Hezekiah sent messages to the length and breadth of the entire land of Israel. At this time, the northern Kingdom had begun being disbanded and a majority of the Israelites who lived in several cities and towns had been carried off to slavery in Assyria. They had been replaced by conquered peoples from other lands, who had begun interbreeding with the remnant Israelites in the land.
In Samaria, King Hoshea, son of Elah, was on the fringes of his last years of rule before the entire northern Kingdom headquartered in Samaria was terminated.
Upon receipt of Hezekiah's invitation to close ranks and worship the God of their ancestors in purity and unity of purpose, the inhabitants of all the Israelites cities approached scorned and scoffed at it.
Therefore, only a few inhabitants of Samaria, and others from surrounding cities all over Israel acceded to the invitation, and partook in the first ever passover feast since the time of King Solomon.
The king, Levites and priests, being inexperienced in the rites of the passover (none of them had ever witnessed it before), did not make adequate plans as to how to carry out the rites and festivities, and thus found themselves having to react to different issues that came up on the fly. As noted in the previous part, they made several mistakes which normally would have rendered the sacrifice invalid.
Hezekiah however recognized (accurately) that what matters to God is the heart. They (king, levites and priests) were all young and inexperienced, but they were fired up and inspired by Hezekiah's anointed leadership. Their hearts were right before God, and they were in awe of God's glory.
These were the ingredients which God must have found so useful for His work. God willingly overlooked their missteps and unleashed the kind of power unseen even in King Solomon' era! The passover lasted seven days and there was abundant joy.
The Israelites left after the festivities to return to their own cities, where they first proceeded to destroy every trace of shrines, high places, asherah poles, images, groves, trees and all other symbols of worship present all over the land.
These actions reverberated all over the known world at that time. All Israel's adversaries were baffled. They felt all the shrines were dedicated to God. And so the Assyrian king Sennecharib in his successful wars against various powerful nations attempted to conquer Judah.
At the end of that attempt, without any battle from the Israelites, the Assyrian troops were devastated, and their king was murdered back home in the temple of his god.
Hezekiah's Kingdom enjoyed peace till the end of his life. The era was spanned by trying times, but ultimately ended in peace.
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