Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.
In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.” …
When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshiped. King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed down and worshiped.

• 2 Chronicles 29:1-11, 29-30

Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel. The king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month. They had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem. The plan seemed right both to the king and to the whole assembly. They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, calling the people to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written.
At the king’s command, couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and from his officials, which read:
“People of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your parents and your fellow Israelites, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their ancestors, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see. Do not be stiff-necked, as your ancestors were; submit to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. If you return to the Lord, then your fellow Israelites and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will return to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”
The couriers went from town to town in Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but people scorned and ridiculed them. Nevertheless, some from Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem. Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord.
A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month. They removed the altars in Jerusalem and cleared away the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the temple of the Lord.

• 2 Chronicles 30:1-15

When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property. …
This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

• 2 Chronicles 31:1, 20-21

The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple of the Lord.

• 2 Kings 15:35

King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this. …
In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the Lord, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. But Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come on them during the days of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah had very great wealth and honor, and he made treasuries for his silver and gold and for his precious stones, spices, shields and all kinds of valuables. He also made buildings to store the harvest of grain, new wine and olive oil; and he made stalls for various kinds of cattle, and pens for the flocks. He built villages and acquired great numbers of flocks and herds, for God had given him very great riches.
It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook. But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.
The other events of Hezekiah’s reign and his acts of devotion are written in the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. Hezekiah rested with his ancestors and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.

• 2 Chronicles 32:20, 24-33

At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of his illness and recovery. Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine olive oil—his entire 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 to me 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 Almighty: 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, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”

• Isaiah 39:1-8

The Boilerplate

My wife took a Bible Study in 2011.  (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.)  My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor.  The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.

My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up.  It is a Beth Moore study guide.  Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank.  But my wife was eager to learn.  She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore.  I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes.  There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook.  Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.

So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide. It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.

Discussion on this topic

Sorry for the tremendous amount of Scripture, but I left a few bits out when my wife did not have comments on them.

What did my wife think of Hezekiah after reading 2 Chronicles 29-31?

“He sought out God in everything he did.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

In comparing 2 Chronicles 31:1 with 2 Kings 15:35, what did Hezekiah do that King Jotham had not done?

“Hezekiah smashed the sacred stones, cut down the Asherah poles, destroyed the high places.  Jotham didn’t.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

Just because the king was a good king, that does not mean the people followed his lead in worshipping God alone.  Destroying the high places was an important thing to do.  It not only made their worship of false gods harder, it sent a message to the people that their false god worship was the wrong thing to do.

I remember a movie theater near where our church was located, but the town had two movie theaters and the other one was not as easy to get to, but it was more established.  The newer one had more comfortable seats and a greater selection of snacks, but financially, the town could not support two movie theaters.  The new theater, right next to an interstate exit, closed.  But then less than a year later, it reopened as a “dollar-night” theater.  Since people from India had bought the property, they had full price Bollywood movies, and private parties for their Hindustani friends.  A local contemporary worship church that was connected, at the time, to the Methodist denomination was setting up satellite campuses.  They started meeting in the dollar-night theater on Sunday morning.  But in spite of all this, the theater failed to make a profit, and the theater closed again.  It was not until years later when the property was again sold that it failed to be a “theater.”  It is torn to the ground and the grounds completely rearranged.  It is now a business office and eatery area.

Why bring up a movie theater that failed and was torn down?  It was not until the theater was torn down that it was no longer a theater in the minds of the people.  The high places that Jotham left behind were not even ignored.  Only Jotham ignored them.  Then Ahaz came along and used them as high places to worship false gods.  Not until we tear down can we truly rid ourselves of the evil in our lives at times.  People keep talking about turning around as being a 360-degree turn.  As someone that understands math, that irritates me to uncertain levels.  To turn away from something and go in the opposite direction, you turn 180 degrees, not 360 degrees.  But maybe, those people who turned 360 degrees were correct in their incorrect statement.  They noticed that their sin was sin.  They realized that they had to repent and turn away from that sin.  But they kept turning because they really liked that sin.  My parents told me to never burn my bridges, but if that bridge leads me to sin, let’s build a bonfire.

But when Sennacherib was at the gate, what did Hezekiah and Isaiah both do?

“They prayed to God.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

And it seems like it was the next day as the narrative goes, but then Hezekiah falls ill.  No one expects him to live.  There may have not been much of a gap after this wonderful blessing.  Hezekiah’s reign was only 29 years.

How would you feel about getting sick right after God had delivered you from a mighty earthly army?

“Why me at the prime of my life?  My body (tent) is pulled down and taken from me – broken bones (physical and spiritual breakdown).”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

My wife seemed to know what was coming in her own life.  At this point, during this Bible study, she was already older than Hezekiah when he died.  But three years later, when she awakened after open-heart surgery, she announced to me that she was given a Hezekiah gift.  She felt that she had another fifteen years.  She only had five more years, but she felt her prayers, short-term, had been answered.

But it is only from me reading this comment that I get the full understanding of what were the stresses in her life during those years.  She had not endured open-heart surgery or kidney dialysis at that point, but she saw each of them coming.  “Why me, Lord?”  In some ways, we could rationalize that by saying, “Why not?”  I am a sinner, saved by Grace.  We each will die, and in most cases, God chooses the method.  Choosing the method yourself, suicide, has been labeled the most selfish thing you could do, and some people label it “cheating.”

But now, Hezekiah had avoided Sennacherib’s army by praying.  Hezekiah had overcome a deadly disease by praying.  Hezekiah intellectually and spiritually recognized that the source of such power came from God.  But why did Hezekiah make such a monumental mistake as he did when he showed the emissaries from Babylon all the wealth he had?

Note: in a recent Bible study, the gold and silver used in building the temple would be worth a third of a trillion dollars.  And Hezekiah had his own riches.  And Hezekiah showed them the golden shields that Solomon had made (not part of what went into the temple).

How do we flaunt our treasures before the godless?

“Name brand merchandise, the latest gadgets, homes and cars.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

In Ken Davis’s sermon/comedy routine, Super Sheep, he talks about how we are like sheep, all following the leader when we buy a designer brand shirt or blouse, extremely expensive, that looks just like the one on the rack except for the tag inside the collar, a tag that no one will ever see.

What was Hezekiah’s reaction when he faced judgment for acting proudly?

“He repented to God, but you still have to pay the consequences.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

Those consequences would come a few generations later, but why do good kings slip up?

“Satan is always on the prowl, especially for the Christians.  The ungodly are Satan’s anyway.”

• My wife’s inner thoughts

We can resist temptation, but none of us achieve perfection until we go to be with Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory