#i wrote this in a fugue state after small group a couple of weeks ago

[queenlucythevaliant]

Don’t you dare come for my man Hezekiah

A Bible study, 2022:

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

Sophie is shaking her head. “How horrible.”

“I just don’t understand that,” Andrew says.

I do. 

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When Hezekiah was a boy, his father Ahaz offered two of his sons as burnt sacrifices to pagan gods.

Hezekiah was so young then, but the memory never left him: how he’d escaped from his nurse and run to his father. How his father’s face had been tight and unyielding, not the salvation nor even the comfort he had wanted. How his baby brothers had screamed and howled and little Hezekiah hadn’t understood. 

The fire had burned until dawn.

Even all those years later, a king in his own right, bile still rose in his throat at the memory.

It was Isaiah who had comforted him later, even as he wept his own tears. “Such wickedness,” he had whispered, holding the boy close beneath his chin and rubbing circles on his back. “How can the Lord bear it?”

“What does the Lord have to do with it?” sobbed Hezekiah.

“Oh, my boy. Yahweh, the One True and Living God, has seen all that that your father does and his inner parts weep for us. You must be a better king than your father, child. You must seek to do right in the eyes of the Lord.”

“I will,” the boy promised, still trembling.

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From then on, Hezekiah learned of Yahweh, the God of his fathers. He studied at Isaiah’s knee when he could. He read and read. Hezekiah was ravenous for the Lord. 

He read of Abraham, who journeyed to a new land on the strength of a promise, and Jacob, who spent a lifetime lying and running away and still inherited God’s faithfulness, and Joseph, who forgave his brothers, and Moses, who was the most humble man in all the world, who saw God’s glory and spoke to Him like a friend. There was Joshua, who conquered Canaan on a string of miracles, and Gideon, who asked for proof, and Saul, who never wanted to be king, and David, the man after God’s own heart. Elijah, who mocked the meager fires of Baal, and Elisha, who was steadfast, and now Isaiah, who was more father to him than Ahaz could ever be, who dared to speak God’s truth, though he might at any time be killed for it.

"This is my inheritance," Hezekiah realized. "God is faithful, and so shall I be, just as my great fathers before me were."

Isaiah smiled when he heard the declaration, but he also cautioned the boy. “The Lord has revealed some of his plan to me,” he said. “He means to save a remnant, do you understand? A remnant of his people, to the glory of his name. The years before you will be full of grief, and so you must choose: to serve the Lord, in spite of the time in which he has placed you, or to turn to wickedness as your father has. This is not the age of King David, child, nor even of Solomon.”

“I don’t understand,” Hezekiah said.

“Have faith,” replied Isaiah with a smile and a sigh. “Yahweh is more gracious than either of us knows.”

Hezekiah’s father defiled the temple and not one of the Levites dared to stop him. He pilfered its treasures and gave them to the king of Assyria in tribute. He built pagan altars in the holy places. He barred the temple doors, that none might enter.

You evil, evil man, his son thought. 

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When at last he became King of Judah, Hezekiah’s first act was to fling open the doors of the temple. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he had them repaired and restored, and as much of the destruction un-done as could be managed. 

He ordered the Levites to consecrate themselves anew: yes, even those who had not stopped his father. “It is in my heart to make a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel,” he told them.

Hezekiah’s courtiers were the same flattering, conciliatory men who had served his father. “I am going to cut down the Asherah,” he told them. “I am going to break Nehushtan and smash the pillars and I am going to tear down the high places.”

“My king,” one man said, “I understand that you want to serve Yahweh, but the people are of a different mind.” 

Another man, dripping with rubies, bowed low and added, “Surely, you must see sense. None of your forebearers have ever troubled the high places. People worship there as you do at the temple, and it will not do to upset them. You must break the pillars and take down Asherah and be satisfied.”

“No,” said Hezekiah, with more bronze in his spine than most swords. “The high places.”

Within a week, the high places were gone.

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When Assyria came for Israel, the people of Judah clamored to have the high places back. Hezekiah stood firm, and waited to see whether Assyria would destroy Judah next. “Lord have mercy on us,” he whispered, knowing that his own father had made bargains with Assyria, knowing that God’s wrath against His people was just. “Oh, holy God, have mercy. Spare us a little longer.”

Assyria arrived at Judah’s gates, just as everyone had known they would, and the king called Hezekiah out to meet him. 

He was vile and foul-mouthed, the king of Assyria, but his army was a towering wave bearing down on Judah. He laughed at the notion of salvation from the Lord. Had any other nation’s gods ever saved them from Assyria? He called Hezekiah a liar and worse. 

Hope was a guttering torch, but it was still bright against the shadow of death. After he had put on sackcloth and ashes, Hezekiah sent messengers to Isaiah. “Do not worry about my mettle,” he said, with more assurance than he truly felt. “I rely on Yahweh.”

It was a strange message for Isaiah to receive. No king had ever sent him anything like it before.

Hezekiah journeyed to the temple. He stepped inside and breathed deep, inhaling the incense and smoke of the place. Oh, Lord, he prayed, Oh God of Israel. Enthroned above the cherubim. You are the God. You alone. It was the very cry of his heart.

Judah was not what it once was, but it was not yet a ruin of itself. Help us please, prayed the king. Save us. Let all the world see your glory. Don’t let us be destroyed. Not yet. Not yet. 

When he returned to the palace, Hezekiah found Isaiah’s reply waiting. God had heard his prayer. Judah would stand, for now.

Trembling with relief, Hezekiah fell to his knees, the gratitude and exhaustion almost too much to bear.

That very night, one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians died in their camps. “An angel of the Lord,” breathed the king, thinking of Joshua. 

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While Hezekiah was still in the prime of his years, he became ill. Sweats and dizziness, boils and sores, and all manner of misery. The court physician put on a hopeful face, but when Isaiah appeared, Hezekiah knew what awaited him.

How awful that Isaiah, who had been as a friend and a father to him, should now only signify dire news with his appearance. The price of kingship, Hezekiah thought. One of many.

Isaiah knelt down and spoke gently, but the authority in his voice was yet sharp and unyielding. “Thus says Yahweh: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die.’”

Hezekiah’s heart seized, though the words were not unexpected. Oh Lord, not yet, he thought up to heaven. Haven’t I walked before you in faithfulness? Haven’t I served you with my whole heart? 

Scarcely ten minutes later, Isaiah returned to the sickroom. He knelt again beside the king and spoke his name. “Hezekiah.”

And again, there was hope. The barest dregs of hope, perhaps, but fierce and strong in the bottom of his cup. Hezekiah looked up.

“Thus says Yahweh, the God of David, your father: ‘I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. I will heal you. You shall not die yet.”

Just like Judah, Hezekiah was saved. For now, at least. God promised fifteen years, and no more.

When Isaiah offered him a sign, Hezekiah thought of Gideon. “Shall the shadow go back ten steps or lengthen ten steps?”

It was no kindness for the shadow to lengthen. It only brought one closer to the inevitable, to the doom that had been staved off for now but which must be met eventually. “Let the shadows go back,” the king said, and they did. The Lord drew the shadow back ten steps, right across the steps of Ahaz. 

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And so, we come at last to the part where Hezekiah failed. Envoys from Babylon came, and Hezekiah showed them his treasure house. “There is nothing in all my storehouses that I did not show them,” he told Isaiah. He was an old king now, having reigned well and collected many treasures. He did not think much of showing them off. 

Isaiah looked at the king he loved and spoke the bitter word of God. “Hear the word of Yahweh,” he said, and he saw the color drain from Hezekiah’s face. “The days are coming when all that is in your house will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left. Some of your own descendants not yet born will become slaves to the king of Babylon.”

Hezekiah sank down, but when he looked up at Isaiah he was smiling. “The word of Yahweh is good,” he said. “I am glad.”

There it is, dear reader. I hope you can forgive him for it.

Oh thank God, Hezekiah was thinking, not yet. Babylon will come, but not yet. 

Even the strongest of spines will weaken over the years one spends as king. King of a failing, unfaithful people, no less. What a heavy thing. Hezekiah was tired, even if he had not yielded to it until now. He was grateful for the reprieve, just as he had been the last time God had granted it to him, and the time before that. 

Hezekiah had done his duty to Judah; he had done more than his duty. He had failed God’s measure, of course, but who does not? Can you say that you would not have been as tired as he was, when the word of judgment finally came? 

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Isaiah spoke God’s judgment with the grief of a prophet. He wept for Judah. The prophets were so often called to weep God’s tears.

“I do not understand why you are weeping,” Hezekiah told him. “Is this not good news?”

Isaiah looked at the king and saw the little boy weeping for his baby brothers after they had passed into the fire. “It will come to grief,” he said. “Your sons, Hezekiah. The children of your line will die.”

“But not now? Not yet?”

“No. Not for a hundred years. You will sleep with your fathers long before it comes.”

“And you would have me weep for that?”

“Is it not worth weeping for?”

And Hezekiah did not have an answer. Only this: I cannot weep now. All my tears are gone. The bronze in my spine is all used up.

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[Hezekiah] trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses.

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And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.