Hezekiah

In short

A king of Judah, right after Israel (the defectors) were conquered by the Assyrian Empire.

Why he is important

“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD…” (2Ki 18:5-6).

In theory, I guess it does not have to mean that he was better than David, as David is thought of as ruling over the entire kingdom, where Hezekiah is compared there to other rulers of the divided kingdom, I’d say. But, see 2Sa 2:11, for example. It says that David was “king…of Judah” for a time.

Regardless, what an amazing claim. He has very few things against him. Most notable is the poor decision to show his whole kingdom to ambassadors from Babylon. But even that isn’t condemned as a sin.

Stories about Hezekiah

• 2Ch 29 – The temple was in disarray and Hezekiah restored everything in it and consecrated it with many offerings.
• 2Ch 30 – Hezekiah and the Passover to rule them all. He even invited Samaritans to the Passover (vs. 5, 6, 10) and some came (v. 11).
• 2Ch 31 – Hezekiah micromanages the priesthood (but maybe they needed that)
• 2Ch 32 – Sennacherib, king of Assyria, talks smack about Hezekiah and the LORD. Hezekiah and Isaiah pray for help and God delivers, to the tune of one angel killing 185,000 enemies. See also 2Ki 18-19 and Isaiah 36-37.
• Hezekiah gets sick, prays and is healed
• Hezekiah shows the envoys from Babylon everything he has
• Those last two stories cover two chapters in Isaiah (38-39), one chapter in 2 Kings (20) and two VERSES in 2 Chronicles (32:24, 31). And that’s typical. Chronicles is optimistic; Kings is matter-of-fact; and prophets focus on what’s wrong.

Also, Hosea, Micah and Zephaniah all prophesied in Hezekiah’s day (verse 1 of each book).

Theology and doctrine

Hezekiah shines in the stories where he consecrates the temple and restores the Passover. But what really is remarkable is when he DEVIATES from the norm and is accepted by God.

So, in 2Ch 29, he has the Levites help cut up the animals (v. 34) because the priests couldn’t do it all themselves, because it seems they failed to do their duty.

In 2Ch 30, they missed the scheduled Passover date (v. 3; cf Ex 12:18), so the whole nation had to scramble to observe it on the makeup date a month later (v. 2; Num 9:11). Then, unclean people participated (v. 18), but Hezekiah prayed for their pardon (vs. 18-19) and God was OK with it. I think God blessed the date of it, too, in verse 27.

It seems that Hezekiah was so desperate to get his country (and beyond) back to doing what was right, that he felt it was urgent even beyond the letter of the law.

I’m not one to make that leap myself, and I recommend this to no one. BUT. Jesus worked on the Sabbath by healing. There is something to be said for doing what’s right, even when it’s wrong.