Published by There was an exception to the rule that most of the tithe was either for the harvest festival, or single mothers. That was Hezekiah’s tithe. Under King Ahaz, the tithe was abandoned and other gods were worshiped in God’s holy temple.
When Ahaz died and Hezekiah came to power, he faced an immediate crisis: invasion by Assyria. Senacherib already had soldiers shouting in Hebrew to defenders stationed on the walls of Jerusalem. They insulted the God of Israel and questioned His power to help His people. Day after day Hebrew soldiers had to listen to this, and they were getting weary and depressed.
Some special help was needed from the God of Israel if they were to prevail. But His temple was filthy and defiled with other images. Not only that, the sacred utensils had been contaminated and some were taken by worshipers of other Gods.
Also, the Levites were no longer being supported by the sacrificial system. This sounds like why God was so angry in the first two chapters of Malachi, and it casts another light upon Malachi 3:10, which is always quoted when it’s fundraising time. If this interests you, please read the first two chapters of Malachi on your own time.
But as soon as Hezekiah had issued a decree about cleaning up the temple for use for the Passover, the priests went to work. They would have to celebrate the Passover a month late that year. That’s how disgusting Ahaz had left it. It took a week to sanitize the inner part of the temple. On the sixteenth day of the work detail, the temple courts were also cleaned up, so gentiles could join the worship. Hezekiah’s comments to his people are very interesting.
2Chron 30:7-9
Do not be like your fathers and brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of our fathers, so that He made them an object of horror, as you see.
Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the Lord. Come to the sanctuary, which He has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.
If you return to the Lord, then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to their land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn His face from you if you return to Him.
The next day, Hezekiah and all of the city officials came to the temple bringing 7 bulls, 7 rams, 7 lambs and 7 male goats for a sin offering for the entire nation of Israel. Hezekiah was in a hurry to get God’s help to fight off the Assyrian army. He wanted to have God fight this battle for him.
Yes, Hezekiah knew he needed to get God’s holy army involved in the fracas if they were to succeed at all. And there was no time to waste. So much so, that they celebrated the Passover for the first time in years. It was a month after the feast was supposed to be celebrated, but it generated so much zeal on the part of the people, that God sent his holy troops to the Assyrian camp and slaughtered the sleeping troops.
Senacherib withdrew to Damascus , where he was later slain by members of his own family. Talk about turning the tide. So that’s the background for the special tithe Hezekiah had received for the whole nation.
2nd Chron 31:5-11
They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything. The men of Israel and Judah who lived in the towns of Judah also brought a tithe of their herds and flocks and a tithe of the holy things dedicated to the Lord their God, and they piled them in heaps. They began doing this in the third month and finished in the seventh month.
Hezekiah gave orders to prepare storerooms in the temple of the Lord, and this was done.
I wonder if those are the storehouses mentioned in Malachi 3:10. The Lord is rightly complaining about the fact that the sacrifices that were being brought to the temple were little more than road kill. But in this verse, he seems to be saying, if you will continue to bring the grain part of the tithe to the temple storerooms, I will pour out a blessing you cannot even imagine.
This verse is always taken out of context when a television preacher needs another limousine or personal jet for his or her ministry. And it doesn’t say that if we all send money to the preacher, God will richly bless us all. Take care of the poor in your area to get this immeasurable blessing instead.
