Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 29:6
For our fathers were unfaithful and did evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They abandoned Him, turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD, and turned their backs on Him.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Hezekiah addresses the Levites during a temple cleansing initiative, explaining the historical cause of the sanctuary's neglect. He frames their current task as a direct response to ancestral disobedience.
The words — The Hebrew מָעֲל֣וּ (ma.'a.Lu) literally means "they acted unfaithfully," denoting a breach of covenant loyalty. This action is measured בְּ/עֵינֵ֥י (be./'ei.Nei), "in the eyes of," indicating divine observation rather than human opinion.
The thread — This pattern of ancestral unfaithfulness and temple abandonment recurs in 2 Chronicles 28:2, Ezekiel 8:16, and Jeremiah 2:27. Each passage links national judgment to the deliberate turning away from Yahweh and His dwelling place.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that present restoration requires confronting past corporate rebellion. It establishes temple worship as a direct response to historical covenant failure, not merely a ritual obligation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 8:16 So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.
- Jeremiah 2:27 say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’
- 2 Chronicles 28:2 Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even made cast images of the Baals.
- 2 Chronicles 28:23 He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him, and he said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.” But these gods were the downfall of Ahaz and of all Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 34:21 “Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for those remaining in Israel and Judah concerning the words in the book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that has been poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD by doing all that is written in this book.”
- Ezra 5:12 But since our fathers angered the God of heaven, He delivered them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean who destroyed this temple and carried away the people to Babylon.
- Ezra 9:7 From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.
- Nehemiah 9:16 But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.
- Nehemiah 9:32 So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.
- Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.