We have established that it’s not all glamor to be a king, especially that of God’s people. Some kings appreciated the magnitude of their responsibility and trusted in God as such. They found their reward in God, in life, and in remembrance as the ones who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord” in Kings and Chronicles. One such king was Hezekiah.
Hezekiah [HE-zuh-KAHY-uh] 希西家 {xi1-xi1-jia1} (not to be confused with Zedekiah [ZE-duh-KAHY-uh] 西底家 {xi1-di3-jia1}) was one of the “good” kings of Judah 猶大 {you2-da4} who reformed the nation and steered it back to God. You may remember him as the king who got a 15-year life extension, but his life was in fact much more eventful than that.
Hezekiah’s childhood was rough, to say the least. When he was around 7, the sister kingdom Israel allied with the enemy Aram 亞蘭 {ya4-lan2} to attack Judah. In just one day, Judah lost 120,000 soldiers to the sword, and then 200,000 women and children to captivity. Just think about those numbers!
Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz 亞哈斯 {ya4-ha1-si1}, was so frustrated and idiotic that he went to the worst place to get help, the Neo-Assyrian Empire 亞述 {ya3-shu4} 帝國! I’m guessing he was aiming for an “enemy of my enemy” deal, but it cost him independence and lots of treasures. Assyria, the mightiest empire back then, had no trouble defeating Aram and Israel in one fell swoop. Ironically though, they kept going and invaded Judah instead of allying with them!
As Hezekiah grew to become a teenager, he witnessed the destruction of the sister kingdom. With Israel erased from his map, Assyria, now bordering Judah on the North, would loom over Hezekiah’s life even before he became king.
With the enemy at his gate, Hezekiah reformed the nation by repenting before God, restoring the temple worship and Passover, removing idols, upgrading the infrastructure, and fortifying the defense. Despite his outstanding services, he became terminally ill in his late 30s. So you see, he was not an old man greedy for a few more years of retirement, but a man in the prime of his life, weeping for the missed opportunities to serve his God.
Thankfully, God revealed Hezekiah’s condition to him and gave him another 15 years. During that time, Assyria began invading the outer cities of Judah again and laid siege on Jerusalem. Unlike his foolish father, Hezekiah exercised great wisdom and resolution to seek God’s help. God answered his prayer by killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night, ending their campaign against Judah forever.
No one’s perfect. Hezekiah was once proud in his heart and displayed poor judgment when hosting the ambassador from early-day Babylon (~100 years before Nebuchadnezzar II was born). He also failed to raise up a good successor. His son, Manasseh 瑪拿西 {ma3-na2-xi1}, was arguably the worst king of Judah, whose evil spelled the doom of the kingdom that no future kings could reverse.
Just like his name signifies, “Yahweh is my strength”, Hezekiah exemplified the life of a king who was truly strengthened by God. Though he had faults, he lived a life worthy of 2 Kings 18:5, “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; and after him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who came before him.”
Photo by Shubham Sharma on Unsplash