RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Heynlin. Hibbert Lectures
also an embassy to pay homage. The comparison of these statements with the other accounts of Sennacherib's victories shows that the campaign against Hezekiah failed in its principal aim. Probably Sennacherib, during his operations with the main army in Philistia, sent to Judah a division which occupied and devastated the country and also surrounded Jerusalem. Thereupon Hezekiah gave up his enterprise, although he had been one of the leaders in the revolt. He sent the message of his submission to Sennacherib at Lachish, probably after the battle at Eltekeh, and before the fall of Ekron, at the same time surrendering Padi. At first Sennacherib seemed to be satisfied with this; but after Ekron was taken and he decided to move on toward Egypt, he did not consider it prudent to leave Hezekiah's still unimpaired and fortified city in his rear, and he demanded through the rabshak [commander] the surrender of Jerusalem. The surrender of Jerusalem to the Assyrians would have ended the remnant of independence enjoyed by Judah, and would have brought Hezekiah personally into great danger. In his perplexity Hezekiah turned to his God; and just as Isaiah had been right when he told Israel it would be to its injury to take part in world-politics, so also the prophecy which he was then empowered to give proved true. Sennacherib was thus forced to return home without capturing Jerusalem. The cause of his return was probably, according to II Kings xix. 7, the news of a renewal of revolt in Babylonia. In addition to this (if II Kings xix. 9-19, 36 also refers to what took place in 701 B.C., and not, as Winckler conjectures — Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, Leipsic, 1892, pp. 255-258 — to a later event) some great misfortune, probably a plague, befell his army just when he intended to move on toward Egypt.
Although God did not permit the Assyrians to capture Jerusalem, nevertheless Hezekiah became a vassal of Assyria. Of greater value 4. Hezeki- than this semi-independence was the ah's increase of earnest faith which the Later Life pious Jews derived from their misand fortunes. The people, however, soon Deeds. relapsed into the state of immorality; and under Manasseh the moral and religious condition of the people became worse than it had been under Hezekiah. For this reason even in Hezekiah's time (cf. Jer. xxvi. 17-19) Micah prophesied that the day would come when God would deliver Jerusalem to destruction. Hezekiah's intimate relation to his God is shown by the description of the illness which brought him near to death, when, after a fervent prayer of the sick king, he was cured by a remedy employed by Isaiah, lsa. xxxviii. contains a song of thanksgiving ascribed to Hezekiah after his illness, of the authenticity of which there should be no doubt. It is certainly an error on the part of later critics to undervalue the title of the collection of proverbs, Prov. xxv.-xxix. : These are also proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out." This is undeniable testimony that Hezekiah appointed a commission to make a selection of the proverbs of Solomon. That this commission had also other
literary duties, especially that of collecting psalms, is highly probable. Lastly, according to II Kings xx. 20; II Chron. xxxii. 30; Ecclus. xlviii. 17, Hezekiah built a subterranean canal from Gihon, the Virgin's Fountain of to-day, on the eastern slope of the southern spurs of Zion, to a pool at the lower end of the Tyropcean valley. The Siloam Inscription (q.v.), found in this tunnel in 1880, is considered the oldest Hebrew inscription known, and to date from the time of Hezekiah. The Shiloah mentioned in lsa. viii. 6 was probably a watercourse which existed before Hezekiah's day. W Lotz.
Bibliography: Besides the literature given under Ahab, consult: the sources in II Kings xviii.-xx.; II Chron. xxix.-xxxii.; and lsa. xxxvi.-xxxix; R. W. Rogers, Hist, of Babylonia and Assyria, 2 vols., New York, 1900; R. Sinker, Hezekiah and his Age, London, 1897; L. B. Paton, Early Hist, of Syria and Palestine, ib. 1901; J. V. Prasek, Sanheribs Feldziige gegen Juda, in Mitteilungen der vorderasiatischen Oesellschaft, viii. 4, Berlin, 1903; O. Weber, Sanherib, Kbnig von Assyrien, in Der alte Orient, vi. 3, Leipsic, 1903; DB, ii. 376-379; EB, ii. 2058-60; the commentaries on the Scriptural sources; and C. F. Kent, The Student's Old Testament, ii. 499-502, New York, 1905.
HIBBERT LECTURES: Next to the Bampton and the Boyle lectures perhaps the most noteworthy of the lectureships in Great Britain. The lectureship is named from Robert Hibbert (1770- 1849), an English Unitarian, whose business interests were in Jamaica. In 1847 he executed a deed conveying to trustees after the death of his wife $90,000 in American railroad stocks, the income to be applied in a way " most conducive to the spread of Christianity in its most simple and intelligible form, and to the unfettered exercise of the right of private judgment in matters of religion." The income from the funds was ust i for some time in forwarding the independent research of students for the ministry whose attainments were regarded as especially brilliant. In 1878, howe-ver, a part of the funds was set apart for a limited series of years for the establishment of a lectureship to deal with the history of the religions of the world. The result is a series of volumes most of which have taken their place as classics in the subjects of which they treat. Many of the volumes have passed through several editions, and a new uniform edition has been issued, London, 1891-97 The following is a list of the lecturers and their subjects:
1878. F. Max Muller, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by the Religions of India, Oxford, 1878.
1879. P. Le Page Renouf, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion , %js Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt, London, 1880.
1880. J. E. Renan, The Influence of the Institutions, Thought and Culture of Rome on Christianity and the Development of the Catholic Church, ib. 1880.
1881. T. W. Rhys Davids, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by some Points in the History of Indian Buddhism, ib. 1882.
1882. A. Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions, ib. 1882.
1883. C. Beard, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge, ib. 1883.
1884. A. Reville, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, ib. 1884.
1885. O. Pfleiderer, The Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, ib. 1885.
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