Hezekiah and Sennacherib

The opening sentence of our passage from Isaiah reads, "After Hezekiah had faithfully carried out his work, King Sennacherib invaded Judah". We have been in the prophets and Psalms for so long that I forgot what Hezekiah 's "work" might have been and what events set the stage for the Assyrian king's invasion. So I scanned back through Kings and Chronicles to refresh my memory. Here is a recap...

Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz, who was an evil king. He instituted all kinds of pagan worship and even burned some of his own sons in sacrifice to Baal. He had a replica made of a pagan altar he had seen in Damascus (Assyria) and placed it in the Temple. And under his rule, the doors of the temple were eventually locked so that no one could worship God. Ahaz set up altars on every street corner so that the people had to worship the Baals. When Hezekiah came into power, he set about the task of destroying every pagan shrine, altar, and Asherah pole and even demolished the bronze serpent of Moses time that the people had begun to worship. He reopened the Temple and reinstated the Passover observance. He revamped the priesthood and sent the Levites throughout all of Judah to teach people about the ways of God. This was the work Hezekiah had finished when Sennacherib invaded. In terms of what was happening politically, Hezekiah had refused to pay tribute to the Assyrian king as his father Ahaz had, so Sennacherib began attacking the fortified cities in the outlying areas of Judah. When Hezekiah began to feel threatened, he did make a substantial payment to Sennacherib, who promptly initiated a siege on Jerusalem. Phase one of the attack was to taunt the people of Jerusalem and mock the God of Israel. Tomorrow's reading will be awesome...

Tomorrow's reading: 2 Kings 19:1-37, Isaiah 37:1-38, 2 Chron. 32:9-23