20–24 (not in 2 Kings).
The Sevenfold Sacrifice for the Reconciliation of the People.
The ritual of the sin offering is fully given in Leviticus iv. Ahaz had broken the covenant, and Hezekiah’s sin offering was intended to atone for the breach.
²⁰Then Hezekiah the king arose early, and gathered the princes of the city, and went up to the house of the Lord. ²¹And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the Lord.
21. they brought] As the sacrifice was not for an individual but for a whole people the offering on this occasion consisted of seven of each of four different sacrificial animals, the bullocks, rams, and lambs being used for the burnt offering (verses 22 and 24), and the he-goats for the special sin offering (verse 23).
for the kingdom] i.e. for the kingly house.
for the sanctuary] i.e. for the Temple (compare Leviticus xvi. 16), but probably inclusive of the personnel of the Temple, i.e. the priests and Levites, since otherwise they would have been passed over in the great sin offering.
on the altar of the Lord] Not on the altar of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 11).
²²So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: and they killed the rams, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar.
22. received the blood] In basons with which they dashed (not as the text “sprinkled”) the blood against the altar. This dashing was different from the sprinkling with the finger.
²³And they brought near the he-goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation; and they laid their hands upon them: ²⁴and the priests killed them, and they made a sin offering with their blood upon the altar, to make atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.