Deeper Commentary
2Ki 20:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick to death-
Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him,
Thus says Yahweh, ‘Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not
live’-
We should not assume too quickly that Hezekiah had no family at this
stage; for he is commanded here to put in order his household ("house" is
so often 'family' rather than the bricks of a house).
Indeed the very same phrase is used of how Abraham would "command his
household" to keep God's laws (Gen. 18:19). Perhaps that was the idea. He
was to urgently teach his household more of God's ways as he was to soon
die.
2Ki 20:2 Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Yahweh saying-
2Ki 20:3 Remember now, Yahweh, I beg You, how I have walked before You in
truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Your
sight-
This is another allusion to Solomon's prayer. Solomon's idea
was that if Israel walked before God with a perfect heart, then their
prayers would be heard because of the physical temple; for Yahweh "keeps
covenant and grace with Your servants who walk before You with all their
heart" (1 Kings 8:23). But Hezekiah was to be shown that this was far too
simplistic. God hears prayer by grace and not because of the existence of
any temple. And so Hezekiah prays this prayer not in the temple; for the
answer he gets assures him that in three days he will be able to enter the
temple.
Hezekiah claimed to have lived with a good conscience but was at the same time aware of his sins (Is. 38:3 cp. 17); and his cutting off the gold of the temple to try to buy peace was surely a failure. Yet the conscience can be cleansed of sin, through the depth of the power of God's forgiveness. This is not the same as forgetfulness, self-righteousness or minimization of personal failings. Paul must surely have had twinges of guilt over his behaviour at times (not least over the bust up with brethren Barnabas and Mark, Acts 15:39 cp. 2 Tim. 4:11); and yet he insists that he always had a good conscience. Paul likewise claims that the Jewish forefathers served God with a pure conscience (2 Tim. 1:3 NIV). Yet the Jewish fathers, dear Jacob particularly, must have had plenty of twinges of guilt over their years.
Walking in truth is the term used to characterize the seed of David (1 Kings 2:4; 3:6), as David personally walked in truth (Ps. 26:3; 86:11), and may not of itself mean that Hezekiah is saying he has not sinned; it's as if Hezekiah assumed that because he was the seed of David, he therefore ought not to die. As will be explained later, the adding of days to his life was a way of saying that he was being accepted as the seed of David; and yet he failed to use those years to save his people. It could be argued that by refusing to die when asked to, Hezekiah was disallowing his being the fulfilment of the Messianic suffering servant who was to die for his people.
Hezekiah wept bitterly-
Perhaps in prayer,
asking God to change the outcome. For as with Nineveh, in the gap between
Divine statement and its fulfilment, we can repent and change the word
which otherwise would have come true (Jer. 18:8-10). See on 2 Kings 19:35.
In 2 Chron. 30 we read of Hezekiah having to make decisions at the
great Passover which he organized. Some ate it on the second month,
and others ate it unclean or with priests unclean. Numbers 9 allowed for
those who were distant or travelling to keep the Passover a month later.
But that legislation doesn't cover the eventuality here- that the priests
were unclean. Likewise in 2 Chron. 30:18, "yet they ate the Passover
otherwise than it is written". So we see how God's laws were not seen as a
leash, as a letter that had to be literalistically obeyed. By contrast,
contemporary Hittite laws condemned any failure to keep a festival on its
specified day. The law of Moses is hereby shown to be open to
interpretation and obedience according to spirit and not letter. Perhaps
it was this perception of Divine flexibility that led Hezekiah to reason
with God to change His plan that Hezekiah should die.
The bitterness may have been because he perceived, as most then did, that premature death was a judgment from God because of sin. The Psalms ask for wicked men to be cut off in their prime (Ps. 54:23; 89:45); and long life was a blessing of keeping the covenant (Dt. 6:2; 32:47). Perhaps indeed Hezekiah had sinned. And had to repent of his pride. He considered himself righteous- when measured against men. But his later psalm of gratitude, recorded in Is. 38, shows him appreciating that his sins had been cast behind God's back in forgiveness. We too experience things which help us to perceive our sinfulness, and to stop justifying ourselves by our relative righteousness when compared to men. We also could note that Hezekiah seems to have little conception of a future resurrection. He wants to be healed so he can return to the temple and do his music...
2Ki 20:4 It happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle part of
the city, that the word of Yahweh came to him saying-
2Ki 20:5 Turn back and tell Hezekiah the prince of My people, ‘Thus says
Yahweh the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer. I have seen
your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you shall go up to
the house of Yahweh-
See on 2 Kings 19:15. I suggest there that in his prayer for national deliverance, Hezekiah had prayed in the temple, thinking that God "saw" things uttered there. But he is being taught that God 'sees' sincere prayer regardless of the temple building. And after three days, Hezekiah was to go to the temple just to praise God for His grace.
2Ki 20:6 I will add to your days fifteen years-
There is a strong sense that God has determined a number of "days" for our mortal life (Ps. 23:6; 2 Sam. 7:12), and David like all of us wished to know how many those days were for him, in order that he might live an appropriately humble life in response to realizing his frailty (Ps. 39:4). But that predetermined number of days can be cut short (Ps. 102:4,23,24) or extended (1 Kings 3:14; Prov. 9:11). Hezekiah would be the parade example of this; his days were cut short (Is. 38:10), and then lengthened in response to prayer (2 Kings 20:6). God is open to dialogue, His timetable in our personal lives is flexible according to our prayers; and He is also responsive to human behaviour. Like Job we should perceive our life as "my days" (he uses this term multiple times), so that we might use each of them for Him.
I will deliver you and
this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city
for My own sake, and for My servant David’s sake’-
2Ki 20:7 Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. They took and laid it on the
boil, and he recovered-
It’s surely significant that Hezekiah is stated to be Judah’s most
faithful King, and yet he had a major lack of faith when he cut off the
gold of the temple and gave it to the Assyrians; and he asks God to give
him a sign that the promised healing was really going to happen. Indeed
the whole nature of the dialogue here seems to indicate a man of somewhat
faltering faith, needing every encouragement. And so although the healing
was completely through God's power, perhaps this human mechanism of the
cake of figs was used for Hezekiah's benefit; not because it had any
efficacy of itself.
2Ki 20:8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Yahweh will
heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh the third day?-
Hezekiah asks for a sign “to prove” that God’s
predicted cure of him was going to happen. And when given the option of
the shadow of the sun jumping forward by ten degrees, he almost mocks that
as too ‘easy’. Yet this is the man with the accolade that no King believed
in God like he did. Perhaps he reached his heights of faith through having
these low moments. ‘Putting God to the test’ as it seems Hezekiah did is
seen in Scripture as not fully believing in Him (Num. 14:20-24; Dt. 6:16;
Is. 7:12; Lk. 11:33-36). Maybe God left Hezekiah to test him in the matter
of the ambassadors from Babylon as a kind of response- ‘You put me to the
test, I’ll put you to the test’ (2 Chron. 32:31). Let’s remember that in
Bible characters like Hezekiah, we are reading only a few cameos of their
lives. Most of his life history, his inner thoughts, are unknown to us.
But God’s summary statement was that he was the most believing King of
Judah. So when we read cameos from his life that reflect a weakened faith,
we surely have little option but to conclude that somehow in the Divine
economy, low points of faith lead a person to higher and stronger ones.
And we can all take a lot of comfort from that conclusion as we survey our
own lives.
2Ki 20:9 Isaiah said, This shall be the sign to you from Yahweh, that
Yahweh will do the thing that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward
ten steps, or go back ten steps?-
It seems that unlike his father Ahaz, Hezekiah had asked for this sign
(:8). It is apparent that the experiences of believers are often
suggestive of those of other believers. Insofar as we appreciate this, we
will find strength to go the right way. Consider how Hezekiah was intended
to see the similarities between himself and the earlier king Ahaz his
father, and learn the lessons. They were both threatened by
invasion and tempted to turn to human help (Is. 7:2; 37:1); Visited by
Isaiah and told to not fear (Is. 7:4-9; 37:6,7)
2Ki 20:10 Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go
forward ten steps. Nay, but let the shadow return backward ten steps-
Hezekiah's attitude in asking for a sign, and the way
he responds to the offer for the shadow to go forward, all hardly
indicates firm faith and trust. And yet he had earlier had such faith.
The Hebrew word translated "light" can mean two things, and neither
of them read very nicely for Hezekiah to say this. It can mean 'easy'; and
to say it was easy for the light to go forward, involving the apparent
manipulation of the sun and therefore the entire cosmos, was no "light"
thing for God to do. The word can by extension mean "despised" or
"cursed", and is often translated like that. Hezekiah is saying that for
life to be 'fast forwarded', for him to be cut off in the midst of his
days by the sun advancing forward, is easy for God. But it would be
harder, surely, for God to make the sun as it were go backward, to create
time, to reverse the time of his life by giving him more time. And despite
that unpleasant, bitter attitude to God, God responds by giving him more
life. Hezekiah had faith, but so did Elijah; but
faith without hope and love is nothing, as Paul says. And Elijah was
removed from his ministry despite having so much faith. The
reversal of time spoke only of a delay; Hezekiah's death was not removed,
but delayed by 15 years. The time shift would have reminded the perceptive
of Joshua's long day, when again time was as it were tampered with- in
order to enable a military victory. And a similar victory was given
against Assyria at this time.
2Ki 20:11 Isaiah the prophet cried to Yahweh; and He brought the shadow
ten steps backward, by which it had gone down-
"Gone down" is the word used by Hezekiah in speaking of how he feels he
had "gone down" into the grave (:18). It is as if Hezekiah has died, the
sun gone down those degrees, and then resurrected, brought up the same
amount. He could have been a Messianic figure in a reestablished kingdom
of God in Judah. The "return backward" of the sun is a phrase often used
of the return of the exiles from Babylon to be part of that reestablished
Kingdom. Hezekiah's revival / resurrection was to be seen as that of his
people. How the miracle happened is not the essential question; but it
could have been caused by the glory of Yahweh bursting forth so that the
shadow was chased back.
Shadows can go back if a light brighter than the sun shines upon the object causing the shadow. This was observed during the meteorite incident in Chelyabinsk, Russia, which was brighter than the sun. It is Isaiah who speaks of God's glory in Zion appearing brighter than the sun (Is. 60:19; 62:21). The intention of this was to be that Gentiles came to this light and brightness (Is. 60:3). The Babylonian ambassadors came to enquire of the sign done in the land. So it seems that the bright light of Yahweh's glory appeared in the land and changed the shadow. This is far preferrable to speculation that the earth, and the entire solar system, reversed its direction of travel. This was a foretaste to Judah, in their dark hour surrounded by their enemies, of what potentially could happen. The Kingdom of God could then have been established in some form. But Hezekiah let the ball drop. Instead of converting the Babylonians, he boasted to them. And brought judgment upon Zion. We reflect that if Hezekiah had asked to bring the shadow forward, then God had another option in view. We see here the interplay between human freewill and Divine openness.
Is. 30:26 again parallels Hezekiah's sickness with Jerusalem's
woeful state [as does Is. 33:24 "the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick:
the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity"]. The
healing was to be associated with a bright light, and that is what made
the shadows go back: "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light
of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of
seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,
and healeth the stroke of their wound".
On the dial of Ahaz-
"The stairway built by King Ahaz", Hezekiah's father, was part of his
idolatrous sun worship which Hezekiah ought to have destroyed. It was a
kind of small ziggurat. It was the Babylonians who had begun telling the
time in this way; there is no mention of "hours" of the day in the Hebrew
Bible until the time of Daniel. Here we
have another hint at the incomplete spirituality and reformation of
Hezekiah. The "songs of degrees" were written or rewritten to apply to
this experience of the sun returning ten degrees or steps. There are 15 of
them, matching the 15 extra years of life given to Hezekiah. It
seems that 10 of the 15 songs of degrees were written by Hezekiah, perhaps
connecting with how the shadow returned 10 degrees. We enquire however why
the shadow returned ten degrees to symbolize how Hezekiah was being given
fifteen years. One possibility is to consider that the Hebrew term for
"fifteen" is two distinct words, the words for 'five' and 'ten'. God's
openness is such that perhaps He is hinting that He would add five or ten
or fifteen years.
It could also be that the sundial of idolatrous Ahaz had probably been brought from Assyria, as such things were common there and had pagan associations. Hezekiah had not destroyed his father's idol- another hint that his devotion to God was far less than ideal.
2Ki 20:12 At that time Berodach Baladan the son of Baladan, king of
Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that
Hezekiah had been sick-
The "letters" and 'ambassadors'
2Ki 20:13 Hezekiah listened to them-
Is. 39:2 "Hezekiah was pleased with them". "Pleased" is s.w. "joy",
"to rejoice". It is used of how Hezekiah previously had rejoiced in
spiritual things (2 Chron. 29:36; 30:25). Now he rejoices in material
things, and being respected by Gentiles rather than God. His "joy" or
'pleasure' ought to have been solely in Yahweh's salvation (Is. 25:9
s.w.). Hezekiah rejoiced "with them"; the Hebrew text is emphatic about
this joy "with them". But the whole land had been charged not to rejoice
at the fall of Assyria because it would revive in another form (s.w. Is.
14:29). Hezekiah is presented as totally ignorant of all this.
And showed them all the house of his precious things, the silver,
the gold, the spices, the precious oil, the house of his armour and all
that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in
all his dominion, that Hezekiah didn’t show them-
LXX "the houses of his treasures". This sounds as if his
kingdom had become like that of Egypt and Solomon, where treasure cities
were associated with gross materialism and refusal of the things of God's
Kingdom. The Babylonians had revolted against Assyria, and they wanted help
from Judah to form a political alliance against Assyria. But Hezekiah was
taken in by the presents and attention paid to him, responding in pride
rather than telling them he had nearly died because of his alliances; he
ought to have told Babylon to accept Yahweh as their God, and thus be
saved from Assyria as Judah had been. Presumably he agreed to the
alliance; hence the judgment given, that his people would go into
captivity in Babylon. He had recently been so lacking in gold that he had
stripped the temple's gold and given it to the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:16).
This sudden abundance of wealth may well have come from nations such as
Babylon, who were eager to have Judah onside with them as a now
significant and respected ally against Assyria. The wealth of the Gentiles
flowed in to the liberated Zion, but only as a very weak foreshadowing of
the things of the Kingdom. Human "armour" ought not to have been gloried
in; for the entire message of Zion's deliverance was that it was achieved
by God's power and grace and not at all by human strength. But the same
Hebrew word is used repeatedly of the temple vessels which Hezekiah had
earlier sanctified for usage (2 Chron. 29:19,26,27; 30:21). But now he had
removed them out of temple service in Yahweh's house into his own
house. His focus was upon his kingdom ["dominion"],
rather than the things of Yahweh's Kingdom. It was these very
vessels which were to be carried to Babylon (s.w. 2 Chron. 36:7).
2Ki 20:14 Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah and said to him,
What did these men say? From where did they come to you? Hezekiah said,
They have come from a far country, even from Babylon-
Surely
these were rhetorical questions aimed at rebuking Hezekiah. His reply was
made in pride (2 Chron. 32:25, although see note there). The prophetic intention had been that the
Gentiles would come from far countries to Israel's God with offerings to
Yahweh, but Hezekiah sees it in terms of them coming to him with
presents and respect for him. He uses the very phrase of Dt.
28:49, of how a nation "from a far country" was to come and destroy
Israel.
2Ki 20:15 He said, What have they seen in your house? Hezekiah answered,
They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among my
treasures that I have not shown them-
As in :14, these are
rhetorical questions; and rather like those given to Adam in Eden, they
were intended to elicit repentance. LXX "yea, also the
possessions in my treasuries". Note the emphasis on "my... my.. I". The
focus on his possessions and treasuries suggests the Lord quarried the
parable of the rich fool from Hezekiah, who thought he had wealth to enjoy
for the remainder of his days; see on :17. "My house... your house" stands
in contrast to the temple / house of Yahweh which ought to have been
Hezekiah's focus. All that was in his house was to be taken to Babylon
(:17). The intention was that the Gentiles "from a far country" (s.w. Is.
5:26) would come to Zion and "see" or "be shown" (s.w.) God's glory (Is.
49:7; 52:15; 60:5; 61:9; 62:2; 66:18 s.w.). But instead Hezekiah showed
them his own glory. He precluded the fulfilment of these prophecies in
terms of his kingdom being the reestablished kingdom of Yahweh.
2Ki 20:16 Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Yahweh-
"Hear" may be an appeal to repent and stop the prophesied
outcome from happening in accordance with Jer. 18:8-10.
2Ki 20:17 ‘Behold, the days come, that all that is in your house, and that
which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, shall be carried to
Babylon. Nothing shall be left’, says Yahweh-
This would have
seemed impossible; for Babylon was one of many apparently irrelevant small
powers whom both Sargon and Sennacherib had overrun, destroyed her towns,
and enforced direct Assyrian rule. That in 160 years' time
Babylon would be the dominant power and would take Judah captive...
appeared laughable. But God had just demonstrated that He could destroy
the Assyrian army in a moment; and indeed it happened (2 Kings 24:13).
'Storing up' is surely alluded to by the Lord in the parable of the rich
fool; he stored up riches only to lose them in a moment of Divine
judgment, and was not rich toward God. See on :15.
2Ki 20:18 ‘Of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you shall father,
shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king
of Babylon’-
There is a theme in Isaiah of conceiving, suffering pain in labour- but
bringing forth in vain (Is. 26:18; 33:11; 59:4). And so did
Hezekiah, in that he and his children turned away from true faith (Is.
39:7). In Isaiah's immediate context, the application would have been to
the sense that the remnant had come to the birth but there was not
strength to bring forth (Is. 37:3); apart from a few individuals, there
was no bringing forth of a significant repentant remnant who would be the
basis for the restored Kingdom. It felt like they were still under the
curse of bringing forth in pain but in vain. The pain in vain at the time
of the Assyrian invasion led to Micah offering a reworked version of all
this; they were to be in pain at the hands of the Babylonians, but would
bring forth in Babylon in that they would there repent, and the
spiritually reborn remnant would emerge and their captors therefore judged
(Mic. 4:10). But that possibility also didn't work out. And so this
idea of bringing forth but not in vain, but rather finding meaning in the
resurrection of Messiah and all in Him, came to be reapplied to the birth
of the Lord Jesus from the grave in resurrection; and it would
characterize the establishment of the Kingdom age in Zion (Is. 65:24).
Hezekiah's immediate sons "who will issue from you, whom you shall father"
weren't permanently taken to Babylon. Manasseh was taken there but
repented and returned to Judah (2 Chron. 33:11-13); but it was in Dan. 1:3
that "the king's seed" were all deported there permanently. Again we have
an example of a prophecy being delayed and suspended in fulfilment. This
could have been because of the prayer and repentance of a minority, not
least Manasseh; the spirituality of Josiah; or God's constant pity towards
His people.
2Ki 20:19 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, The word of Yahweh which you have
spoken is good. He said moreover, Isn’t it so, if peace and truth shall be
in my days?-
Sadly despite the warning from the example of Shebna (see on Is.
22:15) and the specific command not to just live for today and resign
ourselves to an eternal death (Is. 22:13), Hezekiah at the end of his
life gave in to just this same mentality. The sense is as GNB "King
Hezekiah understood this to mean that there would be peace and
security during his lifetime, so he replied, "The message you have
given me from the LORD is good". "Peace and truth" is the language of
the restored kingdom of God (Jer. 33:6); and it is the same term used
by Hezekiah when he failed to grasp the potential of the Kingdom being
reestablished in his times; he was content with peace and truth in his
times alone (see on Is. 38:18,20). Likewise the Jews of Esther's time
were content with "peace and truth" in their times, rather than seeing
that what had happened was to lead them towards the eternal peace and
truth with God of His Kingdom and not their own (see on Esther
8:13-16; 9:30). And this is the abiding temptation for all believers;
to be satisfied with some degree of "peace and truth" emotionally and
intellectually in their lives now, but resign the far greater
realities of the Kingdom to come when "peace and truth" shall be in
eternal reality.
2Ki 20:20 Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might-
This is the common rubric found in the histories of the kings (1
Kings 15:23; 16:5,27; 22:45; 2 Kings 10:34; 13:8,12; 14:15,28; 20:20).
"His might that he showed" uses a word for "might" which has the sense of
victory / achievement. But the contrast is marked with the way that David
so often uses this word for "might / victory / achievement" in the context
of God's "might"; notably in 1 Chron. 29:11, which the Lord Jesus
places in our mouths as part of His model prayer: "Yours is the power
[s.w. "might"], and the glory and the majesty". The kings about whom the
phrase is used were those who trusted in their own works. It therefore
reads as a rather pathetic memorial; that this man's might / achievement
was noted down. But the unspoken further comment is elicited in our own
minds, if we are in tune with the spirit of David: "But the only real
achievement is the Lord's and not man's". All human victory and
achievement must be seen in this context. The same word is used in Jer.
9:23,24: "Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might [s.w.]... but let him who glories glory in
this, that he has understanding, and knows Me, that I am Yahweh who
exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth". The
glorification of human "might" is often condemned. "Their might [s.w.] is
not right" (Jer. 23:10; also s.w. Jer. 51:30; Ez. 32:29; Mic. 7:16 and
often).
And how
he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, aren’t
they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?-
Hezekiah's doing this is cited in Is. 22:9 in a negative light, as if
done without faith and in seeking to defend Jerusalem in his own strength
rather than God's. It was done in his might- not
Yahweh's.
2Ki 20:21 Hezekiah slept with his fathers; and Manasseh his son reigned in
his place-
Typically there is some Divine commentary upon a king when he dies. When
Hezekiah began reigning, he receives a very positive accolade from God.
But the silence at the end is perhaps because he messed up and failed to
realize the great potential there was for him. I suggested earlier that
the comment that he was faithful with God may be ultimately true, although
he undoubtedly ended his life on a spiritual low. And he raised one of
Judah's most wicked kings during his last 15 years. His complaint that he
was dying without an heir is therefore to be contrasted with how things
actually worked out.
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