Lesson 16 – Hezekiah

¹Hezekiah didn’t waste any time enacting his leadership priorities after he took the throne. In the first month he set about to clean out the temple. He even commanded the Levites to present themselves and be a part of this cleaning program. For years prior, the leaders of Israel and the people of God had accumulated ‘filth’ in the Temple. This could relate do just junk that was all around, or it could also refer to idols and their paraphernalia.

Hezekiah’s goal was to undo all the years of accumulation of things that didn’t please God and return the temple to its proper glory and function. In his explanation to the levites he explained that their fathers (and his) had allowed the normal service in the temple to lapse. They hadn’t been presenting the offerings of food or maintaining the lights in the ways that God had instructed Moses that He was to be worshipped. Hezekiah intended to restore these practices to their God-ordained standard.

The temple must have been in terrible condition. All of the Levites, working together, took eight days to empty out the filth that had filled up the Temple. They dumped it in the valley outside of the city walls. After eight days of unloading, they spent an additional eight days to consecrate the temple. All in, it took sixteen days to return the Temple to a useable state.

²Further, Hezekiah wanted to renew the covenant between himself, the people and God. He recognized that over the years, the the people of Judah had behaved wickedly, and those actions would have consequences. God would not accept this unfaithfulness on the part of His people and would bring judgment upon them. Hezekiah spoke as if God’s wrath toward His people was a certain thing, and urgent action was needed to turn it aside.

³When Hezekiah called the people together for a time of repentance and worship, his intention was to offer up sin offerings for the sins that the entire kingdom had committed. Hezekiah himself laid his hands on the sin offerings, along the the leaders of the people, as a way of saying that the king was not exempt from the penalty of sin – nor were the leaders of the people. This sin pervaded Judah from top to bottom and all of it needed to be placed on the altar before God.

For the sin offerings, Hezekiah chose to move in repetitions of seven. In Biblical numerology, seven carries the meaning of “completeness”. So by offering the sacrifices in multiples of seven, Hezekiah was saying that he wanted a complete forgiveness that corresponded to a complete repentance.

⁴The sacrifices of thanks were different from the sin offerings in that they were accompanied by songs and music. The Levites were positioned all around the temple complex with instruments and vocalists, and they sang praises to God as the sacrifices were made. Everyone present participated in this worship as the offerings of thanks were made to God.

The biggest problem during the offerings of thanksgiving was that there weren’t enough priests who could participate. The large number of animals to be sacrificed exceeded their capacity. It was so overwhelming that the Levites, who were normally not permitted to participate in the sacrifices had to step in and help out. The issue wasn’t that there weren’t enough priests to handle the volume, but that not enough of the priests had ceremonially consecrated themselves to become presentable before God. This seems to point to an apostate priesthood who was not in a hurry to prepare themselves to fully worship God.

⁵As the Passover followed soon after the final consecration of the temple, Hezekiah generously invited all of Judah and also the people of the northern ten tribes to come and participate in the Passover festival. This implies that the Passover had not been celebrated for a long time. It was also proper that all of God’s people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob should participate in the Passover. This is how the original celebration was made – with all twelve tribes joining together for the feast.

Sadly some of the people of the tribes outside of Judah spurned the invitation – specifically the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. They had not participated in Hezekiah’s great revival and had hearts that were hard toward God. So they declined to come to Jerusalem (to them, a foreign capital). However, some of the tribes responded favorably and chose to come. Scripture says that they “humbled themselves” and came. This means that they first had to repent of their idolatrous rebellion and submit themselves to God’s standard for His people. Fortunately their hearts were soft and were able to turn from their sinful behaviors to participate in this command that God had given in Exodus.

It seems that this great celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was semi-spontaneous. Some of the people who came did not have time to consecrate themselves as God had commanded. So Hezekiah offered a prayer on behalf of all of them for God to show mercy and accept them because they wanted to worship Him – even though they had not gone through all the purification steps.

The Passover celebration had an additional benefit in that all the people who converged up on Jerusalem decided to clean up the city. They grabbed all the idolatrous paraphernalia they could find and threw it into a valley outside the city. So the side benefit of this Passover was a cleansing of the capital city of Judah.

⁶It appears that the worship of God was genuine and had a significant impact upon everyone who attended. They were having such a great time that they decided to extend the week-long celebration for another seven days. This might also have been necessary because there were so many animals offered as sacrifices, and so few priests available to perform the sacrifices that they needed more time. Even with the consecrated Levites pressed into service, they could not complete the task in seven days and needed another week.

⁷Throughout this part of the story, Hezekiah struggled with the priests. He could never get enough of them consecrated to handle the volume of the sacrifices that were required. This suggests that not only were the priests slow to move toward God, but many of them had been involved in lives of sin and rebellion toward God such that they needed to go through a consecration process before they could participate in any worshipful activities.

It is a sad statement that the people whom God had specifically called to be His servants and represent His people before Him were so slow to respond to the call to consecrate themselves before God. It shows how deeply the sin of Ahaz and other kings had seeped into the culture of Judah that even the priests were affected.

The events of Assyria attacking Judah can be confusing. The following summary should help you read the passages and understand what was happening.

In 701 BC Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, invaded Judah. This was about 20 years after the Assyrians had conquered the northern ten tribes of Israel and deported the people. While Hezekiah’s father Ahaz had been a client of Assyria, Hezekiah built an alliance with Egypt and several of the regional kings to break free of Assyria’s control. Sennacherib responded to this rebellion by invading Judah.

Rather than marching straight on Jerusalem, Sennacherib made a tour of the Judean countryside. According to Assyrian records, they conquered 46 fortified Judean towns (also, 2 Kings 18:13). While at the second largest city of Judah, Lachish, Hezekiah sued for peace and tried to buy his way out of the attack. He stripped the temple bare and emptied his coffers to try to offer Sennacherib enough money to go away and leave him alone. Sennacherib disregarded the buyout, choosing instead to pursue attack and Hezekiah’s humiliation.

Sennacherib’s second in command took a large army to Jerusalem to besiege the city. In the annals of Assyria, Sennacherib says that he trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage.” But Hezekiah, while surrounded, had prepared for a siege, so the Assyrians couldn’t take the city of Jerusalem. Eventually the Rabshakeh, broke the siege and took the army back to where Sennacherib was attacking the city of Libnah.

The Assyrian army returned to Hezekiah in Jerusalem one more time. Again, Hezekiah’s defenses prevailed. The Assyrians could not conquer Jerusalem. While they camped around the city, God intervened and killed a large portion of the Assyrian army. Sennacherib finally returned to his home to Nineveh, unable to continue to prosecute his campaign in Judah. There he was assassinated, to fulfill the word of God to Isaiah.

⁸After Sennacherib attacked Judah, Hezekiah realized that he had made a mistake in rebelling and tried to buy peace with the Assyrians. He offered the Assyrian leader 300 talents of silver (approximately 22,500 lbs) and 30 talents of gold (approximately 2,250 lbs). In order to get this sum, Hezekiah emptied the temple, even scraping the gold inlay off the doorway. Scripture does not say that the offer was accepted. And based on what followed, it’s clear that Sennacherib did not consider that enough money to forgive Hezekiah’s rebellion, so the invasion continued.

⁹When the Rabshakeh addressed the people of the city of Jerusalem, he had one question for them, “Who do you trust?” Since they had rebelled against Assyria, they had to be trusting in someone. The question was really rhetorical because he went on to explain why he thought there were no good options for Hezekiah and the people of Judah to trust.

• Egypt? The Rabshakeh compared an Egypt to a broken reed, useless as a staff, and more likely to injure the person trying to lean on it.
• God? The Rabshakeh predicted that God would be angry with Hezekiah for demolishing all the High Places where the people had been worshipping Him. The idea of only one place to worship was ridiculous to the Assyrian and he thought it foolish that Hezekiah had made these rules.

In order to make the fight fair, the Assyrian general offered to give the Judeans 2,000 horses if they could field an army large enough to ride them all. Clearly he expected that they would be unable to do so. But his point was clear. You rebelled. We have conquered every city of yours we attacked. You have no one of power to rely upon. And your army is pathetic with no chance of defeating Assyria.

¹⁰The Rabshakeh spoke in the language of Judea. It was another way he asserted his dominance against them. He knew them and knew their language. They weren’t a mystery to him at all. King Hezekiah’s spokesmen asked him not to do this. They told him that they could speak Aramaic, and he could speak his language and they would understand. Ultimately they were worried about the effect of his little speech on the morale of the people on the city walls in earshot. Since he spoke the Judean language, everyone who heard him understood the points he was making.

¹¹The Rabshakeh answered this request by saying that the Assyrian king had sent him to talk to all the people, not just Hezekiah’s special envoys. He said that everyone who would soon be suffering the effects of the siege should understand what he had to say. Then he turned to the people on the city wall and told them not to trust Hezekiah and his promises of deliverance. If they but surrendered, they would be left in peace to enjoy their city until they were deported to another place – that would be just as nice as where they were in Judah.

He then asked the people of Jerusalem if any of the gods of the people around them has defeated Assyria? He listed a series of pagan gods whose worshippers had been defeated and destroyed by Sennacherib. His argument was that Assyria was mightier than any of those gods and would be more powerful than the God of Judah as well. Defeat was inevitable, he said. So they might as well surrender.

¹²When these words were relayed to Hezekiah, the king went into mourning. He tore his clothes and put on sackcloth to show his humility, and went to the Temple. Then he sent his men to find the prophet Isaiah. Hezekiah’s first instinct was not to try and solve this problem on his own, but to trust in God. He wanted God’s answer and God’s power to deal with this problem.

¹³When Isaiah showed up, he had a message for Hezekiah from God. Basically God said that the Assyrians would not take Jerusalem, that Sennacherib would be drawn back to his own capital and there he would be killed. Ultimately this is exactly what happened. His sons assassinated him while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god.

¹⁴While still pillaging the Judean countryside, Sennacherib heard that the king of Cush was coming to relieve Jerusalem. He marched back to Jerusalem with his army to prevent the African army from strengthening the city. There he sent Hezekiah a letter with a list of the kings that Assyria had already defeated, and the gods who were unable to defend their worshippers.

Hezekiah went back to the temple and prayed again. He worshipped God and showed God what Sennacherib had said about Him. Isaiah came and told Hezekiah that his request had been heard and Sennacherib’s fate had been sealed. That night the angel of the Lord visited the attacking Assyrian army and wiped it out. Left with no army Sennacherib had no choice but to return home to Nineveh.

¹⁵When Isaiah told Hezekiah to put his house in order because he was about to die, Hezekiah turned toward the wall in his bedroom and prayed. He asked God to remember how as the King he had worshipped God and had done things which pleased God. He did not plead or bargain with God, just asked God to remember what he had done. Then Hezekiah wept. It doesn’t seem that he was afraid to die, so these could well have been tears of repentance for whatever had caused this illness to come upon him.

¹⁶Isaiah had not even left the palace when God told him to go back to Hezekiah with a new message. God had heard Hezekiah’s prayer and seen his tears. So God told him that he would not die, but that he would live and he would be delivered from the king of Assyria. All of this was done for the sake of David, and God’s promise that he would preserve David’s line on the throne.

¹⁷The timing of this next story is interesting. Hezekiah’s total reign lasted 29 years. 2 Kings 18:13 says that Sennacherib attacked in the 14th year of Hezekiah’s reign. At the end of the story of his sickness, God told Hezekiah that he would live an additional 15 years. That puts the sickness occurring around the 14th year of his reign as well.

The passage doesn’t give any reason for Hezekiah’s illness. However, it’s possible that the sickness happened as a punishment for Hezekiah’s decision to ally himself with Egypt rather than putting his trust in God. In Isaiah 30:1-7, God gives a warning through Isaiah to a “rebellious people” that relying upon Egypt is a foolish act. Isaiah 31:1 reiterates this charge, and contrasts it with relying on God, which is a much better path.

The promise that Assyria would not defeat Hezekiah suggests that Assyria posed a very real threat to the kingdom of Judah at this time. 2 Kings chapters 18 and 19 show that in response to Hezekiah’s alliance with Egypt, Assyria did attack, with the intent of totally destroying the kingdom. Knowing how the Assyrians treated their captives, losing to them would have wiped out the entire kingdom of Judah because they would have deported the entire population and brought another conquered people to live in Judah. This is exactly what had happened to the northern kingdom of Israel twenty years earlier.

18Hezekiah asked that God show him a sign that what He promised was true. When asked to pick the sign, Hezekiah asked that the sun go backwards in the sky, and that the shadow cast by a wall would move backward ten steps. That was a feat which nature would never duplicate and pointed to God’s power being involved.

¹⁹Soon after is recovery, Hezekiah received visitors from Babylon. The king of Babylon had heard Hezekiah was sick and sent him well wishes and a gift. Hezekiah received them graciously and showed them all his treasures and the treasures in the house of God. It seems that Hezekiah wanted to brag about how wealthy and powerful he was. It’s possible that he had an alliance with Babylon (in addition to Egypt), and they were checking up on him to see how he was doing.

Here we see Hezekiah trying to navigate his way between the superpowers of his era. Assyria was dominant and had just defeated Babylon. Egypt was trying to restrain Assyria’s power in the region. Hezekiah had interactions with all of them and tried to play them off against each other in a bid to retain his independence and power. Judah occupied a very strategic position between Africa and the Mesopotamian fertile crescent. Every powerful empire wanted to control that territory.

²⁰When Isaiah asked Hezekiah what he had done, the king shared everything. Isaiah said that he had a word from God and that a day was coming when everything that the king had shown the Babylonians would be taken away to Babylon. In many ways it was a rebuke of king Hezekiah’s openness and his trust in his human alliances. He was turning away from the true source of power in the sovereign God, the maker of heaven and earth.

Hezekiah did not seem to be too worried by Isaiah’s words. He reasoned that it would happen in the lifetime of his descendants, and so it would not affect him. He was content to live out his days in peace and not face the breakdown of all the relationships he had been developing with the powerful nations around him.

²¹Hezekiah’s response was clearly selfish and short sighted. He did not seen overly concerned that God’s people would be conquered and plundered by pagan heathens. He did not worry about God’s perspective on this turn of events. So long as he got his fifteen additional years and didn’t have to face the repercussions, he was ok with the situation.