The Rise and Fall of Hezekiah

Introduction

Today we conclude our study of Isaiah’s historical interlude. In the midst of a flurry of prophecies against Israel, against Judah, and against the nations, Isaiah stops to recount a handful of critical events in the life of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and in the life of her king, Hezekiah.

Isaiah provides this interlude to prove in space-time history that Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel, is emphatically a God of His word. What Yahweh has determined, will come to pass. What He has decreed, cannot fail.

It is one thing to make a pronouncement of salvation through judgment. It is yet another to be an eyewitness to the unfolding of that salvation. Isaiah does both, and provides those records for us here in these four chapters.

But Isaiah is also teaching us something incredibly important in these four chapters. Through Hezekiah’s life, Isaiah is teaching us about the character and works of the priest-king of Israel, the one who rules God’s people as a Mediator-King.

Hezekiah reaches the heights of faithfulness. Yet even he falls short, leaving Isaiah’s readers and listeners yearning for the true and better Hezekiah, the true and better priest-king.

Today as we focus on chapters 38 and 39, I want to orient our study around three simple investigative questions: who, what, and why.

First, let’s talk about the who: Hezekiah.

Hezekiah the Priest-King

Hezekiah has been the focus of these four chapters. We need to get our heads wrapped around who exactly he is as we seek to understand what he does and what happens to him in these chapters.

There is a wealth of Biblical data on Hezekiah, and he is the most prominently figured king of Israel described in the Old Testament behind only Saul, David, and Solomon.

Now we don’t have time to dig into the details of Hezekiah’s reign, but we would do well to observe a few facts about him that help us set the stage for the dramatic story before us this morning.

Hezekiah was a Davidic king. Hezekiah was part of the royal line of David, 14 generations removed from David himself. Thus we can see already that even by virtue of his very existence, Hezekiah’s life reflects the faithfulness of God. God had promised that David would not lack a man to sit upon his throne and so Hezekiah, at least in part, exists in fulfillment of that promise.

Hezekiah was a Godly king. No other king of Israel received the kind of positive treatment from the pen of the royal chronicler that Hezekiah receives. He is regarded on multiple occasions as a king who did what was good and right in the sight of God. We read in 2 Chronicles 29:2 that he did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.

Hezekiah was a lawful king. What I mean by this is that Hezekiah instituted mass reforms amongst the nation of Israel in an effort to return the nation to Mosaic civil and religious customs. While never explicitly recorded, the implication, especially in 2 Chronicles 29, based on the developments there as well as the record of Hezekiah’s close relationship with the Levites, is that Hezekiah was perhaps one of the only kings other than David, Solomon, and Josiah to follow the final roayl commandment given by Moses in Deuteronomy 17:18-20 ““Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. “It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.”

Hezekiah was a priestly king. One of the key underlying themes of the Old Testament is the anticipation of a king over God’s people who would also function as a priest - mediating the presence of God to the people. This priest-king pattern is observed in Adam, Moses, and David in rudimentary form, the prophets foretell a future priest-king, and Hezekiah fits these patterns. We see in 2 Chronicles 29:5 that Hezekiah commands the Levites, “Listen to me, O Levites. Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place.” And again in 2 Chronicles 29:15 we see that the Levites follow Hezekiah’s lead as they assembled their brothers, consecrated themselves, and went in to cleanse the house of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king by the words of the Lord. So Hezekiah provides respected leadership to the priests and Levites during his reformation efforts in Judah. Further we throughout Hezekiah’s life that he is no stranger to going up to the house of Lord to prayer and offer sacrifices, whether in 2 Chronicles 29:20-21 which says, then King Hezekiah arose early and assembled the princes of the city and went up to the house of the Lord. They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs and seven male goats for a sin offering for the kingdom, the sanctuary, and Judah. And he ordered the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord, or Isaiah 37:1 which says and when King Hezekiah heard the report from the messengers, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord.

Hezekiah was a singing king. 2 Chronicles 29:25-30 record Hezekiah leading the people in the singing of the psalms of his father David: “He then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps and with lyres, according to the command of David and of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the Lord through His prophets. The Levites stood with the musical instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. Then Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord also began with the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David, king of Israel. While the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. Now at the completion of the burnt offerings, the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped. Moreover, King Hezekiah and the officials ordered the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with joy, and bowed down and worshiped.” We need to note here that Hezekiah has a working familiarity with the psalms of David.

Hezekiah was a Solomonic king. Not only was Hezekiah in the line of Judah and David, and by extension Solomon, his reign also evoked the memory of the reign of Solomon, and the chronicler draws a direct comparison in 2 Chronicles 30:26 “So there was great joy in Jerusalem, because there was nothing like this in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.”

Hezekiah was a prosperous king. 2 Chronicles 31:21 says “Every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandment, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered.” and again in 2 Chronicles 32:27-29 “Now Hezekiah had immense riches and honor; and he made for himself treasuries for silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields and all kinds of valuable articles, storehouses also for the produce of grain, wine and oil, pens for all kinds of cattle and sheepfolds for the flocks. He made cities for himself and acquired flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very great wealth.”

Hezekiah was a flawed king. 2 Chronicles 30 shows us two instances where Hezekiah was unable to keep the priestly law perfectly. He didn’t have enough priests, they weren’t consecrated properly, so they had to shift some dates around, and overall things were not done exactly according to the book, as it were. And more than that we see at the end of Hezekiah’s life that he acted in pride and boastfulness as he showed all his visitors from Babylon the wealth that he had built over the course of his reign. The ironic end, as it always is, is God allowing the punishment to fit the crime, for Isaiah comes to Hezekiah and declares to him that all his wealth will be taken away to Babylon, the very people to whom he bragged about his wealth.

So we see at least 8 characteristics of Hezekiah here. He is a Davidic, Godly, lawful, priestly, singing, Solomonic, prosperous, and flawed king. Now this could make nice chapter headings for a book on Hezekiah or a good outline for a character study of a Biblical figure. But each of these characteristics figures closely into the narrative before us today. As we move through I hope to demonstrate why. So having considered the who: Hezekiah, we now consider the what: what happened to Hezekiah in this story and what did he do?

Act I - The Resurrection

So after the drama of chapters 36 and 37, Hezekiah has become mortally ill. Now it would seem that Isaiah here is providing a close up snapshot of an event that occurred within the timeframe of chapters 36-37. I don’t get into the details but we have a number of historical records and observations within the text to indicate that 36-37 and 38-39 are not successive stories but concurrent stories.

So we read here that Isaiah is mortally ill. It might be better to translate this phrase ill unto death, or sick unto death. The NIV translates it like this: he became ill and was at the point of death.

This is no trivial illness. This isn’t a head cold. This isn’t the rumbly tumblies. This is Hezekiah, the great king, the one who trusted God and saw the most powerful army in the world decimated and turned back, on his death bed.

Then matters become even more grave. Isaiah the prophet, the man of God, the chief counselor of the Godly kings of his day, comes with a word from the Lord: set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. Now the fear of Hezekiah is made even more real. This will certainly come to pass.

But remember: Hezekiah is a priestly king. Hezekiah has the confidence to come before God in prayer. So he does just that. He prays to the Lord in verse 3.

Here we see Hezekiah the singing king and Hezekiah the Davidic king, as he echoes the words of His father David, written 14 generations before:

Psalm 18:1–6 NASB95

“I love You, O Lord, my strength.” The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me. The cords of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

Hezekiah prays with passion, begging the Lord to deliver him from death.

Then Isaiah returns with another word from the Lord.

Isaiah 38:5–8 NASB95

“Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. “I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city.” ’ “This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken: “Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairway, which has gone down with the sun on the stairway of Ahaz, to go back ten steps.” So the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the stairway on which it had gone down.

Yahweh acknowledges Hezekiah’s Davidic prayer, and answers it, granting Hezekiah 15 more years of life. But beyond that, He also promises to deliver him and the city from the hand of the King of Assyria, and then confirms His word with a sign only seen one other time in Scripture: the altering of the course of the sun.

A quick historical note here: some commentators and scholars have suggested that these steps were a massive sundial. In the 2 Kings account of this event, they are called the steps of Ahaz, which suggest that they are not just some steps that go up to King Hezekiah’s room in the palace, but that this was an actual monument of some kind.

In any case, there is a heavy dose of symbolism here. God turns back time, as it were, to demonstrate to Hezekiah that He is turning back time on his life.

Now here in the text, Isaiah includes a kind of long form parallel. Essentially he is going back to verse 2 and repeating the story, but in an expanded form. So we see the extended version of the prayer, Isaiah’s response, and Hezekiah’s inquiry after the sign, which appears directly after the prayer according to the word of Isaiah.

Let’s look closely at Hezekiah’s deeply personal and intimate account of his recovery.

He begins in verse 10 by describing in vivid terms his encounter with death. At the noon of his life, literally translated, he is to pass over into death. It would seem, based on some of the other timelines and datestamps we have in Scripture that Hezekiah was about 39 or 40 years old at this time. Certainly in the middle of his life.

He goes on to lament the fact that he will not see the Lord in the land of the living and will be deprived of his human relationships. With picturesque verbage he describes being pulled up like a tent, or being rolled up like a piece of fabric that is cut off from the weaver’s loom.

Then he describes his pain - broken bones, moaning, physical oppression. In verse 15 he acknowledges that even his pain is from God.

In verse 16 he begs the Lord: restore me to health and let me live! He continues by acknowledging that God had allowed him to live despite his sins.

Then in verse 18 he appeals to God’s glory: If I die, I can no longer praise you as I teach my children to praise you.

Finally, he expresses confidence: The Lord will surely save me, so I can continue to sing his praises with my children at the house of the Lord.

Then Isaiah ties the story back in to the first part of the section by recording his own preparation of a fig cake as a remedy.

Some commentators have pointed out that for boils on the skin, figs are a terrible remedy and in fact may actually cause additional harm. If so, this detail would seem to suggest a practical, real life demonstration of God using what humans would consider weak, foolish, and otherwise generally wrong to demonstrate his own power and wisdom and righteousness. He is the one who healed Hezekiah, not Isaiah, not a doctor, not Hezekiah himself. And he did so by using something that would normally be laughable as a remedy.

So we’ve seen act one. Let’s turn our attention now to Hezekiah’s final act as king in Isaiah’s record.

Act II - The Downfall

At this point in time, Hezekiah is rather notorious in the Middle East. He effectively thwarted the siege of Assyria upon Judea and Jerusalem, he miraculously recovered from his death bed, he has managed to lead the Southern Kingdom of Judah with great conviction and clarity, and according to the Chronicler, is the only king in the history of the nation to come close to the fame and glory of Solomon. So, much as it was in Solomon’s day, Hezekiah attracts the attention of the watching world. For Solomon, it was the Queen of Sheba. For Hezekiah, it was Merodach-baladan, the prince of Babylon.

Now Merodach’s extended hand of good will may not be as innocuous as it seems. The text indicates nothing more than that Merodach knew of Hezekiah, heard he had recovered, and sent him a letter and a gift. Nothing to make a big deal of.

However, we need to keep the context in mind. Hezekiah just seemingly decimated the most powerful army in the world back in chapter 37. Now we know it was not Hezekiah but Hezekiah’s God, but for the sake of the narrative put yourself in the shoes of Merodach, a pagan king. Further, the most powerful king in the world has just been assassinated by his own sons in the wake of the destruction of his army, again seemingly by Hezekiah. Finally, Hezekiah has just seemingly cheated death. Again we know that this is from the hand of God, but Merodach the pagan doesn’t care about that.

This would appear to be purely a political move by Merodach. He sees the power vacuum that has just been created. Assyria basically doesn’t appear in the pages of Scripture or on the world political stage from here on out. The decimation of the army and the death of Sennacherib effectively marked the end of the Assyrian Empire, and from all external appearances, Hezekiah King of Judah was the one who brought it about. Hezekiah is not the guy you want to be opposed to right now. So Merodach seizes the opportunity to get on friendly terms with Hezekiah.

But here’s where Hezekiah makes a key mistake. He should know by now, given the prophecies that Isaiah has made about foolish alliances, that he should be wary of a rising pagan world power suddenly extending an arm of good will to him. But he is not wary. Instead he receives the envoy with joy and gladness. It pleased him to do so. Now Isaiah’s record is rather neutral on Hezekiah’s reasoning behind this, though in the next few verses Isaiah does imply what was going on for Hezekiah in making the decision to receive this envoy joyfully and and to show them all his riches and wealth.

However, the Chronicler gives us some insight into the underlying causes of this decision in 2 Chronicles 32. There, the Chronicler says that Hezekiah was prideful in his heart, and did not respond with humility and gratitude for the answer the Lord provided to his prayer for deliverance from death. The Chronicler further comments that God sent the envoys from Babylon to test Hezekiah, to see what was in his heart, and it is in that visit from the envoys that Hezekiah’s great flaw is exposed: his pride in his accomplishments.

So Hezekiah acts in pride by showing the envoy from Babylon everything in his house and in his treasuries, and then Isaiah shows up again, and asks what’s going on. Hezekiah tells him, and then Isaiah brings a final word from the Lord to Hezekiah.

This is an ironic word of punishment against Hezekiah. Let the punishment fit the crime, as Gilbert and Sullivan might say. Hezekiah showed all his treasures to Babylon, and to Babylon they will go.

And more than his treasures, even some of his sons will be carried off to Babylon to serve in the house of the king.

And sure enough, in the very next chapter in the Chronicler’s account, Mannaseh, Hezekiah’s son, is taken away to Babylon, as a kind of precursor to Jehoiachin’s exile to Babylon over 100 years later.

The Why: Discerning Authorial Intent

Now these are two interesting stories about Hezekiah, to be sure. But there is always a challenge that comes with preaching narratives in the Old Testament. My job is not to merely teach you about the historical realities. My job is to reflect on the words of the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:12, knowing that every word written in the Old Testament was written to serve the people of God for all time, and then discern and determine how exactly it serves us today, and then communicate that to you for your encouragement, exhortation, and upbuilding.

So the question we need to ask then, knowing already that every word is given for this purpose, we need to ask how and why it connects to us. Simply, why was this included in the Bible and what do we do with it? Again, the Bible is not trying to be an exhaustive compendium of ancient near eastern history. It is not trying to be an encyclopedia. It was not intended for that. It was intended to teach, to reprove, to correct, and to train in righteousness. So how does this text do that? I want to highlight 5 ways.

These stories are included to demonstrate how God deals with those who worship him rightly and those who worship him wrongly. Don’t let the contrast of 38:5 and 37:38 be lost on you. Sennacherib is worshipping a false god, and through his own sons, God destroys him. Hezekiah worships the one true and living God, and by the record of his life, does so in keeping with God’s laws about how we are to approach him, and God spares his life. Our charge then is to ensure that we worship God rightly. First, do we worship him at all? Or do we worship false gods of our own making? Second, do we worship the one true and living God as he is and as he has revealed himself to us? Or do we worship our own version of God that suits our wants and needs and desires? Do we worship a God who has made us in His image? Or do we worship a God whom we have made in our own image? Thirdly, do we worship Him in total reliance upon our union with Christ to make our worship acceptable to him? Do we trust that Christ has made us pure and subsequently has made our worship pure? Fourthly, is our worship pure of heart before Him? Do we worship God for God? Or do we worship him because we secretly want to get something from it? Do we worship God in hopes that he will help us feel better about ourselves? That he’ll help us feel like a winner? Do we worship God in hopes that he will heal our sicknesses? Do we worship God in hopes that He will give us a jet? Or do we worship God because He Himself is greater than our self-esteem, greater than our health, greater than our riches, greater than anything we could ask or think? Do we worship him because he is supremely true, supremely good, and supremely beautiful? Do we worship him because we acknowledge in humility that to worship Him is the greatest privilege we could receive? Friends, let our worship be true and right this morning in Christ. Let it be rightly directed. Let it be rightly empowered. Let it be rightly motivated.

These stories are included to demonstrate how we are to pray in sickness. God does not guarantee that he will heal us every time when we pray for physical healing. But what Isaiah does for us here as he records Hezekiah’s prayer is he demonstrates to us what right prayer for physical healing looks like. As we pray for our own health and the health of others, we should pray with honesty about our state, we should pray with appeals to God’s character and promises, we should pray with confidence in God’s healing power, and with even more confidence in God’s resurrecting power, for we know that even if God does not heal our present bodies in this life, he will give us new bodies in the life to come.

These stories are included to demonstrate God’s dealings with human pride. Hezekiah is given a new lease on life, and fails to give credit where credit is due, and then on top of that, flaunts his accomplishments before a pagan king. God takes these kinds of affronts seriously, and while God’s favor is not taken away from Hezekiah, and his faithfulness early in his life is not diminished, nevertheless God ensures that his descendants will be brought into captivity, and all his wealth and riches will be taken off to Babylon. Our charge this morning then is to check our pride. Do we elevate our own accomplishments as our own doing or do we consider all things as they truly are: good gifts from a good God that come from His hand of grace?

These stories are included to demonstrate that all good gifts come from God, and can be taken away by God. Hezekiah’s wealth was not ultimately his own. He could not take it with him when he left this earth, and God saw fit to give it to foreign kings and nations. The question for us is this: do we acknowledge God’s ultimate ownership over all things? Do we recognize that any material wealth we might possess is a gift from his hand? Do we offer grateful praise to him for his gifts to us on this earth? Do we hold all these things with a loose hand, knowing that a bad business deal, a tiny spark, or a cunning thief in the night could take it all away from you in an instant?

These stories are included to demonstrate God’s grace in our failures. God punished Hezekiah, but even in that He gave him grace, and took him from this earth before the destruction of Babylon came upon all that he had built. God did not subject Hezekiah to the fullness of His wrath, but spared him. God’s grace makes it’s way to our own lives in small ways like this as well. We all are certainly aware of situations in our own lives that could have and should have been much worse. But God in his grace spared us from the worst possible outcome.

These are five practical outworkings of the principles in view here in the story of Hezekiah. But there are two more theological implications here that I think are incredibly fascinating and incredibly instructive.

I want to point out two ways that Isaiah, in this text, looks forward to another Hezekiah. To a new Hezekiah. To a true and better Hezekiah.

Hezekiah exists at almost every turn in his life as a new David. It is not a stretch to say that Hezekiah fit the picture of the raised-up descendant who would come after David. We can look to the Psalms to understand how David perceived this descendant who would come forth from him, both physically and spiritually.

In Psalm 1, David’s descendant is a holy man who delights in the Word of God, and separates himself from sin and sinners. This described Hezekiah.

In Psalm 2, David’s descendant is a king, installed in Zion, who rules over the nations with authority. This described Hezekiah.

In Psalm 16, David’s descendant would not have his soul abandoned to Sheol, and would have the path of life made known to him. This described Hezekiah.

In Psalm 18, David’s descendant calls to the Lord in his time of distress, and is delivered with his life. This describes Hezekiah.

In Psalm 72, David’s descendant is a wise, righteous, and prosperous king. This describes Hezekiah.

Yet Hezekiah was not a perfect king. Hezekiah fell short. He painted a very clear picture with his life of what the ideal Davidic king could and should and indeed would be. Yet he fails in the end. His pride gets the better of him. And in the end, despite being brought back from death, he still dies 15 years later.

Thus Isaiah portrays Hezekiah not as being the full and final descendant of David, but an ectype of the full and final descendant of David. He is portrayed as A son of David whose life teaches us about THE Son of David.

Each of these two stories teach us a truth about Christ, the son of David.

Hezekiah’s recovery teaches us what I call an escalated truth, in other words, Christ escalates or elevates Hezekiah’s experience and clarifies a deeper meaning in Isaiah’s record of Hezekiah as He fulfills it.

Hezekiah’s recovery from the point of death would have taught Isaiah’s audience that they were, in keeping with Psalm 16 and Psalm 18, looking for a Son of David who would be, as Hezekiah was, at the very gates of death, and yet God would not let him die.

Christ escalates and elevates this truth, because, like Hezekiah and like David, he faced death. Like Hezekiah and David, He relied completely on Yahweh for His inheritance of life, trusting that Yahweh would not abandon Him to Sheol. Like Hezekiah and David, the cords of death encompassed Him, and the cords of Sheol surrounded him, and the snares of death confronted him. And just as His fathers Hezekiah and David, as He faces death, He looks not to himself, but to His Father, as He cries out “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

But here is where Christ escalates and elevates the experience of David and of Hezekiah. David and Hezekiah only brushed with death. God saved them at the 11th hour and extended their lives. Christ, on the other hand, went all the way to the grave. The cup of death that was only smelled by David and Hezekiah was drunk down to the dregs by David and Hezekiah’s son.

But just as Christ escalates and elevates David and Hezekiah’s brushes with death, so also He escalates and elevates their recovery. David and Hezekiah rose from their death beds, Christ is risen from the grave.

And more importantly even than that, David and Hezekiah only had their lives temporarily extended. They still eventually died later. But Christ, His life is now eternally glorified. He did not die a second time, but ascended bodily to the throne room to be seated at the right hand of God the Father, reigning and mediating as the true and better priest-king.

Therefore, Isaiah teaches his 7th century BC readers, as well as us today, a profound truth: the raising of Hezekiah from his death bed guarantees the raising of Hezekiah’s son from His grave, and by extension, also guarantees the raising of the Son’s people from the grave. As believers in 2022, we can take hearty hope and courage from Hezekiah’s recovery, knowing that it was accomplished by the same power that will raise our bodies from death as well.

Therefore, we can face coronavirus. We can face lymphoma. We can face mental illness. We can face anything that our physical bodies suffer from because we know that we can turn our face to the wall and cry out to the God of David, and trust that whether in this life or the next, we will be free from all physical infirmities. That he will not merely extend our life by 15 years, but will extend our life for eternity.

This is the hope we draw from Hezekiah.

But Isaiah also teaches us another truth, this time a truth not of escalation but of reversal.

Hezekiah exalted himself. He exalted his wealth and his treasures and his accomplishments and he flaunted them before a watching world. And God humbled him. God showed him that whatever he had, he had as a gift from above.

Christ, on the other hand, humbled himself. Humbled himself by becoming a man, and not only a man but a slave. He was not proud but obedient, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And because of his obedient humility, His Father has exalted him, and given him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus Christ, the knee of Merodach-baladan and the knee of Hezekiah, and the knee of David, and the knee of Isaiah, and the knee of everyone in this room and indeed everyone on the planet would bow before Him.

Hezekiah’s pride demonstrates that he is only A son of David, a faithful but flawed man.

Christ’s humility demonstrates that He is THE Son of David, true God and true Man, the one who fulfilled all that Hezekiah did and said and was.

But there is a final thread here, one that demonstrates God’s complete providence throughout all of human history, and one that connects Hezekiah to God’s plan for the world.

The greatest theme of all of Scripture is the theme of the seed. God’s very first redemptive promise is made in the context of the seed, when he told Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent and claim victory over the fall. The Old Testament proceeds to trace this seed, and indeed the story of the entire Old Testament is centered around the seed. It passes to Abraham, to whom God promises a seed who will bless the world, and comes to David, to whom it is revealed that the seed will rule on his throne forever and ever.

Hezekiah is part of the line of that seed. He is a descendant of David, of the royal line, and consequently of the seed line. It not an overstatement to say that God’s plan for all of history was passing through Hezekiah.

But here is where things get interesting. As far as we can tell, Hezekiah has no children when he falls ill in our text today. Thus, the promised seed of Eve, Abraham, and David has stopped with Hezekiah. If he dies, the seed dies. If he dies, the line of salvation and blessing dies with him. If he dies, hope dies.

But God is a God who keeps promises. God is a God whose plan will not fail. So God raises Hezekiah up, not only to teach us a lesson about the resurrection of the true and better Hezekiah, but to demonstrate His unfailing commitment to keep His word to Eve, to Abraham, and to David. Thus God raises Hezekiah up for the sake of his father David, and by extension his father Abraham and his mother Eve. He raises Hezekiah up to keep the seed intact, the royal, redemptive line alive.

And three years after this event, according to the Chronicler, God makes good on His promise. Manasseh is born. The seed survives. The line lives. Hope shines forth. For from the line of Eve, and Abraham, and David, and Hezekiah, and Manasseh, comes the Savior, Christ the Lord.

God made good on His promise. The seed of the woman has come, and by His resurrection has crushed the head of the serpent.

One question remains: do you know Christ the Seed? Have you believed in Him? Have you trusted His life and death and resurrection, as completely satisfactory and completely victorious on your behalf? Are you in Him, and He in you this morning?

Friends, if you don’t know him today, this is the day of salvation. This is the day that Christ must be magnified in your heart as savior. I urge you: receive him by faith today.

And brothers and sisters, if you do know Christ today, I urge you: look to Him once more. Draw your eyes afresh to the risen and ascended Christ, the one who humbled Himself to death and was raised to glory. May we never lose our appetite for Christ. May we never lose our wonder at His truth and beauty and goodness. May we never lose our humble gratitude for all that He has accomplished for us, and is accomplishing for us even now as our righteous mediator.

PRAY

There is nothing more important that to be in union with Christ. To taste of His death and resurrection in the waters of baptism, and then to taste of His continued provision of spiritual nourishment to us in the Lord’s Supper, is the effective means by which these spiritual realities are represented to us in an earthly manner.

Historic Creeds and Confessions Article XXXV

In order that He might represent unto us this spiritual and heavenly bread, Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as a sacrament of His body, and wine as a sacrament of His blood, to testify by them unto us that, as certainly as we receive and hold this sacrament in our hands and eat and drink the same with our mouths, by which our life is afterwards nourished, we also do as certainly receive by faith (which is the hand and mouth of our soul) the true body and blood of Christ our only Savior in our souls, for the support of our spiritual life.

Historic Creeds and Confessions Article XXXV

This feast is a spiritual table, at which Christ communicates Himself with all His benefits to us, and gives us there to enjoy both Himself and the merits of His sufferings and death: nourishing, strengthening, and comforting our poor comfortless souls by the eating of His flesh, quickening and refreshing them by the drinking of His blood.

Historic Creeds and Confessions Article XXXV

Lastly, we receive this holy sacrament in the assembly of the people of God, with humility and reverence, keeping up among us a holy remembrance of the death of Christ our Savior, with thanksgiving, making there confession of our faith and of the Christian religion. Therefore no one ought to come to this table without having previously rightly examined himself, lest by eating of this bread and drinking of this cup he eat and drink judgment to himself. In a word, we are moved by the use of this holy sacrament to a fervent love towards God and our neighbor.

Listen now to the words of the Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 11:27–28 NASB95

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Let us now in silence come before the Lord, asking Him to search our hearts, so that we might not take the bread and the cup in an unworthy manner.

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 NASB95

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Let us remember our Lord together.

1 Corinthians 11:25 NASB95

In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

Let us remember our Lord together.

1 Corinthians 11:26 NASB95

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

We look forward to that day, do we not? We see Him now in a mirror darkly, but when He appears, we will behold Him in all His beauty. In all His glory. And as we await that day our hearts desire is to know Him, and to know Him more and more, until we reach that final day when we will see Him and know Him fully. So let’s sing of that truth now.