In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”
Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’ ”
Then Isaiah said, “Prepare a poultice of figs.” They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.
Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?”
Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord ’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?”
“It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”
Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah’s illness. Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine olive oil—his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come from?”
“From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came from Babylon.”
The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?”
“They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”
As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? Hezekiah rested with his ancestors. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.
My thoughts -
What do we want but what Hezekiah wanted? He hears that he will die and he begs, prays and weeps. He wants nothing more than to live. Hezekiah was a great king and a faithful servant of God, but the end was still coming. It comes for all of us.
The Lord heard Hezekiah's prayer and he was healed. He got fifteen more years of life. But did he get what he wanted? Look at what Isaiah tells him about his wealth and his family:
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”Hezekiah was a righteous man who faced something that seemed just wrong to him, a premature death. So he was granted what he asked for, a longer life. Yet in those additional years he faced the loss of all that he held dear in this life. That, too just seems wrong. I've read over this time and time again, even now, to see what Hezekiah did to bring this down upon himself.
Maybe there's something I don't understand going on here. I want to read some awful sin into Hezekiah's dealing with Marduk-Baladan. Maybe it's there, but if it is it's beyond my understanding.
Hezekiah was the good guy in this story. He was faithful after generation after generation after generation were not. He was a righteous and holy man who served God. And bad things happened to him. Even his miraculous healing turned out pretty sour when the last fifteen years that he was given forced him to endure the loss of everything he had here. Some gift, right?
This just does not compute. We want things to be simple, easy to explain and to understand. We want the righteous rewarded and the wicked punished. We want the good guys to live long and fruitful lives. We want to be those good guys and to receive the long and fruitful lives. We want to have grace and salvation and we want to deserve it.
But life doesn't work that way. In life a young mother dies of cancer. In life a twenty two year old hits a tree with his truck. We lament that the good die young and the wicked seem to live forever. Life isn't simple and it doesn't work the way we want it to.
Nothing here lasts. We lose our possessions. We lose our families. We lose everything. We die. Nothing here lasts. That's just the way it is. And horrible, inexplicable things happen every day. I want to be able to explain why God allows this to happen but would an explanation help? I see things that I don't understand and I want to ask why, but in the face of crisis is why the best question to ask? Does why help you endure? Does why get you through it? Does why bring a loved on back or heal the pain that is left in their absence?
Hezekiah had an idea of the way things should be. You can hear it in the question he asks Isaiah: "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?"
When facing death he wants more life. When facing loss he wants peace and security. We want everything to work out. We want everything to be okay. We want God to be in control and to work for our good in all situations. We want this desperately and when it seems as though this is impossible we ask why.
I have a new question to ask.
What can I do to help?
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