1. The thirteenth king (reckoning Athaliah) of the separate kingdom of Judah, son of Ahaz and Abi or Abi- jah (2 Kings xviii, 2 ; 2 Chron. xxix, 1), born B.C. 751- 750 (2 Kings xviii, 2), and his father's successor on. the throne for twenty-nine years, B.C. 726-697. In both the above texts he is stated to have been twenty-five years old at his accession ; but some, computing (from a comparison with 2 Chron. xxviii, 1) that Ahaz died at the age of thirty-six, make Ilezekiali only twenty years old at his accession (reading 3 for 113), as otherwise he would have been born when Ahaz was a boy eleven years old. This, indeed, is not impossible (Hierou. Ep. ad Vitalem, 132, quoted by Bochart, Geogr. Sacr. p. 920; see Keil on 2 Kings xviii, 1 ; Knobel, Jes. p. 22, etc.) ; but others suppose that A haz Avas twenty-five and not twenty years old at his accession (Sept., Sjt., Arab., 2 Chron. xxviii, 1), reading ilD for D in 2 Kings :s.v\, 2. Neither of these suppositions, however, is necessarj', for Ahaz was fifty years old at his death, and the date there given of the accession of Ahaz is simply that of his viceroyship or association with his father. See Air^vz.
The history of Hezekiah's reign is contained in 2 Kings xviii, 20 ; Isa. xxxvi-xxxix, and 2 Clu-on. xxix- xxxii, illustrated by contemporary prophecies of Isaiah and Micah. He is represented as a great and good king (2 Kings xviii, 5, 6), who set himself, immediately on his accession, to abolish idolatrj', and restore tlie worship of Jehovah, which had been neglected during the care- less and idolatrous reign of his father. This consecra- tion was accompanied by a revival of the theocratic spirit, so strict as not even to spare " the high places," which, though tolerated by many well-intentioned kings, had naturally been profaned by the worship of images and Asherahs (2 Kings xviii, 4). On the extreme im- portance and probable consequences of this measure, see High Place. A stiU more decisive act was the de- struction of a brazen servient, said to have been the one used by Moses in the miraculous healing of the Israelites (Numb, xxi, 9), which had been removed to .Jerusalem, and had become, " down to those days," an object of ad- oration, partly in consequence of its venerable character as a relic, and partly, perhaps, from some dim tendencies to the ophiolatry common in ancient times (Ewald, Gesch. iii, 622). To break up a figure so curious and so highly honored showed a strong mind as weU as a clear-sighted zeal, and Hezekiah briefly justified his procediu-e by call- ing the image 'iri'JnD,"a brazen thing," possibly with a contemptuous play on the word CJn3, "a serpent."
HEZEKIAH
226
HEZEKIAH
How necessary this was in such t'mes may be inferred from the fact that " the brazen serpent" is, or was, rever- enced in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan (Prideaux, Connect, i, 19, Oxf. ed.). The history of this Keforma- tion, of which 2 Kings xviii, 4 sq. gives only a concise summary, is copiously related, from the Levitical point of view,'in 2 Chron. xxix sq. It commenced with the cleansing of the Temple " in the first month" of Heze- kiah's first year, i. c. in the month Nisan next after his accession, and was followed in the next month (because at the rcgiUar season neither Levites nor Temple were in a due state of preparation) by a great Passover, ex- tended to fourteen days, to which not only all Judah was summoned, but also the " remnant" of the Ten Tribes, some of whom accepted the invitation. Some writers (as Jahn, Keil, and Caspari) contend that this passover must have been subsequent to the fall of Samaria, alleg- ing that the mention of the " remnant" (2 Cliron. xxx, 6) is unsuitable to an earlier period, and that, while the kingdom of Samaria stiU subsisted, Hezekiah's messen- gers would not have been suffered to pass through the land, much less woidd the destruction of the high places in Ephraim and jManasseh have been permitted (xxxi, 1). But the intention of the chronicler at least is plain enough : the connection of xxix, 17, " the first month," mth xxx, 2, "the second month," admits of but one con- struction— that both are meant to belong to one and the same year, the first of the reign. Accordingly, Thenius, in the Krif. exeg. Hdh. 2 Kings, p. 379, urges this as an argument against the historical character of the whole narrative of this passover, which, he thinks, " rendered antecedently improbable by the silence of the Book of Kings, is perhaps completely refuted by 2 Kings xxiii, 22. The author of the storj', wishing to place in the strongest light Hezekiah's zeal for religion, represents him, not Josiah, as the restorer of the Passover after long desuetude, and this in the very beginning of his reign, without, perhaps, caring to reflect that the final deporta- tion of the Ten Tribes, implied in xxx, G, had not then taken place." But 2 Kings xxiii, 22, taken in connec- tion, as it ought to be, with the preceding verse, is per- fectly compatible with the account in the Chronicles. It says : " Surely such a Passover" — one kept in all re- spects " as it is written in the Book of the Covenant" — "was not holden from the time of the Judges," etc. : whereas Hezekiah's Passover, though kept with even greater joy and fervor than Josiah's, was held neither at the appointed season, nor in strict conformity with the law. Nor is it necessary to suppose that by " the rem- nant" the chronicler understood those who were left by Shalmaneser. Kather, his view is, that the people of the Ten Tribes, untaught by the judgments brought upon them by former reverses and partial deportations (un- der Tiglath-Pileser), with respect to which they might well be called a "remnant" (comp.the very similar terms in which even Judah is spoken of, xxxix, 8, 9), and scorn- fully rejecting the last call to repentance, brought upon themselves their final judgment and complete overthrow (Bertheau, Kfif. exec/. Hdb. 2 Chron. p. 395 sq.). Those, however, of the Ten Tribes who had taken part m the solemnity were thereby (such is evidently the chroni- cler's view of the matter, xxxi, 1) inspired with a zeal for the true religion which enabled them, on their return home, in defiance of all opposition on the part of the scorners or of Iloshea, to effect a destruction of the high places and altars in Ephraim and Manasseh, as complete as was effected in Jerusalem before, and ui Judah aft«r the Passover.