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ISAIAH.
#16.
Hezekiah's testing under favour and flattery
(38: - 39:).
pp. 193 - 198
Judged by their own annals and the illustrations left to us, there could be nothing
much more to be dreaded than an attack by the Assyrians, yet, as chapters 38: and
39: succeed chapters 36: and 37:, we become conscious that there are
spiritual forces of which these earthly and visible foes are but shadows.
Hezekiah, having been delivered from the threatenings of Sennacherib, faces the threat
of death by sickness, and, being spared, is laid open to the insidious approach of Babylon
by flattery, only to succumb.
"In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz
came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order: for thou
shalt die, and not live" (Isa. 38: 1).
Some have found a difficulty in the fact that Isaiah's prediction that Hezekiah should
die was not fulfilled. But we must learn to distinguish between prophecy uttered as a
prediction of future events, and prophecy uttered as a warning and addressed to an
individual, or a people, on some particular occasion. Of the latter, Jonah's utterance
against Nineveh was an example: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
Yet, on repentance, Nineveh was spared.
Jeremiah makes an explicit statement regarding the principle that underlies the
apparent discrepancy.
"At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to
pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it. If that nation, against whom I have
pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them"
(Jer. 18: 7, 8).
From this it is clear that the words of Isaiah, though apparently unconditional, were
not so, and that the deciding factor would be Hezekiah's response and attitude.
It is just here that the special purpose of the books of the Chronicles can be discerned.
In both the record of Isa. 38: and the parallel passage in II Kings 19: and 20:,
there is no word dropped as to the state of Hezekiah's heart before the Lord. If we had
only the external history we might be at a loss to explain several things. For example, we
learn from II Kings 18: 15, 16 that
"Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the
treasures of the king's house. At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors
of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had
overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria."