Feet of clay

At that time Marduk-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah’s illness.  Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine olive oil—his armoury 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 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: 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, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?” 2 Kings 20:12-19

Ever since I was first converted I have had a soft spot for Hezekiah, King of Judah. I was 15, and was greedily gobbling up the Bible, my eyes newly opened and my heart newly stirred. But I found that working my way through Kings and Chronicles left me rather disillusioned – so many of the kings of Israel and Judah seemed to be a thoroughly bad lot: disobedient to God, cruel and oppressive to their people.

And then, as I neared the end of 2 Kings, I came across Hezekiah (2 Kings 18-20 and 2 Chronicles 29-32), where I read that “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord”. Ah, this was better! This was what I needed to read!

True, there wasn’t a lot of material, but most of what there was was heart-warming – Hezekiah’s stubborn obedience to God, his devout prayer-life, his simple faith in a time of national crisis. He lodged securely in my mind, and has remained there ever since.

Only later did I realise that, for all my fondness for him, Hezekiah had some rather less happy lessons to teach me. In 2 Kings 20 we find him (a) acting foolishly and (b) displaying a bit of what might be plainly called hypocrisy.

(a)  His foolishness.

In verses 12-13, we find Hezekiah showing off the wealth of his kingdom to a delegation from the King of Babylon – who, he should surely have known, was a potential enemy. It seems that they turned up to sympathise with him over a recent illness (how nice!), and brought him a gift, which we can safely assume was pretty generous (how kind!).

Perhaps his head was turned – was he excited to receive such important visitors, to be the centre of attention? Whatever, he very soon received a dressing down from his “in-house” prophet, who had for so long been his friend and mentor. Isaiah was anything but happy that Hezekiah should have acted in such a casual, careless way. He tells him, putting it briefly, that a day will come when the Babylonians will return – but this time not to admire his treasures but to carry them off, along with a lot of captives.

Hezekiah seems to accept Isaiah’s rebuke, but there quickly follows something else that also leaves a bad taste.

(b)  His hypocrisy.

Of course, it’s very easy to pick out hypocrisy in other people; not so easy in ourselves. So I hesitate to accuse Hezekiah of this particular sin: who am I?

But it’s hard to avoid the suspicion. Hezekiah responds to Isaiah’s message with “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good”. That sounds fine, doesn’t it, very “spiritual”, and I imagine that it was a standard response to a prophetic word. But did Hezekiah really mean it? The writer seems to have doubts, for he adds: “For he thought: ‘Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?’” Putting it more crudely, “I’m all right, Jack”.

So… in time I found that Hezekiah – surely a basically good and spiritual man – was very far from perfect. (If you go back to chapter 20 verses 2-3 you find that he had a fairly complacent view of himself too.) This suggests two simple lessons for us all…

First, as regards foolishness, be careful not to let our standards slip. The devil is always “prowling around” (as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 5:8), waiting to take us captives, and however long a time we may have been Christians, however genuinely spiritual we are, however mature we have become in Christ, not till the day we die will we be beyond the reach of temptation. Complacency, if not out-and-out pride, comes before a fall. Are you and I a bit sure of ourselves?

This should arm us too against the disappointment of seeing a respected teacher or pastor slip. Especially when we are still young in Christ we very naturally tend to put certain people on a pedestal: let Hezekiah be a reminder to us that very likely they have feet of clay, and it’s only a matter of time before they come tumbling off. Let our ultimate trust and loyalty be to Christ and to Christ alone.

Second, as regards hypocrisy, remember Jesus’ words about the speck in the other person’s eye and the plank in our own (Matthew 7:3-5). Me a hypocrite! How dare you? Yet the fact is that there are times when another person can read our true thoughts and discern our true motives better than we do ourselves. Whoever wrote 2 Kings 20:19, presumably having witnessed the scene between Hezekiah and Isaiah, seems to have had a penetrating eye…

In spite of all I have said, Hezekiah remains for me a ray of light in the often-murky waters of Kings and Chronicles.

But, in essence, his story teaches us that true holiness, a beautiful thing, is a delicate flower, grown with great patience and much pain, and one that is desperately easily crushed and destroyed.

May the Lord have mercy on us all!

Thank you, Father, for the honesty of your word. Thank you for Christlike people who have been examples to me throughout my Christian life. But help me to hold fast to Christ and Christ alone, and to love, honour and obey him until that day comes when I shall see him face to face. Amen.