745. Accession of Tiglath-Pileser.
746. Death of Uzziah. Accession of Jotham. First vision of Isaiah (Isa. vi.).
735. Accession of Ahaz. Syro-Ephraimitish war.
734-732. Siege and capture of Damascus, and ravage of Northern Israel by Tiglath-Pileser. Visit of Ahaz to Damascus.
727. Accession of Shalmaneser IV.
722. Accession of Sargon. Capture of Samaria, and captivity of the Ten Tribes.
720. Defeat of Sabaco by Sargon at Raphia.
715(?). Accession of Hezekiah.
711. Sargon captures Ashdod.
707. Sargon defeats Merodach-Baladan, and captures Babylon.
705. Murder of Sargon. Accession of Sennacherib.
701. Sennacherib besieges Ekron. Defeats Egypt at Altaqu. Invades Judah, and spares Hezekiah. Invades Egypt, and sends the Rabshakeh to Jerusalem. Disaster of Assyrians at Pelusium, and disappearance from before Jerusalem.
697. Death of Hezekiah. Accession of Manasseh.
681. Death of Sennacherib.
608. Battle of Megiddo. Death of Josiah.
607. Fall of Nineveh and Assyria. Triumph of Babylon.
605. Battle of Carchemish. Defeat of Pharaoh Necho by Nebuchadrezzar.
599. First deportation of Jews to Babylon by Nebuchadrezzar.
588. Destruction of Jerusalem. Second deportation.
538. Cyrus captures Babylon.
536. Decree of Cyrus. Return of Zerubbabel and the first Jewish exiles.
458. Return of Ezra.
2 KINGS xviii
"For Ezekias had done the thing that pleased the Lord, and was strong in the ways of David his father, as Esay the prophet, who was great and faithful in his vision, had commanded him,"--ECCLUS. xlviii. 22.
The reign of Hezekiah was epoch-making in many respects, but especially for its religious reformation, and the relations of Judah with Assyria and with Babylon. It is also most closely interwoven with the annals of Hebrew prophecy, and acquires unwonted lustre from the magnificent activity and impassioned eloquence of the great prophet Isaiah, who merits in many ways the title of "the Evangelical Prophet," and who was the greatest of the prophets of the Old Dispensation.
According to the notice in 2 Kings xviii. 2, Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign in the third year of Hoshea of Israel. This, however, is practically impossible consistently with the dates that Ahaz reigned sixteen years and became king at the age of twenty, for it would then follow that Hezekiah was born when his father was a mere boy--and this, although Hezekiah does not seem to have been the eldest son; for Ahaz had burnt "his son," and, according to the Chronicler, more than one son, to propitiate Moloch. Probably Hezekiah was a boy of fifteen when he began to reign. The chronology of his reign of twenty-nine years is, unhappily, much confused.
The historian of the Kings agrees with the Chronicler, and the son of Sirach, in pronouncing upon him a high eulogy, and making him equal even to David in faithfulness. There is, however, much difference in the method of their descriptions of his doings. The historian devotes but one verse to his reformation--which probably began early in his reign, though it occupied many years. The Chronicler, on the other hand, in his three chapters manages to overlook, if not to suppress, the one incident of the reformation which is of the deepest interest. It is exactly one of those suppressions which help to create the deep misgiving as to the historic exactness of this biassed and late historian. It must be regarded as doubtful whether many of the Levitic details in which he revels are or are not intended to be literally historic. Imaginative additions to literal history became common among the Jews after the Exile, and leaders of that day instinctively drew the line between moral homiletics and literal history. It may be perfectly historical that, as the Chronicler says, Hezekiah opened and repaired the Temple; gathered the priests and the Levites together, and made them cleanse themselves; offered a solemn sacrifice; reappointed the musical services; and--though this can hardly have been till after the Fall of Samaria in 722--invited all the Israelites to a solemn, but in some respects irregular, passover of fourteen days. It may be true also that he broke up the idolatrous altars in Jerusalem, and tossed their _débris_ into the Kidron; and (again after the deportation of Israel) destroyed some of the _bamoth_ in Israel as well as in Judah. If he reinstituted the courses of the priests, the collection of tithes, and all else that he is said to have done,[481] he accomplished quite as much as was effected in the reign of his great-grandson Josiah. But while the Chronicler dwells on all this at such length, what induces him to omit the most significant fact of all--the destruction of the brazen serpent?