In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.' So begins, in all the accounts, and immediately after the discomfiture of Sennacherib, the narrative of Hezekiah's sickness and miraculous recovery (2 Kings xx. ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 24; Is. xxxviii. r). The time is defined, by the promise of fifteen years to be added to the life of Hezeltiah, to the fourteenth year complete, or fifteenth current, of his reign of twenty nine years. But it is stated to have been in the four teenth year of IIezekiah that Sennacherib took the fenced cities of Judah, and thereafter threatened Jeru salem and came to his overthrow. The two notes of time, the express and the implied, fully accord, and place beyond question at least the view of the writer or last redactor in 2 Kings xviii., xix. ; Is. xxxvi., xxxvii., that the Assyrian invasion began before Hezekiah's illness,* and lies in the middle of his reign. In the received chronology, as the first year of Hezekiah precedes the fourth of Jehoiakim first of Nebuchadnezzar (i. e., 604 B.C. in the Canon, 6o6 B.C. in the Hebrew reckoning) by 29, 55, 2, 31, 3 = rzo years, the epoch of the reign is 724 or 726 B.C., and its t4th year 711 or 713 B.C. But it is contended that so early a year is irreconcilable with definite and unquestionable data of contemporary history, Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. The grounds on which that conclu sion rests have been briefly indicated in the article CHRONOLOGY, sec. 12, ff. : a fuller consideration of the facts and necessities of the case is reserved for the articles MERODACH BALADAN and SENNA CHERIB. The present article has confined itself to the Biblical elements of the question.
Some writers have thought to find a note of time in 2 Kings xix. 29, Is. Xxxvii. 30, ` Ye shall eat this year such as growcth of itself,' etc., assuming that the passage is only to be explained as implying the intervention of a sabbath-year, or even of a sabbath-year followed by a year of jubilee. All that can be said is, that the passage may be inter preted in that sense ; and it does happen that ac cording to that view of the order of sabbatic and jubilean years which is the best attested, a sab bath-year would begin in the autumn of B.C. 713 (Ordo Sac/arum, sec. 272-280), e., on the per haps precarious assumption that the cycle persisted without interruption. At most, however, this no more fixes the fourteenth of Hezekiah to the year 713 B.C. , than it does to 706 or 699 or any other year of the series. But, in fact, it is not necessary to assume any reference to a sabbath-year. Suppose the words to have been spoken in the autumn, then, the produce of the previous harvest (April, May) having been destroyed or carried off by the invaders, there remained only that which sprung naturally from the dropt or trodden-out seed (f1=), and as the enemy's presence in the land hindered the autumnal tillage, there could be no regular harvest in the following spring (only thc ahr6,uara). Hence there is no need to infer wit.hrThenius ad loc. that the enemy must have been in the land at least eighteen months, or, with Ewald, that Isaiah, speaking in the autumn, anticipated that the invasion would last through the following year (die Prophetcn des A. B. i. 301, and similarly Knobel u. s., p. 278).
The sign given to Hezekiah in the going back of the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz,' can only be interpreted as a miracle (see DIAL). The ex planation proposed by J. von Gumpach (Alt. Test. Studien, p. 181, ff.) is as incompatible with the terms of the narrative (Is. xxxviii. 8, especially the fuller one, 2 Kings xx. S-I1) as it is insulting to the character of the prophet, who is represented to have managed the seeming return of the shadow by the trick of secretly turning the movable dial from its proper position to its opposite ! Thenius (u. s. p. 403, ff.) would naturalise the miracle so as to obtain from it a note of time. The phenomenon was due, he thinks, to a solar eclipse, very small, viz., the one of 26th September 713 B.C. Here, also, the prophet is taxed with a deception, to be justified by his wish to inspire the despairing king with the confidence essential to his recovery. The prophet employed for this purpose his astrono mical knowledge of the fact that the eclipse was about to take place, and of the further fact that at the beginning of an eclipse the shadow (e.g ,
of a gnomon) goes back, and at its ending goes forward :' an effect, it is true, so minute that the difference amounts at most to sixty seconds of time ; but then, the ` degrees' -would mark ex tremely small portions of time, possibly even ioSo to the hour (like the later Hebrew Ch/akinz), and the so-called dial' was enormously large ! Not more successfully, Mr. Bosanquet (Trans. of R. Asiat. Soc. xv. 277) has recourse to the same ex pedient of an eclipse on Ith Jan. 689 B. C. , which, in this writer's scheme, lies in the fourteenth of Heze kiah (see the art. CHRONOLOGY, sec. 17). Who ever truly believes in the Old Testament, as Mr. Bosanquet evidently does, must also be prepared to believe in a miracle,' is the just comment made by M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs und Babels, p. 49. Mr. Greswell's elaborate attempt to prove from ancient astronomical records that the day of this miracle was preternaturally lengthened out to thirty-six hours will scarcely convince any one bul himself (Fasti Temporis Catholici, etc., and Re marks' on the samc by the present writer, 1152, P• ff.) Between Hezekiah's recovery and the embassy sent from Babylon to congratulate him CM ERO DACH-BALADAN), the narrative implies no greater length of time than would be required for the tid ings to reach Babylon, and the ambassadors to make the journey to Jerusalem. The manner in which Babylon is pointed to as the instrument of a future judgment shews plainly that in the view of the writer or last redactor the Assyrian crisis was past. If in the original record the account of Hezekiah's illness preceded thc Assyrian invasion, this mention of a I3abylonian judgment, and the expression of FIezekiah's thankfulness there shall be peace and truth in my days,' could not form the sequel to that account. And unless we are prepared to assume that the relation of what passed between Isaiah and Hezekiah took its present form and colouring at a later time when the event had verified the prophet's foreboding (Ewald, iii. 346), we must suppose the order of events to be-1. Hezekiah's illness and recovery ; 2. The Assyrian invasion, and Sennachcrib's discomfiture ; 3. The embassy from Babylon—that is, on that construc tion of the chronology which is said to be rendered necessary by external testimony, the Babylonian king sent to congratulate Hezekiah some ten or twelve years after his recovery ! On the ordinary con struction a difficulty arises from the fact that Heze kiah, whose resources were exhausted by the Assy rian tribute, was able only one or two years later to exhibit treasures of wealth to these ambassadors : but this is explained by the notice, 2 Chron. xxxii. 23, of the costly gifts which flowed in from the sur rounding nations after the overthrow of the Assy rians. It is peculiar to the chronicler that hc represents the embassy to have been sent to in quire of the wonder that was done in the land' (xxxii. 31), meaning by the nnin, the sign' ("n, ver. 24) given to Hezekiah, which this writer must therefore have conceived to have in some way attracted the attention of the Chaldean astro nomers. It would be unwise to urge the unsup ported statement of the chronicler, either as iniply ing an eclipse (Thenius, u.s.), or for proof that the preternatural occurrence was noted elsewhere than at Jerusalem. Perhaps he put his own construc tion on a statement in his sources purporting that the ambassadors were sent to congratulate Heze kiah on his recovery, and on the miraculous deli verance afforded by the overthrow of the Assyrians.
After this embassy we have only a general account of the peace and prosperity in which I Hezekiali closed his days.* In later times, he was held in honour as the king who had 'after him none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him' (2 Kings xvifi. 5) ; in Jer. xxvi. 17 the elders of the land cite him as an example of pious submission to the word of the I,ord spoken by Micah ; and the son of Sirach closes his recital of the kings with this judgment— that of all the kings of Judah, David, Ilezekiah, and Josiah alone transgressed not, nor forsook the law of the Most High' (Ecclus xlix. 4).—H. B.