2Ki 16:20-21:3
Hezekiah (Heb. Jizqiyyâh , “Yahweh has strengthened” or “Yahweh is strength”; in Cun. records the name of the king of Judah is written as Hazaqi(i)au ; Gr. he5ekías). 1. Son of Ahaz and 13th king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He reigned 29 years (according to 2Ki 18:2; 2Ch 29:1); perhaps it began counting from the death of his father (c 715 BC). Perhaps his son Manasseh was his co-regent for 10 years out of 29. But apparently Hezekiah would have ruled together with his father some 14 years before that, so he was on the throne for a total of 43 years (c 729-c 686 BC, according to the synchronisms of the Bible and Assyrian chronology). Hezekiah was a good ruler and broke with his father’s evil practices as soon as he was free to do so. He repaired and cleaned the temple, reorganized the religious services, and held a great Passover to which he invited the 10 northern tribes. He removed the high places, destroyed the idols and even the bronze serpent of the time of Moses, because it had been used for idolatrous purposes (2Ki 18: 3-6; 2Ch 29: 1-31; 21). He also collected unpublished proverbs of Solomon and recorded them (Pro 25:1). In Hezekiah’s time, in addition to Isaiah, the prophets Hosea and Micah acted (Hos 1:1; Mic 1:1). When Hezekiah died (c 686 BC), his son Manasseh, who would have been associated with him for some years on the throne, became sole ruler. Hezekiah’s reign was marked by remarkable prosperity. He gained control of the Philistine plain (2Ki 18:8), built cities (to use as storehouses) with stables (2Ch 32:27-29), and fortified the walls of Jerusalem (Isa 22:10). But his greatest technical achievement was to carry the water into Jerusalem. The Siloam Tunnel* he had built, carved into the rock, some 533 m long, connected an old tunnel from the Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley with a new, lower pool inside the city (2Ki 20:20; 2Ch 32:4, 30; cf Eclo. 48:17). Hezekiah is best known for his valiant fight against the mighty Assyrian Empire, and for his faith in God during one of Sennacherib’s invasions; faith that he was rewarded by the miraculous destruction of a large enemy army. In Hezekiah’s 6th year (evidently his co-regency with his father) he witnessed the destruction of Samaria and the end of the northern kingdom (2Ki 18:10). His father Ahaz had become a vassal of Assyria (16:7-18). Hating this situation, Hezekiah decided to throw off the foreign yoke. He seems to have made an alliance with Egypt despite the opposition of the prophet Isaiah to such an unwise decision (Isa 30: 1-5; 31: 1-3). It is not certain if he had already severed his relationship with Assyria at the time of Sargon. A broken cuneiform inscription mentions an Assyrian campaign led by the commander of this king’s army against the Philistine city of Ashdod in 711 BC, also recorded at Isa 20:1 The inscription says that attempts had been made to goad Judah into Edom and Moab to rebel against Assyria. However, the text is broken and the reference to Judah is somewhat vague. It is possible that Hezekiah had already clashed with Sargon, because in an inscription at Nimrud, the Assyrian king is called “ruler of the country of Judah that is far away”. 432 A turning point occurred in 701 BC when Sennacherib, who had succeeded Sargon II to the throne of Assyria in 705 BC, waged a successful campaign against Palestine in general and Hezekiah in particular. We have records of this campaign both in the Bible and in cuneiform texts. The biblical report (2Ki 18:13-19:36; 2Ch 32:1-21; Isa_36 and 37) combines 2 invasions of Sennacherib, so it is difficult to know where the report of the 701 BC campaign ends and when the campaign begins. 2nd (which occurred after 690 BC). Sennacherib’s record of his 1st invasion is recorded on well-preserved clay prisms (fig 216). The campaign was also recorded on stone reliefs in Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh (fig 308). Hezekiah had weak allies. Isaiah had warned the nation not to pin their hopes on Egypt or Ethiopia, since the prophet had predicted the conquest of those countries by Assyria (Isa 20:2-6). Egypt, then ruled by Nubian kings, was so powerless that Sennacherib’s general was fully justified in describing the nation as a “staff of bruised reed… upon which if any man lean, it will enter his hand and pierce through it.” ” (2Ki 18:21). Another ineffective support of Hezekiah was Merodach-baladan (Mar-duk-apal-iddin), a Chaldean who was king of Babylon twice (from 722/21 to 710/09 BC, and for several months of the year 703/02 BC) ; Both times he was driven from his throne and from his kingdom by an Assyrian army. Apparently it was about the time of Sennacherib’s 1st invasion of Judah that Hezekiah miraculously recovered from a deadly illness, prompting Merodach-baladan to send ambassadors to him (2Ki 20:12, 13). However, the Chaldean leader at the time was in no position to help Hezekiah in his struggle to free himself from the Assyrian yoke. The biblical account says that Sennacherib took all the fortified cities of Judah, and then threatened Jerusalem with a large army led by some of his highest officers. Meanwhile, the king besieged and took the fortress of Lachish, and later that of Libna. Hezekiah paid a huge tribute to Sennacherib, consisting of 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold (2Ki 18:13-19:8; Isa 36:1-37:8). Careful examination shows that the Assyrian records agree on all major points with the biblical narrative, although there are some differences of detail. Sennacherib claims to have met no opposition in Syria or Phoenicia, and that many kings, including Judah’s neighbors such as the kings of Amon, Moab, and Edom, paid tribute and bowed down to accept his yoke. The only opponents would have been Sidqia de Ascalón, the population of Ecrón and Ezekias. Sennacherib first captured Ashkelon and deported Sidqia and his family to Assyria; then he fought a battle at Elteque against the army of Ekron, and punished the nobles of Ekron cruelly. He then attacked Judah, where he besieged and took 46 fortified cities and innumerable villages, capturing a total of 200,150 citizens of Judah. He states that he made Hezekiah “a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in his cage,” but does not say that he conquered the city. Sennacherib also mentions the tribute Hezekiah paid, although there are 433 discrepancies in the figures, Sennacherib’s being higher. This can be explained if we assume that the Assyrian king gave an exaggerated figure, or included later payments that are not mentioned in the Bible. 216. Clay prism of King Sennacherib with inscriptions recounting the Assyrian campaign against Hezekiah of Judah. Later, after Tirhaka (Taharka), the Nubian king, had ascended the throne (c 690 BC), Sennacherib would have again tried to dominate Hezekiah. He sent him a blasphemous letter demanding the surrender of the city, but the king of Judah, trusting Isaiah’s words that God would save Jerusalem, refused to surrender. His trust was rewarded when by divine intervention the Assyrian army was destroyed at night with the death of 185,00 men (2Ki 19: 9-36; 2Ch 32:21; Isa 37: 9-37). Sennacherib’s chroniclers did not record this disaster, because defeats or catastrophes were generally hushed up by Assyrian historians. However, the Assyrian disaster was not quickly forgotten by other nations. According to Herodotus, the army of “Sennacherib, king of the Arabs and Assyrians”, suffered heavy casualties during a campaign against Egypt. He attributes the disaster to a mouse attack that caused him serious losses. Scholars think that Herodotus’ account refers to an epidemic of bubonic plague that attacked the Assyrian army. In 1973, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem obtained a clay seal (“bulla”) with the Hebrew inscription that reads: “Yehozara’, son of Jilqiyâhû servant of Jizqiyâhû”. There is no doubt that Jehozara was a minister of King Hezekiah, because in the seals the Heb. ebed (here translated “servant”) always refers to ministers of the king. Bib.: R. Hestrin and M. Dayagi, IEJ 24 (1974):27-29; ANET 287, 288; Herodotus ii.141. 2. Son of Nearias and post-exilic descendant of the kings of Judah (1Ch 3:23). 3. Chief of the tribe of Ephraim under King Pekah of Israel. Along with others, he was successful in freeing the captives that had been brought from Judah (2Ch 28:12-15). 4. Ancestor of a group of exiles who returned with Zerubbabel (Ezr 2:16; Neh 7:21). 5. Influential man of Judah who put his seal on the Nehemiah covenant (Neh, 10:17). 6. Ancestor of the prophet Zephaniah. Since the Hezekiah mentioned among his ancestors was an illustrious person, it was probably Hezekiah 1 (Zeph. 1:1).
Source: Evangelical Bible Dictionary
Hebrew Hizkiya, Yahweh strengthens. King of Judah 716-687 BC C., son and successor of his father Ahaz, 2 R 16, 20; 18, 1-2; his mother’s name was Abia, daughter of Zechariah, 2 Cro 29, 1. E. is praised in the Scriptures because he carried out a centralizing and nationalist religious reform, he finished with the sanctuaries, he demolished the stelae and he cut the idolatrous cippus, he tore pieces Nejustán, the bronze serpent that Moses had melted down in the desert, to which the Israelites burned incense and worshiped him idolatrously, as is said in Wisdom 16, 6-7. E. restored the worship of Yahweh, 2 R 18, 3-6; in the first month of his reign he opened and restored the doors of the Temple, which his father, King Ahaz, had closed, 2 Chronicles 28, 24, and the priests purified it by taking out the filth, which the Levites took to the Cedron torrent, after which sacrifices were offered to Yahweh, 2 Cro 29, 3-36.
After the purification, King E., his chiefs and the assembly of Jerusalem summoned all the people of Israel to celebrate the Passover, in the second month, since it had not been done in the first, in Nisan, as it should have been, to which sent messengers throughout the country. This Passover was celebrated with such pomp and solemnity that the sacred text says that nothing like it had been seen in Jerusalem since the dedication of King Solomon’s Temple, 2 Chronicles 30.
After the Easter solemnity, the Israelites toured Judah destroying the high places, the altars and idolatrous objects, 2 Cro 31, 1. E. reorganized the clergy, returned to the order established by King Solomon, according to the rules given by his father David, 2 Cro 31, 21. Regarding his military actions, E. defeated the Philistines and recovered the cities that they had taken from his father Ajaz, 2 R 18, 8. Sargon II died, when his son Sennacherib succeeded him in the Assyrian throne, in 705 BC. C., King Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria and denied vassalage, 2 Kings 18, 7, and joined the Egyptian coalition formed to challenge the power of the Assyrian Empire, the…