2 Kings 18:1- 16 “Good King Hezekiah”
1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
· Twenty-five years old.
o As Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and died when he had reigned 16 years, his whole age only amounted to 36 years; and as Hezekiah was, at least, entering on his 25th year when he began to reign, then Ahaz must have been under 12 years of age when his son was born! This is not at all impossible: and there are well-attested facts of men having children at as early a period, especially in eastern countries. a.m. 3278–3306. [1]
· Hezekiah(meaning God will strengthen) orיְחִזְקִיָּ֫הוּḤizqiyyāhu (Hebrew), alsotranslatedas Ḥizkiyyahu (and sometimes as Ezekias (Greek), Khizkiyahu, Yəḥizqiyyāhu, Y'khizkiyahu). [2]
3 And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.
· The Holy Spirit puts Hezekiah in the rank of David himself.
o No other King of Judah would attain such rank.
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
§ To Will – to really desire to please the Lord
§ To Do – to actually do it, not just think about doing it.
4 He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan.
· Nehushtan—of copper; a brazen thing a name of contempt given to the serpent Moses had made in the wilderness (Num. 21:8), and which Hezekiah destroyed because the children of Israel began to regard it as an idol and “burn incense to it.” The lapse of nearly one thousand years had invested the “brazen serpent” with a mysterious sanctity; and in order to deliver the people from their infatuation, and impress them with the idea of its worthlessness, Hezekiah called it, in contempt, “Nehushtan,” a brazen thing, a mere piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4). [3]
· Nehushtan = “a thing of brass” [4]
Numbers 21:8–9
8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”
9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
John 3:14–15
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him.
6 For he held fast to the Lord;
he did not depart from following Him,
but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.
7 The Lord was with him; he prospered wherever he went.
And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
· “He prospered wherever he went”
2 Chronicles 32:27–30
27 Hezekiah had very great riches and honor. And he made himself treasuries for silver, for gold, for precious stones, for spices, for shields, and for all kinds of desirable items;
28 storehouses for the harvest of grain, wine, and oil; and stalls for all kinds of livestock, and folds for flocks.
29 Moreover he provided cities for himself, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; for God had given him very much property.
30 This same Hezekiah also stopped the water outlet of Upper Gihon, and brought the water by tunnel to the west side of the City of David. Hezekiah prospered in all his works.
· Isaiah was speaking into Hezekiah’s heart –
not to associate Judah with any nation!
o Isaiah 29 – Woe to Jerusalem, she shall be challenged
o Isaiah 30 to 31 – Woe to any alliance with Egypt
o Isaiah 32 – BEHOLD THE COMING KING!
o Isaiah 33 – Woe to any alliance with Assyria
o Isaiah 34 – Woe to any alliance with any surrounding Nation
o Isaiah 35 – BEHOLD THE COMING KINGDOM OF GOD!
· Since the Assyrian king Sargon II (722–705 b.c.) had conquered the Philistines about twenty years earlier, Hezekiah’s attack on the Philistines was equal to rebellion against the Assyrians. [5]
8 He subdued the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory,
from watchtower to fortified city.
2 Kings 17:9 (NLT) The people of Israel had also secretly done many things that were not pleasing to the Lord their God. They built pagan shrines for themselves in all their towns, from the smallest outpost to the largest walled city. [6]
9 Now it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10 And at the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11 Then the king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would neither hear nor do them.
· Israel carried away
o By pagan sin
o By Assyria
· Repeated now for the third time to accentuate the reasoning behind what God has done.
13 And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying,
“I have done wrong; turn away from me;
whatever you impose on me I will pay.” And the king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
· Sennacherib asked for 300 talents (ca. 11 tons) of silver and 30 talents (ca. 1 ton) of gold.
o Hezekiah paid him all the silver in the treasuries of the temple and palace.
o To gather all the gold the king had to strip off all the gold plating on the temple doors and door frames. [7]
· “Turn away from me . . .”
o We should be telling the Devil:
Matthew 16:23
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
o We pray . . .
Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
o The act of forgiveness is uniquely tied to overcoming the Devil
o Jesus knew that we must be clean to fight the Devil
1. Death to sinful habits
2. Death to Temptation
3. Deliverance from the Devil
Perspective:
· 11 tonnes of silver = how many ounces?
· 1 tonnes of gold = how many ounces?
o And it's troy ounces, not avoirdupois ounces, and gold is measured on the world stage in metric tonnes, spelled tonnes, not short tons. 1 metric tonne =32,150.7466 troy ounces. [8]
§ 353,658 troy ounces of silver = $17 @ ounce = $6,012,186. [9]
§ 32,151 troy ounces of gold = $1,255 @ ounce = $40,349,505. [10]
15 So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house.
16 At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
· Ahaz had exhausted both these stores of wealth about thirty years previously (ch. 16:8), and there could not have been very much accumulation since. Hence the stripping of the metal-plating from off the temple doors. [11]
2 Kings 16:8 And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria.
· Imagine stripping the doors of God’s Temple because of fear!
· Fear of finances often affects God’s house:
o First sign of financial difficulty
§ Stop paying our tithe!
§ Call the church for help!
Talent (weight)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Atalent(Latin:talentum, fromAncient Greek:τάλαντον"scale, balance") is an ancient unit ofmass. It corresponded generally to the mass of water in the volume of anamphora, i.e. a one foot cube.
TheBabyloniansandSumerianshad a system in which there were 60shekelsin aminaand 60 minas in a talent (inAncient Greeceone talent was 26kg ofsilver). TheRomantalent consisted of 100libra(pounds) which were smaller in magnitude than the mina.
When used as a measure ofmoney, it refers to atalent-weight ofgoldor ofsilver. The gold talent is reported as weighing roughly the same as a person, and so perhaps 50kg (110lbavoirdupois). Some authorities say that the talent typically weighed about 33kg (75lb) varying from 20 to 40kg. In February, 2016, the international price of gold was aboutUS$1190 pertroy ounce. Onegramcosts about $38. At this price, a talent (33kg) would be worth about $1.25 million. Similarly, in February 2016, the price of silver was about $15 per troy ounce or about 50 cents per gram, so a 33kg silver talent would be worth about $16,500. Thus when we read thatKing Auletesof Egypt paidGaius Julius Caesarthe sum of 6,000 talents of gold to grant him the status of a "Friend and Ally of the Roman People," This amount would be worth about $7.5 billion USD today! These estimates are only rough values, because they are based on modern estimates.
The value of silver in comparison to gold drastically changed. This is because of the output of the Spanish silver mines in the New World. In ancient times the same amount of silver was often worth more than gold. The estimates do not account for the less technical mining ability of the time, nor that there were still native deposits available. Later in Roman history, during the medievalByzantineperiod, the emperorBasil IIwas said to have stockpiled the legendary amount of 200,000 talents of gold which, in modern terms, would be worth approximately $250 billion USD. At any rate, he did save enough money that the Byzantine government was able to remit all taxes paid during the final two years of his reign.[source?]
Another way to calculate the modern equivalent to atalentis from its use in estimating military pay. During thePeloponnesian warinAncient Greece, atalentwas the amount of silver needed to pay the crew of atriremefor one month. Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma for every day of service, which was a good salary in the post-Alexander(III) days. 6,000 drachma made a talent.
The talent as a unit of coinage is mentioned in theNew TestamentinJesus'parable of the talents. One talent was an incredible amount of money. [12]
THE MYSTERIES OF THE BRAZEN SERPENT
A Sermon
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 27, 1857, by the
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
at the music hall, royal surrey gardens.
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”—John 3:14.
We are told by wise men that all languages are based upon figures, that the speech of men who are uncivilized is mainly composed of figures; and that indeed the language of the most civilized, when cleaved so as to bring it to its natural foundation, is based upon a set of metaphors perceived by the mind, and then used in language. This much I know, that when we would teach children to speak, we are accustomed to call things, not exactly by the names by which they are known to us, but by some name which represents, for instance, the kind of noise which is uttered by some animal; but which in some way or other, by a species of figure, is easily understood by the child to represent the things. But certain it is that among savage nations, the speech is almost entirely composed of metaphors. Hear an Indian warrior addressing the chiefs, and inflaming them for war; he gathers together all the metaphors of heaven and earth to make his speech. And you will note the same thing is true even in the names which the Indian warriors bear. Those of you who are acquainted with their nomenclature will remember, that the strangest names are given to their great men, by way of figure and metaphor to set forth the qualities of their mind.