Hezekiah’s Distress and Comfort

This is a tunnel to the pool of Siloam that Hezekiah had built so that the city of Jerusalem could withstand a siege.  Amazingly, people can still go and walk through this tunnel today!

2Kings 19:34 I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and the sake of David my servant.

Read 2Kings 18:17, 33, 19:1, 14-19 King Sennacherib of Assyria threatens Jerusalem and says that he has an army and that it isn’t good to trust in God because no other city’s god helped them resist his onslaught, that they should surrender, Hezekiah, King of Judah, receives message and tears his clothes and put on sackcloth, and prayed and God told him not worry.  Then Hezekiah received the threat in writing, and took it to the Temple where God was residing and laid it out before God and prayed humbly for protection.

Read 2Kings 19:32-37 God tells Hezekiah that he hears him, and that he is not to worry about the King of Assyria, that no arrow would be shot, no shields will come against the city, that there would be no entrance into the city, and no siege either, that the King of Assyria would go back the way he came, and be killed in his own land.

————————————————————————-

A bit of background on Hezekiah and what was going on around him during this time.  Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became King, and he was the son of King Ahaz who did a lot of idol worship.  King Ahaz was not someone after God’s own heart at all.  He is not to be confused with King Ahab who was the one mixed up with Jezebel.  King Ahab was a King of the Northern Kingdom of Israel after the split of the Kingdom of Israel into the two Kingdoms: Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom which included Judah and Benjamin.  King Ahab was even worse than King Ahaz, but I will get into that another time.  Anyway, apparently, Hezekiah whose mother was Abijah (daughter of Zechariah the prophet) must have been taught very well about the Lord from his mother and his Grandfather, as he was considered to be “good King Hezekiah”.

————————————————————————–

I once did a study with some teenagers on the books of 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles, by way of making a list of the Kings of Israel and Judah and writing beside the names either the word “good king” or “bad king”  it was really interesting.  There were definitely in both cases far more bad than good.  Those that were “good” had one common trait…they all followed the Lord.  Now being Christians we would expect to define a good leader that way, but this is the Bible telling us that they were either “good or bad” not us deciding it for ourselves.

————————————————————————–

Well that was just a short aside for you…now back to Hezekiah.

Hezekiah is talked about at length in both 2Kings starting in chapter 18, and 2Chronicles starting in chapter 29 in the case that you really want to know more about him on your own. The Book of Isaiah chapters 36-39 also speak of Hezekiah.

I really like Hezekiah, and knowing how he really full relied on God when he had an insurmountable problem really helped me to realize just how “big” the God of Hezekiah (who is also my own God) really is.  The Kingdom of Judah was already a vassal of the Assyrian Empire when Hezekiah took the throne.  Well, Hezekiah decided that he was not going to have his Kingdom pay tithes to Assyria anymore, he tore down the asherah poles and removed all the idols from the high places.  He also broke Moses bronze staff of a snake into pieces because people had been worshipping it.  He did all of this pretty much right away when he became King.

In the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah the Assyrians attacked some of the fortified cities of Judah.   Hezekiah attempted to make peace and get them to back off by paying the Assyrian’s off (or in essence paying the fees that they were expecting from Judah whom they still considered their vassal).  Sennecherib of Assyria took the gold, but then didn’t back off.  He was on the war path, literally.  King Sennecherib sent some messengers to Judah to tell not only Hezekiah, but all the common people also that he was coming to take their city by siege and that they shouldn’t bother to trust their God because after all, the gods of all the other kingdoms and cities around them hadn’t been able to stop Sennecherib.  Sennecherib said that if Hezekiah said that God could help them that he was a liar.

Now in all fairness, Sennecherib really had a reason to think this was true.  He had his own god, but it was a man-made god of wood and stone.   Hezekiah believed in the one true God, and believed in his power to save.  All of Hezekiah’s people did not answer Sennecherib’s messengers because they trusted their leader when he told them not to answer.  They trusted that Hezekiah had God on his side, and that everything would be all right.  Hezekiah led his people with God constantly in his mind.

This is really evident from Hezekiah’s reaction to Sennecherib.  He took the message that was given to him by his men and took it to the temple.  I can just see him in great distress, wearing sackcloth and ashes on his head, and literally laying out the papers in front of God in the temple and saying to God, “What are you going to do about this, Lord?  I have paid Sennecherib, but he isn’t backing off.  This guy says that you are not great enough to hold him off.  That’s insulting.  But Lord, I trust you.  You are the most powerful God.  Tell me what you want me to do about this situation…I am absolutely helpless.  I have done what I can do, but we really need your help now.”

The prophet Isaiah sends word to Hezekiah that God says, “Don’t worry about a thing.  You won’t even have to fire an arrow off, but Sennecherib will go on back home and he will be killed in his own temple by his family members.” (This is paraphrased, of course!)

So the next morning we are told that when Hezekiah got up the Angel of the Lord had hit Sennecherib’s army very hard, it had killed off 185,000 men in one night, and Sennecherib had broken camp and run home.  Later we read that Sennecherib was killed by his sons while worshipping in the temple of his god.

Now, I call Hezekiah’s God a God of power.  He is a big God!  A God who can handle a problem of that magnitude can certainly handle any problems I encounter in my life, right?!!  That is really something to lean upon for all of us as we walk our Christian walk in relationship with God.

Hezekiah’s faith and his method of praying to God…he literally laid his problem down on paper (scrolls I’m sure) and then spoke to God about it.  Now he could have just gone in there without the problem in writing, but he took the problem in the form that it arrived and took it straight to God.  He didn’t wait or hesitate.  The scrolls gave him something to focus his prayer on, but it wasn’t necessary.  Hezekiah treated God like someone he was close to, didn’t he?!!  He humbled himself so we know that Hezekiah recognize God’s sovereignty over him, but he still felt comfortable going right to God and figuratively, sitting down on the steps next to God’s throne as a child would next to their parent when asking for help. 

James 1:2-8 says  2Count it all joy, my brothers,when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (ESV)

King Hezekiah did ask in complete faith and expectation that God would take care of his problem.  We can approach God humbly with our problems.  This is what God wants us to do, take our problems directly to him as soon as we know that we have a problem.  That is the best time and it is the best way to grow our faith through answered prayer.  We have to ask for help, or we often won’t recognize who is giving us our help and may give the credit to someone other than God.  God loves us and loves to help us with our problems.  So approach his throne with confidence!

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hezekiah spread it out before the Lord.