Hezekiah’s Reforms

In context

Hezekiah son of Ahaz becomes king of Judah at twenty-five, and “He trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah” (2 Kings 18:1–5). He breaks in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made in the wilderness, because people were burning incense to it (18:4; Numbers 21:8–9); Jesus later spoke of that serpent lifted up (John 3:14–15). In his sixth year Samaria falls (2 Kings 18:10).

In the first month of his first year he opens the doors of the Lord’s house that his father had shut, and the Levites carry the uncleanness out to the brook Kidron (2 Chronicles 28:24; 29:3–17). He sends couriers as far as Ephraim and Zebulun to call the north to the Passover; people mock them, but some come, and Hezekiah prays, “May the good Yahweh pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God” (30:10–11, 18–19).

Micah of Morasheth, a town in Judah’s foothills, prophesies in these same years (Micah 1:1). He names Bethlehem as the place a ruler will come from, words the scribes later quoted to Herod (5:2; Matthew 2:5–6), and asks, “What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).