HEZEKIAH (` Strength of the Lord,' IMP1r1 *• : • and mptri, and in both forms with initial 4, LXX. 'Ei-cnias), son and successor of Ahaz, reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. There is some thing wrong- in the numbers, according to which he was twenty-five years old at the death of Ahaz, whose reign of sixteen years began when he was twenty years old ; for so Hezekiah would have been born only eleven years after his father. The error cannot lie in the number sixteen, which is attested by the synchronisms ; but the difficulty would be solved by supposing either Ahaz twenty. five, or Hezekiah twenty years old at accession. And as the LXX., followed by the Peshito, Arabic, and some copies of the Hebrew, does in fact read twenty-five' for the 'twenty' of the received text in 2 Cbron. xxviii. t, the former is the solution usually adopted. The history of the reign is contained in 2 KingS XViii.-Xx., IS. XxXVi.-XXXiX., and 2 Chron.
xxix. -xxxii., illustrated by contemporary prophecies of Isaiah and Micah. Hezekiah is represented as a great and good king (2 Kings xviii. 5, 6), who set himself, immediately on his accession, to abolish idolatry, and restore the worship of Jehovah. The history of this Reformation, of which 2 Kings xviii. 4 ff. gives only a concise summary, is copiously re lated, from the Levitical point of view, in Chron. xxix. ff. It commenced with the cleansing of the Temple ` in the first month' of Hezekiah's first year, a, in the month Nisan next after his acces sion, and was followed in the next month (because at the regular season neither Levites nor Temple were in a due state of preparation) by a great Pass over, extended to fourteen days, to which not only all Judah was summoned, but also the remnant' of the Tcn Tribcs, some of whom accepted the invitation. Some writers (as Jahn, Keil, and Cas pari) contend that this passovcr must have been subsequent to the fall of Samaria, alleging that the mention of the remnant' (2 Chron. xxx. 6) is un suitable to an earlier period, and that, while the kingdom of Samaria still subsisted, Hezekiali's messengers would not have been suffered to pass through the land, much less would the destruction of the high-places in Ephraim and Manasseh have been permitted (xxxi. r). But the intention of the chronicler at least is plain enough : the connection of xxix. 17, the first month,' with XXX. 2, the second month,' admits of but one constmction— that both are meant to belong to one and the same year, tbe first of the reig,n. Accordingly, Thenius, in the kgf. exeg. Hdb. 2 Kings, p. 379, urges this as an ar,,c,-ument 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
story, wishing to place in the strorwest light Heze lciah's zeal for religion, represents tiim, 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 deportatior.
of the Ten Tribes, implied in xxx. 6, had not then taken place.' But 2 Kings xxiii. 22, taken in connection, as it ought to be, with the preceding verse, is perfectly compatible with the account in the Chronicles. Tt says : Surely such a Passover'— one kept in all respects as it is written in the Book of the Covenant'—' was not holden from the time of the Judges,' etc. : whereas IIezekiah's Passover, though kept with even greater joy and fervour 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 remnant' the chronicler understood those who were left by Shal maneser. Rather, his view is, that the people of the Ten Tribes, untaught by the judgments brought upon them by former reverses and partial deporta tions (under Tiglath-Pileser), in respect of which they might well be called a remnant' (comp. the very similar terms in which even Judah is spoken of, xxix. 8, 9), and scornfully rejecting the last call to repentance, brought upon themselves their final judgment and complete overthrow (Bertheau, kgf. exeg. Hdb. 2 Chron. p. 395 ff.) Those, however, of the Ten Tribes who had taken part in the so lemnity were thereby (such is evidently the chro nicler's view of the matter, xxxi. I) 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 Hoshea, to effect a destruction of the high-places and altars in Ephrahn and Manasseh, as complete as was effected in Jeru salem before, and in Judah after the Passover. The notice of the reformation in 2 Kings xviii., brief as it is, and confined to IIezekiah's destruction of the bamoth, images, and asherah in his own king dom, specifies one notable act unmentioned by the chronicler—his breaking in pieces the brazen ser pent which Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it, and (men) called it (it was known as) Nehushtan,' the Brazen (god). So the passage must be understood. See Ewald, /lust. Lehr& sec. 163, Cesch. iii. 328.