simply dissipate back to their homes with a warm spiritual feeling. Rather, the proper worship of God creates a violent and holy revulsion to all false worship. What we see here is a gospel-shaped reflex. The people, having been rightly ordered in their hearts toward Yahweh through the Passover, a foreshadowing of the ultimate Passover Lamb, are now rightly disordered toward every idol and every pretender to God's throne. This is not a top-down reformation alone; it is a grassroots, popular iconoclasm. The people themselves, filled with a holy zeal born of true worship, pour out into the land to prosecute God's covenant lawsuit against the idols. They shatter, cut, and tear down every vestige of pagan syncretism, not just in Judah, but extending into the remnants of the northern kingdom. This verse teaches us a foundational principle: reformation of worship is the necessary prelude to the reformation of life and culture. When God is rightly honored in the assembly, the idols will inevitably start to fall in the streets.
Outline
- 1. The Fruit of True Worship (2 Chron 31:1)
- a. The Occasion: Immediately After the Feast (v. 1a)
- b. The Action: Spontaneous and Violent Iconoclasm (v. 1b)
- c. The Scope: A Thorough Cleansing of the Land (v. 1c)
- d. The Result: A Return to Rightful Order (v. 1d)
Context In 2 Chronicles
Chapter 31 opens immediately on the heels of one of the greatest moments of spiritual renewal in Judah's history. Chapter 29 details Hezekiah's cleansing of the Temple, and Chapter 30 describes the extraordinary celebration of the Passover. This was no ordinary feast. Hezekiah had sent messengers not only throughout Judah but also into what was left of the northern kingdom of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to return to the Lord and worship in Jerusalem. Many scorned the message, but a remnant humbled themselves and came. The resulting celebration was so joyous that they extended it for a second week. This context is crucial. The radical reformation described in 31:1 is not the cause of the revival, but its effect. It is the necessary and immediate consequence of a people whose hearts have been turned back to God through the covenant renewal ceremony of the Passover. The Chronicler is showing his readers, both ancient and modern, that when worship is set right, everything else begins to be set right as a consequence.
Key Issues
- The Relationship Between Worship and Obedience
- The Nature of Idolatry
- The Necessity of Iconoclasm
- Corporate and National Repentance
- The Unity of God's People (Judah and Israel)
Worship Precedes Warfare
There is a divine order to reformation, and we see it plainly here. First comes the consecration, then comes the confrontation. First, the people gather in Jerusalem to deal with God, and only then do they scatter into Judah to deal with the idols. This is not a coincidence; it is the unalterable pattern of spiritual reality. We cannot fight what we have not first renounced in worship. We cannot tear down the world's idols if we are still secretly tolerating them in the sanctuary of our own hearts.
The great Passover of chapter 30 was a national act of covenant renewal. Through the sacrifices and the celebration, the people were reminded of who their God was and what He had done for them. They confessed their sins, they were consecrated, and they communed with Him. This act of drawing near to the holy God had the necessary effect of revealing the unholy filthiness of everything else. The beauty of the Lord made the ugliness of the idols intolerable. The sweetness of fellowship with Yahweh made the bitter poison of idolatry disgusting. And so, when the feast was over, the people went out as an army, not because of a royal decree issued that morning, but because of a spiritual reality forged in their hearts during the preceding two weeks. True worship always arms the saints for war.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 Now when all this was completed, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah,
The timing is immediate. "When all this was completed." There is no lag time, no committee meeting to decide the next steps. The doxology of the Passover feast flows directly into the doxology of destructive obedience. The ones who act are "all Israel who were present." This is significant. It includes not just the native citizens of Judah, but also the faithful remnant from the northern tribes who had responded to Hezekiah's call. True worship has a unifying effect on the people of God. They had just celebrated their common redemption at the Passover, and now they move out with a common purpose to purify their common inheritance. They go "out to the cities of Judah," beginning their work at home, in their own towns and villages. Reformation, like charity, begins at home.
shattered the pillars, cut the Asherim in pieces,
The action is specific and violent. They "shattered the pillars." These were the masseboth, stone pillars often associated with the worship of Baal. They were pagan boundary markers, phallic symbols, and representations of false deities. They were a stench in God's nostrils, a direct violation of His law (Deut. 16:22). The people do not politely cover them up; they shatter them. This is a recognition that some things cannot be redeemed or repurposed. Some things are so identified with evil that they must be obliterated.
Next, they "cut the Asherim in pieces." The Asherim were wooden poles or carved trees dedicated to the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, the consort of Baal. They were symbols of a debased, sexualized, nature-worship that stood in direct opposition to the holy worship of the transcendent Creator, Yahweh. Again, the action is decisive. They are not pruned; they are cut to pieces. This is the practical application of the first commandment. If the Lord is God, then Baal and Asherah are nothing, and their symbols must be treated as the garbage they are.
and tore down the high places and the altars throughout all Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until the destruction was completed.
The work is comprehensive. They "tore down the high places and the altars." The "high places" were local shrines, often on hilltops, where illicit worship was conducted. Even when this worship was ostensibly directed toward Yahweh, it was disobedient. God had commanded that He be worshiped at the place He chose, which was Jerusalem (Deut. 12:5-6). These high places represented a democratized, syncretistic, do-it-yourself religion that refused to submit to God's ordained order. They were a constant source of spiritual compromise. Hezekiah's reform is notable because many previous "good" kings had failed to remove them. But here, the people, energized by true worship, do what kings had failed to do.
The geographical scope is breathtaking. They move "throughout all Judah and Benjamin," the southern kingdom, but then they press on "as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh." This is the territory of the fallen northern kingdom, now a vassal of Assyria. This is an act of audacious faith. They are not just cleaning their own house; they are reclaiming lost territory for Yahweh. It is a missionary act of iconoclasm, a foreshadowing of the way the gospel would later advance, tearing down spiritual strongholds. The work continues "until the destruction was completed." The Hebrew phrase here means until they had finished them off completely. This was not a half-hearted effort. It was a thorough and total purgation.
Then all the sons of Israel returned to their cities, each to his possession.
The conclusion is a return to peace and order. After the spiritual warfare is complete, the people return to their homes and their rightful possessions. There is a deep theological point here. We cannot truly possess and enjoy God's gifts while we are tolerating idols in the land. Our inheritance is only secure when our worship is pure. By destroying the false centers of worship, they were securing their own homes and livelihoods under the blessing of God. They had done the hard work of reformation, and now they could return to the peaceful work of their daily lives, but in a cleansed land, under a smiling heaven.
Application
This verse is a bucket of cold water in the face of our modern, sentimental, and privatized Christianity. We are taught to think of faith as a quiet, internal affair. But here, true faith erupts into a noisy, public, and destructive campaign against all that is false. The principle is this: what you truly worship, you will seek to enthrone. And whatever you enthrone, you will necessarily seek to dethrone all its rivals.
The Passover pointed to Christ, our Passover Lamb, who was sacrificed for us. When we, by faith, feast on Him, when we are truly renewed in our covenant relationship with God through the gospel, the same holy zeal should rise in us. We should look out at our own lives, our own homes, our own cities, and ask, "What are the pillars, the Asherim, the high places that need to be torn down?" Our idols are more sophisticated now. They are not stone pillars, but ideologies. They are not wooden poles, but soul-destroying addictions to pornography, comfort, or approval. The high places are not on every hill, but on every screen, where we offer sacrifices of our time and attention to the gods of entertainment, politics, and self.
The lesson of Hezekiah's reform is that we must be ruthless with our idols. We cannot make peace with them. We cannot negotiate a truce. They must be shattered, cut down, and torn apart. And this work does not begin with political action committees; it begins on our knees, in the worship of the one true God. When we are rightly amazed by the glory of Christ, we will be rightly appalled by the tawdriness of our idols. Let us pray for a revival of true worship, the kind of worship that sends us out into the world, not with a placid smile, but with a hammer in our hands, ready to do the hard work of reformation.