Who was Hezekiah in the Bible?
Hezekiah was a king of Judah, the son of the idol-worshipping king Ahaz, and Scripture gives him more space than almost any king after David — his story is told three times over, in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Isaiah. He is remembered for a sweeping religious reform, for a famous rescue from an invading empire, for fifteen extra years of life, and for one costly failure at the end.
A son who reversed his father
His reign began by undoing what his father had built. One writer sets out the whole sweep of it:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was the very opposite of his wicked father. He was one of the most godly kings who ever occupied the throne of David. He began by overturning the altars of idolatry and cutting down the groves where his predecessors had permitted the wicked religious ceremonies of the heathen nations. Then the temple was renovated. He also destroyed the bronze serpent which Moses had made long ago, and which had been preserved as an object of idolatry, much as ritualistic Christendom worships the literal cross of wood or metal. He also restored the observance of the Passover.
He wasted no time. The doors of the temple, shut by Ahaz, were opened and repaired in the first month of his first year, and he told the priests plainly why the nation had suffered: their fathers had turned their backs on God and shut up His house.
Trust as the mark of his life
The Bible's own summary is that no king of Judah before or after him matched him, because he held fast to the Lord. One writer draws out what that clinging actually looked like in practice:
H. L. RossierIn respect to trust, Hezekiah had no equal among the kings of Judah. This trust is inseparable from obedience... Let us beware of a so-called trust in God which is joined to disobedience of His Word. If I trust in Him, I will cleave to Him; if I cleave to Him, I will keep His Word... Yes, trust, cleaving to the Lord and obedience are things that cannot be separated.
That trust shaped his foreign policy too. Unlike other kings, he refused to buy protection from Egypt, and he broke off the tribute his father had agreed to pay Assyria. Commentators differ on whether that rebellion was entirely wise; one notes a "holy feeling at the bottom of it" while questioning whether Hezekiah rightly understood the discipline God had placed on Judah.
The Assyrian crisis
Assyria's king Sennacherib invaded, and his officers stood outside Jerusalem taunting the city and mocking God as no better than the idols of nations they had already crushed. When a threatening letter arrived, Hezekiah did something remarkable with it:
C Knapp"And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD." How beautiful his childlike trust in the God of Israel! And there in the temple he prays as only a saint in his hour of distress can pray... "And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians, and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies."
Fifteen years added
Then Hezekiah fell ill and was told to prepare to die. He turned his face to the wall, wept, and prayed. The answer came before the prophet Isaiah had even left the palace courtyard:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinSeven things are contained in this new message to the weeping king. "I have heard your prayer"; "I have seen your tears"; "I will heal you"; "You shall go up to the house of the LORD"; "I will add fifteen years to your life"; "I will deliver you"; "I will defend the city." And Isaiah was also commanded to use means. "Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." If this simple remedy had been neglected, if there had been disobedience, the recovery would not have taken place... Hezekiah's experience is a great encouragement for God's people to pray.
The sign given him was the shadow moving backwards ten steps on the sundial of Ahaz — and that reversal is read as more than a wonder:
H. L. RossierIt signifies that God could and would overturn all the order of nature and its laws, which made the sinner subject to death, so that He might accomplish the salvation of His beloved ones.
The failure at the end
Envoys came from Babylon to ask about the wonder, and Hezekiah showed them his treasures. The moment is treated as the test he failed:
The Bible TreasuryThe wise men of Babylon had taken note of the wonder done in the land... Here was surely an opportunity of testimony to God. How great His power and His goodness towards His afflicted servant! But the king of Babylon saw only the creature in it; and Hezekiah, for his part, was glad to show it. How quickly we respond to flattery!
He was told everything he displayed would one day be carried to Babylon. Writers also note that within those added fifteen years his son Manasseh was born — the king whose wickedness later brought judgment on Jerusalem.
Summary
- Trust — Hezekiah's single distinguishing mark was confidence in God: "no king of Judah had an equal" in it, and it made him refuse both Egyptian help and Assyrian mastery.
- Obedience — that trust was inseparable from keeping God's Word; beware "a so-called trust in God which is joined to disobedience."
- Prayer — a blasphemous letter spread open before God, and a sick king's tears, both got immediate answers: 185,000 enemy soldiers dead, fifteen years added.
- Means — God healed, yet Isaiah was told to use a cake of figs; neglecting the simple remedy would have forfeited the cure.
- Pride — the man who prayed in the temple boasted in his palace; what survived a siege and a deathbed did not survive flattery.