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CHAPTER 10 - HEZEKIAH, (THIRTEENTH) KING OF JUDAH.
HOSHEA, (TWENTIETH) KING OF ISRAEL.
Accession of Hezekiah - Political Circumstances of the Times -Religion the only True
National Policy - The Position of Assyria in relation to Judah - Religion the Central
Principle of Hezekiah's Reign - Idolatry Abolished in Judah - Restoration of the Temple
Services - Purification of the Temple - Services of Re. Consecration - Celebration of the
Pass-over - Invitation to the Northern Tribes - Subsequent Festival - Re-arrangement of
the Temple-Services - Provision for Priests and Levites -General Inferences - Activity of
Hezekiah in regard to the Canon of Scripture. (2 KINGS 18:1-6; 2 CHRONICLES 29-31)
THERE is not a more striking instance of Divine mercy on the one hand, nor yet, on the
other, of the personal character of religion even under the Old Testament, than that Ahaz
should have been succeeded on the throne of Judah by Hezekiah. His name,* "Strength
of Jehovah," or, perhaps better, "God is might," was truly indicative of the character of
his reign. In every respect - not only as regarded the king personally, but also in the
results of his administration, as affecting his country and people - this period was in
complete contrast to that which had immediately preceded it.
- In Hebrew Chizkiyyah. But this seems an abbreviation of Yechizkiyyahu, "Jehovah
strengtheneth him," which is the form generally adopted in Chronicles (also 2 Kings
20:10; Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 15:4); in Hosea 1:1 and Micah 1:1 it is Yechizkiyyah; in
Isaiah (36-39)the name is also Chizkiyyahu (so also often in Kings); in the Assyrian
inscriptions, Cha-za-ki-ya-u.
Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, towards the
close* of the third year of Hoshea's reign in Israel.
- A comparison with the dates in 2 Kings 18:1, 9 has led some writers to substitute "the
fourth" for "the third" year of Hoshea (so already Josephus, Ant. ix.13, 1). But there
seems no necessity for this.
He was therefore a witness of the events which befell Samaria. From a merely political
point of view, the position of a king of Judah must have been one of no small difficulty.
In the northern kingdom Pekah had sown the wind, and Hoshea would reap the
whirlwind. The one had brought upon himself the might of Assyria; the other would
ultimately lose crown and life in his attempts to shake off the yoke of the conqueror. And
in his ruin would Israel be involved. Assyria was the paramount power, not only in
Samaria, which was so soon to become a province of that empire, but in Judah also. For
Ahaz had made himself tributary to it, and held his crown almost at the mercy of the great
(^)