40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Kings 20:1-21 (Episode 346)

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Hezekiah becomes ill and is told he will die but he prays a terrible but tearful prayer that God hears. The 3rd day appears again in the Old Testament. Hezekiah shows off his wealth and might. And a hard word is given that Hezekiah says is good. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Donate HWSS Regional Conference 1517 YouTube

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out all the other things that 1517 is doing. I mean, so many things. There's daily articles. There's academy courses. There's videos.

There's preaching helps. And, of course, there's events. And our next event that we're having is in Bentonville, Arkansas. And you can do that in the spring, May 5th and 6th. You can come hang out with a bunch of 1517 folks. We're going to be going over Paul's letter to the Galatians. I mean, that's the theme. The theme of the conference is we're going to go over the whole thing.

So this is a conference Bible study. It's going to be a great time. And we've got the Arcadian Wild coming up from Nashville to do a concert. The food's always great. And if you've never been, you should come. And, of course, the national conference is sold out. So this is your chance to come to a 1517 event this year, your only chance if you're not registered for the national event.

So come on down. There's a link in the show notes, and spend your spring in the Ozarks with, you know, Chad and myself. Chad, we ended last episode, and we've wrapped up Chapter 19. We're heading into Chapter 20. Jesus showed up and, you know, killed like 185,000 people or something like that, and King had to go home with his tail between his legs, or maybe he said, I've got some other stuff to do. I think I'm going to go and take care of that with the amount of arrogance on this guy. But either way, God had said there wasn't going to be an arrow shot,

and there was not. And that king went home, and some time passed, and there he was worshiping his false god, and his two sons decided they had enough of his reign, and so they killed him. And that's how the chapter ended. And so we ended with an assassination, but we're going to start circling back around now and see what Hezekiah is up to in the sort of the aftermath and wake of Jesus showing up and delivering him from his enemies. You know, I don't think I mentioned this in the last episode, but, you know, if you read the Assyrian Chronicles about this particular episode, I mean, so in the Assyrian Chronicles, they record this coming up against the city of jerusalem but they never mentioned that it was they never claimed that it

was conquered so he he says uh there's a famous phrase in in the assyrian chronicles about how he pinned hezekiah in like a bird in a cage that's the the famous line from from that assyrian chronicle but he doesn't go on to say and then i conquered the city and i you know i killed hezekiah blah blah blah he doesn't even like claim to have done that which of course is uh is the assyrian's way of saving face yeah they're not going to say yeah i pinned him like a bird in a cage and then all of a sudden you know god came along and slew a huge portion of my army and i had to run away home because of course that's not the kind of thing that you record in assyrian chronicles you only record these great accomplishments of of the kings but that of course is is at least

a slight hint as to the Assyrians' at least acknowledgement they weren't able to actually conquer the city. Yeah, that's not how that propaganda usually ends. It's usually to be said, I pinned him like a bird in a cage, and then I devoted its land to destruction. The women wept in the streets. The earth was salted. It would just go on and on with all of this incredible stuff.

And then I lost no one. And, you know, the people, you know, the Hebrews lost a million people. And we we had we put no one soldier in the earth or some some nonsense like this is usually how that goes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So if you complain about propaganda today, wherever you might see it, that's not anything new. you've always had propaganda out there i mean it's it's literally chiseled into stone in the ancient world so if you're reading about the uh if you're reading the assyrian annals of what happened or the egyptian chronicles what happened we actually like the this propaganda is is not just on your phone screen is chiseled into stone and of course it's these outlandish claims all which of course are designed to make the ruler appears if he's uh invincible well anyway he was

obviously not and now getting into chapter 20 we're going to hear about another ruler about king hezekiah again uh but here it's it's not uh it's not going to be the city that's that's in danger but hezekiah himself he's going to become become sick now i think do i say a word about the opening phrase here so second kings 20 begins by saying in those days hezekiah became sick now that is a little bit ambiguous like what days i mean exactly we're talking about like when the Assyrian invasion was going on or the threat against them or what happened now because of what's going to happen because what's coming up so Hezekiah is going to get sick he's going to pray Isaiah is going to say you're going to get better and then right after all this you're going to have

some envoys from Babylon show up not Assyria but Babylon show up and Hezekiah is going to take him through basically all of his treasuries and show me how wealthy he is and then they're going to go home because of the fact that hezekiah is showing them all this stuff all this all these riches some people say that this section of second kings actually chronologically precedes a lot of the stuff that we've been hearing about the last episode or so because if you remember early on what did hezekiah have to do he had to pay a huge tribute to the assyrian king yeah dude i was going to say that either uh you got a accumulated a lot more stuff in a hurry or as i remember like the hinges of the doors were coming off if they were worth anything right yeah this was a pretty

serious stripping of anything worth value in order to pay to pay off uh the the assyrians so yeah if you're reading through this chronologically you think wait yeah how did he come into all this these treasures i thought he got rid of all this stuff well keep in mind that sometimes in the scriptures things are out of sequence and they're out of sequence on purpose so it wasn't like you know they accidentally did this like they wrote about everything happening with sennacherib and they're like oh man we meant to include this stuff about hezekiah getting sick well we'll just put it here no this was carefully designed uh probably in order that what happens to hezekiah and his recovery and then this talk about babylon is is not only going to be presented as a

narrative a true narrative about what happened but also it has a symbolic value to where for instance hezekiah's sickness parallels the city sickness hezekiah's recovery parallels the city's recovery and the assyrians defeat is then paralleled by the introduction of these babylonian guys who show up which itself is a is a forward glance to eventually what's going to happen when babylon actually destroys the city so probably that's why it's positioned here and just one more thing about how this is structured which i think is pretty cool so i mentioned a couple times how what we're reading in second kings is paralleled almost verbatim by isaiah so isaiah describes these same events so isaiah describes them in the last few chapters leading up to

chapter 40 so it's like 36 through 39 something like that now 36 through 39 is where isaiah includes this now this is this pretty cool way that we that the book is set up because so after you hear about these events in isaiah 39 the very next chapter isaiah 40 is where you have that comfort comfort my people you know say to her that her warfare is ended she's going to receive from the lord's hand double for all her sins and there's this talk about the coming of john the baptist and so the way that isaiah sets this up is he describes hezekiah and then he transitions to talking about the true son of david the messiah who was to come which is suggested by the fact that isaiah describes hezekiah great king but then immediately follows him by talking about

the coming true son of david who's going to be much superior to anything that hezekiah could have dreamed of being so even in isaiah you kind of see the same suggestive structure going on but anyway in those days whenever it happened i'm guessing either either during or possible even before the assyrians invaded hezekiah gets sick i think that sometimes it's easy to read and you should read it this way to a certain degree but as you're reading something like 1 Kings, 1 Samuel different

Genesis, Exodus, whatever you're reading sort of a historical narrative you have to remember that we don't believe that the main point of this is to tell you some things that happened so that

you know your history this actually speaks sort of to the inspiration of Scripture, that you're reading a story, but you're also reading a story within a story, which is the bigger story. It's the reason the story is being told. If this is just some chronicle, or it's like laying down some stuff, yeah, it's probably just going to be chronological, and they're just going to give you the facts and this kind of stuff.

But there's a thread throughout this story that is the main point. And so that means that as you're telling that story while telling a history, you're going to put things together and weave the narrative to best tell that story. And I think that that's what happens a lot in instances. I just say, why is this placed here? It seems out of place. Well, it is out of place if you just want a chronological retelling of historical events. But that's not what the Scripture is ultimately aiming at, and so sometimes that through line through the story really pops out to do things like this.

Yeah, yeah. That's a great way to explain it. It's a good reminder, too, that when we're reading through these so-called histories, they are what is are traditionally known as part of the part of the prophets so at least in the the threefold uh hebrew reckoning of the old what we call the old testament the the main part is the which is is the prophetic writings which isn't just isaiah jeremiah ezekiel but also samuel and kings because these are understood to be prophetic histories and by prophetic histories i mean exactly what you just described this they're not interested in just giving you a

sequence of events this happened then that happened then this guy came along and then that guy came along no these are all stories embedded within the capital t story that you were describing it's a story of story of salvation so of course you're going to have you know only certain things told and they're going to be told a certain sort of way and they're going to be structured in a certain sort of way in order to to to lead us along this bigger story of what what is coming so hezekiah is sick he doesn't just have uh you know common cold or the flu he's he's very sick we know we're going to find out in just a minute that part of this was connected to a boil that he had on his skin i'm not told exactly more than that but anyway he's sick and he's seriously

sick he's at the point of death so uh isaiah goes to see him you know preacher comes along going to pay him a visit here. Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and he has a word from God. He says, thus says the Lord. This is not the kind of prophetic message you want to hear. He says, set your house in order, for you shall die. You shall not recover. Yeah, that's rough. I mean, you don't want the prophet showing up and being like, all right, you got that will filled out or no? Because you're going to need that. yeah yes not an encouraging prophetic word but it is i love the way the story is told though because it it demonstrates that god can say something's going to happen in this case something not good

at least not good for hezekiah for sure and yet it's not as if this threat is unchangeable so many times god will issue a threat against for instance a city or a country and if they repent well then the threat is lifted right well here you have this set your house in order because you're going to die you're not going to recover you know seemingly ironclad uh speech of of of what's going to happen no escaping it but what hezekiah does next is uh is pray and when he does even though in my opinion it's a terrible prayer oh i was about to i was but i say i i actually awful prayer i really like this passage because this is so what you are prone to do yeah but i like i think i think the corrective in it is in god's response because

it's almost like he disregards what hezekiah probably thinks is the most important part of this prayer and it is the majority of this prayer it seems that god just disregards that part all together it is so if you're ever uh if you're ever like looking for a great example of uh of somebody like just praying a terrible prayer and yet god answering it for the right reasons well then just don't even hesitate turn directly to second kings chapter 20 and you will have it there so what is this terrible this is so the way that we pray when we are panicked and uh and we're trying we forget who we're dealing with yeah this idea of god and god is sovereign and god can do stuff and maybe he's the only one that can do anything about this

but you forget like the most important thing about him and it's not that he's like sovereign and powerful and all this stuff you forget that he's a god of mercy and grace and you end up appealing to some stuff that you would appeal to another person or a god who wasn't those things yes yeah exactly so here's here's what he does here's what he says so after the prophet gives him this uh this this negative word you're gonna die has a guy turned his face to the wall which is kind of interesting in and of itself but he turns his face to the wall And here's what he prays. It's a pretty short prayer.

Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight. And then he cried. You know, I think the best part of this prayer is, I think this is the part that God answers right here. He answers the weeping bitterly. I was going to say he answers he doesn't answer the prayers but he answers the tears

weeping bitterly but what you want to pray Hezekiah should just end it right here now oh Lord please remember that's how you just end right there

just remember me don't go into your stuff because when you ask God to remember you're asking him to act so you just say don't forget me God and that's probably

way better Yeah, like somebody once said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Yeah. Yes. That's a good prayer. Remember. Remember me. I want God to remember me.

I don't want him to remember any of my stuff that I've done. Yeah, I don't remember what I did. Yeah. I actually take great comfort in the fact that he says he's forgotten all that. But I do wish for him to remember just me as his child, that I am yours. remember that fact uh you can forget the rest of it yeah or remember what you've done for me please don't remember that that you baptized me into your name remember that you're forgiving them all i mean all that's fine but if you're gonna like adopt a prayer to pray for the for

the bible please please do not adopt this one chad chad's getting sick he says lord remember all the videos that i've made remember lord remember how many episodes of 40 minutes the old testament that i recorded in in your name and for your glory don't do that no so please lord forget everything that i've ever done and remember who you are and everything that you've done for me yeah i'm not gonna talk about how i've just walked before you faithfully god and and like all my heart was in this and i've done so many good things in your eyes no no please just don't even go there yeah so he then he then he weep he wept bitterly as it's translated here it's uh literally he just he he wept with great weeping which yeah wet

bitterly good it's he cried a lot of tears and those tears were were far better far more eloquent a prayer than anything that he actually verbalized so this he did this right away so the prophet shows up says you're gonna die hezekiah is like as it were rolls over faces the wall in his bed probably he prays oh god do this because i've been such a great guy then he cries isaiah had just gone a little ways from there he isaiah had gone out of the middle court so he's just walking away basically and the word of the lord came to him and says hey go back turn back and say to hezekiah the leader of my people thus says the lord the god of david your father add that in there david your father i've heard your prayer i've seen your tears i almost want to add in there i've heard

your prayer but more importantly i've seen your tears i mean it's not in there but that's kind of the implication i get i i heard i heard that just terrible prayer that you just prayed i did hear that but i've also seen you feel like there's unfortunately i heard that prayer but fortunate for you i also saw those tears yes behold i will heal you on the third day oh there's a important phrase for you on the third day you shall go up to the house of the lord and i'm gonna add 15 years to your life i will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of assyria and i will defend this city now this is the language you've heard before i will defend the city why for my own sake and for my servant david's sake same language that feels

like a subtle rebuke for like remember that i'm good and i'm faithful and i'm awesome yes he doesn't say i will defend this city i'm gonna heal you uh because you've been such a great guy no he's been so faithful and followed me with your whole heart god doesn't tell isaiah hey isaiah tell him he made some good points and i'm gonna add 15 years to his life because you know what i felt like i i heard the argument and i agree yeah i mean he scratched my back so i'll scratches he did so many great things for me so i'm gonna i'm gonna give him 15 years to his credit just because he's been such a faithful wholehearted follower of mine no he says for my own sake and for the sake of my servant david as which as we discussed in the last episode is in reference back

to god's promise to david to keep a a dynastic uh figure from david's line on the throne by the way it drives me crazy because i see this happen a lot and every time i see it it drives me nuts that we because this kind of stuff happens a lot right uh so we've talked about like what's the most famous sinner in the bible jeroboam so the sin of jeroboam is the sin that this poor guy is just you know infamous sinner and all the time you'll hear god doing things for the sake of his name or the sake is for for his own sake and for the sake of his servant david and this will be taken as some sort of, I'm not going to do it for you and how awesome you are. I'm going to do it because of how much I love David and how awesome he was. Just please, when you read, and for the

sake of my servant David or for my servant David's sake, what you need to read that as, I will do it for my own sake and for the sake of the promise I made to, it doesn't matter that it's David. It was David. It could have been anybody. But the person is irrelevant. When he says for the sake of David, it's for the sake of the words he spoke to David. Absolutely, yeah.

If you're a long-time listener to this podcast, you know about David's life. You know that, yeah, I mean, he started out great, but he ended terribly. I mean, most of the material about David is not good. I mean, from the moment of the whole Bathsheba Uriah stuff, I mean, it's just like one thing after another. And even before that, David was pretty full of himself multiple times.

So it's not as if, for the sake of my righteous, holy, faithful, obedient David. No, for the sake of my David, my servant means the promise that I gave to him. Yeah, and look, I mean, I've actually read people say they were too hard on David. It's an over, it's a correction. It's a corrective endeavor that we're doing here. Like, David is not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the bottom half of the kings of Israel. This is not the case. That's not what anyone's suggesting.

But what we are saying is, David is the most famous and the one that comes up a lot, and you shouldn't think that this is because David was somehow so righteous and so good that God just never got over it. You know? God's just like, I just never got over how great David was. it's not that the greatness of david is really wrapped up in this one thing is that he wasn't an idolater and that when god made him a promise he believed it that's what it is that if you want to know like what the greatness of david is it's those two things he didn't dabble in idolatry and he believed god when god spoke and all you have to do is read the first second kings to

realize that's the case because as we've seen over and over and over what do most of the kings do they don't believe his promises and they engage in idolatry they're not like david as a comparison will often be made that is what this all boils down to that it's all first commandment first commandment kind of stuff so yeah uh yeah it's a corrective uh maybe maybe we've stressed a lot of the the weaknesses and failings of david but that's on purpose yeah uh it's it's because you know uh what's her name uh anyway the uh the southern southern author where uh she talks about how to the to the blind you draw large and startling images into the into the deaf you shout well it's the same kind of idea you know you're you want to accent the fact

that david is a has multiple problems because very often what you hear is uh is is a falsehood concerning him as if he's just like this obedient and uh wonderful guy that didn't have any failings No, besides Uriah. No, there were multiple narratives that document his failures. Yeah, and I've heard people say that we did sort of do the opposite with Saul, and that we, you know, kind of pick Saul up off the ground and dust him off and say, hey, it's not as bad as you think. And that's a corrective as well, because that is the foil,

where you have a Saul bad guy, David good guy, and neither of them are righteous. That's the whole point. But Saul is also not uniquely bad. Right. Yeah. So sometimes you stress the opposite of what is kind of typically the popularly considered kind of estimation of these two kings. Yeah. Okay. So having said all that, verse 7, Isaiah gets practical.

He's like, hey, you got to boil. You got to do something about that. so bring a cake of figs and let them take it and lay it on the boil that he may recover so uh dr isaiah is prescribing a cake of figs i nobody knows exactly why that was the case but uh that's what they wanted to do now it is significant though that we're told that this is as it translated here by the the esv uh a boil uh shaheen in in hebrew because that word occurs a lot of times in leviticus 13 in connection with that whole broader discussion of quote-unquote leprosy the skin disease so that that hebrew word occurs there because there's a whole you know you

have to diagnose what the problem is you have to have a quarantine and have all this stuff going on well the reason that's important in the in the narrative that follows is because hezekiah has not been able to go up to the temple why because the temple was a holy place and if he had this boil this skin problem then he would not have been able to enter into the the courts of the lord so that's why he's about to ask what he's about to ask with regard to when he should be able to go up to the temple because this was a kind of defilement of the skin which would have precluded him from entering into the courts of the lord so he has the boil uh isaiah put says put this cake of figs on it hezekiah then goes on to say to isaiah in verse 8 what shall be the sign that

the lord will heal me that i shall go up to the house of the lord on the third day so how how do i know that it's going to be okay for me to enter how do i know that i'll be ritually pure in other words so that i can once more enter into holy space and isaiah says this this shall be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that is promised. Shall the shadow go forward 10 steps or go back 10 steps? And Hezekiah responds, well, it's easy for the shadow to lengthen 10 steps, so let the shadow go back 10 steps. And then Isaiah called to the Lord and he brought the shadow back 10 steps by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz. So what's going on here well uh this is probably in reference to uh a sundial uh we know from both uh some

iconography in egypt as well as some from some text that they had sundials in ancient egypt that were set up to where as the shadow would move along steps so we think of sundials as kind of just a flat circular kind of thing you know a little projection and you know of course the the shade is going to fall on certain parts of the of this circle during the day but they had all kinds of sundials in the ancient world and some of these were set up with steps so as the day got uh as the day went farther and farther towards sunset well then the shadows on these sundials sun steps if you will would lengthen it would go farther and farther down these steps so that's why hezekiah says well it's easy for the shadow to lengthen 10 steps that's what happens

as the sun goes down the shadow gets longer he says what we need then if this to be a true sign is to let it go back 10 steps kind of like the sun is moving from you know going from the west to to the east and that's what happened uh it uh it went back 10 steps and this was this divine sign that was given to hezekiah so i love the fact by the way that uh this happens on the third day I kind of hinted at that earlier because this is a pretty common occurrence that we have really from Genesis 22, the whole Abraham-Isaac sacrifice scene onward, where when the third day is referred to, it's very often a day where something big happens or God does something big for his people or God works deliverance for his people, something along those lines. And here you have on the third day, Hezekiah being able to enter into the presence of the Lord. so all of this third day language is behind what paul says in first corinthians 15 that christ was raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the old testament in accordance with the

scriptures he doesn't quote a particular passage he doesn't say you know as it was spoken in the prophet hosea or something he just says according to the scriptures that's why that's why this pattern of god doing something big on the third day is significant because that is the background of why Christ was raised on the third day. Yeah, that part's really cool. Because you might wonder, where does it say that Christ is going to be raised on the third day?

And the answer is everywhere. That's what Paul says. Yeah, just pick your text. So on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw Mount Moriah. On the third day, the Lord descended on Mount Sinai. on the third day queen esther appeared before the king to plead the case of the israelites on the third day king hezekiah is able to go up to the temple of the lord so over and over yeah

it's the third day that god picks out as the day when something like this this happens so the proof text is uh genesis the malachi yeah pretty much the proof text for that okay so after he recovers uh we have the following story this is verses 12 and and following so at that time meredoc baladan the son of baladan king of babylon sent envoys with letters and a present to hezekiah because he had heard that hezekiah had been had been sick and hezekiah welcomed them and he showed them all his treasure house the silver the gold the spices the precious soil his armory everything that was found in his storehouses so this uh this babylonian king that we know from from other sources as well he was kind of a thorn in the side of the assyrians from what i've read he would he

would rebel and then the assyrians would come in and try and stomp him out and he would escape to the swamps they would like show up again he'd be a thorn in the side of the assyrians they'd attack again he'd escape to the swamps again so this is before this is why the assyrians are still top dog they're still the the international world power uh that will change because the babylonians will replace them but they're still in charge now and so this babylonian king is as it were trying to get some independence to rebel against uh the assyrians and so he's a pain to them and he's probably probably wanting to as it were recruit the israelites to be on his side you know all kinds of confederacies were formed in the ancient world to rebel against whoever the superpower

might be israel tried to do that with the egyptians and the egyptians trying to do it with others and probably here the babylonians are trying to bring the israelites onto their team so that they can together mount an attack against uh the assyrians yeah but anyway this and i talked about this you know last episode this is exactly the sort of stuff the assyrians don't like yeah it's like this is the way to bring the assyrian hammer down on your head pretty quickly yeah they don't like this and this text also tells you this hezekiah is at least somewhat buddies with this king or at least trust him because if you're if you got uh babylon is more powerful i mean they might not be assyria at this point more powerful than judah though and uh you

come in and be like let me show you all my stuff let me open my live on my safe i'm gonna bring out all my jewels here's my gun case yeah look at this look at all these guns i have and yeah It's a bit—the whole thing seems just a bit naive to me on the part of Hezekiah. Well, maybe naive as well as like, oh, look how important I am. Look, the Babylonian king, he sent these envoys to me. To me. You know, the one who walked before the Lord with a whole heart and faithful to him. It is weird.

I mean, you must really trust this guy. or you know and if he is kind of recruiting maybe maybe you're you know he's going there sending the envoy he's like man we really you know i'll tell you what i mean assyria is just getting you know there's assyrians they're just getting out of control man we should we should definitely be you know be of one mind about this and you know maybe he's like oh yeah well let me show you what i have to offer i mean look at all this i mean here's here's what i bring to the table uh this little alliance that maybe we've formed yeah which uh if if our chronology is correct and this happened before the assyrian invasion it kind of also gives a reason why the

assyrians reacted the way they did you know when they had to strip all the the gold from the hinges and whatnot maybe the assyrian king caught wind of this and he's like oh you showed the babylonians all your treasures well i'll tell you what i'm gonna do with those treasures hand them over yeah more or less yeah this is more of a i heard you showed the the babylonians all my treasures yeah accent on the pronoun so he's showing him everything you know everything even down to the spices i got some good spices here i got i got some oil check out all my weapons my armory i got i got all this stuff in fact we're told there was nothing nothing in his house or in all his realm that hezekiah did not show them i mean he's opening every door pulling out every uh every uh

every drawer shown him all this stuff then isaiah the prophet came to hezekiah and said to him and you have to wonder like as i already know the answer to this question he just he's like the teacher who asked the question he already knows the answer to uh yeah king what do these men say and where'd they come from and hezekiah he still doesn't really catch the drift of this i'm thinking oh they they came from like a long way off it's a far country it's called babylon and isaiah says what basically what did you show them what have they seen in your house every coin and every bullet it's like i showed him all the things he says he's still it's sort of this is still sort of kind of naive he's oh yeah everything they've seen all this in my house

nothing nothing in my storehouses that i didn't show them and isaiah uh said to hezekiah hear the word of the lord behold the days are coming when all all that's in your house and that which your fathers have stored up to this day shall be carried to babylon nothing shall be left says the lord and some of your own sons who will come from you whom you will father shall be taken away and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of babylon so uh that didn't work that didn't turn out very well this whole uh showing them all of his all of his things and uh opening up everything to them isaiah says well all these things that you show them are not going to stay with you in fact everything your father stored up to this day

everything in your house all of this eventually is going to become nothing more than uh loot in the hands of the babylonian army nothing shall be left and i mean that of course that's terrible enough but uh also this idea of your sons like any accents like those who came from you the ones you will father your sons they're going to be taken away not only going to be taken away but they're they're gonna be castrated they can be eunuchs in the palace of the king of babylon and by the way hezekiah you know broadly considered a top five king what happens next is gonna tell you that he got rid of the high places and he does some nice stuff but like is this a good guy i don't know why this whole chapter you start out with hezekiah be like oh

man what an awesome guy and he is i mean again we're not detracting from the great things he did He did wonderful things. As far as kings go, yeah, he's at the top. But he's not perfect. He's not divine, right? We saw his prayer. It's very self-centered. Now, imagine you're Hezekiah.

You've just heard this terrible pronouncement. Yeah, where's the weeping bitterly on the heels of this pronouncement? Yeah. At least he could have said, oh, that's awful. I'm so sorry. It's terrible news. Here's what he says. i'm just quoting the bible here this is hezekiah saying to isaiah the word of the lord that you

have spoken is good what how could i be good because here's what he thought and again we're just telling you right here what the scriptures say because here's what he thought why not if there's going to be peace and security in my days i don't even know what to say to that that's just that's terrible your sons are all going to become eunuchs and you're like well sounds like that's going to happen I know I got 15 years left

so sounds like I'm going to be alright yeah I mean this is the the simile justus epikator the simultaneously justified and sinner this is the definitely the sinner part coming out in Hezekiah the one who's of course

concerned about himself at the very least he could have said the word of the Lord you have spoken is bad. You know, or that's not good. But it's like, no, that's good, because at least it's going to be okay for me. Yeah, all these threats that I'm worried about and stuff, apparently I'm not going to have to deal with them.

Peace and security of my days, that's all that matters. Well, that's Hezekiah. He's a sinner saint. And the rest, you want to know about more Hezekiah? Well, you know where to turn. The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool

and the conduit and brought water into the city are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of judah and hezekiah slept with his fathers and now this is an ominous note here manasseh his son reigned in this place now we'll we'll get to manasseh in the in the next episode but uh what we will see is a is a definite switch from from father to son and by the way this pool this conduit that brings water to the city well you can still see that visit jerusalem today you can go to hezekiah's tunnel where they uh they started at opposite ends and dug this tunnel met in the middle actually scratched inscribed uh a sign there in the tunnel which documented how they did that in the days of hezekiah to bring water into the city in case the city went uh

went into a siege from the uh from the assyrians but anyway that's hezekiah uh good guy great king not so great a guy not so great a king he's a motley mixture of the two he's a sinner and a saint well that is it man that is chapter 20 we will be back next episode

to get into the boy King Manasseh only going to be 12 years old when he begins to reign we'll see how that goes but you'll have to wait until next episode for that Chad I'll see you then alright see you then

We'll see you next time.