"And he called it _Nehushtan_." If this rendering--in which our A.V. and R.V. follow the LXX. and the Vulgate--be correct, Hezekiah justified the iconoclasm by a brilliant play of words.[490] The Hebrew words for "a serpent" (_nachash_) and for brass (_nechosheth_) are closely akin to each other; and the king showed his just estimate of the relic which had been so shamefully abused by contemptuously designating it--as it was in itself and apart from its sacred historic associations--"nehushtan," a thing of brass. The rendering, however, is uncertain, for the phrase may be impersonal--"one" or "they" called it Nehushtan[491]--in which case the assonance had lost any ironic connotation.[492]
For this act of purity of worship, and for other reasons, the historian calls Hezekiah the best of all the kings of Judah, superior alike to all his predecessors and all his successors. He regarded him as coming up to the Deuteronomic ideal, and says that therefore "the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth."
The date of this great reformation is rendered uncertain by the impossibility of ascertaining the exact order of Isaiah's prophecies. The most probable view is that it was gradual, and some of the king's most effective measures may not have been carried out till after the deliverance from Assyria. It is clear, however, that the wisdom of Hezekiah and his counsellors began from the first to uplift Judah from the degradation and decrepitude to which it had sunk under the reign of Ahaz. The boy-king found a wretched state of affairs at his accession. His father had bequeathed to him "an empty treasury, a ruined peasantry, an unprotected frontier, and a shattered army";[493] but although he was still the vassal of Assyria, he reverted to the ideas of his great-grandfather Uzziah. He strengthened the city, and enabled it to stand a siege by improving the water-supply. Of these labours we have, in all probability, a most interesting confirmation in the inscription by Hezekiah's engineers, discovered in 1880, on the rocky walls of the subterranean tunnel (_siloh_) between the spring of Gihon and the Pool of Siloam.[494] He encouraged agriculture, the storage of produce, and the proper tendance of flocks and herds, so that he acquired wealth which dimly reminded men of the days of Solomon.
There is little doubt that he early meditated revolt from Assyria; for renewed faithfulness to Jehovah had elevated the moral tone, and therefore the courage and hopefulness, of the whole people. The Forty-Sixth Psalm, whatever may be its date, expresses the invincible spirit of a nation which in its penitence and self-purification began to feel itself irresistible, and could sing:--
"God is our hope and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved, Though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea. There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The Holy City where dwells the Most High. God is in the midst of her; therefore shall she not be shaken: God shall help her, and that right early. Heathens raged and kingdoms trembled: He lifted His voice--the earth melted away. Jehovah of Hosts is with us; Elohim of Jacob is our refuge."[495]
It was no doubt the spirit of renewed confidence which led Hezekiah to undertake his one military enterprise--the chastisement of the long-troublesome Philistines. He was entirely successful. He not only won back the cities which his father had lost,[496] but he also dispossessed them of their own cities, even unto Gaza, which was their southernmost possession--"from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city."[497] There can be no doubt that this act involved an almost open defiance of the Assyrian King; but if Hezekiah dreamed of independence, it was essential for him to be free from the raids and the menace of a neighbour so dangerous as Philistia, and so inveterately hostile. It is not improbable that he may have devoted to this war the money which would otherwise have gone to pay the tribute to Shalmaneser or Sargon, which had been continued since the date of the appeal of Ahaz to Tiglath-Pileser II. When Sargon applied for the tribute Hezekiah refused it, and even omitted to send the customary present.