King of Judah, the son of Ahaz and Abi. His name is striking, Hezek and Jah, signifying the strength of the Lord. We have his history 2 Kings 18, xix. xx. And so very important was the life of this prince considered, to form a part in the records of the church, that the Holy Ghost directed the prophet Isaiah to give it again in his prophetical writings. (See Isa. 36. 37, 38, x29.) The miraculous effect wrought on the sun - dial, in confirmation of the Lord’s promise to Hezekiah, is an evident testimony of the Lord’s favour tothis prince. Hezekiah’s hymn is beautiful, Isa. 38. 10 - 20.
king of Judah, was the son of Ahaz, and born in the year of the world 3251. At the age of five-and-twenty he succeeded his father in the government of the kingdom of Judah, and reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem, namely, from the year of the world 3277 to 3306, 2Ki 18:1-2; 2Ch 29:1. The reign of his father Ahaz had been most unpropitious for his subjects. A war had raged between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, in which Pekah, king of Israel, overthrew the army of Ahaz, destroying a hundred and twenty thousand of his men; after which he carried away two hundred thousand women and children as captives into his own country; they were, however, released and sent home again, at the remonstrance of the Prophet Oded. As idolatry had been established in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, by the command of Ahaz, and the service of the temple either intermitted, or converted into an idolatrous worship, the first object of his son Hezekiah, on his accession to the throne, was to restore the regal worship of God, both in Jerusalem and throughout Judea. He cleansed and repaired the temple, and held a solemn passover. He improved the city, repaired the fortifications, erected magazines of all sorts, and built a new aqueduct. In the fourth year of his reign, Salmanezer, king of Assyria, invaded the kingdom of Israel, took Samaria, and carried away the ten tribes into captivity, replacing them by different people sent from his own country. But Hezekiah was not deterred by this alarming example from refusing to pay that tribute to the Assyrians which had been imposed on Ahaz: this brought on the invasion of Sennacherib, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, of which we have a very particular account in the writings of the Prophet Isaiah, who was then living, Isaiah 36.
Immediately after the termination of this war, Hezekiah “was sick unto death,” owing, as the sacred historian strongly intimates, to his heart being improperly elevated on occasion of this miraculous deliverance, and not sufficiently acknowledging the hand of God in it. 2 Kings 20; Isaiah 38. Isaiah was sent to bid him set his house in order, for he should die and not live. Hezekiah had instant recourse to God by prayer and supplications for his recovery; and the prophet had scarcely proceeded out of the threshold, when the Lord commanded him to return to Hezekiah, and to say to him, “Thus saith the Lord, I have heard thy prayer, and I have seen thy tears; I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” And to confirm to him the certainty of all these tokens of the divine regard, the shadow of the sun on the dial of Ahaz, at his request, went backward ten degrees. After his recovery, he composed an ode of thanksgiving to the God of all his mercies, which the Prophet Isaiah has recorded in his writings, Isa 38:10-11. Yet, as an instance of human fickleness and frailty, we find Hezekiah, with all his excellencies, again forgetting himself, and incurring the divine displeasure. The king of Babylon having been informed of his sickness and recovery, sent ambassadors to congratulate him on his restoration: an honour with which the heart of Hezekiah was greatly elated; and, to testify his gratitude, he made a pompous display to them of all his treasures, his spices, and his rich vessels: and concealed from them nothing that was in his palace. In all this the pride of Hezekiah was gratified; and to humble him, Isaiah was sent to declare to him that his conduct was displeasing to God, and that a time should come when all the treasures of which he had made so vain a display should be removed to Babylon, and even his sons be made eunuchs to serve in the palace of the king of Babylon. Hezekiah bowed submissively to the will of God, and acknowledged the divine goodness toward him, in ordaining peace and truth to continue during the remainder of his reign. He accordingly passed the latter years of his life in tranquillity, and contributed greatly to the prosperity of his people and kingdom. He died in the year of the world 3306, leaving behind him a son, Manasseh, who succeeded him in the throne: a son every way unworthy of such a father.
Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, and thirteenth king of Judah, who reigned from B.C. 725 to B.C. 696.
From the commencement of his reign the efforts of Hezekiah were directed to the reparation of the effects of the grievous errors of his predecessors; and during his time the true religion and the theocratical policy flourished as they had not done since the days of David. The temple was cleared and purified; the utensils and forms of service were restored to their ancient order; all the changes introduced by Ahaz were abolished; all the monuments of idolatry were destroyed, and their remains cast into the brook Kidron. Among the latter was the brazen serpent of Moses, which had been deposited first in the tabernacle, and then in the temple, as a memorial of the event in which it originated: and it is highly to the credit of Hezekiah, and shows more clearly than any other single circumstance the spirit of his operations, that even this interesting relic was not spared when it seemed in danger of being turned to idolatrous uses. Having succeeded by his acts and words in rekindling the zeal of the priests and of the people, the king appointed a high festival, when, attended by his court and people, he proceeded in high state to the temple, to present sacrifices of expiation for the past irregularities, and to commence the reorganized services. A vast number of sacrifices evinced to the people the zeal of their superiors, and Judah, long sunk in idolatry, was at length reconciled to God (2Ki 18:1-8; 2 Chronicles 29).
The revival of the great annual festivals was included in this reformation. The Passover, which was the most important of them all, had not for a long time been celebrated according to the rites of the law; and the day on which it regularly fell, in the first year of Hezekiah, being already past, the king, nevertheless, justly conceiving the late observance a less evil than the entire omission of the feast, directed that it should be kept on the 14th day of the second month, being one month after its proper time. Couriers were sent from town to town, inviting the people to attend the solemnity; and even the ten tribes which formed the neighboring kingdom were invited to share with their brethren of Judah in a duty equally incumbent on all the children of Abraham. Of these some received the message gladly, and others with disdain; but a considerable number of persons belonging to the northernmost tribes (which had more seldom than the others been brought into hostile contact with Judah) came to Jerusalem, and by their presence imparted a new interest to the solemnity. A profound and salutary impression appears to have been made on this occasion; and so strong was the fervor and so great the number of the assembled people, that the festival was prolonged to twice its usual duration; and during this time the multitude was fed abundantly from the countless offerings presented by the king and his nobles. Never since the time of Solomon, when the whole of the twelve tribes had used to assemble at the Holy City, had the Passover been observed with such magnificence (2 Chronicles 30).
The good effect of this procedure was seen when the people carried back to their homes the zeal for the Lord which had thus been kindled, and proceeded to destroy and cast forth all the abominations by which their several towns had been defiled; thus performing again, on a smaller scale, the doings of the king in Jerusalem. Even the ’high places,’ which the pious kings of former days had spared, were on this occasion abolished and overthrown; and even the men of Israel, who had attended the feast, were carried away by the same holy enthusiasm, and, on returning to their homes, broke all their idols in pieces (2Ch 31:1).
The attention of this pious and able king was extended to whatever concerned the interests of religion in his dominions. He caused a new collection of Solomon’s proverbs to be made, being the same which occupy Proverbs 25-29 of the book, which bears that name. The sectional divisions of the priests and Levites were reestablished; the perpetual sacrifices were recommenced, and maintained from the royal treasure; the stores of the temple were once more filled by the offerings of the people, and the times of Solomon and Jehoshaphat seemed to have returned (2 Chronicles 31).
This great work having been accomplished and consolidated (2Ki 17:7, etc.), Hezekiah applied himself to repair the calamities, as he had repaired the crimes, of his father’s government. He took arms, and recovered the cities of Judah which the Philistines had seized. Encouraged by this success, he ventured to withhold the tribute which his father had paid to the Assyrian king; and this act, which the result shows to have been imprudent, drew upon the country the greatest calamities of his reign. Only a few years before, namely, in the fourth of his reign, the Assyrians had put an end to the kingdom of Israel and sent the ten tribes into exile; but had abstained from molesting Hezekiah, as he was already their tributary. Seeing his country invaded on all sides by the Assyrian forces under Sennacherib, and Lachish, a strong place which covered Jerusalem, on the point of falling into their hands, Hezekiah, not daring to meet them in the field, occupied himself in all necessary preparations for a protracted defense of Jerusalem, in hope of assistance from Egypt, with which country he had contracted an alliance (Isa 30:1-7). Such alliances were not favored by the Divine sovereign of Israel and His prophets, and no good ever came of them. But this alliance did not render the good king unmindful of his true source of strength; for in quieting the alarms of the people he directed their attention to the consideration that they in fact had more of power and strength in the divine protection than the Assyrian king possessed in all his host. Nevertheless, Hezekiah was himself distrustful of the course he had taken, and at length, to avert the calamities of war, sent to the Assyrian king offers of submission. Sennacherib, who was anxious to proceed against Egypt, consented to withdraw his forces on the payment of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold; which the king was not able to raise without exhausting both his own treasury and that of the temple, and stripping off the gold with which the doors and pillars of the Lord’s house were overlaid (2Ki 18:7-16).
But after he had received the silver and gold, the Assyrian king broke faith with Hezekiah, and continued to prosecute his warlike operations. While he employed himself in taking the fortresses of Judea, which it was important to secure before he marched against Egypt, he sent three of his generals, Rabshakeh, Tartan, and Rabsaris, with part of his forces, to threaten Jerusalem with a siege unless it were surrendered, and the inhabitants submitted to be sent into Assyria; and this summons was delivered in language highly insulting not only to the king and people, but to the God they worshipped. When the terms of the summons were made known to Hezekiah, he gathered courage from the conviction that God would not fail to vindicate the honor of His insulted name. In this conviction he was confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, who, in the Lord’s name, promised the utter discomfiture and overthrow of the blasphemous Assyrian: ’Lo, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land, and I will cause him to die by the sword in his own land’ (2Ki 19:7). The rumor which Sennacherib heard was of the advance of Tirhakah the Ethiopian to the aid of the Egyptians, with a force which the Assyrians did not deem it prudent to meet; but, before withdrawing to his own country, Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, designed to check the gladness which his retirement was likely to produce. But that very night the predicted blast—probably the hot pestilential south wind—smote 180,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians, and released the men of Judah from all their fears (2Ki 18:17-37; 2Ki 19:1-34; 2Ch 32:1-23; Isaiah 36-37).
It was in the same year, and while Jerusalem was still threatened by the Assyrians, that Hezekiah fell sick of the plague; and the aspect which the plague-boil assumed assured him that he must die. In this he was confirmed by Isaiah, who warned him that his end approached. The love of life, the condition of the country—the Assyrians being present in it, and the throne of David without an heir—caused him to grieve at this doom, and to pray earnestly that he might be spared. And his prayer was heard in heaven. The prophet returned with the assurance that in three days he should recover, and that fifteen additional years of life should be given to him. This communication was altogether so extraordinary, that the king required some token by which his belief might be justified; and accordingly the ’sign’ which he required was granted to him. The shadow of the sun went back upon the dial of Ahaz the ten degrees it had gone down [DIAL]. This was a marvel greater than that of the cure which the king distrusted; for there is no known principle of astronomy or natural philosophy by which such a result could be produced. A cataplasm of figs was then applied to the plague-boil, under the direction of the prophet, and on the third day, as foretold, the king recovered (2Ki 20:1-11; 2Ch 32:24-26; Isaiah 38) [PLAGUE].
The destruction of the Assyrians drew the attention of foreign courts for a time towards Judea, and caused the facts connected with Hezekiah’s recovery, and the retrogression of the shadow on the dial, to be widely known. Among others, Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon, sent ambassadors with presents to make inquiries into those matters, and to congratulate the king on his recovery. Since the time of Solomon the appearance of such embassies from distant parts had been rare at Jerusalem; and the king, in the pride of his heart, made a somewhat ostentatious display to Baladan’s ambassadors of all his treasures, which he had probably recovered from the Assyrians, and much increased with their spoil. Josephus (Antiq. x. 2. 2) says that one of the objects of the embassy was to form an alliance with Hezekiah against the Assyrian empire; and if so, his readiness to enter into an alliance adverse to the theocratical policy, and his desire to magnify his own importance in the eyes of the king of Babylon, probably furnished the ground of the divine disapprobation with which his conduct in this matter was regarded. He was reprimanded by the prophet Isaiah, who revealed to him the mysteries of the future, so far as to apprise him that all these treasures should hereafter be in the possession of the Babylonians, and his family and people exiles in the land from which these ambassadors came. This intimation was received by the king with his usual submission to the will of God; and he was content to know that these evils were not to be inflicted in his own days. He has sometimes been blamed for this seeming indifference to the fate of his successors; but it is to be borne in mind that at this time he had no children. This was in the fourteenth year of his reign, and Manasseh, his successor, was not born till three years afterwards (2Ki 20:12-19; 2Ch 32:31; Isaiah 39). The rest of Hezekiah’s life appears to have been peaceable and prosperous. No man before or since ever lived under the certain knowledge of the precise length of the span of life before him. When the fifteen years had expired, Hezekiah was gathered to his fathers, after a reign of twenty-nine years. He died sincerely lamented by all his people, and the public respect for his character and memory was testified by his corpse being placed in the highest niche of the royal sepulcher (2Ki 20:20-21; 2Ch 32:32-33).
A pious king of Judah, succeeded his father Ahaz about 726 B. C., and died about 698 B. C. His history is contained in 2Ki 18:12-21 2Ch 29:1-32:33. Compare Isa 36:1-38:22. His reign is memorable for his faithful efforts to restore the worship of Jehovah; for his pride and presumption towards the Assyrians; for the distractions of their invading host in answer to his prayer; for his sickness and humiliation, and the prolonging of his life fifteen years of peace. He was succeeded by the unworthy Manasseh.\par
Hezeki’ah. (the might of Jehovah).
1. Twelfth king of Judah, son of the apostate, Ahaz and Abi or Abijah, ascended the throne at the age of 25, B.C. 726. Hezekiah was one of the three most perfect kings of Judah. 2Ki 18:5. Sir 49:4. His first act was to purge, repair and reopen, with splendid sacrifices and perfect ceremonial, the Temple. He also destroyed a brazen serpent, said to have been the one used by Moses, in the miraculous healing of the Israelites, Num 21:9, which had become an object of adoration.
When the kingdom of Israel had fallen, Hezekiah invited the scattered inhabitants to a peculiar Passover, which was continued for the unprecedented period of fourteen days. 2Ch 29:30-31. At the head of a repentant and united people, Hezekiah ventured to assume the aggressive camp[aign against the Philistines, and in a series of victories, not only rewon the cities which his father had lost, 2Ch 28:18, but even dispossessed them of their own cities, except Gaza, 2Ki 18:8, and Gath. He refused to acknowledge the supremacy of Assyria. 2Ki 18:7. Instant war was imminent and Hezekiah used every available means to strengthen himself. 2Ki 20:20.
It was probably at this dangerous crisis in his kingdom, that we find him sick and sending for Isaiah, who prophesies death as the result. 2Ki 20:1. Hezekiah’s prayer for longer life is heard. The prophet had hardly left the palace when he was ordered to return and promise the king immediate recovery and fifteen years more of life. 2Ki 20:4. An embassy coming from Babylon ostensibly to compliment Hezekiah on his convalescence, but really to form an alliance between the two powers, is favorably received by the king, who shows them the treasures which he had accumulated. For this, Isaiah foretells the punishment that shall befall his house. 2Ki 20:17.
The two invasions of Sennacherib occupy the greater part of the scripture records concerning the reign of Hezekiah. The first of these took place in the third year of Sennacherib, B.C. 702, and occupies only three verses. 2Ki 18:13-16. Respecting the commencement of the second invasion, we have full details in 2Ki 18:17; seq.; 2Ch 32:9; seq.; Isa 36:1. Sennacherib sent against Jerusalem, an army under two officers and his cupbearer, the orator Rabshakeh, with a blasphemous and insulting summons to surrender; but Isaiah assures the king he need not fear, promising to disperse the enemy. 2Ki 19:6-7. Accordingly, that night "the angel of the Lord went out, and smote, in the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred fourscore and five thousand."
Hezekiah only lived to enjoy for about one year more, his well-earned peace and glory. He slept with his fathers, after a reign of twenty-nine years, in the 56th year of his age, B.C. 697.
2. Son of Neariah, one of the descendants of the royal family of Judah. 1Ch 3:23.
3. The same name, though rendered in the Authorized Version Hizkiah, is found in Zep 1:1.
4. Ater of Hezekiah. See Ater.
("strength of Jehovah".)
1. Twelfth king of Judah; son of the unbelieving Ahaz and Abi or Abijah; ascended the throne at the age of 25 in 726 B.C. Of his faithfulness it is written (2Ki 18:5) "he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him, for he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following Him but kept His commandments." Probably his mother, being daughter of Zechariah "who had understanding in the visions of God" (2Ch 26:5), was pious, and her influence counteracted the bad example of his father. In the very first year and first month of his reign the Lord put it "in his heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel" (2 Chronicles 29), so he opened and repaired the doors of the Lord’s house which had been "shut up," and charged the Levites not to be negligent but to "sanctify" the house and "carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place," and to light the lamps, to burn incense, and to offer burnt offerings as in former times; all which, to the shame and disaster of Judah, had latterly been neglected.
They did so, and moreover sanctified all the vessels which Ahaz had "cast away in his transgression." Then an atonement was made for the kingdom, the sanctuary, and Judah, with a sin offering of seven bullocks, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven he-goats; then followed the burnt offering, while "the Levite singers sang with the words of David and Asaph the seer, and the trumpets sounded." The priests were too few to flay the burnt offerings which the congregation "of a free heart" brought in; therefore the Levites helped them "until the other priests had sanctified themselves, for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests." So "Hezekiah rejoiced that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly." Then followed the Passover, in the second month, "because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem," so as to keep it in the regular month (Num 9:10-11; compare Exo 12:6; Exo 12:18).
Hezekiah by letter invited not only Judah, but also Ephraim and Manasseh, to it: "Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, escaped out of the hand of the king of Assyria." The majority "laughed the messengers to scorn; nevertheless, divers of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun (Ephraim and Issachar also) humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem." Also "in Judah the hand of God was to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king by the word of the Lord" (2Ch 30:2; 2Ch 30:12; 2Ch 30:18; 2Ch 30:23; Jer 32:39). Owing to the want of priests several were not duly cleansed and sanctified, yet did eat the Passover; but Hezekiah prayed for them, "the good Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary."
So "the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people." "And Hezekiah spoke comfortably unto all the Levites that taught the good knowledge of the Lord," assuring them of God’s pardon upon their "making confession to the Lord God" for the people, so that "the whole assembly took counsel and kept other seven days with gladness." "So there was great joy in Jerusalem, for since Solomon’s time there was not the like ... and the priests blessed the people ... and their prayer came up to the Lord’s holy place, even unto heaven." Next, all Israel present went out to break the images, cut down the groves, and throw down the high places and altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.
Yet in spite of the warning the brazen serpent was reverenced by professing Christians in the church of Ambrose at Milan! (Prideaux, Connex., 1:19). The Passover must have been five or six years later than the purification of the temple, which was in Hezekiah’s first year; for it was not until the sixth year of Hezekiah that the king of Assyria took Samaria (ver. 9-10); its fall prepared many in Israel to accept humbly Hezekiah’s invitation (2Ch 30:6; 2Ch 30:9). Hezekiah also provided for the maintenance of the priests and Levites by commanding the payment of tithes; he ordered also their courses of service, and "in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart and prospered": a good motto for Christians (Col 3:23).
Isaiah the prophet was the great supporter of Hezekiah in his pious efforts; but not without opposition from drunken scoffers, who asked "whom shall he (Isaiah) teach knowledge? them that are weaned from the milk?" i.e., does he take us for babes just weaned, that he presumes to teach us? (Isa 28:9) "for precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little," i.e., for he is constantly repeating the same thing as if to little children, and as one teaching young beginners how to make the strokes of a letter and join line to line; the scorners imitated Isaiah’s stammering like repetitions, in Hebrew tsaw latsar, qaw laqaw. The simplicity of divine teaching offends proud scorners (2Ki 5:11-12; 1Co 1:23); but children in knowledge needed to be spoken to in children’s language (Mat 13:13). Isaiah replies, You will have a sterner teacher with stammering and foreign speech to convict you of unbelief (Isaiah 28).
Ahaz the former king’s counselors recommended worldly alliances and compromises of principle for political expediency, instead of Isaiah’s counsel to rest on Jehovah alone. Shebna was one of these half hearted, self indulgent, and ostentatious officers at court. His father’s name is not given, though his office is," the scribe" (2Ki 18:18; 2Ki 19:2); whereas the fathers of Eliakim and Joah, with Shebna, are named. The reason appears quite incidentally in Isa 22:15, "Say unto Shebna ... this treasurer over the house (prefect of the palace), What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here?" i.e. as being a foreigner (his name is un-Hebrew like, he was probably a Syrian brought from abroad to Ahaz’ court) thou hast no paternal burying place or kindred here.
He was degraded; but (probably upon his repentance) the lower yet honourable office of "scribe" or secretary of state was given him, and in that office he is mentioned as if faithful (Isa 37:2, etc.), so that the sentence of exile and humiliation, "tossed like a ball into a large country, and there the chariots of his glory becoming the shame of his lord’s house," was apparently reversed, though Jewish tradition says he was tied to the horses’ tails by the enemy to whom he designed to betray Jerusalem, but who thought he mocked them.
Hezekiah recovered from the Philistines all the cities which his father Ahaz had lost, namely, of "the low country and the S. of Judah, Bethshemesh, Ajalon, Gederoth, Shocho, Timnah, Gimzo" with their dependent villages, "the Lord having brought Judah low because Ahaz had made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord" (2Ch 28:18-19). "Hezekiah smote them even unto Gaza (Gaza and Gath alone remained to them: Josephus, Ant. 9:13, section 3), from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city" (2Ki 18:8). This was foretold by Isaiah (Isa 14:29-30): "Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the God of him that smote thee (Uzziah, 2Ch 26:6) is broken (namely, under Ahaz), for out of the serpent’s (as Uzziah was regarded by the Philistines) root shall come forth a cockatrice," an adder, to the Philistines, Hezekiah; "and the firstborn of the poor (the poorest) shall feed" in safety, instead of constant alarms of Philistine invasions.
Hezekiah bore for a time the yoke of tribute imposed by the Assyrian Tiglath Pileser on Ahaz (2Ki 16:7); but having spent much on the Philistine war, trusting in the aid of Egypt, be now ventured to withhold payment from Assyria. Shalmaneser had begun, and Sargon had just terminated, the siege of Samaria (Isa 20:1; Isa 20:4; Isa 20:6; 2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 17:24; 2Ki 18:7; 2Ki 18:7; 2Ki 18:9-10 "THEY took it," 11). Sargon moreover removed some of the Israelites to "the cities of the Medes"; the Scripture herein being confirmed by Assyrian monuments which mention his seizing and annexing several Median cities, to which Assyrian policy would of course transplant distant colonists. Light years subsequent to Samaria’s fall, in Hezekiah’s fourteenth year, Sennacherib, in the third year of his reign according to Assyrian records, undertook his first expedition against Judah. In the interval between Samaria’s fall and this invasion Tyre’s gallant resistance under their king Elulaeus had forced the Assyrians to retire after a five years’ siege.
Hezekiah had used this interval to "stop the waters of the fountains without the city, stopping the upper watercourse (rather ’spring head’) of Gihon (i.e. the spring source of the Kedron stream, Nachal being the valley E. of the city, Ge the valley W. and S. of the city), and bringing it straight down to the W. side of the city of David" (i.e into the valley separating mount Moriah and Zion from the upper city (2Ch 32:3-4; 2Ch 32:13; 2Ch 32:30): Zion must therefore have lain on the N. not on the S.W. of the city, so that the water brought to the W. of it should be inside not outside the city); also building up the broken wall (using the materials of the houses which they broke down for the purpose), and raising it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repairing Millo in the city of David, and making darts and shields in abundance. Hezekiah also "gathered together the waters of the lower pool," i.e. brought into the city by subterranean passages in Zion rock the waters from the fountain which supplied the lower pool (Isa 22:9-11; Isa 7:3; 2Ki 20:20).
"He also made a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool," i.e. the lower pool’s water he diverted to a new tank in the city between the two walls. His words too cheered the hearts of his captains and people, being the language of faith: "there be more with us than with him; with him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to fight our battles." So "the people rested themselves upon his words."
The monuments confirm this Scripture statement: "because Hezekiah king of Judah would not submit, I took 46 of his strong fenced cities ... and from these, as spoil, 200,150 people, with horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep; and Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates .... Then Hezekiah sent out to me the chiefs with 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver ... by way of tribute." The patriotism of the Hebrew historian (2 Kings 18) suppresses the ravages, advance on the capital, and the siege; but Isaiah (2Ki 10:28-32; 2Ki 22:1-14; 2Ki 22:2 Kings 24; 2 Kings 29) more vividly than even Sennacherib’s annalist, notices all. In the main facts there is a singular agreement between the sacred and the secular records, the variation in the number of talents of silver being probably due to the Hebrew recording the number appointed as permanent tribute, the Assyrian the whole that was actually carried off. The inscriptions record that Ekron had submitted to Hezekiah and delivered their king Padi up to him because of his adherence to Assyria.
Sennacherib recovered Padi from Jerusalem and seated him again on the throne. Hezekiah’s sickness must have occurred just before Sennacherib’s expedition, for God assures him (Isa 38:6), "I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city," in the 14th year of Hezekiah’s reign. Moreover, 15 years was the addition promised by God to his life, which added to the 14 years would give 29 years, the actual number of years in all that he reigned. His sickness was owing to an inflammatory carbuncle and abscess. Having then no heir, he shrank from death with a fear scarcely worthy of a believer. God granted his earnest prayer; "afore Isaiah had gone out into the middle court the word of the Lord came to him," i.e. when he had just left Hezekiah and Hezekiah was in the act of praying, after having heard God’s message, "thou shalt die."
God hears while His children are yet speaking (Isa 65:24; Psa 32:5; Dan 9:21). Our wishes, when gratified, often prove curses. Three years afterward Hezekiah had a son, Manasseh, the chief cause of God’s wrath against Judah and of the overthrow of the kingdom (2Ki 23:26-27). God gave Hezekiah as a sign of recovery the recession of the shadow ten degrees on Ahaz’s
Hezekiah did not disbelieve in a future state, but regarded the disembodied state as one wherein men cannot declare the praises of God before men, it is as to this world an unseen land of stillness, the living alone can praise God on earth. That the true view was at the time held of the blessedness of the sleeping saints Isa 57:1-2 proves. A cake of figs was the instrument used for the cure; God can make effectual the simplest means. Sennacherib’s object in his second expedition was Egypt, Hezekiah’s ally. Hence with the great body of his army he advanced toward Egypt by S.W. Palestine, and did not himself approach Jerusalem; this was two years after the former invasion. The Assyrian annals are silent as to Sennacherib’s second expedition in the fifth year of his reign, which began by his "treacherously" (Isa 33:1) attacking Lachish, and which ended in the destruction recorded in 2Ki 19:35; for, unlike the faithful Jewish historians, they never record any of their monarch’s disasters.
But the disaster is tacitly deducible in the Assyrian records from the discontinuance subsequently of expeditions by Sennacherib westward further than Cilicia. The Assyrians did not resume aggression upon southern Syria and Egypt until the close of Esarhaddon’s reign. Moreover the Egyptian priests told Herodotus, from their records, that, a century and a half before Cambyses, Sennacherib led a host of Assyrians and Arabs to the Egyptian border where king Sethos met them near Pelusium on the E. of the Nile; and that swarms of field mice ate the Assyrians’ quivers, bowstrings, and shield thongs in the night, so in the morning, they fled, and multitudes fell, having no arms to defend themselves. Sethos erected a monument, a man in stone with a mouse in his hand, and the inscription, "Look on me and learn to reverence the gods." The mouse symbolized ruin (1Sa 6:4-5); the story arose out of this symbolical statue, not the statue out of the literal story.
Sennacherib, according to Assyrian inscriptions, which mention the 22nd year of his reign, lived about 17 years after the invasion and was slain by his two sons. Isaiah, while disapproving of trust in Egypt, regarded the voluntarily offered aid of the tall and warlike Ethiopians as providential (Isa 18:1-2; Isa 18:7). "Ho (not Woe!) to the land of the winged bark," or else "to the land of the clanging sound of wings" (i.e. armies). To Ethiopia Isaiah announces the overthrow of Sennacherib the common foe, and desires the Ethiopian ambassadors, then at Jerusalem, to carry the tidings to their people.
Hezekiah’s simple childlike faith appears in his spreading the foe’s insolent, letter before the Lord. His faith received an immediate answer of peace; 185,000 were slain by the angel of the Lord in the "night," perhaps by "the plague that, walketh in darkness" (2Ki 19:35, with which Isa 37:36 undesignedly accords, "when they arose early in the morning".) In this second expedition, according to Jehovah’s word, Sennacherib did not "come before the city with shields, nor cast a bank against it" (Isa 37:33); whereas in the first he shut Hezekiah up as a "bird in a cage" also "raising banks of earth against the gates." It is possible Rabshakeh took the army with him from Jerusalem to Libnah on the borders of Egypt (ver. 8), and that the destruction occurred there, which accords with the Egyptian story to Herodotus above; the Lord’s words "he shall not shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields" seem corrupted into the Egyptian legend of the mice gnawing the bowstrings and shield straps.
In Sennacherib’s account of his wars with Hezekiah, inscribed with cuneiform characters in the hall of the palace of Koyunjik built by him (140 ft. long by 120 ft. wide), wherein the Jewish physiognomy of the captives is discernible, after mentioning the capture of the 200,150 Jews he adds, "then I prayed unto God," the only instance of God’s name in an inscription without a pagan adjunct. On returning to Nineveh Sennacherib, according to Tob 1:18, revenged himself on the Jews then in his power; but that apocryphal book makes him die 55 days afterward, whereas 17 years elapsed: see above. In Isaiah 39, an embassy from Merodach Baladan to Hezekiah is recorded. He congratulated Hezekiah on his recovery, and sent also a present. About this time precisely it was that Babylon had revolted from Assyria, and set up an independent kingdom. Scripture calls him "king of Babylon," though both before and after him Babylon was subject to Assyria.
This is an undesigned coincidence of Scripture with secular history, confirming the truth of the former. The Assyrian inscriptions say he reigned twice, and that Sennacherib in his first year expelled him and set up Belib in his stead. Probably he recovered the Babylonian kingdom when Sennacherib was weakened by his disaster in Judea, and sent the embassy not merely to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery but mainly to court Hezekiah’s alliance, as having like himself cast off the Assyrian yoke. Hence arose Hezekiah’s excessive attention to his ambassadors. But how had Hezekiah such a store of precious things? Either the transaction was before Hezekiah’s straits when he had to cut off the gold from the doors and pillars of the temple, to give to the Assyrian king. (Then Merodach Baladan’s embassy would be during his earlier reign at Babylon, in Sargon’s time, 713 B.C.; whereas his second reign fell in 703 B.C., five or six years before the date of Hezekiah’s death (these dates are deduced from the Assyrian records, if they be trustworthy).
The chronology favors the view that Hezekiah’s sickness and Merodach Baindan’s embassy were some years before Sennacherib, in the first reign of Merodach Baladan). Or the more probable (though the dates cause difficulty) explanation is in 2Ch 32:22-23; "thus the Lord saved Hezekiah from Sennacherib .... And many brought gifts unto the Lord (doubtless impressed with His great majesty and power in the miraculous destruction of the Assyrians) to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth." The spoils of the Assyrian army left in panic, as on a different occasion (2Ki 7:15), would add to Hezekiah’s wealth.
The sending of the embassy so long after his recovery is accounted for by Babylon being then regarded in respect to Judah as "a far country" (Isa 39:3), also by the impossibility of sending sooner during Sennacherib’s invasion; moreover another object of the princes of Babylon, which was famed for astronomy, was "to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land" (2Ch 32:25-26; 2Ch 32:31), i.e. the recession of the shadow on Ahaz’s dial. Hezekiah was "glad"; it was not the act but the ostentatious spirit, and the unbelief tempting him to rest on Babylon, proud of its alliance, instead of on Jehovah, which called forth God’s retributive threat that Babylon, the instrument of his and Judah’s sin, should be the instrument of their punishment (Isa 39:5-7); fulfilled 120 years afterward. Ingratitude to God, and pride, were his fault in this affair; "Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up," "God leaving him to try him, that He might kow all that was in his heart" (Deu 8:2).
But when the believer’s foot slides, it slides the deeper into humility. First, Hezekiah frankly confessed "all"; unlike Saul and Asa, submitting to God’s servant though his subject (Isa 39:4; 2Ch 16:7-10; 1Sa 15:20-21), and "humbling himself for the pride of his heart," and "accepting the punishment of his iniquity" (Lev 26:41) meekly, and even finding cause for thanksgiving in the mitigating fact foretold by implication, "there shall be peace and truth in my days." Not the language of mere selfishness, but of one feeling that the national corruption must at last lead to the threatened judgment, and thanking God for the stroke being deferred yet for a time. The prophecy of the carrying away to Babylon, in the form of a rebuke, forms the connecting link between the former portion of Isaiah’s prophecies (Isaiah 1-39), which relate to the deliverance from Assyria, and the latter (Isaiah 40-66) as to the deliverance from Babylon, more than a century and a half later. Psalm 46 and Psalm 76 commemorate Sennacherib’s overthrow.
Two coincidences in Psalm 46 occur: "the city of God" (verse 4) is that wherein" God is in the midst," so that "she shall not be moved," just as history states that the mother city Jerusalem alone escaped, whereas "all the defensed cities of Judah" fell before Sennacherib (Isa 36:1); also in verse 10, "Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted in the earth," is God’s reply to Hezekiah’s prayer, "O Lord our God save us, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord" (Isa 37:20). Also verse 5," God shall help her ... right early," Hebrew at the turning of the morning (Psa 30:5 ff). On the previous night the cause of the city of God seemed desperate and the Assyrian triumphant, but "when they (the Jews) arose early in the morning, behold they (the Assyrians) were all dead corpses" (Isa 37:36). In Isa 37:8-10 Sennacherib’s overthrow is made the earnest of the final cessation of wars throughout the earth under the Prince of Peace, after He shall have made "desolations" of the adversary.
Psa 76:3, "there broke He the arrows of the bow ... shield ... sword ... battle," implies that by one stroke at Jerusalem (which opposes the view that Libnah was the scene of the Assyrian overthrow) God ended completely the war. Psa 76:6; Psa 76:8 imply that it was by Jehovah’s direct interposition. The "death sleep" of the host at God’s rebuke is described vividly (Psa 76:5-6), the camp so recently full of life now lying still as death. "The stout hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep .... At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep." God’s "cutting off the breath (spirit) of princes" (Psa 76:12) implies probably that Rabshakeh and other leaders fell on the same night. "Let all that be round about Him bring presents unto Him that ought to be feared" (Psa 76:11) accords with the fact recorded 2Ch 32:22-23.
The assurance of God’s help in Psalm 75 accords with Isa 37:21-35; also the omission of the N. among the quarters from from whence help is expected accords with the Assyrian attack being from the N. Hezekiah died in his 56th year after a 29 years’ reign, 697 B.C. He was buried "in the chiefest (or highest) of the sepulchres of the sons of David, and all Judah and Jerusalem did him honour at his death" (Pro 10:7). His "acts and goodness were written in the vision of Isaiah ... and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel" (2Ch 32:32-33). A fitting accompaniment of the religious reformation he wrought was his setting" the men of Hezekiah" (Isaiah, Micah, Joah, etc.) to "copy out" some of the 3,000 proverbs which Solomon spoke 300 years before: thus he brought forth the word of God from its obscurity (1Ki 4:32; Ecc 12:9; Pro 25:1).
Hezekiah. (hĕz’e-kî’ah), whom God strengthens. A good king of Judah, who succeeded his Hither Ahaz about 726 b.c., and died about 698 b.c. For his history see 2Ki 18:1-37; 2Ki 19:1-37; 2Ki 20:1-21; 2Ch 29:1-36; 2Ch 30:1-27; 2Ch 31:1-21; 2Ch 32:1-33. Compare Isa 36:1-22; Isa 37:1-38; Isa 38:1-22. He tried to restore the worship of Jehovah, removing "high places," and destroying the brazen serpent; consult 2Ch 28:22-25; for the final deportation of the Ten Tribes see 2Ki 17:1-41; 2Ki 18:9-12; and for his revolt against the Assyrians compare 2Ki 18:1-37; 2Ch 32:1-33. Hezekiah’s payment of tribute is noted in 2Ki 18:13-16. Assyrian annals of Sennacherib discovered at Nineveh agree with this account. A second invasion seems to have followed when Sennacherib, Isa 30:1-7, returned, Isa 33:1. Then came Sennacherib’s letters from Lachish and Libnah, the destruction of a great part of his army, and the retreat of the rest to Assyria, in answer to Hezekiah’s prayer. Compare Isa 31:8-9; Isa 37:33-37. Hezekiah’s sickness, humiliation, and prolongation of life 15 years in peace, and the prediction that Babylon, then feeble and friendly, would one day carry his descendants into captivity are noticed in Old Testament history, Isa 39:1-8; Mic 4:10. Hezekiah collated the Proverbs of Solomon. Pro 25:1. The prophecies of Hosea and Micah were delivered partly in his reign; compare Jer 26:17-19; and Nahum was perhaps his contemporary.
HEZEKIAH.—One of the kings of Judah, mentioned in Mt.’s (Mat 1:9 f.) genealogy of our Lord.
(the Zealot):
By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Jacob Tauber
A martyr whom some scholars identify with Hezekiah ben Garon of the Talmud (Shab. 12a, 13b, 98b, 99a). He fought for Jewish freedom and the supremacy of the Jewish law at the time when Herod was governor of Galilee (47 B.C.). When King Aristobulus, taken prisoner by the Romans, had been poisoned by the followers of Pompey, Hezekiah ("Ezekias" in Josephus, "Ant." xiv. 9, §§ 2 et seq) gathered together the remnants of that king's army in the mountains of Galilee and carried on a successful guerrilla war against the Romans and Syrians, while awaiting the opportunity for a general uprising against Rome. The pious men of the country looked upon him as the avenger of their honor and liberty. Antipater, the governor of the country, and his sons, however, who were Rome's agents in Palestine, viewed this patriotic band differently. In order to curry favor with the Romans, Herod, unauthorized by the king Hyrcanus, advanced against Hezekiah, took him prisoner, and beheaded him, without the formality of a trial; and he also slew many of his followers. This deed excited the indignation of all the patriots. Hezekiah and his band were enrolled among the martyrs of the nation.
Bibliography:
Schürer, Gesch. i. 348;
Mittheilungen der Oesterreichisch-Israelitischen Union, vii. (1895), No. 67, pp. 4 et seq.
HEZEKIAH.—1. One of the most prominent kings of Judah. He came to the throne after his father Ahaz, about b.c. 714. The assertions that Samaria was destroyed in his sixth year and that Sennacherib’s invasion came in his fourteenth year are inconsistent (2Ki 18:10; 2Ki 18:13). The latter has probability on its side, and as we know that Sennacherib invaded Palestine in 701 the calculation is easily made.
Politically Hezekiah had a difficult task. His father had submitted to Assyria, but the vassalage was felt to be severe. The petty kingdoms of Palestine were restive under the yoke, and they were encouraged by the Egyptians to make an effort for independence. There was always an Egyptian party at the court of Jerusalem, though at this time Egypt was suffering from internal dissensions. In the East the kingdom of Babylon under Merodach-baladan was also making trouble for the Assyrians. Hezekiah seems to have remained faithful to the suzerain for some years after his accession, but when, about the time of Sennacherib’s accession (705), a coalition was formed against the oppressor he joined it. We may venture to suppose that about this time he received the embassy from Merodach-baladan (2Ki 20:12 ff., Isa 39:1 ff.), which was intended to secure the co-operation of the Western States with Babylon in the effort then being made. Isaiah, as we know from his own discourses, was opposed to the Egyptian alliance, and apparently to the whole movement. The Philistines were for revolt; only Padi, king of Ekron, held out for his master the king of Assyria. For this reason Hezekiah invaded his territory and took him prisoner. If, as the Biblical account seems to intimate (2Ki 18:8), he incorporated the conquered land in his own kingdom, the gain was not for a long time. In 701 Sennacherib appeared on the scene, and there was no possibility of serious resistance. The inscriptions tell us that the invaders captured forty-six walled towns, and carried 200,000 Judahites into slavery. The Egyptian (some suppose it to be an Arabian) army made a show of coming to the help of its allies, but was met on the border and defeated. Hezekiah was compelled to release the captive Padi, who returned to his throne in triumph. Sennacherib was detained at Lachish by the stubborn resistance of that fortress, and could send only a detachment of his troops to Jerusalem. With it went an embassy, the account of which may be read in 2Ki 18:1-37; 2Ki 19:1-37 and Is 36, 37. The laconic sentence: ‘Hezekiah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying: I have offended; that which thou puttest on me will I bear’ (2Ki 18:14) shows that abject submission was made. The price of peace was a heavy one—three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To pay it, all the gold and silver that could be found was gathered together, even the Temple doors (2Ki 18:16) being stripped of their precious metal.
In our accounts we read of a great destruction which came upon the Assyrian army (2Ki 19:35, Isa 37:36). Whether Sennacherib was not satisfied with the submission of Hezekiah, or whether a second campaign was made which the historian has confused with this one, is not yet certainly known. There was a second expedition of Sennacherib’s to the west some years later than the one we have been considering. At that time, it may be, the pestilence broke out and made the army too weak for further operations. It is clear that the people of Jerusalem felt that they had had a remarkable deliverance. Hezekiah’s sickness is dated by the Biblical writer in the time of this invasion, which can hardly be correct if the king lived fifteen years after that experience.
The account of Hezekiah’s religious reforms is more sweeping than seems probable for that date. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that he destroyed the brazen serpent, which had been an object of worship in the Temple (2Ki 18:4). The cleansing of the country sanctuaries from idolatry, under the influence of Isaiah, may have been accomplished at the same time. The expansions of the Chronicler (2Ch 29:1-36 ff.) must be received with reserve.
2. An ancestor of the prophet Zephaniah (Zep 1:1), possibly to be identified with the king of the same name. 3. Head of a family of exiles who returned, Ezr 2:16 = Neh 7:21 (cf. Neh 10:17).
H. P. Smith.
Ezechias (Hebrew = "The Lord strengtheneth"; Septuagint Ezekias; in the cuneiform inscriptions Ha-za-qi-ya-hu).King of Juda, son and successor of Achaz. We learn from Second Kings, Chapter 18, that he began his reign in the third year of Osee, King of Israel, that he was then twenty-five years of age, that his reign lasted twenty-nine years, and that his mother was Abi, daughter of Zecharias. The account of his reign is beset with unsolved chronological difficulties, and there exists a difference of opinion among scholars as to the year in which he ascended the throne. The commonly received computation reckons his reign from 726 to 697 B.C. In character and policy, Ezechias was pious and agreeable to God. He was a strenuous civil and religious reformer, and on this account the sacred writer compares him to King David. The events of his reign are related in the Fourth Book of Kings, and also in the parallel account in the Second Book of Chronicles, but in the latter, as might be expected, stress is laid chiefly on the religious reforms which he carried out, whereas the earlier account mentions these briefly, and dwells at greater length on the civil and political aspects of his reign.Among the religious reforms are mentioned the purification of the Temple, which had been closed by Achaz, the irreligious predecessor of Ezechias (II Chronicles 28-29), the resumption and proper celebration of the feast of the Passover which had been neglected (II Chronicles 30), and in general the extirpation of idolatry, and the reorganization of the Hebrew worship (II Kings 18, II Chronicles 31). In a title prefixed to the twenty-fifth chapter of Proverbs, it is stated that the sayings contained in the following collection (25-29) were copied out by the "men of Ezechias." This would seem to indicate, on the part of the king, some literary interest and activity, and in the Talmudic tradition these "men of Ezechias" are credited with the composition of several books of the Old Testament. Soon after his accession to the throne Ezechias threw off the yoke of the Assyrians, to whom his father had become a vassal (II Kings 18). Other notable events of his reign are his sickness and miraculous cure, the embassy of Berodach Baladan, and the invasion of Sennacherib. The story of the sickness of Ezechias is narrated in II Kings 20, and in Isaiah 28.The king having been stricken with some mortal disease, the prophet Isaiah comes in the name of Yahweh to warn him to put his affairs in order, for he is about to die. But Ezechias prays to the Lord, Who sends the prophet back to announce to him that he will recover, and that fifteen years are to be added to his life. As a sign of the fulfilment of this promise, Isaiah causes the shadow to recede a distance of ten lines on the sundial. Connected with this event is the sending of an embassy by Berodach Baladan, King of Babylon, who having heard of the illness of Ezechias, sent messengers to him with presents. The motive of this action on the part of the Babylonian king was probably to enlist the services of Ezechias in a league against Sennacherib, King of Assyria. Ezechias received the envoys with great honour, and exhibited to them his various treasures and armaments of war. This spirit of ostentation was displeasing to the Lord, and Isaiah was sent to announce that the treasures, in which the king seemed to place his confidence, would be all carried off as plunder to Babylon. Not long after (according to the cuneiform inscriptions, in the year 701), Sennacherib undertook a great campaign against Syria and Egypt. The story of this expedition is told, from the Assyrian standpoint, in the official cuneiform inscription known as the Taylor prism. The plan of Sennacherib was, first, to vanquish the kings of Ascalon, Sidon and Juda who had formed a coalition against him, and then to turn his attention to the land of the Pharaohs.After subduing Ascalon and Accaron, the Assyrian invader captured and plundered all the fortified towns of Juda, and carried their inhabitants into exile. Then he besieged Jerusalem, and Ezechias, finding himself shut up "like a bird in a cage," resolved to come to terms with his enemy. Sennacherib demanded thirty talents of gold and three hundred talents of silver, and, in order to supply it, Ezechias was obliged to yield up not only the contents of the royal treasury, but also the silver belonging to th e Temple, and the plates of gold which were on the doors thereof (II Kings 18). But when in addition to this, the Assyrian demanded the surrender of Jerusalem with a view to carrying its inhabitants into exile, the courage of Ezechias was revived, and he prepared himself for a vigorous resistance. Haughty demands of surrender were repulsed, and the king taking counsel with the prophet Isaiah turned in supplication to Yahweh; he received the assurance that the enemy would soon abandon the siege without doing any harm to the city. This prophecy was shortly verified when the angel of the Lord having slain in the night 185,000 of the besieging forces, the remainder fled with Sennacherib, and returned to Assyria. Echezias survived this deliverance only a few years, and he was buried with great pomp in the tomb of the sons of David (2 Samuel 20:21; 2 Chronicles 32:33).-----------------------------------JAMES F. DRISCOLL Transcribed by Sean Hyland The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VCopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
(1) King of Judah. See special article
(2) A son of Neariah, of the royal family of Judah (1Ch 3:23, the Revised Version (British and American) “Hizkiah”).
(3) An ancestor of Zephaniah (Zep 1:1, the King James Version “Hizkiah”).
(4) One of the returned exiles from Babylon (Ezr 2:16; Neh 7:21).
At the time of Hezekiah’s accession to Judah’s throne, his country was in a sad condition. The policies of Ahaz had left Judah economically weak, politically dominated by Assyria, and religiously corrupted through false religions (see AHAZ).
Upon becoming king, Hezekiah set out on the bold task of strengthening the nation’s economy, overthrowing Assyrian domination, and reforming Judah’s religion. This latter achievement won him praise as being Judah’s greatest king to that time (2Ki 18:1-8).
Religious reforms
The prophets of Hezekiah’s time (he reigned from 716 to 687 BC) were Hosea, Isaiah and Micah. Hosea was by this time very old (cf. Hos 1:1), Isaiah was very influential around the palace (Isa 1:1; Isa 38:1) and Micah was preaching with such authority that the king was taking good notice of him (Mic 1:1; Jer 26:17-19). Yet none of the prophets records Hezekiah’s reforms. Perhaps this was because the prophets were more concerned with the spiritual attitudes of people than with the revised procedures for temple worship.
Hezekiah began his reforms by assembling the priests and Levites and telling them plainly that neglect of the temple and its services was the reason for God’s anger with Judah (2Ch 29:1-11). He then sent them to cleanse and rededicate the temple. The common people responded to his reforms with such enthusiasm that the temple officials were unable to cope with all the sacrifices (2Ch 29:12-36).
After this, Hezekiah arranged a great Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread (2Ch 30:1-12). He insisted, however, that before joining in the festival, people ceremonially cleanse themselves and remove all traces of false religion from Jerusalem (2Ch 30:13-22).
Having cleansed Jerusalem of false religion, Hezekiah then cleansed the country areas (2Ch 31:1). His desire was that the nation as a whole follow the religious order laid down by Moses and developed by David. He therefore organized the priests and Levites according to David’s plan, and arranged for their proper financial support through the orderly payment and distribution of the people’s tithes and offerings (2Ch 31:2-19). Some of Hezekiah’s leading officials made a collection of Solomon’s proverbs to instruct the people further (Pro 25:1).
Political achievements
Assyrian influence in Palestine was at its peak during the time of Hezekiah. In the early part of his reign Assyria conquered the northern kingdom Israel and carried the people into captivity (722 BC; 2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:9-12). Meanwhile in the south, Hezekiah was busy strengthening Judah’s independence. He improved its economy, increased its agricultural production, fortified its defences and improved Jerusalem’s water supply (2Ch 32:27-30). He then revolted against Assyria by refusing to pay further tribute (2Ki 18:7).
As expected, Assyria sent its army to attack Judah, but Hezekiah had prepared Judah well and had equipped Jerusalem to withstand the siege (2Ki 18:13; 2Ch 32:1-6). He had also made a defence agreement with Egypt that he hoped would guarantee success. Isaiah opposed this dependence on Egypt. Judah’s need was for quiet faith in God, not for military help from a foreign country (Isa 30:1-3; Isa 30:15; Isa 31:1; Isa 31:3; Isa 31:5; Isa 31:8).
The Assyrian attack was far more damaging to Jerusalem than Hezekiah had expected. Even when the Assyrians had forced Hezekiah to pay them large amounts of money, they did not retreat. They were preparing to crush Jerusalem completely (2Ki 18:14-37). On two occasions Hezekiah went in great distress to the temple to ask God’s help, and on both occasions Isaiah brought God’s reassuring answer (2Ki 19:1-7; 2Ki 19:14-34). The outcome was that God intervened and dramatically overthrew the Assyrians (2Ki 19:35-37).
Hezekiah had at one time become so sick that it appeared he would die. In answer to his prayers, God extended his life by fifteen years, enabling him to lead Judah through its period of conflict with Assyria (2Ki 20:1-11). In gratitude to God, Hezekiah wrote a song of praise for his recovery (Isa 38:9-22).
Throughout this period Babylon was increasing in power and was looking for allies to help it conquer Assyria. An illness of Hezekiah gave the Babylonians the opportunity to visit him, in the hope of persuading him to join them against Assyria. Hezekiah was easily persuaded. He was very anti-Assyrian and very proud that his achievements for Judah had attracted Babylon’s admiration (2Ki 20:1-13; 2Ch 32:24-25; 2Ch 32:31). Once again Isaiah condemned Hezekiah’s willingness to enter into foreign alliances, for it would result in conquest by the allied nation (2Ki 20:14-19). Hezekiah repented of his wrongdoing and completed his reign with Judah’s independence still intact (2Ch 32:26).
A king of Judah who ruled about
715–686 b.c.