We are about to bring a terrible disaster on ourselves! All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died. Ezra Some Hamites had lived there formerly. They attacked the Hamites in their dwellings and also the Meunites who were there and completely destroyed them, as is evident to this day. Then they settled in their place, because there was pasture for their flocks. I will defend this city. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.
Nehemiah Zephaniah From then on he was highly regarded by all the nations. He took care of them on every side. Sandra Hamer Smith. Emma Danzey. How Long Should a Pastor Preach? The Lord has promised to deliver the righteous. I have kept your covenant. I have been one who has sought to walk in your ways. Was Hezekiah saying that he was perfect?
It is clear from Scripture that Hezekiah does not claim to be perfect. In Isaiah we read another prayer of Hezekiah.
There he prays:. Hezekiah knew he was a sinner. Hezekiah knew that left to himself, there was no good thing in him. But Hezekiah also knew that he had been redeemed by the grace of God; that he had been forgiven and renewed by the grace of God; that he had been made a part of God's covenant family.
He knew that in the covenant family, by the grace of he was a covenant keeper. I have not blasphemed against you. I have sought in all my life to serve you. So Lord be merciful to me. Lord, show me your grace and your favor. Lord show me your goodness in prolonging my life. We know that the only one who is truly righteous and the only one who keeps God's law and covenant is Jesus, the Messiah.
And so we understand something about the covenant of grace even more deeply and more fully than Hezekiah did. When we pray, we are careful to come to God only in Jesus name. We come in the name of the one who is truly righteous, the one who perfectly kept God's covenant in every way.
I am not perfect, but out of the intention of my heart, renewed by your grace, I am striving to live for you, to serve you. I am your child. I am part of your covenant. O Lord, show me your mercy; show me your goodness. When Hezekiah prays as a covenant-keeper for healing, he is not praying selfishly and self-centeredly for himself.
You are the one who has always supplied your people with life and health and strength. You are the one who can even raise one up from his death-bed, so that in the third day he may go into your temple and glory you. You are the one, O Lord, that grants life to your people. You are the one who raises the dead.
To display your righteousness before the nations, as you have slain the wicked Sennacherib, so raise up the covenant-keeping Hezekiah that you might be glorified. He is not praying selfishly. He is not praying self-centeredly. He is praying for God's glory, for God's purpose to be fulfilled, for God's kingdom to come. You see, such prayers should guide and direct our praying. I fear that our praying often runs the risk of degenerating into a kind of shopping list.
These are the things we'd like. To a point that is legitimate, but what Hezekiah challenges us to do in our prayers is to go a further step and reason with the Lord, tell him why we desire the things for which we ask. How might it might change our prayers if every time we offered a prayer to the Lord, we explained to him how that particular request would advance the glory of his kingdom.
Imagine a prayer meeting in which someone asks prayer for Aunt Bessie's broken leg. But the question would encourage us to seek God-glorifying reasons for the requests we make to God. Perhaps if our prayers were focused on what advances God's glory, we would rearrange our priorities in prayer. Maybe we would begin to have prayers that were more spiritually directed to the great issues of God's kingdom.
We are called to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If we reason with God in prayer, we will pray for his glory and in the end we will pray that his will may be done.
We wrestle with the Lord in prayer; we present our petitions to the Lord in prayer; we try to reason with God to advance his glory. Therefore, your will be done.
The Lord shows his blessing upon Hezekiah by healing him, by raising him up, by uniting him in the fellowship of worship in his temple and by granting him 15 more years of life and by giving him a son, and by delivering Jerusalem from the hand of the Assyrians.
The Lord surely did glorify himself in answering Hezekiah's prayer. The Lord calls us then to pray seeking his glory. To pray person to person, to pray opening our hearts, to pray pouring out the deep desires of our hearts, our frustrations as well as our joys, but then to reason with God and with ourselves so that we too might be changed in prayer.
We are to pray that God might be glorified and that his will might be done. If we are to pray that way effectively, we need to do as Hezekiah did and fill our minds and hearts with the Word of God.
Hezekiah's prayer flows out of his profound knowledge of God's purpose and the ways in which God glorifies himself. Hezekiah's mind was clearly filled with the Psalms, and ours should be too. That is why it is so important that we sing the Psalms. We need those rich and deep roots of piety out of God's own Word to fill our hearts so that we might glorify him. Sing Psalm 30 and unite with David and Hezekiah in celebrating the deliverance of the Lord.
May God encourage us to reason with him in prayer to seek his own glory and to glory in his will. Permissions: You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do NOT alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred.
Skip to main content. Hezekiah's story appears in 2 Kings ; 2 Chronicles ; and Isaiah Other references include Proverbs ; Isaiah ; Jeremiah , ; Hosea ; and Micah Thirteenth king of Judah. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life.
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Jack Zavada. Christianity Expert. Jack Zavada is a writer who covers the Bible, theology, and other Christianity topics. Updated January 09,
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