Hezekiah’s mother was probably of the priestly or levitical family and no doubt, as we have often noted, the Lord used her in the upbringing of her son, whereas Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, could only have had a bad influence upon him. But whatever may have been the case with these favorable or unfavorable influences, it is grace alone that explains the characters of Hezekiah and of Josiah; the last kings of Judah, ungodly despite their Jewish mothers and their godly father, are the proof of this.
“He did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done” (2 Kings 18:3). God traces his faithfulness back to the example given by David, a fact all the more remarkable in that it is not stated of his predecessors. Jotham “did what was right in the sight of Jehovah: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done” (2 Kings 15:34); Uzziah, “according to all that his father Amaziah had done” (2 Kings 15:3); Amaziah “according to all that Joash his father had done (2 Kings 14:3). The Word of God makes the same remarks about Josiah as about Hezekiah (2 Kings 22:2), thus confirming the fact that these two kings returned to that which was at the beginning. One cannot today call a revival a true revival which does not have this character. It was the same in the days of Ezra and of Nehemiah. In the very scene of ruin, the people returned to the divine foundations and to the Word of God, at the same time separating themselves from all activity in common and any alliance with the world. In our days, claims are made of being able to create revivals, while still being joined together with professing Christendom which dishonors God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Word. It was not so with Hezekiah. In no wise did he compromise with the corruption which had been introduced into Judah. Only, what distinguishes him from us, simple Christians, with regard to principle is that Hezekiah had a special authority and responsibility as king, given him by God, and that his duty was to use his own authority to cleanse the people, an activity which, as in the preceding reigns, could well have left his subjects more or less indifferent to his personal piety. The revival was accomplished in the king’s heart, the king was its agent, and there might have been a question whether the heart and conscience of the people would follow the impetus thus given. Now we see in 2 Chronicles 30:10-14; 31:1 That Hezekiah’s zeal bore fruit and was followed by the humiliation of the people and by unity of heart and mind to cleanse themselves from evil. Not only those of Judah, but also the remnant of Ephraim after the carrying away felt the blessed effect of the king’s piety, so that the destruction of the implements of idolatry spread not only to Judah and Benjamin, but also to Ephraim and Manasseh.
“He removed the high places, and broke the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and broke in pieces the serpent of brass that Moses had made; for to those days the children of Israel burned incense to it: and he called it Nehustan” — a piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4). Here this cleansing is attributed to the king alone. It was complete on his part, going even as far as the brazen serpent which Moses had made. Is it not striking to note that the Word does not mention the brazen serpent from the time when Moses lifted it up in the wilderness, and yet Israel had carefully kept it for more than seven hundred years, no doubt in memory of the marvelous deliverance brought about thereby on behalf of the people. Israel had been healed by its means, and was it not natural that they should desire to keep it as a visible testimony to his healing. It was a respectable thing, an ancient type of deliverance from sin and its consequences by the sacrifice of Christ, but this object in the hands of the enemy of our souls had become a means of idolatry for the people, who burned incense unto it. Faithful Hezekiah’s intervention was needed to single out and destroy this hidden idolatry, clothed in the guise of a divine institution. The serpent was a symbol, not a thing having in itself any miraculous property. The unique occasion when it had been employed not having been renewed, and being impossible to be renewed, it had no more value in itself than any other nehustan or piece of brass. Nehustans, more hidden, but also more gross than ordinary idolatry, are ever numerous in Christendom. Like Nehushtan, the cross of Christ has given rise to superstitious practices. To possess a piece of the “true cross:” to kiss it, or to revere a piece of bronze or of ivory representing the Lord dying upon the cross — these are general practices in a large part of Christendom. Man is attached to the symbol and sees in it some value or special property. He makes of the symbol his God. Is it better than the idolatry that defies the attributes of God? Certainly not; it is an idolatry just as gross, but still more dangerous, because it takes that which is most sacred, most elevated, the cross, center of all the counsels of God, the symbol of eternal love, to make of it an idol which the eyes of the flesh see, which the lips of the flesh kiss, an idol which has neither eyes to see nor ears to hear. Faith rids itself of these things and takes them for what they are, neither more nor less than a piece of wood or brass.
“He trusted in Jehovah the God of Israel” (2 Kings 18:5). He finds here the particular and very striking character of Hezekiah, and of the revival which accompanied his reign. It is trust in God. This trust caused him to reject all human aid. He does not, like other kings, seek the help of Egypt in order to escape Assyria (Isa. 30:1-5; 31:1-3) or lean, like his father upon the Assyrian against other enemies from without. Nevertheless, even from that side his faith presents its weaknesses, as we shall see.
In respect to trust, Hezekiah had no equal among the kings of Judah. This trust is inseparable from obedience: “He clave to Jehovah, and did not turn aside from following him, but kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses” (2 Kings 18:6). Let us beware of so-called trust in God which links itself 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, and I keep it just as He has confided it to me at the beginning, just as Hezekiah kept “his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses.” One may find, no doubt, trust in Him mixed with much ignorance, but ignorance is not disobedience. Only, from the time one’s soul is brought into relationship with the clear revelation of the mind of God, and yet prefers its religious forms to it — its high places and its Nehushtan — it will never have true trust in God. Yes, trust, cleaving to the Lord and obedience are things that are inseparable. The result of Hezekiah’s faith is soon apparent; “Jehovah was with him; he prospered whithersoever he went forth” (2 Kings 18:7). What a happy circle of blessings! God’s favor and spiritual prosperity accompany faithfulness. May these blessings be ours, dear reader! Amen.
We are then told that Hezekiah “rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not” (2 Kings 18:7). He acted in opposite fashion to how his father Ahaz had done, who, solemnly warned by Isaiah not to fear the attack of Rezin, king of Syria, and of Pekah, son of Remaliah, and exhorted to ask of the Lord a sign that His promise would be fulfilled, had preferred to have recourse to the Assyrian. God then had declared to him that this king of Assyria in whom he trusted should fill the breadth of the land of Immanuel with “the stretching out of his wings” (Isa. 7:1-17; 8:8). Hezekiah, it seems to us, acted according to God in not recognizing this authority. It was not the same later on for Judah, when it had to do with Babylon, as we can see in Jeremiah and at the end of our book. To revolt against Nebuchadnezzar when God has transferred the sovereignty to him and was using this yoke as a judgment upon Judah, was to revolt against God. In Hezekiah’s case, it was a declining to accord to the Assyrian an authority which God had in no wise given him at that time with regard to Judah. Hezekiah was God’s servant and could not be the servant of the king of Assyria. And thus victory over the Philistines (2 Kings 18:8) is granted him following his trust in God which had caused him to shake off this yoke.
But even there, so far as the dominant character of his faith is concerned, we see from the beginning of his reign that the trust of this godly king wavers. God often allows things to happen in order to teach us to know our own hearts, so that we might have no confidence in our own hearts. The history of men of faith from Abraham to David affords us numerous examples. It is in regard to the very trust that above all else characterizes his walk that Hezekiah takes his first false step. Israel’s terrible disaster through Shalmaneser’s invasion doubtless caused his confidence to be shaken, but when Hezekiah saw all the cities of Judah fallen into the hands of the king of Assyria, his heart failed him. He sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying: “I have sinned; retire from me: I will bear what thou layest upon me” (2 Kings 18:14). Fear gripped him. Like Peter, he beheld the wind and lost sight of the Lord. He compared himself to the king of Assyria, instead of comparing him to the Lord. This king imposed tribute upon him; Hezekiah stripped himself of everything in order to pay it, even to removing the gold from the doors and from the pillars of the temple of the Lord. What use was it to him? The king took no account of it. What did it matter to him to break his word to this despised servant of Jehovah?
Chronicles is silent about this failure (2 Chron. 32:1-8) and proceeds, as does Isaiah 36, to the account of that which follows in our chapter from 2 Kings 18:17 on. This is because, as we have often seen in the course of these meditations, it is a matter here of the king in responsibility, whereas Chronicles shows us the action of the grace of God in the hearts of those whom He employs in His service. The discipline was full of blessing to Hezekiah’s heart, as we shall see in what follows.
Before going further, let us observe that the account in Chronicles (2 Chron. 29-31) places much emphasis upon one part of Hezekiah’s activity at the beginning of his reign, activity which the account in Kings passes over in silence. In effect, Chronicles presents to us, all along, Hezekiah’s zeal to restore the worship and the house of the Lord, whereas our account here depicts his energy in separating himself from evil and in purifying the people from it. These two characteristics are inseparable for a true revival, and it may be said that the first, the return to God, must needs excel the second, or to put it even more clearly, that separation from evil follows the restoration of our relationship with God. That is so true that Chronicles shows us Hezekiah as having it “in [his] heart to make a covenant with Jehovah” “in the first year of his reign, in the first month,” and that the hollowing of the temple began “on the first of the first month” (2 Chron. 29:3, 10, 17). Thus from the first day of his reign this twenty-five-year old king resolutely undertakes the cause of God. He comes to the throne young, inexperienced, having under his father’s reign only witnessed sights that would serve to turn souls away the Lord. How then are we to explain his attitude? He enters upon his career with faith alone, with the fruit of grace!
“And in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them” (2 Kings 18:13). Here we would make a historical observation which is important. Hezekiah reigns twenty-nine years. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Sennecherib comes up against him. 2 Kings 20 tells us that after his supplication, when he was sick unto death, the Lord added “to [his] days fifteen years” Hezekiah’s illness therefore took place at the beginning of the Assyrian invasion and before this latter’s defeat, and is not presented to us in its chronological place. Also these events are mentioned in an imprecise way: “In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death” (2 Kings 20:1). By this fact, we can measure the depths of the trial which this man of God had to pass through. On the one hand, the invasion of all his country except for Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:13); on the other hand, a fatal illness, and that at the time when he had restored to his people the worship of the true God, exterminated idolatry, and freed Judah from Assyrian bondage! One understands that his faith, subjected to this terrible trial, wavered, that his trust in God was momentarily dimmed in his heart.
The king of Assyria, who had beseiged and conquered Lachish, sends his servants, the Tartan or general at the head of his armies, the Rabsaris (chief chamberlain) whose functions are not too well-known, and the Rab-shakeh, the political head of the king’s household and his mouthpiece on important occasions. They stand before Jerusalem, and Hezekiah’s servants, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah come out to them. Except for this moment, our account agrees almost word for word with that in Isaiah 36 and 37.