Hezekiah
Looking at the history of Hezekiah, a king of Judah. Although history in the bible is always more than history because of its messages about morality and godliness. We see in the old testament the things that pleased God and those that displeased him. How did he want his people to behave. The story of Hezekiah takes place during the time of two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south area, which had Jerusalem in it. The two kingdoms had earlier split apart when Israel, the northern kingdom, decided they didn't want to follow the king of Judah. There were issues of taxation and rebellion involved. When we come to the story of Hezekiah, he's the king of Judah.
2 Kings account...
1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah [a] daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called [b] Nehushtan. [c] )
[This was the bronze snake that God had told Moses to make when God had sent snakes to punish the people for grumbling against God. People could look at it and be healed of their snake bites. The idea was that they had to trust God and not grumble against him. Over time, people had twisted it around and started to worship the snake. This is a good start for Hezekiah, as king, to get rid of it.]
5 Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.
[If you remember the history of how Israel and Judah came to have kings, around the time of Samuel, the Israelites had looked around at the nations around them and decided they wanted to be like them and have a king. Samuel warns them that a king would take their sons and daughters to work for him and take part of their food and all that they have.
1 Sam 8
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."
They were being childish! They could not trust the living God and wanted a man to rule over them. It should make us ask today how often do we trust in ourselves or the ideas of men over God? How much do we want to be like everybody else, even if it means giving up something God teaches us?
Anyway, Israel gets what they asks for. They get evil king after evil king just destroying the country. Here we have Hezekiah who is sandwiched in time between bad kings. He's sort of a breath of fresh air. He comes after Ahaz, who was a very evil king. Ahaz had sent off the treasure found in the Lord's temple and got into a very bad deal in which Israel had to constantly pay money to Assyria. And after Hezekiah comes his son, Manasseh, who is also an evil king.]
6 He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses. 7 And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 8 From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.
9 In King Hezekiah's fourth year, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. 10 At the end of three years the Assyrians took it. So Samaria was captured in Hezekiah's sixth year, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel. 11 The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in towns of the Medes. 12 This happened because they had not obeyed the LORD their God, but had violated his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. They neither listened to the commands nor carried them out.
[This capture of Israel by the Assyrians is only mentioned in passing here, but it was a major event. Over time, the Assyrians exiled and captured many in Israel and destroyed its capital, Samaria.]
13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 14 So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents [d] of silver and thirty talents [e] of gold. 15 So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
16 At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the LORD, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
[Hezekiah had rebelled against Assyria and said, “we're not gonna pay anymore.” Assyria attacks cities all over Judah and Hezekiah apologizes. This is a sad time in which Hezekiah has to resort to plundering the temple for protection money to give to Assyria. One wonders if he might have tried to turn things around at this point by looking to God. But anyway, Hezekiah says if you leave, I'll pay up. For some reason, he seems to trust them to leave if he pays up, which is not what happens. Instead...]
17 The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field. 18 They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.
19 The field commander said to them, "Tell
Hezekiah:
" 'This is
what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you
basing this confidence of yours? 20 You say you have strategy and
military strength—but you speak only empty words. On whom are
you depending, that you rebel against me? 21 Look now, you are
depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a
man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of
Egypt to all who depend on him. 22 And if you say to me, "We are
depending on the LORD our God"-isn't he the one whose high
places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem,
"You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem"?
[Hezekiah had apparently gone to Egypt for help against Assyria. This was an odd thing for Judah or Israel to do because they didn't usually go to other countries for help. This made God angry because he didn't tell Hezekiah to do this.
1 "Woe
to the obstinate children,"
declares the LORD,
"to
those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
2 who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who
look for help to Pharaoh's protection,
to Egypt's shade for refuge.
We ask he didn't go to God instead. It's a problem that plagues people even today. Why don't people come to God today? They feel things will work out better their own way without God. People feel they can work out sexuality on their own without God's help and look at the terrible messes they get into. People feel they can work out their own finances without God by buying whatever they want and look at the debt they get into. People feel they can work out their families without God, but look at how easily families are split apart by dealing selfishly with each other.
As we read, the king of Assyria seems to have the wrong idea about Hezekiah casting down the idolatrous things in the high places. He thought they were God's things Hezekiah was casting out, but they were actually related to idols.]
23 " 'Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! 24 How can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen [f] ? 25 Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the LORD ? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.' "
26 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall."
[Come on, you're scaring the people with this talk of destroying this place.]
27 But the commander replied, "Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?"
[His whole point is to scare everyone who hears him. Now he has a message specifically for the people in general.]
28 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! 29 This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. 30 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'
31 "Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, 32 until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!
[He may as well pass out vacation brochures. I'm guessing things in
Assyrian captivity aren't as good as he's letting on. He's probably
lying through his teeth.]
"Do
not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The
LORD will deliver us.' 33 Has the god of any nation ever delivered
his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 34 Where are the gods
of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and
Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? 35 Who of all the gods
of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then
can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"
[He had apparently not heard of all the victories God had given to the Israelites in previous times before things had gone downhill for them.
36 But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, "Do not answer him."
37 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.
[What the Assyrian commander had said was really gotten to these leaders and scared them.]
1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD.
[Finally, Hezekiah does the right thing. He goes to God for help.]
2 He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3 They told him, "This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. 4 It may be that the LORD your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives."
5 When King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, 'This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7 Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.' "
8 When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
9 Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite [a] king of Egypt , was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: 10 "Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' 11 Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? 12 Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?"
[The field commander is trying to bluff his way out of this. He thinks the Egyptian army is coming to help Hezekiah so he's trying to get Hezekiah to give up one last time before he thinks he has to fight it out or perhaps run away from the Egyptians.]
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD : "O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.
17 "It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. 18 They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands. 19 Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
[This is something we occasionally see in prayers in the bible. “I'm scared, God. I need your help badly.” Jesus, himself, expressed his fear as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. Likewise, we can tell God our fears and look to him for comfort.]
20 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: "This is
what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer
concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. 21 This is the word that the
LORD has spoken against him:
" 'The Virgin Daughter of Zion
despises you and mocks you.
The Daughter of Jerusalem
tosses her head as you flee.
22 Who is it you
have insulted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your
messengers
you have heaped
insults on the Lord.
And you
have said,
"With my
many chariots
I have
ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its pines.
I
have reached its remotest parts,
the finest of its forests.
24 I have dug wells
in foreign lands
and drunk
the water there.
With the
soles of my feet
I have
dried up all the streams of Egypt."
25 " 'Have you
not heard?
Long ago I
ordained it.
In days of old
I planned it;
now I have
brought it to pass,
that you
have turned fortified cities
into piles of stone.
26 Their people,
drained of power,
are
dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
scorched before it grows up.
27 " 'But I
know where you stay
and when
you come and go
and how you
rage against me.
28 Because you rage
against me
and your
insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return
by the way you came.'
[This must be the highest insult to the Assyrians who think they are so powerful. You will driven like a horse.]
29 "This will
be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:
"This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30 Once more a
remnant of the house of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
31 For out of
Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The
zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
32 "Therefore
this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria:
"He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He
will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
33 By the way that
he came he will return;
he
will not enter this city,
declares the LORD.
34 I will defend
this city and save it,
for
my sake and for the sake of David my servant."
[What a change of circumstance comes from Hezekiah simply going to God for the answer, rather than some other way.]
35 That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
37 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.
1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
[Again, Hezekiah appeals to God and we see the result. How often in our lives do we forget to go to God in prayer?]
4 Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: 5 "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.' "
7 Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice of figs." They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.
8 Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the LORD on the third day from now?"
9 Isaiah answered, "This is the LORD's sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?"
10 "It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps," said Hezekiah. "Rather, have it go back ten steps."
11 Then the prophet Isaiah called upon the LORD, and the LORD made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
12 At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah's illness. 13 Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil—his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 Then Isaiah the
prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men
say, and where did they come from?"
"From
a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came from
Babylon."
15 The prophet
asked, "What did they see in your palace?"
"They
saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is
nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
[Show-off! This is like the hen taking the fox into the chicken house to show him all the eggs. Pride comes before a fall. This is a very bad move. It should make us ask ourselves how often our own pride makes us fall on our faces today? It shows the value of keeping silence at the right times.]
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD : 17 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 18 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
19 "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?"
[From what I understand, Hezekiah was just happy that these dark things wouldn't happen in his lifetime. It seems a bit selfish for him not to look out for the future good of the kingdom, though.]
20 As for the other events of Hezekiah's reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 21 Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king. [Manasseh was only 12 when he became king and was an evil man.]
We should remember when looking at the captivity of Israel and Judah, that it wasn't something that happened out of God's control. It was made to happen by God as punishment for their idolatry and other sins.