Biblical Personalities: Chizkiyahu

“Chizkiyahu was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned for 29 years in Jerusalem. He did what was proper in the eyes of God, just as his forefather David had done. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened up the doors of the Temple of God and restored them. They began to consecrate on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the Hall of God’s Temple and sanctified the Temple of God for eight days; on the 16th day of the first month they finished.” (Selections from II Chronicles, Chapter 29)

Chizkiyahu commenced the re-consecration of the Temple on the 1st of Nisan, and timed it with the anniversary of the Mishkan.

Chizkiyahu’s oil burned in the synagogues and houses of study. He stuck a sword at the entrance to the house of study and proclaimed, “Whoever does not engage in Torah study will be pierced by this sword!” They checked from Dan to Beer-sheba and did not find a boy or girl, man or woman, who was not fluent in the laws of ritual purity and impurity (Sanhedrin 94b).

Chizkiyahu prepared the people for the reconsecrated Temple by insisting that they become well-versed in the laws of purity so they could maintain God’s House in their midst.