One of Judah's most faithful kings, who removed idolatry, was delivered from the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem through prayer, and received fifteen added years of life, yet whose later pride in showing his treasures to Babylonian envoys drew a prophecy of future exile.
For younger readers
Hezekiah was one of Judah's best kings. He tore down the idols his father had allowed, even destroying a bronze snake statue people had wrongly started worshiping. When a powerful enemy army surrounded Jerusalem and threatened them, Hezekiah brought the scary letter straight to God in prayer instead of panicking, and God sent an angel who defeated the entire enemy army in one night! Later, when Hezekiah became very sick, he prayed and God gave him fifteen more years to live. But after that, Hezekiah made a prideful mistake — he showed off all his treasures to visitors from Babylon, which led to a warning that those same treasures would one day be taken away. Hezekiah's story shows that even a faithful king can still stumble into pride.
Life Story
Hezekiah, son of the idolatrous Ahaz, did what was right "according to all that his father David had done" — he removed the high places, broke into pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made because Israel had begun worshiping it, and Scripture says "there was none like him among all the kings of Judah" for trust in the LORD (2 Kings 18:1-6). When Assyria's King Sennacherib invaded and mocked Judah's God, Hezekiah spread the threatening letter before the LORD in the temple and prayed; Isaiah announced deliverance, and that night "the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000" in the Assyrian camp (2 Kings 18:13-19:37). When Hezekiah fell fatally ill, he wept and prayed, and God granted him fifteen more years, confirmed by the sign of the sun's shadow moving backward (2 Kings 20:1-11). Yet pride followed deliverance: Hezekiah showed off all his treasures to envoys from Babylon, and Isaiah warned that everything, and some of his own descendants, would one day be carried off to Babylon — a prophecy Hezekiah accepted with troubling relief that it would not happen in his own lifetime (2 Kings 20:12-19). Hezekiah also organized a great Passover reuniting worshipers from both the northern and southern kingdoms (2 Chronicles 30:1-27).
First named in 2 Kings 16:20
References: 2 Kings 16:20; 2 Kings 18:1-37; 2 Kings 19:1-20; 2 Kings 20:1-21; 2 Kings 21:3; 1 Chronicles 3:13; 1 Chronicles 4:41; 2 Chronicles 28:27; 2 Chronicles 29:1-36; 2 Chronicles 30:1-24; 2 Chronicles 31:2-20; 2 Chronicles 32:2-33; 2 Chronicles 33:3; Proverbs 25:1; Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 36:1-22; Isaiah 37:1-21; Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8; Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 26:18-19; Hosea 1:1; Micah 1:1; Matthew 1:9-10
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