Information AboutHezekiah |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HEZEKIAH | |
| 687 bc deaths | |
| 687 bce deaths | |
| kings of ancient judah | |
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Hezekiah (or '''Ezekias''') ( in the Gospel Of Matthew . William F. Albright has dated his reign to 715 BCE - 687 BCE , while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 716 BCE - 687 BCE . Under either of these chronologies, Hezekiah ruled the southern kingdom of Judah during the conquest and forced resettlement of the northern kingdom of Israel by Sargon 's Assyria ns. Judah absorbed many refugees from the northern kingdom during Hezekiah's reign, about a hundred years before the destruction of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadrezzar 's Babylonia ns. LIFE 's siege.]] The account of this king in the Hebrew Bible is contained in ''2 Kings'' 18-20, '' Isaiah '' 36-39, and ''2 Chronicles'' 29-32. These sources portray him as a great and good king, following the example of his great-grandfather Uzziah . He introduced religious reform, reinstated religious traditions. He set himself to abolish idolatry from his kingdom, and among other things which he did for this end, he destroyed the " Brazen Serpent ," which had been relocated at Jerusalem , and had become an object of idolatrous worship. A great reformation was wrought in the kingdom of Judah in his day (''2 Kings'' 18:4; ''2 Chronicles'' 29:3-36). The author of ''2 Kings'' ends his account of Hezekiah with praise (18:5). Between the death of of the Old City Of Jerusalem . During the invasion, Sennacherib took Lachish . "King Tirhakah" of Kush, who was probably the heir apparent to the 25th Dynasty of Egypt Taharqa , also moved into Judah, to protect its capital Jerusalem. "When Hezekiah saw that . Sennacherib records on his monumental inscription, "The Prism of Sennacherib ", how in his campaign against Hezekiah ("''Ha-za-qi-(i)a-รบ''") he took 46 cities in this campaign (column 3, line 19 of Taylor Prism ), and besieged Jerusalem ("''Ur-sa-li-im-mu''") with earthworks. Eventually Hezekiah saw Sennacherib's determination, and offered to pay him three hundred Talent s of silver and thirty of gold in tribute, despoiling the doors of the Temple to produce the promised amount (18:14-16). The Assyrians claimed that Sennacherib raised his siege of Jerusalem after Hezekiah acknowledged ( Histories 2:141) recorded a story that the Assyrians had been visited by a plague of mice while they were in Egypt. A common secular understanding is that the Assyrians were growing tired and sick from the extended siege and did not wish a confrontation with Kush and Egypt at this time; and accepted Hezekiah's offer of tribute as a face-saving measure. The author of the ''Books of Kings'' (19:37) associated this event with Sennacherib's assassination by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer , but this actually happened seventeen years later. Esarhaddon became the next Assyrian king. The Bible says that the Angel of the Lord wiped out 185,000 of Sennacherib's troops, and Herodotus acknowledges many deaths (though he claims it was a plague). Not willing to believe in supernatural intervention, many modern historians will tend to go with the story from the Assyrian perspective. However Sennacherib, like Shalmaneser III before him (who claimed victory over the battle of Qarqar in 853, but seems to have had no real hold over the nations), was probably just trying to save face. The narrative of Hezekiah's sickness and miraculous recovery is found in ''2 Kings'' 20:1, ''2 Chronicles'' 32:24, ''Isaiah'' 38:1. Various ambassadors came to congratulate him on his recovery, among them Merodach-baladan , the king of Babylon (''2 Chronicles'' 32:23; ''2 Kings'' 20:12). Hezekiah is also remembered for giving too much information to Baladan, king of Babylon, for which he was confronted by Isaiah the prophet (''2 Kings'' 20:12-19). SEALS Two distinct classes of seal impressions have been found in modern Israel relating to King Hezekiah:
RELIGIOUS REFORMS King Hezekiah introduced substantial religious reforms during his reign. They included the following:
These are incredibly important reforms, as they removed the Polytheism of the past and in essence restored the notion of the one God, thereby laying the foundation for the Jewish and Christian religions we know today. CHRONOLOGICAL PROBLEMS There is considerable uncertainty about the actual dates of his reign. First, the Biblical records conflict, as they do for a number of rulers of Israel and Judah. ''2 Kings'' 18:10 dates the fall of Samaria to the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, which would make 728 BCE the year of his accession. However, verse 13 of the same chapter states that Sennacherib invaded Judah in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; the Assyrian records leave little doubt that this invasion took place in 701 BCE , which would fix 715 BCE as Hezekiah's initial year, which would be confirmed by the account of his illness. In chapter 18 of ''2 Kings'' it is stated that during the 14th year of his reign, Sennacherib had returned to pillage Samaria, setting up his base of operations at Lachish and threatening Jerusalem, forcing Hezekiah to pay tribute. As the description in chapter 20 of Hezekiah's illness immediately follows Sennacherib's departure, this would date his illness to his 14th year, which is confirmed by Isaiah's statement that he will live fifteen more years (29-15=14). His fourteenth year being 701 BCE , the first must have been 715 BCE . Another set of calculations show it is probable that Hezekiah did not ascend the throne before ascended the throne twenty-nine years later, at the age of twelve. This places his birth in the seventeenth year of his father's reign, or gives Hezekiah's age as forty-two, if he was twenty-five at his ascension. It is more probable that Ahaz was twenty-one or twenty-five when Hezekiah was born (and suggesting an error in the text), and that the latter was thirty-two at the birth of his son and successor, Manasseh. Still another date is possible by astronomical calculations. ''2 Kings'' 20:8-11 speaks obscurely about "the shadow" moving "ten degrees" during the above mentioned illness of Hezekiah (as does ''Isaiah'' 38:7f). Professor that casts a shadow on a plane that is perpendicular to it. The shadow can move ahead for a while, then it can move backward on that plane. , so Isaiah comforted the king on May 3 . An alternative interpretation of Hezekiah's reign spans 's attack in 701 was either a second campaign or that the reference to it being in Hezekiah's 14th year is a corruption. RESOURCES
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