Life
A Biblical account of this king is contained within Two Kings 18:20, Isaiah 36-39, and Deuce Story 29-32. These sources portray him as a awesome & practiced king, as a consequence a case of his awesome-grandfather Uzziah. He introduced religious reform, reinstated religious traditions. He placed himself to abolish idolatry from either his kingdom, & among more items which he did for this prevent, he destroyed a "brazen serpent," which had been relocated at Jerusalem, and got turn into an object of idolatrous worship. A great reformation was wrought inside the kingdom of Judah in his day (Ii Kings 18:4; Ii Chronicles 29:3-36). Andy skinner of Ii Kings terminates his account of Hezekiah by owning praise (18:5).

Between a dying of Sargon, and a succession of his boy Sennacherib, Hezekiah sought to throw off his dependence to the Assyrian kings. He refused to pay a tribute enforced in his father, & "rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not," however entered into the league sustaining Egypt (Isaiah 30; 31; 36:6-9). This led to the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13-16) in the 4th month of Sennacherib (701 BC). Hezekiah anticipated the Assyrian invasion, & mass produced at least a single major preparation: within an telling engineering exploit, a burrow 533 meters yearn was dug sequentially to provide Jerusalem underground access to the waters of the Spring of Gihon, which lay outside the city. (A function is described in the Siloam Inscription, which has been dated to his reign on the basis of its script). At a equivalent period, a wall was built about the Pool of Siloam, into which a waters from either the spring flowed (Isaiah 22:11). An telling tincture of this structure is the wide wall up the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

"When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, intent on making war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his officers and warriors about stopping the flow of the springs outside the city ... for otherwise, they thought, the King of Assyria would come and find water in abundance" (Ii History 32:2-Four). Sennacherib records in his monumental inscription, "The Prism of Sennacherib", how around his campaign against Hezekiah ("Ha-za-qi-(i)a-ú") he took 46 cities in that campaign (column Trio, line Nineteen of Taylor prism), and besieged Jerusalem ("Ur-sa-li-im-mu") by owning earthworks. One of these days Hezekiah saw Sennacherib's determination, & offered to pay him 3 hundred talents of silver and 30 of gold within tribute, despoiling a Temple to produce a promised total (18:14-16).

A story in the Bible states Sennacherib invaded Judah (Isaiah 33:1; Two Kings 18:17; Two Chronicles 32:9; Isaiah 36) & besieged Jerusalem. Based on data from a Biblical accounts, this invasion ended in the destruction of Sennacherib's army, after Hezekiah prayed to God & "that night the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 men." Andy skinner of the Books of Kings remembers to include a fact that (19:37), 17 years late, Sennacherib was assassinated by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer, and Esarhaddon became the Assyrian king. There exists likewise a less miraculous account from either the Assyrian side, that Sennacherib raised his siege of Jerusalem when Hezekiah acknowledged Sennacherib as his overlord & paid him tribute.

A tale of Hezekiah's infection & miraculous recovery is uncovered within Deuce Kings 20:1, 2 Chronicles 32:24, Isaiah 38:1. Various ambassadors come to congratulate him in his recovery, among the babies Merodach-baladan, the king of Babylon (2 Chronicles 3Two:23; 2 Kings 20:12).

Chronological Problems
There exists considerable uncertainty all about a actual dates of his reign. 1st, the Biblical records conflict, when it wash for a total of rulers of Israel & Judah. Ii Kings 18:10 dates a fall of Samaria to the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, which would produce 728 BCE the year of his accession. Notwithstanding, verse Xiii of the equivalent chapter states that Sennacherib invaded Judah inside a fourteenth year of Hezekiah; the Assyrian records leave without doubt that this invasion took place in 701 BCE, which would fix 715 BCE as Hezekiah's initial year, which would exist as confirmed per account of his sickness. Inside chapter Eighteen of Deuce Kings these are stated that in a period of the 14th season of his reign, Sennacherib experienced returned to pillage Samaria, setting higher his base of operations at Lachish and threatening Jerusalem, forcing Hezekiah to pay tribute. When a description inside chapter Twenty of Hezekiah's unwellness immediately follows Sennacherib's departure, this would date his malady to his 14th season, which is confirmed by Isaiah's statement that he may survive xv further years (29-15=Fourteen). His fourteenth season existence 701 BCE, the foremost must use at times been 715 BCE.

A second placed of calculations indicate these are likely that Hezekiah did non ascend a potty prior to 722 BCE. By Albright's calculations, Jehu's initial year is 842 BCE; & between it and Samaria's destruction a Books of Kings give a aggregate total of a years a kings of Israel ruled when 143 7/12, when for the kings of Judah the total is 165. This discrepancy, amounting within the out break of Judah to 45 years (165-120), has been accounted for in various ways; however each one of people theories must allow that Hezekiah's number 1 six years too when Ahaz's last deuce fell prior to 722 BCE. Nor would it be clearly known how else old Hezekiah was while known as to the potty, although Two Kings 18:2 states he was twenty-xxv years aged. His father (Ii Kings 16:2) died at the age of thirty-six; these are non in all likelihood that Ahaz at a age of eleven should will have a boy. Hezekiah's have boy Manasseh ascended a potty twenty-29 years late, at the age of dozen. This stores his birth in the seventeenth month of his father's reign, or even gives Hezekiah's age when forty-both, whenever he was twenty-25 at his ascension. These are further likely that Ahaz was twenty-21 or even twenty-xxv whenever Hezekiah was innate (& suggesting an error in a text), & that a latter was thirty-both at the birth of his boy & successor, Manasseh.

However an additional date is conceivable by astronomic calculations. Deuce Kings 20:8-11 speaks obscurely just about "the shadow" moving "ten degrees" when you took a above mentioned malady of Hezekiah (when does Isaiah 38:7f). Professor Aurel Ponori-Thewrewk, retired director of the planetarium of Budapest, Hungary, may use been a number 1 scholar to offer an astronomic explanation for this passage; researching that fresh Bible translations use "the sundial of Ahaz," patch more Bibles "the stairway of Ahaz," he states that a original Hebrew text says ma(100)alóth, a plural form of ma(hundred)alah. So, his guide is that it experienced a double meaning: when it refers to a steps concluded which the shadow has already passed, it can develop intended the instrument (?) of Ahaz which experienced plainly contained further than decade units, & in which Hezekiah may watch a movement of the sun's shadow. However whatever was a original meaning of a Hebrew word, Ponori-Thewrewk says, the shadow experienced processed an abnormal movement on that. He imagines the pole or even gnomon that casts the shadow in a plane that is perpendicular to that. A shadow might move in the lead awhile, so it could move feebleminded on it plane.

John D. Davis, Davis dictionary of the Bible (Baker Book House, 1975: 184) confirms the possibility that 2 Kings 20:11 and Isaiah 38:8 may be explained by a solar eclipse, and the stairway of Ahaz may have been a sundial with a projecting gnomon to cast a shadow. A foretold feebleminded position of the sun's shadow, stand been from either an occultatiin of the sun, probably on May 6, 724 BCE. This occultation took place between 6:09 & 8:24 the.m., its uttermost was 64.3% at 7:15 the.m. This would so date Hezekiah's number 1 season when king to 738 BCE, and his go to 709 BCE. These are conceivable that Isaiah (38: 7-8) got been informed advance by an uranologist, maybe by one of Merodach-baladan's envoys, all about the potential date of a solar eclipse in May 6, so Isaiah comforted a king in May 3.

An guide interpretation of Hezekiah's reign spans 727 BCE-698 BCE with Manasseh co-reigning for some years as a teen. This tries to harmonize a information to Hezekiah regnant when you took a conquest of Samaria (2 Kings 18:9-10), & assumes a information to Sennacherib's attack around 701 was either another campaign or even that a information to that existence in Hezekiah's 14th month occurs as corruption.

Religious reforms

King Hezekiah introduced real religious reforms when you took his reign. It involved a ensuing: Hezekiah renewed worship of Adonai, a Israelite God. He abolished idolatry which experienced resumed under his father's reign. He abolished he shrines & sozzled a pillars & cut down the sacred post. He too broke into pieces a bronze serpent which Moses got manufactured, for until that instance a Israelites got been offering sacrifices thereto "(2 Kings 18:4). He resumed the Passover pilgrimage and the tradition of inviting the scattered tribes of Israel to take part in a Passover festival (Chronicles 30:13, 26).

Seals
Two distinct classes of seal impressions have been found in Israel relating to King Hezekiah:

LMLK seals on storage jar handles, excavated from strata formed by Sennacherib's destruction as well as immediately above that layer suggesting they were used throughout his 29-year reign (Grena, 2004, p. 338)

Bullae from sealed documents, some that may have belonged to Hezekiah himself (Grena, 2004, p. 26, Figs. 9 and 10) while others name his servants (obed in Hebrew), all from the antiquities market and subject to authentication disputes (see Biblical archaeology)

Resources
* Austin, Lynn. Gods And Kings. (ISBN 0764229893); a fictionalized account of Hezekiah's rise to power, Book 1 in Austin's "History of the Kings" series