restor.'ition of the temple .service, music, both vocal and instrumental, has a prominent place (2 Ch 2;ii'-») i„ j>r 2.5' we read of ' the men of Heze- kiuh ' who copied out the proverbs of Soloiuo i, an<I in the Talm. (Bnhd balhra, i. 15a) ' H. and hia as.sociates' are credited with the 'writing' of certain books of the OT. Is 38"-'" even contains a song which bears in its superscription to have been written by II. at the time of his sickness and recovery. But it is absent from 2 K, and its late insertion in Is appears to have disturbed the text,
dLsjilacing v.-
iMoreover, it has no distinct
marks of its alleged royal authorship, and bears a strong resemblance to Job and the later I'salms. For these reasons it iscon.sidered post-exilic by most recent critics, and is even supposed by Cheyne to refer (like Ps 88 and La 3) to the experience, not of an individual, but of the church-nation. In all [irobability, it was introduced into Is from a collec- tion of liturgical songs (v.-"). The sickness referred to appears to have been of the nature of a boil or an aU-^cess, being described by the same name (pn:?) as is a[>plied to one of the plagues of Egypt (Ex 9") and to the disease of Job ('2'). Its connexion with lepro.sy (Lv 13") explains the promise given to H. that on the third day he would ' go up untc the house of J".' The ellect produced on H. by the [jrophetic announcement that his illness was to prove fatal, illustrates his tender and emotional nature, and enables us to understand the influence exerted over him by the wise and fearless coun- sellor who on this as on other occasions interpreted to him the will of J". With regard to the sign given to H. by the prophet in token of his recovery, if the fuller text in K be accepted as the origin.J, the narrative must be held to imply a claim on the part of Isaiah to a miraculous control of the forces of nature (20°) ; but if K be regarded as an expan- sion and Is be held to be the original (Stade, Duhm, Dillmann), it is possible to explain the deflection of the shadow as the result of a partial eclipse of the sun or of refraction of light by the atmosphere, the mode of expression in Is 38"' being similar to that in Jos 10'", and capable of similar interpretation (see Dial).
Probably, it was shortly after this sickness (c. 714) th.it the messengers arrived from Babylon (2 K •20''''""', Is 39). Even if we must regard the promise of deliverance from the king of As.syria in 2 K 20"' Is 38° as an interpolation, it is certain that about this time H. had reason to apprehend danger from that quarter. Almost from tlie com- mencement of his reign (cf. Is 28) there had been a growing feeling at Jerus. in favour of an alliance with Egypt. The feeling was shared by most of the Pluen. and Philistine powers, and in ;20 a bold attempt was made by Gaza, with the support of Egypt, to throw off the supremacy. The defeat of the allied forces at liaphia crushed the movement before it broke into a general revolt; but Judah was no doubt more or less implicated, and it may have been to what took place at this time that Sargon refers in his Nimrod inscription (c. 717) when he speaks of himself as the 'conqueror of the remote land of Judah '—unless we suppose (with Winckler and Delitzsch) that Judah is here used by mistake for Israel. For the next seven or eight years Sargon was fully occupied in the consolida- tion of his emjiire in the ea.st, and during that time the impression made on Judah and its neighbours by the fate of .Sam.iria ami Dama.scu3 hiui almost w"orn oil', and a w idesprciul conspiracy wa.s forming against the domination of 'the great king.' With this we may connect the embas,.iy from .Merodach- baladan, SarLjon's chief rival, who held the throne of Babylon from 721 till 710 when he was over- thrown, only to regain his independence after Sargon's death, when lie again wore the orovn foi
378
UEZEKIAH
HEZEKl^kn
about nine months, in 704-3 ; and to the latter iicyioJ a few critics would iissij^n his embnssy to Jcius. (Wellliauscn, W. 1{. Smith, Clieyne, McCurdj')- 1 ho ostensible object of the visit was to congratulate H. on his recovery (cf. 2 Ch 32"), but the real purpose (of which the accompanying gifts were a well-understood sign) was to court an alliance against the Assyr. power. The welcome which H. gave to the messengers, and the pride with which he showed them his sacred trca-surcs and military stores, brought upon him, as might have been expected, the severest censure of the prophet ; but the prediction of a Babj-lonian cap- tivity for his family and possessions wears the appearance of a ' vaticinium ex eventu,' havin" nothing in common with the general tone of Isaiah's teaching at this time, which represents everj'thing as culminating in the great struggle with Assyria. Notwithstanding the prophet's inflexible opposition to anj' alliance either with Babylon or Egypt, the danger of Judah's being involved in hostilities only became more threaten- ing during tlie next few years (713-10), as we may judge from the intense earnestness of the prophet s utterances in connexion with the siege of Ashdod (Is 20), when he felt called of God to go about for three years ' naked and barefoot' in token of the fate wliich would overtake the Egyptians and their allies, as well as from Sargon's Ashdod inscription, which mentions the king of Judah among other tributaries who were at this time ' plotters of sedi- tion,' stirring up rebellion against him and bring- ing gifts of friendship to Pharaoh, king of Egypt.