during the glorious days of David. Hezekiah had witnessed the sins of his father with pain, and bore testimony to the aversion he felt for them immediately after his father's death, inasmuch as he did not bury him in the hereditary sepulchre of the house of David, but in a specially prepared tomb. Hezekiah expressed his convictions in a psalm composed on his accession to the throne, which may be considered a manifesto. (Ps. ci.)
Hezekiah's reign, rich as it was in the manifestation of great virtues, in events of great import and in poetical creations, might have become a golden age had it not been that his wishes and plans were opposed by a barrier which he found it impossible to break down. Royalty had long ceased to have sole power in Judah. The overseer or superintendent of the palace (Sochen) had full power over the army and the officers of the court. He kept the king like a prisoner in his own apartments. In Hezekiah's time, the superintendent Shebna behaved as though he were the possessor of the throne and of sovereign power. In the beginning of his reign, however, the courtiers and those who were in office as judges or otherwise, not knowing his character or force of will, gave the young king free scope. During this time Hezekiah could carry his good resolves into effect, and in part introduce innovations, such as removing the idols, restoring the unity of worship, and dismissing the most unworthy of the courtiers from the palace and filling their places with more deserving men.
But it was no slight task to remove the accumulated evils of idolatry and long-continued immorality. The Temple was deserted, and the country was filled with idols and altars. Hezekiah reopened the sanctuary, and restored it to its former dignity. In order to root out the evils of idolatry, he ordained that altars should be no longer erected on the mountains and heights, not even for the worship of the God of Israel, but that all who felt a desire to show Him honour should repair to Jerusalem. This precaution appeared to many as a hardship and an infringement on ancient customs. But Hezekiah felt that he dared not spare local predilections if he wished to ensure a purification of the popular religion. When the spring festival approached, he commanded that the paschal lamb, which had hitherto been sacrificed on private altars, should be offered in the sanctuary at Jerusalem only. He, however, postponed the celebration of the feast from the usual month to the one following, probably because the season was not sufficiently advanced. Meanwhile the courtiers did not mean to leave the king to his own devices in his government. The inspector of the palace—Shebna—appears to have gradually wrested all power from him. Hezekiah was a poet, an idealist, weak and yielding, and possessed of but little firmness of will. Men with such a disposition can easily be led, and even kings will submit to a strong mind. Shalmaneser's invasion of Tyre and Samaria, which occurred in the first year of Hezekiah's reign, naturally aroused great alarm and fear at Jerusalem and at the court. It was necessary to take a firm decision—either to join the allies, or to offer the Assyrian monarch pledges of loyalty. Hezekiah, from his peculiar character and mode of thought, was wavering as to the course he should take. Was it honourable to desert his fellow-tribesmen, who were bleeding to death under the three years' invasion of Samaria, and who, if conquered, could only have a most dismal fate? On the other hand, was it prudent to expose himself to the anger of the great monarch? Hezekiah was perhaps glad that Shebna and his ministers relieved him of the trouble of deciding.
In consequence of this want of harmony amongst the highest authorities of the country, Hezekiah's government appears full of contrasts—high-mindedness and meanness, moral improvement and degradation, pure faith in God and dependence on foreign aid; the king an ideal of justice, and his capital full of murderers. Not even in effecting the banishment of idolatry was Hezekiah successful. The nobles retained their silver and golden idols, and worshipped the handiwork of man; in their gardens remained the statues of Astarte under the thickly-laden terebinth trees, planted for idolatrous purposes. This internal double policy, due to the powerlessness of the king and the obstinacy of the palace inspector and the nobles, exercised a bad influence on the foreign relations of the government. The Judæan statesmen, after the fall of Samaria, followed a course of politics which would have been more wise and more honourable if it had been resolved upon earlier. They adopted the plan of breaking with Assyria and uniting themselves with Egypt. They took the same measures that Samaria had pursued a decade ago. They courted the aid of Egypt in order to obtain, if not an army, yet a sufficient number of horses to resist Assyria. The plan of rebelling against the sovereign power of Assyria was naturally developed in secret, for the premature report of their intentions might have led to great misfortunes. But, however secret their undertakings, the Judæan statesmen could not keep them concealed from public notice. They could not escape Isaiah's prophetic vision, and he exerted all his eloquence, in order, if possible, to prevent their rash proceedings. His most glorious, most thrilling speeches were made at this time of public anxiety. All the weapons of prophetic oratory—description of the threatening evils, scorn of the blindness of the leaders, and exhortations and cheering prospects for the future—all these he employed in order to win his obstinate countrymen from their undertakings. The most beautiful figures and most striking metaphors, the most touching thoughts dropped from his lips in powerful eloquence. Isaiah's advice was that Judah should remain neutral in the hot contest which was about to break out between Assyria and Egypt.
Meanwhile matters took their course regardless of Isaiah's exhortations and advice. King Hezekiah (for all steps were taken in his name) gave up his allegiance to the Assyrians; at least, he no longer sent tributary offerings to Nineveh, and the only result which could be expected followed. King Sennacherib collected a large army, with the intention of making an onslaught upon Judah as well as upon Egypt. Having subdued the intermediate lands of Aram, Phœnicia, Samaria and Philistia, the road to Egypt was paved and the obstacles in the way of direct attack removed. Judah prepared for defence. Her generals, feeling themselves too weak for open warfare, determined to occupy the mountain fastnesses, and hoped to check the progress of the Assyrian troops until the arrival of their Egyptian allies. Jerusalem was fortified with especial care. The weak parts of the wall were repaired, the wall itself raised, and those houses which had been built too near the wall in consequence of the extension of the city, were pulled down. Around the old fortifications of the town of David (Zion) and the lower town (Millo) a new outer wall, strengthened by towers, was erected. The upper lake, which was fed by the spring of Gihon, was closed up, and its water was conducted into the town by means of a subterranean canal. The aqueduct was also pulled down, in order to cut off the water supply of the enemy, and thus to make a protracted siege infeasible. The armoury, "the House of the Forest of Lebanon," was provided with instruments of warfare.
Shebna, the lieutenant and inspector of the palace, appears to have been the moving spirit in all these arrangements. Both he and the princes of Judah, with their adherents, were of good courage, and without fear expected the advance of the Assyrians. In fact, excessive wantonness ruled in Jerusalem; the evenings were spent in feasting; people ate and drank and made merry. As though impatient of the arrival of the enemy, they ascended the roofs of the houses in order to espy them. Isaiah could not allow such folly and daring to pass unreproved. In an exhortation, every word of which was of crushing force, he portrayed to the nation, or rather to the nobles, their thoughtless confidence (Isaiah xxii. 1–14).—Turning towards Shebna, he exclaimed, "What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here that thou hast hewn out for thyself a sepulchre?... Behold, the Lord will thrust thee about with a mighty throw, O man! ... thou, disgrace of the house of thy lord!" (Ib. 16–25).
This speech of Isaiah's, directed as it was against the most powerful man in Jerusalem, could not but have created a great sensation. It surely roused King Hezekiah from his contemplative and passive attitude, for soon after this we find Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, occupying the post which Shebna had so long maintained. This new superintendent of the palace acted according to the advice of Isaiah, and Hezekiah, through his means, appears to have been drawn into an active interest in public affairs. Shebna's fall initiated a change for the better. What had been done could not, however, be undone. The Assyrian monarch Sennacherib, filled with anger at Hezekiah's rebellion, was already on his way to Judah in order to devastate it. A part of his army, having crossed the Jordan, proceeded to the interior of the country. All fortified towns that lay on the way were taken by storm and destroyed, and the inhabitants fled weeping to the capital. The roads were laid desolate, no traveller could cross the country, for the enemy respected no man. The bravest lost courage whilst the enemy came ever nearer to the capital; their daring was changed to despair. Every thought of resistance was abandoned. But