Thursday, October 23rd, 2025
Today, we are continuing on with our look at King Hezekiah’s life. While reading through 2 Chronicles 29-32, I was drawn to how many times the word “heart” showed up. In Hebrew these are the words leb and lebab. Both have to do with the heart as our soul and the seat of our emotions and will. In just these four chapters, there are four instances of leb and six instances of lebab. In the Old Testament overall, there are 593 instances of leb and 252 of lebab. Do you think the state of our soul, emotions and will are important to God?
Starting at the beginning of 2 Chronicles 29, we are going to briefly look at each of these. In 2 Chronicles 29:10 Hezekiah says it is in his heart to make a covenant with God, so His wrath is turned away from them. What a beautiful way to start his reign. His heart was not set on wealth, popularity or gaining territory. The first time this same word for covenant was used in the Bible was when God said he was going to make a covenant with Noah and his family on the ark. It was a compact made by passing between pieces of flesh. Covenant is not a flippant word.
The next occurrence is found in 2 Chronicles 29:31 where Hezekiah was leading the priests and Levites in cleansing the temple. He tells them that those who were of a free heart could bring their sacrifices and thank offerings. The word for free also means willing, spontaneous, or ready. I would love to get to a place where I can describe my walk with God as spontaneous. Imagine being free enough to do and say whatever God wants us to whenever He asks us to? A heart that is not free is instead bound to the things of this world. When pride, anger, fear and/or bitterness are brewing in our hearts we are not free or willing to follow God’s lead.
2 Chronicles 29:34 contains our next occurrence. This verse says the Levites were more upright in heart than the priests. The word for more upright means even, ready-minded, prompt for doing anything. This to me has the same feel as the above verse. Whatever they were asked to do they did without objection, reasoning, or questioning. Other translations of that verse say the Levites were more diligent or faithful in sanctifying themselves. We love the word diligent in our home. Our working diligently as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23) is good exercise for the heart.
Final Thoughts…
It doesn’t take much Bible reading before we see just how important the state of our heart is in God’s eyes. It is His gauge for our faithfulness, how committed we are to serving Him and how willing we are to follow everywhere He goes. Hezekiah’s reign gives us a great glimpse at some different aspects of a heart that is covenanted with God. On the next blog, we will see a few more. I will end today with a prayer of David. Search us God and know our hearts; tests us and if you find any wicked way in us, lead us in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).