Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Kings 18:1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. HEZEKIAH B.C. 715-686 2 Kings 18:1-37 "For Ezekias had done the thing that pleased the Lord, and was strong in the ways of David his father, as Esay the prophet, who was great and faithful in his vision, had commanded him." - Sir 48:22 THE reign of Hezekiah was epoch-making in many respects, but especially for its religious reformation, and the relations of Judah with Assyria and with Babylon. It is also most closely interwoven with the annals of Hebrew prophecy, and acquires unwonted luster from the magnificent activity and impassioned: eloquence of the great prophet Isaiah, who merits in many ways the title of "the Evangelical Prophet," and who was the greatest of the prophets of the Old Dispensation. According to the notice in 2 Kings 18:2 , Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign in the third year of Hoshea of Israel. This, however, is practically impossible consistently with the dates that Ahaz reigned sixteen years and became king at the age of twenty, for it would then follow that Hezekiah was born when his father was a mere boy-and this although Hezekiah does not seem to have been the eldest son; for Ahaz had burnt "his son," and, according to the Chronicler, more than one son, to propitiate Moloch. Probably Hezekiah was a boy of fifteen when he began to reign. The chronology of his reign of twenty-nine years is, unhappily, much confused. The historian of the Kings agrees with the Chronicler, and the son of Sirach, in pronouncing upon him a high eulogy, and making him equal even to David in faithfulness. There is, however, much difference in the method of their descriptions of his doings. The historian devotes but one verse to his reformation-which probably began early in his reign, though it occupied many years. The Chronicler, on the other hand, in his three chapters manages to overlook, if not to suppress, the one incident of the reformation which is of the deepest interest. It is exactly one of those suppressions which help to create the deep misgiving as to the historic exactness of this biased and late historian. It must be regarded as doubtful whether many of the Levitic details in which he revels are or are not intended to be literally historic. Imaginative additions to literal history became common among the Jews after the Exile, and leaders of that day instinctively drew the line between moral homiletics and literal history. It may be perfectly historical that, as the Chronicler says, Hezekiah opened and repaired the Temple; gathered the priests and the Levites together, and made them cleanse themselves; offered a solemn sacrifice; reappointed the musical services; and-though this can hardly have been till after the Fall of Samaria in 722-invited all the Israelites to a solemn, but in some respects irregular, passover of fourteen days. It may be true also that he broke up the idolatrous altars in Jerusalem, and tossed their debris into the Kidron; and (again after the deportation of Israel) destroyed some of the bamoth in Israel as well as in Judah. If he re-instituted the courses of the priests, the collection of tithes, and all else that he is said to have done, {2Ch 31:2-21} he accomplished quite as much as was effected in the reign of his great-grandson Josiah. But while the Chronicler dwells on all this at such length, what induces him to omit the most significant fact of all-the destruction of the brazen serpent? The historian tells us that Hezekiah "removed the bamoth "-the chapels on the high places, with their ephods and teraphim-whether dedicated to the worship of Jehovah or profaned by alien idolatry. That he did, or attempted, something of this kind seems certain; for the Rabshakeh, if we regard his speech as historical in its details, actually taunted him with impiety, and threatened him with the wrath of Jehovah on this very account. Yet here we are at once met with the many difficulties with which the history of Israel abounds, and which remind us at every turn that we know much less about the inner life and religious conditions of the Hebrews than we might infer from a superficial study of the historians who wrote so many centuries after the events which they describe. Over and over again their incidental notices reveal a condition of society and worship which violently collides with what seems to be their general estimate. Who, for instance, would not infer from this notice that in Judah, at any rate, the king’s suppression of the "high places," and above all of those which were idolatrous, had been tolerably thorough? How much, then, are we amazed to find that Hezekiah had not effectually desecrated even the old shrines which Solomon had erected to Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom "at the right hand of the mount of corruption"-in other words, on one of the peaks of the Mount of Olives, in full view of the walls of Jerusalem and of the Temple Hill! "And he brake the images," or, as the R.V more correctly renders it, "the pillars," the matstseboth . Originally-that is, before the appearance of the Deuteronomic and the Priestly Codes-no objection seems to have been felt to the erection of a matstsebah. Jacob erected one of these baitulia or anointed stones at Bethel, with every sign of Divine approval. Moses erected twelve round his altar at Sinai. Joshua erected them in Shechem and on Mount Ebal. Hosea, in one passage, {Hos 3:4} seems to mention pillars, ephods, and teraphim as legitimate objects of desire. Whether they have any relation to obelisks, and what is their exact significance, is uncertain; but they had become objects of just suspicion in the universal tendency to idolatry, and in the deepening conviction that the second commandment required a far more rigid adherence than it had hitherto received. "And cut down the groves"-or rather the Asherim, the wooden, and probably in some instances phallic, emblems of the nature-goddess Asherah, the goddess of fertility. She is sometimes identified with Astarte, the goddess of the moon and of love; but there is no sufficient ground for the identification. Some, indeed, doubt whether Asherah is the name of a goddess at all. They suppose that the word only means a consecrated pole or pillar, emblematic of the sacred tree. Then comes the startling addition, "And brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it ." This addition is all the more singular because the Hebrew tense implies habitual worship. The story of the brazen serpent of the wilderness is told in Numbers 21:9 ; but not an allusion to it occurs anywhere, till now-some eight centuries later-we are told that up to this time the Children of Israel bad been in the habit of burning incense to it! Comparing Numbers 21:4 , with Numbers 33:42 , we find that the scene of the serpent-plague of the Exodus was either Zal-monah ("the place of the image") or Punon, which Bochart connects with Phainoi, a place mentioned as famous for copper-mines. Moses, for unknown reasons, chose it as an innocent and potent symbol; but obviously in later days it subserved, or was mingled with, the tendency to ophiolatry, which has been fatally common in all ages in many heathen lands. It is indeed most difficult to understand a state of things in which the children of Israel habitually burned incense to this venerable relic, nor can we imagine that this was done without the cognizance and connivance of the priests. Ewald makes the conjecture that the brazen Saraph had been left at Zalmonah, and was an occasional object of Israelite adoration in pilgrimage for the purpose. There is, however, nothing more extraordinary in the prevalence of serpent-worship among the Jews than in the fact that, "in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, we (the Jews), and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, burnt incense unto the Queen of Heaven." If this were the case, the serpent may have been brought to Jerusalem in the idolatrous reign of Ahaz. It shows an intensity of reforming zeal, and an inspired insight into the reality of things, that Hezekiah should not have hesitated to smash to pieces so interesting a relic of the oldest history of his people, rather than see it abused to idolatrous purposes. Certainly, in conduct so heroic, and hatred of idolatry so strong, the Puritans might well find sufficient authority for removing from Westminster Abbey the images of the Virgin, which, in their opinion, had been worshipped, and before which lamps had had been perpetually burned. If we can imagine an English king breaking to pieces the shrine of the Confessor in the Abbey, or a French king destroying the sacred ampulla of Rheims or the goupillon of St. Eligius, on the ground that many regarded them with superstitious reverence, we may measure the effect produced by this startling act of Puritan zeal on the part of Hezekiah. "And he called it Nehushtan ." If this rendering-in which our A.V and R.V follow the LXX and the Vulgate-be correct, Hezekiah justified the iconoclasm by a brilliant play of words. The Hebrew words for "a serpent" ( nachash ) and for brass (nedwsheth ) are closely akin to each other; and the king showed his just estimate of the relic which had been so shamefully abused by contemptuously designating it-as it was in itself and apart from its sacred historic associations " nehushtan ," a thing of brass. The rendering, however, is uncertain, for the phrase may be impersonal-"one" or "they" called it Nehushtan -in which case the assonance had lost any ironic connotation. For this act of purity of worship, and for other reasons, the historian calls Hezekiah the best of all the kings of Judah, superior alike to all his predecessors and all his successors. He regarded him as coming up to the Deuteronomic ideal, and says that therefore "the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went forth." The date of this great reformation is rendered uncertain by the impossibility of ascertaining the exact order of Isaiah’s prophecies. The most probable view is that it was gradual, and some of the king’s most effective measures may not have been carried out till after the deliverance from Assyria. It is clear, however, that the wisdom of Hezekiah and his counselors began from the first to uplift Judah from the degradation and decrepitude to which it had sunk under the reign of Ahaz. The boy-king found a wretched state of affairs at his accession. His father had bequeathed to him "an empty treasury, a ruined peasantry, an unprotected frontier, and a shattered army"; but although he was still the vassal of Assyria, he reverted to the ideas of his great-grandfather Uzziah. He strengthened the city, and enabled it to stand a siege by improving the water supply. Of these labors we have, in all probability, a most interesting confirmation in the inscription by Hezekiah’s engineers, discovered in 1880, on the rocky walls of the subterranean tunnel ( siloh ) between the spring of Gihon and the Pool of Siloam. He encouraged agriculture, the storage of produce, and the proper tendance of flocks and herds, so that he acquired wealth which dimly reminded men of the days of Solomon. There is little doubt that he early meditated revolt from Assyria; for renewed faithfulness to Jehovah had elevated the moral tone, and therefore the courage and hopefulness, of the whole people. The Forty-Sixth Psalm, whatever may be its date, expresses the invincible spirit of a nation which in its penitence and self-purification began to feel itself irresistible, and could sing:- "God is our hope and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved, Though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea, There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The Holy City where dwells the Most High. God is in the midst of her; therefore shall she not be shaken; God shall help her, and that right early. Heathens raged and kingdoms trembled: He lifted His voice-the earth melted away. Jehovah of Hosts is with us; Elohim of Jacob is our refuge." {Psa 46:1-11} It was no doubt the spirit of renewed confidence which led Hezekiah to undertake his one military enterprise-the chastisement of the long-troublesome Philistines. He was entirely successful. He not only won back the cities which his father had lost, {2Ch 28:18} but he also dispossessed them of their own cities, even unto Gaza, which was their southernmost possession-"from the tower of the watchman to the fenced city." There can be no doubt that this act involved an almost open defiance of the Assyrian King; but if Hezekiah dreamed of independence, it was essential for him to be free from the raids and the menace of a neighbor so dangerous as Philistia, and so inveterately hostile. It is not improbable that he may have devoted to this war the money which would otherwise have gone to pay the tribute to Shalmaneser or Sargon, which had been continued since the date of the appeal of Ahaz to Tiglath-Pileser II. When Sargon applied for the tribute Hezekiah refused it, and even omitted to send the customary present. It is clear that in this line of conduct the king was following the exhortations of Isaiah. It showed no small firmness of character that he was able to choose a decided course amid the chaos of contending counsels. Nothing but a most heroic courage could have enabled him at any period of his reign to defy that dark cloud of Assyrian war which ever loomed on the horizon, and from which but little sufficed to elicit the destructive lightning-flash. There were three permanent parties in the Court of Hezekiah, each incessantly trying to sway the king to its own counsels, and each representing those counsels as indispensable to the happiness, and even to the existence, of the State. I. There was the Assyrian party, urging with natural vehemence that the fierce northern king was as irresistible in power as he was terrible in vengeance. The fearful cruelties which had been committed at Beth-Arbel, the devastation and misery of the Trans-Jordanic tribes, the obliteration and deportation of the heavily afflicted districts of Zebulon, Naphtali, and the way of the sea in Galilee of the nations, the already inevitable and imminent destruction of Samaria and her king and the whole Northern Kingdom, together with that certain deportation of its inhabitants of which the fatal policy had been established by Tiglath-Pileser, would constitute weighty arguments against resistance. Such considerations would appeal powerfully to the panic of the despondent section of the community, which was only actuated, as most men are, by considerations of ordinary political expediency. The foul apparition of the Ninevites, which for five centuries afflicted the nations, is now only visible to us in the bas-reliefs and inscriptions unearthed from their burnt palaces. There they live before us in their own sculptures, with their "thickset, sensual figures," and the expression of calm and settled ferocity on their faces, exhibiting a frightful nonchalance as they look on at the infliction of diabolical atrocities upon their vanquished enemies. But in the eighth century before Christ they were visible to all the eastern world in the exuberance of the most brutal parts of the nature of man. Men had heard how, a century earlier, Assurnazipal boasted that he had "dyed the mountains of the Nairi with blood like wool"; how he had flayed captive kings alive, and dressed pillars with their skins; how he had walled up others alive, or impaled them on stakes; how he had burnt boys and girls alive, put out eyes, cut off hands, feet, ears, and noses, pulled out the tongues of his enemies, and "at the command of Assur his god" had flung their limbs to vultures and eagles, to dogs and bears. The Jews, too, must have realized with a vividness which is to us impossible the cruel nature of the usurper Sargon. He is represented on his monuments as putting out with his own hands the eyes of his miserable captives; while, to prevent them from flinching when the spear which he holds in his hand is plunged into their eye-sockets, a hook is inserted through their nose and lips and held fast with a bridle. Can we not imagine the pathos with which this party would depict such horrors to the tremblers of Judah? Would they not bewail the fanaticism which led the prophets to seduce their king into the suicidal policy of defying such a power? To these men the sole path of national safety lay in continuing to be quiet vassals and faithful tributaries of these destroyers of cities and treaders-down of foes. II. Then there was the Egyptian party, headed probably by the powerful Shebna, the chancellor. His foreign name, the fact that his father is not mentioned, and the question of Isaiah-"What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulcher here?"-seem to indicate that he was by birth a foreigner, perhaps a Syrian. The prophet, indignant at his powerful interference with domestic politics, threatens him, in words of tremendous energy, with exile and degradation. He lost his place of chancellor, and we next find him in the inferior, though still honorable, office of secretary, { sopher , 2Ki 18:18} while Eliakim had been promoted to his vacant place ( Isaiah 22:21 ). Perhaps he may have afterwards repented, and the doom have been lightened. Circumstances at any rate reduced him from the scornful spirit which seems to have marked his earlier opposition to the prophetic counsels, and perhaps the powerful warning and menace of Isaiah may have exercised an influence on his mind. III. The third party, if it could even be called a party, was that of Isaiah and a few of the faithful, aided no doubt by the influence of the prophecies of Micah. Their attitude to both the other parties was antagonistic. 1. As regards the Assyrian, they did not attempt to minimize the danger. They represented the peril from the kingdom of Nineveh as God’s appointed scourge for the transgressions of Judah, as it had been for the transgressions of Israel. Thus Micah sees in imagination the terrible march of the invader by Gath, Akko, Beth-le-Aphrah, Maroth, Lachish, and Lamentations. He plays with bitter anguish on the name of each town as an omen of humiliation and ruin, and calls on Zion to make herself bald for the children of her delight, and to enlarge her baldness as the vultures, because they are gone into captivity. He turns fiercely on the greedy grandees, the false prophets, the blood-stained princes, the hireling priests, the bribe-taking soothsayers, who were responsible for the guilt which should draw down the vengeance. He ends with the fearful prophecy-which struck a chill into men’s hearts a century later, and had an important influence on Jewish history-"Therefore, because of you shall Zion be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become ruins, and the hill of the Temple as heights in the wood"; -though there should be an ultimate deliverance from Migdal-Eder, and a remnant should be saved. Similar to Micah’s, and possibly not uninfluenced by it, is Isaiah’s imaginary picture of the march of Assyria, which must have been full of terror to the poor inhabitants of Jerusalem. "He is come to Aiath! He is passed through Migron! At Michmash he layeth up his baggage: They are gone over the pass: ‘Geba,’ they cry, ‘is our lodging.’ Ramah trembleth: Gibeah of Saul is fled! Raise thy shrill cries O daughter of Gallim! Hearken, O Laishah! Answer her, O Anathoth! Madmenah is in wild flight (?). The inhabitants of Gebim gather their stuff to flee. This very day shall he halt at Nob. He shaketh hishand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, The hill of Jerusalem." Yet Isaiah, and the little band of prophets, in spite of their perils, did not share the views of the Assyrian party or counsel submission. On the contrary, even as they contemplate in imagination this terrific march of Sargon, they threaten Assyria. The Assyrian might smite Judah, but God should smite the Assyrians. He boasts that he will rifle the riches of the people as one robs the eggs of a trembling bird, which does not dare to cheep or move the wing. But Isaiah tells him that he is but the axe boasting against the hewer, and the wooden staff lifting itself up against its wielder. Burning should be scattered over his glory. The Lord of hosts should lop his boughs with terror, and a mighty one should hew down the crashing forest of his haughty Lebanon. 2. Still more indignant were the true prophets against those who trusted in an alliance with Egypt. From first to last Isaiah warned Ahaz, and warned Hezekiah, that no reliance was to be placed on Egyptian promises-that Egypt was but like the reed of his own Nile. He mocked the hopes placed on Egyptian intervention as being no less sure of disannulment than a covenant with death and an agreement with Sheol. This rebellious reliance on the shadow of Egypt was but the weaving of an unrighteous web, and the adding of sin to sin. It should lead to nothing but shame and confusion, and the Jewish ambassadors to Zoan and Egypt should only have to blush for a people that could neither help nor profit. And then branding Egypt with the old insulting name of Rahab, or "Blusterer," he says, - "Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose. Therefore have I called her ‘Rahab, that sitteth still.’" Indolent braggart-that was the only designation which she deserved! Intrigue and braggadocio-smoke and lukewarm water, -this was all which could be expected from her! Such teaching was eminently distasteful to the worldly politicians, who regarded faith in Jehovah’s intervention as no better than ridiculous fanaticism, and forgot God’s Wisdom in the inflated self-satisfaction of their own. The priests-luxurious, drunken, scornful-were naturally with them. Men were fine and stylish, and in their religious criticisms could not express too lofty a contempt for any one who, like Isaiah, was too sincere to care for the mere polishing of phrases, and too much in earnest to shrink from reiteration. In their self-indulgent banquets these sleek, smug euphemists made themselves very merry over Isaiah’s simplicity, reiteration, and directness of expression. With hiccoughing insolence they asked whether they were to be treated like weaned babes; and then wagging their heads, as their successors did at Christ upon the cross, they indulged themselves in a mimicry, which they regarded as witty, of Isaiah’s style and manner. With him they said it is all, - which may be imitated thus:-With him it is always "Bit and bit, bid and bid, forbid and forbid, forbid and forbid, a little bit here, a little bit there." Monosyllable is heaped on monosyllable; and no doubt the speakers tipsily adopted the tones of fond mothers addressing their babes and weanlings. Using the Hebrew words, one of these shameless roysterers would say, " Tsav-la-tsav, tsav-la-tsav, quav-la-quav, quav-la-quav, Z’eir sham, Z’eir sham , -that is how that simpleton Isaiah speaks." And then doubtless a drunken laugh would go round the table, and half a dozen of them would be saying thus, " Tsav-la-tsav, tsav-la-tsav , " at once. They derided Isaiah just as the philosophers of Athens derided St. Paul-as a mere spermologos , " a seed-pecker!" {Act 17:18} or "picker-up of learning’s crumbs." Is all this petty monosyllabism fit teaching for persons like us? Are we to be taught by copybooks? Do we need the censorship of this Old Morality? On whom, full of the fire of God, Isaiah turned, and told these scornful tipplers, who lorded it over God’s heritage in Jerusalem, that, since they disdained his stammerings, God would teach them by men of strange lips and alien tongue. They might mimic the style of the Assyrians also if they liked; but they should fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. {Isa 28:7-22} It must not be forgotten that the struggle of the prophets against these parties was far more severe than we might suppose. The politicians of expediency had supporters among the leading princes. The priests-whom the prophets so constantly and sternly denounce-adhered to them; and, as usual, the women were all of the priestly party. {comp. Isa 32:9-20} The king indeed was inclined to side with his prophet, but the king was terribly overshadowed by a powerful and worldly aristocracy, of which the influence was almost always on the side of luxury, idolatry, and oppression. 3. But what had Isaiah to offer in the place of the policy of these worldly and sacerdotal advisers of the king? It was the simple command "Trust in the Lord." It was the threefold message "God is high; God is near; God is Love." Had he not told Ahaz not to fear the "stumps of two smouldering torches," when Rezin and Pekah seemed awfully dangerous to Judah? So he tells them now that, though their sins had necessitated the rushing stroke of Assyrian judgment, Zion should not be utterly destroyed. In Isaiah "the calmness requisite for sagacity rose from faith." Mr. Bagehot might have appealed to Isaiah’s whole policy in illustration of what he has so well described as the military and political benefits of religion. Monotheism is of advantage to men not only "by reason of the high concentration of steady feeling which it produces, but also for the mental calmness and sagacity which surely spring from a pure and vivid conviction that the Lord reigneth." Isaiah’s whole conviction might have been summed up in the name of the king himself: "Jehovah maketh strong." King Hezekiah, apparently not a man of much personal force, though of sincere piety, was naturally distracted by the counsels of these three parties: and who can judge him severely if, beset with such terrific dangers, he occasionally wavered, now to one side, now to the other? On the whole, it is clear that he was wise and faithful, and deserves the high eulogy that his faith failed not. Naturally he had not within his soul that burning light of inspiration which made Isaiah so sure that, even though clouds and darkness might lower on every side, God was an eternal Sun, which flamed forever in the zenith, even when not visible to any eye save that of Faith. 2 Kings 18:13 Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA B.C. 701 2 Kings 18:13-37 ; 2 Kings 19:1-37 "When, sudden-how think ye the end? Did I say ‘without friend’? Say rather from marge to blue marge The whole sky grew his targe, With the sun’s self for visible boss. While an Arm ran across Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast, Where the wretch was safe pressed." - BROWNING ALTHOUGH during a few memorable scenes the relations of Judah with Assyria in the reign of Hezekiah leap into fierce light, many previous details are unfortunately left in the deepest obscurity-an obscurity all the more impenetrable from the lack of certain dates. It will perhaps help to simplify our conceptions if we first sketch what is known of Assyria from the cuneiform inscriptions, and then fill up the sketch of those scenes which are more minutely delineated in the Book of Kings and in the prophecies of Isaiah. Sargon-perhaps a successful general of royal blood, though he never calls himself the son of anyone-seems to have usurped the throne on the death of Shalmaneser IV during the siege of Samaria in B.C. 722. He took Samaria, deported its inhabitants, and re-peopled it from the Assyrian dominions. "In their place," he says, in his tablets in the halls of his palace at Khorsabad, "I settled the men of countries conquered [by my hand]." In 720 he suppressed a futile attempt at revolt, headed by a pretender named Yahubid, in Hamath, which he reduced to "a heap of ruins." For some years after this he was occupied mainly on his northern frontiers, but he tells us that until 711 tribute continued to come in from Judah and Philistia. Meanwhile, these terrified and oppressed feudatories, writhing under the remorseless dominion of Nineveh, naturally began to listen to the intrigues of Egypt, whose interest it was to create a bulwark between herself and the invasion of the armies which were the abhorrence of the world. Under the influence of Sabaco which gave new strength and unity to Egypt, she succeeded in seducing Ashdod from its allegiance to Sargon. Sargon at once deposed Azuri, King of Ashdod, and put his brother Ahimit in his place. The Ashdodites soon after deposed Ahimit, and elected in his place Jaman, who was in alliance with Sabaco. This revolt was evidently favoured by Judah, Edom, and Moab; for Sargon says that they, as well as the people of Philistia, "were speaking treason." The rebellion was crushed by Sargon’s promptitude. He tells his own tale thus: "In the wrath of my heart I did not divide my army, and I did not diminish the ranks, but I marched against Ashdod with my warriors, who did not separate themselves from the traces of my sandals. I besieged, I took Ashdod and Gunt-Asdodim. I then re-established these towns. I placed [in them] the people whom my arms had conquered, I put over them my lieutenant as governor. I regarded them as Assyrians, and they practiced obedience." Sargon does not, however, seem to have conducted this campaign in person; for we read in Isaiah 20:1 "that he sent his Turtan - i.e. , his commander-in-chief, whose name seems to have been Zirbani-to Ashdod, who fought against it and took it. The wretched Philistines had put their trust in Sabaco." The people, says Sargon, "and their evil chiefs sent their presents to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, a prince who could not save them, and besought his alliance." Isaiah had for three years been indicating how vain this policy was by one of those acted parables which so powerfully affect the Eastern mind. He had, by the word of the Lord, stripped the shoes from off his feet and the upper robe of sackcloth from his loins, and walked, "naked and barefoot, for a sign and portent against Egypt and Ethiopia," to indicate that even thus should the people of Egypt and Ethiopia be carried away as captives, naked and barefoot, by the kings of Assyria. Egypt was the boast of one party at Jerusalem, and Ethiopia, which had now become master of Egypt under Sabaco, was their expectation; but Isaiah’s public self-humiliation showed how utterly their hopes should come to naught. Before the outbreak at Ashdod, Sargon had suppressed a revolt of Hanun, or Hanno, King of Gaza, and Egypt and Assyria first met face to face at Raphia (about B.C. 720), where Sabaco fought in person with an Egyptian contingent, at a spot halfway between Gaza and the "river of Egypt." {Isa 20:1-6} Sabaco, whom Sargon calls "the Sultan of Egypt" ( Siltannu Muzri ), had been defeated, and fled precipitately, but Sargon was not then sufficiently free from other complications to advance to the Nile. The hoarded vengeance of Assyria was inflicted upon Egypt nearly a century later by Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. In the two suppressions of revolt at Ashdod, Sargon or his Turtan must have come perilously near Jerusalem, and perhaps he may have inflicted insufficient damage to admit of the boast that he had "conquered" Judaea. If so, his military vanity made him guilty of an exaggeration. Far more serious to Sargon was the revolt of Merodach-Baladan, King of Chaldaea. Babylon had always been a rival of Nineveh in the competition for world-wide dominion, and for twelve years, as Sargon says, Merodach-Baladan had been "sending ambassadors"-to Hezekiah among others - in the patient effort to consolidate a formidable league. Elam and Media were with him; and at a solemn banquet, for which they had "spread the carpets," and eaten and drank, the cry had risen, "Arise, ye princes! anoint the shield." Standing in ideal vision on his watch-tower, Isaiah saw the sweeping rush of the Assyrian troops on their horses and camels on their way to Babylon. What should come of it? The answer is in the words, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of her gods he [Sargon] hath broken to the ground." Alas! there is no hope from Babylon or its embassy! Would that Isaiah could have held out a hope! But no, "O my threshed one, son of my threshing-floor, that which I have heard from the Lord of hosts; the God of Israel, that have I declared unto you." And so it came to pass. The brave Babylonian was defeated. In 709 Sargon occupied his palace, took Dur-yakin, to which he had fled for refuge, and made himse

Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea. 2 Kings 18 A striking reformation David Thomas, D. D. I. A STRIKING REFORMATION (vers. 3-8). 1. The perverting tendency of sin. The brazen serpent was a beneficent ordinance of God to heal those in the wilderness who had been bitten by the fiery serpent. But this Divine ordinance, designed for a good purpose, and which had accomplished good, was now, through the forces of human depravity, become a great evil. See how this perverting power acts in relation to such Divine blessings, as (1) health; (2) riches; (3) genius; (4) knowledge; (5) governments; and (6) religious institutions. 2. The true attributes of a reformer. Here we observe(1) Spiritual insight. Hezekiah saw in this serpent which appeared like a God to the people, nothing but a piece of brass — "Nehushtan."(2) Invincible honesty. He not only saw that it was brass, but said so, — thundered it into the ears of the people.(3) Practical courage. "He brake in pieces the brasen serpent." 3. The true soul of a reformer. What is that which gave him the true insight and attributes of a reformer, which in truth was the soul of the whole?(1) Entire consecration to the right.(2) Invincible antagonism to the wrong. II. A RUTHLESS DESPOTISM. There are two despots mentioned in this chapter — Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both kings of Assyria. 1. He had already invaded a country in which he had no right. 2. He had received from the king most humble submission and large contributions to leave his country alone. Mark his humiliating appeal. III. AN UNPRINCIPLED DIPLOMACY, 1. He represents his master, the King of Assyria, to be far greater than he is. 2. He seeks to terrify them with a sense of their utter inability to resist the invading army. ( David Thomas, D. D. ) Hezekiah's good reign Monday Club Sermons. The history of God's ancient people is full of surprises. The whole course of their national life was marked by wonderful Divine interpositions. An public records, when carefully studied, disclose the fact that God, through His providence, is acting as master of affairs, and though statesmen and political economists refer the shifting events of national career to natural causes, it is evident to the clear thinker that God is an uncalculated factor, the explanation is meagre and faulty. But in the history of the elect people, the Divine element was unmistakably prominent. In these particulars the history of the Jews was unique, and sublime above that of any other nation. And yet the behaviour of the people was quite as surprising. With only the thinnest of veils separating them from God — their daily experience august with the manifestations of His presence — the penalties of sin and the rewards of righteousness, things tangible and perceptible, they went on in a mad career of impiety and wickedness as recklessly as though they had never heard of Jehovah. But there are lights as well as shadows to the picture. Now and then a man in authority rose to the level of his responsibility and ruled in the fear of God, and the nation, as nations commonly do, catching inspiration from their leader, entered upon an era of prosperity. Notable among these faithful few was Hezekiah, King of Judah. 1. Hezekiah "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." His theory of government was a simple one; to make it as far as possible a transcript of the Divine government. Statesmanship, in his conception of it, was no familiarity with human precedents, a mastery of the wiles and contrivances by which men in power manage to make all events subserve their purpose, a skilful sword-play in which some trick of fence is more highly esteemed than truth and righteousness. With that one purpose sovereign and constant, all details of administration grouped themselves about it, and in harmony with it, as the atoms of the gem aggregate themselves about the centre of crystallization, the value and lustre of the jewel, due to its unity. No government of contradictions this, whose worth was to be ascertained by averaging its failings and its merits, but an honest attempt on the part of the king to make his rule an answer to the prayer, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." It is the fatal defect in most forms of government that this overrule of God is ignored. Men are dull scholars, slow to learn that to do right is to do well, in public affairs as well as in private conduct. To do "that which is fight in the sight of the Lord" is the fundamental and unalterable principle in all policies of government that vindicate themselves in history. Treasuries and armies and the intrigues of cabinets may win temporary successes; but they are short-lived. 2. Hezekiah "trusted in the Lord God of Israel." That gave him confidence and made him uncompromising in all his measures. He was no cautious strategist, trying experiments, uncertain of their issue, advancing so slowly that there would be opportunity to retrace his steps if the event seemed likely to disappoint his expectation a He did not trust in his own shrewdness and far-sightedness. He was not anxious about the signs of the times, a calculator of popular weather probabilities. No one more well aware than he of the unreliability of the tone and temper of public moods. He trusted in God, the eternal and the unchanging, "a personal God, the Lord God of Israel, doing His pleasure in the armies of heaven and among the children of men." So he had no responsibility except for duty; consequences were in higher and wiser hands than his. Like a soldier under command, he had only to obey orders. And withal he had a serene and satisfying assurance that he should be contented with last results. The Divine wishes could not be thwarted, and whatever pleased God would please him. When the first Napoleon came to the throne, and saw how unbelief was destroying both the faith and the conscience of the French nation, he said to his advisers, "If there is no God, we must create one." No man can prosperously direct the affairs of a great people without personal faith in God. There are crises in affairs when he loses heart and hope unless he "endures as seeing Him who is invisible." There are hours when the policy of strict righteousness threatens immediate disaster, and the temptation to slight concessions for large apparent good is strong, and how can king or president resist it unless they are able to look up through the obscurity and confidently say, "Clouds and darkness are round about Him, but judgment and justice are the habitation of His throne?" Religion is too often depreciated as the superstition of the cloister and the Church, but all history shows that it has been the most practical and powerful force in the administration of government. 3. Hezekiah "clave to the Lord and departed not from following Him." This religious faith was something more than an intellectual assent to certain general truths, more even than the recognition that Divine Providence is the operative factor in human history. His convictions had a personal force, and caused him to see that he ought to be, and led him to endeavour to be, himself a good man. Behind all the righteous measures he proposed, there was the weight and push of a righteous character. It was not enough that the service due to God had mention in public documents and on state occasions; he himself must render that service in his private capacity. The people must see, in his individual behaviour, the recognition of the sovereignty of those principles that were embedded in the statutes, and gave shape and colour to the national policy. Other things being equal, the better the character of king and governor and legislator, the stronger the presumption that their administration of affairs will be judicious, sound, and strong. The man who governs himself rightly has taken the first step towards knowing how to govern others for their good. 4. "And the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went." This is the brief but significant summing up of the history of Hezekiah's reign. The account is notable for its omissions. There is no record of new territory added to the kingdom, of armies organised, of treasuries filled, of advance in industrial enterprise and business prosperity, the specifications that figure so largely in the common description of national growth. In the thought of the inspired writer, the enumeration of items like these was of small importance in comparison with the great overshadowing fact that the Divine presence was visible, and the Divine favour evident, in the whole course of the people's history. That of itself was sufficient to ensure success and renown. Since God was for them, who or what could be against them? ( Monday Club Sermons. ) Hezekiah's good reign R. W. Keighley. Heredity is fickle, or wicked Ahaz would not have had a son like Hezekiah. The piety of the father does not necessarily involve the godliness of the son, nor does the iniquity of the parent make virtue impossible in his posterity. Judah had no worse king than Ahaz, and no better than Hezekiah. There are surprises of goodness in bad families, and of wickedness in families which bear an honoured name. There is also a sweet word of hope for the offspring of bad people. Hezekiah and Josiah were sons of such evil monsters as Ahaz and Amon. The surroundings and character of Hezekiah supply useful lessons. I. AN EVIL ENVIRONMENT. Hezekiah's life boldly challenged and denied the supremacy of circumstances, and emphasised the truth that real manhood rules circumstances, and is not ruled by them. 1. Evil in the home. Ahaz contributed in the fullest measure possible, both by precept and example, to the moral ruin of his family. Every form of heathenism he found in the land he strenuously supported, and introduced new varieties of sin from other lands. There is not a single virtuous thing recorded of him during his whole life. The kindest thing he ever did was to die, and even that service was performed involuntarily. 2. A corrupt nation. Evil was popular. The flowing tide of public sentiment was with Ahaz, idolatry, and vice. The nation had lost its conscience. The last restraints of decency and custom had been removed. There was not an institution in all the land for the protection of youth,, and the young prince, and any other virtuous youth, might say with literal truth, No man careth for my soul. II. A SPLENDID CHARACTER. Untoward circumstances develop brave men. Battles and storms make heroes possible. 1. Unwavering decision. "In the first month of the first year of his reign," he set about the work of reform ( 2 Chronicles 29:3 ). He was only twenty-five years of age. But his youth had been wisely spent, and when opportunity of great usefulness came, he was ready. 2. Religious enthusiasm. He restored the purity and dignity of Divine worship (vers. 4-6). He went back to first principles; he dug down to the only sure foundation of national strength. No nation can be strong whose temple doors are closed. 3. Widespread success. His achievements were so great and complete, that he eclipsed all the kings who preceded and succeeded him (ver. 5). His trust was in the Lord (ver. 5), and his faith was honoured of God (vers. 7, 8). Truly character is above circumstances, and the history of this Jewish prince is a lesson of hope for the young people of to-day. ( R. W. Keighley. ) A just ruler a type of God T. De Witt Talmage. John Ruskin, in Stones of Venice , calls attention to the pleasing fact that in the year 813 the Doge of Venice devoted himself to putting up two great buildings — St. Mark's, for the worship of God, and a palace for the administration of justice to man. Have you ever realised how much God has honoured law in the fact that all up and down the Bible He makes the Judge a type of Himself, and employs the scene of a court-room to set forth the grandeurs of the great judgment day? Book of Genesis: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Book of Deuteronomy: "The Lord shall judge His people." Book of Psalms: "God is Judge Himself." Book of the Acts: "Judge of quick and dead." Book of Timothy: "The Lord the righteous Judge." Never will it be understood how God honours judges and court-rooms until the thunderbolt of the last day shall sound the opening of the great assize — the day of trial, the day of clearance, the day of doom, the day of .judgment. ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) The spiritual scores successes Remember that flesh dies and spirit lives: in the long run, it is the spiritual that is mighty. Think of that insignificant-looking little black-eyed Jew clanking his chains in Rome, and writing to "the saints that are in Ephesus." Think of calmly facing the Arian rabble. Think of consolidating a spiritual empire when the old Roman civilisation was shattered and failing in ruins. Think of writing the City of God in 410 when the world was thrilled with dismay because Rome had been stormed by Alaric the Goth. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." To be spiritual is to be already victorious. The religious -- the greatest of reforms In his History of the Eighteenth Century , Mr. Lecky said: "Although the career of the elder Pitt and the splendid victories by land and sea that were won during his ministry formed unquestionably the most dazzling episodes in the reign of George II., they must yield in real importance to that religious revolution which shortly before had begun in England by the preaching of the Wesleys and Whitefield." Methodism was the least result of Wesley's efforts, for, as Green the historian had said, "the noblest result of the religious revival was the steady attempt which had never ceased from that day to this to remedy the guilt, the ignorance, the physical suffering, and the social degradations of the profligate and the poor." Wesley preached and taught in his class-meetings and in his journals the true application of the great saying of burke, that "whatever is morally wrong can never be politically right." — And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. 2 Kings 18:3-7 Goodness and prosperity Homilist. It is impossible to read these words without some surprise. First of all, we are surprised at the fact of a good king reigning over either of the kingdoms of the Israelites, and secondly we are surprised at the assertion made in the latter part of this verse, when the conclusion of the chapter appears to give it a direct and absolute contradiction. So far from Hezekiah prospering whithersoever he went, he is described as being assailed most bitterly by his enemies, insulted and besieged, and, in fact, all but utterly destroyed. We may, however, reconcile the statement with the recorded facts by remembering that, after all, the Almighty did not allow him to be utterly destroyed or entirely cast down. And not only so — the afflictions which came upon him and the straits into which he was led were really the results of his own folly, and only came to him when he forgot to trust in the Lord his God, and relied on his own strength. And these thoughts lead us back again to the fact brought before us in the text. We are taught thereby — I. THAT THERE IS AN INTIMATE CONNECTION BETWEEN GOODNESS AND PROSPERITY. When Hezekiah served God he prospered, when he leaned on his own strength he did not. Real prosperity is only to be obtained in the service of God. A false tinsel may, for a moment, gild the course of the sinful. A momentary glamour of unholy light may flicker on their actions, but it soon will fade away. True stable advantage is only for the righteous. This is shown us — 1. In history. What has become of the long list of mighty kings and conquerors who have held the world in unrighteous sway? Their bodies have faded and the kingdoms crumbled to dust. But those who have been servants of God are now reigning in kingdoms of a brightness far exceeding any worldly kingdom. This is shown us — 2. In the lessons and examples of Scripture. So numerous are these that they will occur to all. Joseph is a striking instance of good, Ahab of evil. In the history of the kings we find that whenever any king turned away from his evil courses the kingdom prospered, to sink again to his lowest ebb when an evil ruler ascended the throne. David is ever repeating the same important truth. Our Lord tells us the same. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." This is shown us — 3. By our own personal experience. What does David say? "I have been young and now am old, yet saw I the righteous never forsaken or his seed begging bread." The longer we live the more we may discover that those who love God are no losers even in a worldly point of view. They not only have the promise of good things to come, but also have the blessings of the life that now is, far more often than is generally supposed. II. THAT THIS CONNECTION BETWEEN GOOD AND PROSPERITY IS OWING TO THE PRESENCE AND INFLUENCE OF GOD. God was with Hezekiah, and it was God who made him to prosper in all that he did. We shall see the reasonableness of this fact if we remember — 1. That God is the only source of prosperity. He maketh rich and He alone. The cattle upon a thousand hills are His. All the gold and silver in the world are His. He can and will bestow them upon whom He will. 2. That God is the only source of protection. His knowledge and power and resources can and will be bestowed by Him in the protection of His people. It was so in the case of Hezekiah. How powerless were all the mighty hosts of his enemies to injure even a hair of his head so long as the shield of the Almighty was his protection! 3. That God is the only source of happiness. Even prosperity does not always bring happiness. It may if it is sanctified. It is God alone who can sanctify. And He can give happiness in this world and joy in the next. Thus, as God Himself is good, He bestows rewards upon those who partake of His nature. Righteousness itself is the highest form of prosperity, and the noblest attainment of human nature, because it enlists infinite power on our behalf. Conclusion. — What a blessed lot is that of him who has the Lord for his God through Jesus Christ our Saviour! May we all strive to do that which is right in His sight, and so we shall reap the promised reward. ( Homilist. ) The good son of a bad father C. Leach, D. D. Ahaz, King of Judah, is dead. At his death no tear was shed, except some down-trodden one wept for joy that the king was gone. Destitute of true courage, of piety, of noble or elevating thoughts, he has fallen all covered with shame and irreligion. I. THE WORST OF FATHERS HAVE SOMETIMES LEFT BEHIND THEM THE BEST OF SONS. It was so with Ahaz. But no thanks are due to him. His influence, example, and life were all such as seemed likely to fill the mind of his son with that which was not good. Yet the son was one of the best of kings, and a good man. II. THE SONS OF BAD FATHERS SUFFER SOME LOSS THROUGH PATERNAL WICKEDNESS AND FOLLY. This does not need much illustration, for, unfortunately, we have too many instances before our eyes almost daily. It is patent to us all that the iniquity of the father is visited upon the children. This is true both in body, estate, and character. We suffer for what our parents were and did, and can't help it. I dare say many of you have lived long enough to believe that many of your weaknesses and much of your poverty are the result, not of your own profligacy and extravagance, but of those who have preceded you. Few of you will question the soundness of my conclusions on these two. You may be disposed to do a little when I say that the son suffers in character because of the bad father. III. IN THE CASE OF AHAZ, WE SEE HOW GOD SOMETIMES SETS ASIDE THE NOTIONS OF MEN AND SELECTS FROM UNLIKELY SCHOOLS THE INSTRUMENTS WITH WHICH HE WILL ACCOMPLISH GREAT REFORMS AND BRING GREAT BLESSINGS. Hezekiah, reared in the house of Ahaz, became a reformer of the abuses of his nation, restored prosperity to it, and brought the people back to the neglected Temple and the all but forgotten God. The son of an idolatrous king, he became the champion of true religion. Here we get a principle of widest application and illustration. The Bible abounds with it, and our experience too. IV. I NOTICE THAT HERE WE HAVE A LESSON OF THE MOTHER'S INFLUENCE. Did you notice with what care the sacred writer tells us the name of the mother of Hezekiah, and whose daughter she was? "Abi," or Abijah, "the daughter of Zachariah." It is not often you find it so stated in the Scriptures. Are we to conclude that Hezekiah was the good son mainly because he was the son of a good woman? Be that as it may in this case, the mother's influence is unbounded. It begins with the babe, and never ends. Beecher said, "A babe is a mother's anchor. She cannot swing far from her moorings." And, we may add, the babe cannot swing far from its mother. Her heart is a schoolroom. ( C. Leach, D. D. ) Hezekiah J. Parker, D. D. After a long journey underground we seem to have come suddenly upon a sweet garden, and the sight of it is as heaven. The charm is always in the contrast. If things are not quite so good as we supposed them to be, they are all the better by reason of circumstances through which we have passed, which have made us ill at ease, and have impoverished or disheartened us; then very little of the other kind goes a long way. A man comes up out of the underground railway and says when he emerges into the light, How fresh the air is here! What a healthy locality! How well to live in this neighbourhood! Why does he speak so kindly of his surroundings? Not because of those surroundings intrinsically, but because of the contrast which they present to the circumstances through which he has just passed. Hezekiah was no perfect man. We shall see how noble he was, and how rich in many high qualities, yet how now and again we see the crutch of the cripple under the purple of the king. It is well for us that he was occasionally and temporarily weak, or he would have been like a star we cannot touch, and at which we cannot light our own torch. Perhaps it is well for him that we approach his case after such an experience. He thus gets advantages which otherwise might not have been accorded to him: he looks the higher for the dwarfs that are round about him, the whiter because of the black population amidst which he stands, at once a contrast and a rebuke. But from Hezekiah's point of view the case was different. Behind him were traditions of the corruptest sort. He was as a speckled bird in the line of his own family. It is hard to be good amidst so much that is really bad. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) He removed the high places, and brake the images. 2 Kings 18:4 Iconoclast The First Commandment instructs us that there is but one God, who alone is to be worshipped; and the Second Commandment teaches that no attempt is to be made to represent the Lord, neither are we to bow down before any form of sacred similitude. The two commandments thus make a full sweep of idolatry. I. WE HAVE MUCH IDOL-BREAKING FOR CHRISTIANS TO DO. There is much to be done in the Church of God, there is much more to be done in our own hearts. 1. There is much idol-breaking to be done in the Church of God. When God gives a man to the Church, fitted for her enlargement, for her establishment, and her confirmation, he gives to her one of the richest blessings of the covenant of grace; but the danger is lest we place the man in the wrong position, and look to him not only with the respect which is due to him as God's ambassador, but with some degree of — I must call it so — superstitious reliance upon his authority and ability. In the Christian Church there is, I am afraid, at this moment too much exaltation of talent and dependence upon education, I mean especially in reference to ministers. Just the same also may be said of human eloquence. Continuing still our remarks with regard to the Christian Church, I will further remark that much superstition may require to be broken down amongst us in reference to a rigid adhesion to certain modes of Christian service. We have tried to propagate the truth in a certain way, and the Lord has blessed us in it, and therefore we venerate the mode and the plan, and forget that the Holy Spirit is a free Spirit. There are persons in our churches who object very seriously to any attempt to do good in a way which they have not seen tried before. 2. Now let us turn to the temple of our own hearts, and we shall find much work to be done there. II. THOSE WHO ARE SEEKERS OF JESUS. There is some idol-breaking to be done for them. I pray God the Holy Spirit to do it. The way of salvation lies in coming to Christ, in trusting in Jesus Christ alone. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Religious reform J. Parker, D. D. Hezekiah will now go to work and prove himself to be an energetic reformer, He must have been a strong man. He had no colleague, no ally; no one to say to him, Be brave, be true. He went straight against the hardest wall that ever war built by the stubbornness and perversity Of man. It is not easy to begin life by a destructive process of reformation. Who would not rather plant a tree than throw down a wall? Who would not rather plant flowers, and enjoy their beauty and fragrance, than give himself the severe toil, the incessant trouble, of destroying corrupt and evil institutions? Whoever attempts this kind of destructive work, or even a constructive work which involves preliminary destructiveness, will have a hard time of it: criticism will be very sharp, selfishness will be developed in an extraordinary degree. If a man be more than politician — if he be a real born statesman, looking at whole empires at once and not at mere parishes, and if in his thought and purpose he should base his whole policy upon fundamental right, he will not have an easy life of it even in a Christian country. In proportion as he bases his whole policy on righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, he will be pelted with hard names and struck at with unfriendly hands. This holds good in all departments of life, in all great reformations, in all assaults made upon ignorance, selfishness, tyranny, and wrong of every name. ( J. Parker, D. D. ). A Jewish Iconoclast J. T. Higgins. Hezekiah was a very Iconoclast — a breaker of images. And in this respect he develops three rare qualities that lift him a great distance above his time and nation. He was clear-sighted — outspoken — prompt in action. He saw it was nothing but a piece of brass, he said it was brass, and he brake it in pieces. I. THEN HEZEKIAH HAD THE SEEING EYE. Let us mark that as a primary quality, essential both to Hezekiah and all else who seek to free the people from slavish or debasing customs. He saw clearly that what they accounted a god, and worshipped as such, was only a lifeless, senseless piece of brass — that, and nothing more. This quality lifted the king an immeasurable distance above the people. They did more than treasure it as a precious relic, a memento of Divine compassion in a case of pressing need, or hand it down from sire to son as an heirloom of priceless worth because of its associations and teaching — "they burned incense to it." So to-day, if a man would be a reformer, and stand out as a hero for the truth, he must have this essential quality — broad and sweeping vision. He must be able to see things in their true nature and tendency, to see correctly and beneath the surface of things. Men look at things in different ways, and many from peculiar standpoints. Some, for instance, never bring the object of vision near, but contemplate it as through an inverted telescope, while others look at things through tinted mediums, and all appear of uniform colour; some, again, never see only through another's eye, and are incapable of independent vision; a few are cross-eyed, and all things appear to them in an oblique form; many are purblind, and men appear as trees walling; whilst a few will persist in looking at all things through some distorted medium, which always gives the wrong size, and a false shade of colouring; and others are stone blind to the weightiest things in life, and can see nothing that needs touching, helping, renewing, or reforming. Such men can never be heroes, and do noble work in the people's cause. Others again, from motives of personal interest, love of ease, prejudice, ambition, or blind adherence to party, will wilfully close their eyes; they will not see. And some, though they see clearly enough, yet are so politic, or quiescent, or have become such slaves to popular opinion and usage, that they will not, or, what is worse, dare not, declare the vision. See the next rare quality Hezekiah displayed in this transaction. II. HE WAS OUTSPOKEN. "NEHUSHTAN" — A PIECE OF BRASS. What a hard name to give to a god! and what a frank and fearless honesty is here displayed! Might he not have toned it down a little, and led them to the truth by degrees? "Nehushtan" tells it all, fully, clearly, so at that it must stand. There were some very polite people in that day who felt themselves shocked, and their feelings outraged by hearing their darling god called a name so base. To-day, in some of the high places of the land, when men venture upon what has come to be regarded as an unfashionable and undesirable thing — calling things by their right names — what pious horror! And what bitter invectives and scathing denunciations are hurled against the poor delinquent who dares to use such speech! And yet, for all this, we might not have far to seek to-day, and in the Church even, for things quite as senseless as this serpent of brass — nay, worse, because devoid of its precious memories and suggestive teachings, and yet held with as firm a faith and regarded with as profound a reverence. Two or three thoughts are suggested by this plain speaking of Hezekiah we shall do well to observe. 1. Here is honest candour. You will remember some passages in the life of Luther not unlike the one under consideration. Take that historic circumstance of the hawking through Germany of the famous certificate of indulgence by Tetzel. Very wide and expressive that indulgence, promising to remit the pains and penalties of purgatory, and grant to the purchaser an easy access to paradise; an indulgence, too, that not only atoned for the past, but provided for the future, by shifting from the culprit all the penal consequences of sin, and granting a paradise to the most depraved — if only money enough should be handed over for the sacred paper. All this the Pope guaranteed in the parchment, in virtue of the power given to him as God's vicegerent on earth. How Luther met this infamous pretence all the world knows. As Hezekiah looked upon the serpent-god, and found for it a name, so Luther at once saw through the whole trick of this monstrous paper, and, holding it up before the world, brands it as the "Pope's emparchmented lie." 2. That this announcement of Hezekiah's assailed an established article of Jewish faith, and overturned an ancient rite. That serpent-god was blended with their religious life. Their fathers had worshipped it down through the ages, and for seven centuries it had held a conspicuous place in their services. Was it not now late in the day to call its divinity in question? To a less bold and energetic man, these considerations would have had weight and influence, but not so here. Now it is just here where the work of a reformer becomes most stubborn, and where his valour will be tested most severely. It is not nearly so difficult to set up a new god as to throw down an old one. People are tenacious of old customs. The established order of things is difficult to move, and in time comes to be regarded as existing by Divine right. There is nothing that men are more sensitive about than of matters touching religious usages. 3. This would provoke murmurs and secret opposition, if not open dissent, and render him for the time unpopular among many. His "Nehushtan" would ring in their ears as a most unpleasant sound; the word was very unpalatable, and altogether too degrading. "What a thing to say of so good a god! Only a piece of brass! Why, we and our fathers have burned incense to it all these years, and we have had wise and good men among us who never disputed its claims as a god! Brass only! it cannot be, it is a god notwithstanding his statement!" But Hezekiah is unmoved, nothing daunts or turns him aside from his purpose, it is Nehushtan still, just that, and nothing more. Let them murmur, oppose, rep

18:1-8 Hezekiah was a true son of David. Some others did that which was right, but not like David. Let us not suppose that when times and men are bad, they must needs grow worse and worse; that does not follow: after many bad kings, God raised one up like David himself. The brazen serpent had been carefully preserved, as a memorial of God's goodness to their fathers in the wilderness; but it was idle and wicked to burn incense to it. All helps to devotion, not warranted by the word of God, interrupt the exercise of faith; they always lead to superstition and other dangerous evils. Human nature perverts every thing of this kind. True faith needs not such aids; the word of God, daily thought upon and prayed over, is all the outward help we need. 18:9-16 The descent Sennacherib made upon Judah, was a great calamity to that kingdom, by which God would try the faith of Hezekiah, and chastise the people. The secret dislike, the hypocrisy, and lukewarmness of numbers, require correction; such trials purify the faith and hope of the upright, and bring them to simple dependence on God. 18:17-37 Rabshakeh tries to convince the Jews, that it was to no purpose for them to stand it out. What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? It were well if sinners would submit to the force of this argument, in seeking peace with God. It is, therefore, our wisdom to yield to him, because it is in vain to contend with him: what confidence is that which those trust in who stand out against him? A great deal of art there is in this speech of Rabshakeh; but a great deal of pride, malice, falsehood, and blasphemy. Hezekiah's nobles held their peace. There is a time to keep silence, as well as a time to speak; and there are those to whom to offer any thing religious or rational, is to cast pearls before swine. Their silence made Rabshakeh yet more proud and secure. It is often best to leave such persons to rail and blaspheme; a decided expression of abhorrence is the best testimony against them. The matter must be left to the Lord, who has all hearts in his hands, committing ourselves unto him in humble submission, believing hope, and fervent prayer.