"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. – 2 Kings 20:3

Today's Scripture Reading (March 10, 2020): 2 Kings 20

Katherine Hepburn argued that "Life is hard. After all, it kills you." It is hard to argue with that kind of logic. There is something about realizing that you are going to die that focuses you on the life you have left to live. Suddenly, your priorities rearrange themselves, and you find yourself doing the critical things, and not just the things that seem important. Death is a marker toward which we are all marching, and we know that life is hard because it is death that is waiting for us at the end of the road.

Hezekiah was a good king. But, at times, he was also an unfocused king. And while the nation experienced a revival during that first Passover after the renovation of the Temple in Jerusalem, it is entirely possible that Hezekiah did not experience his revival at that time. So, God needed to create a thin space so that Hezekiah could get his priorities straight.

It seems quite possible that at the time that Hezekiah received his death sentence, there was an argument taking place behind the scenes in the palace between the prophet Isaiah and the King. Isaiah wanted Hezekiah to settle down, get married, and produce an heir to sit on the throne of David. Hezekiah, a 39-year-old bachelor, was too busy doing other things to bother with such mundane activities of life. There would be time later to marry and have children later, but right now, there were other things that Hezekiah wanted to do.

And then, Isaiah arrived with a message from God. The end of the life of Hezekiah had come. It was time for the King to put his affair in order. As Isaiah spoke the words, Hezekiah realized that there were critical things he had not completed. God had created a thin space where he could get through to Hezekiah. There is no doubt that everything that Hezekiah had said to God in his prayer was right. Hezekiah had walked faithfully before God. He had devoted his life to things of God. Hezekiah had fixed and renovated Solomon's Temple, which had fallen into disrepair in the generations that had preceded Hezekiah's reign. He had reunited Judah and Benjamin with Israel, especially the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, in their worship of God. Revival had swept both Judah and the remnant of Israel, and the high places and false gods had been removed. Yet, through all of this, Hezekiah was resisting God in the mundane areas of his life.

If Hezekiah had died at this time, there would have been no heir to place on the throne of David. Because God gave him fifteen more years, Hezekiah was given a chance to get some things straight in his life; specifically, he married Hephzibah, the daughter of Isaiah, and produced a male heir, Manasseh, who would reign on the throne of David after he had passed away.

And Hezekiah died in 687 B.C.E. at the age of 54, of natural causes, instead of dying in 702 B.C.E. at the age of 39. And Manasseh reign in the place of his father.    

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 18