Day 214 – 2 Kings 20-21

Talking Points

• We find a retelling of King Hezekiah’s mortal illness and miraculous, gracious healing and God’s promise to deliver Judah from the Assyrians. As a sign, a shadow actually moves backward. All of this that they could be sure (as can we) that our God delivers, our God saves, and our God blesses. He is the God of the supernatural, capable of the impossible!
• Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming Babylonian captivity could not have been based on human knowledge or logic, as Assyria was still the most powerful nation at that time.
• After Hezekiah’s death, his son Manasseh takes the throne. Instead of honoring God like his father, he leads the nation into astonishing wickedness, undoing everything Hezekiah had reformed. Manasseh “did much evil,” practicing human sacrifice, witchcraft, and idolatry. He even places an image of Asherah in the house of the LORD, where God said He “would put [His] name forever” (2 Kings 21:7). The wicked acts of Manasseh’s reign exceed the evilness of the pagan nations the LORD had defeated as Israel entered the Promised Land.
• It is tragic that all the great reforms of King Hezekiah could be swept away in less than a generation. How? The Bible says Manasseh “seduced” the people to be exceedingly evil (21:9). The Hebrew word means “to deceive, mislead, entice.” The most literal understanding is “to cause to wander as if drunk.” Manasseh caused the people to forget their moorings, drawing them into sin.

Thoughts

Pride is such a sneaky thing. A slippery slope. One minute, we are brushing off a compliment or word of encouragement, trying to check ourselves, and the next, we are posting pictures of our new shoes on social media, checking for likes every few minutes.

It’s exactly what happened to Hezekiah. One minute, he’s praying and asking God to deliver them from Sennacherib’s hand, “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that [He] alone [is] God,” and the next, he’s vainly showing the Babylonian messengers “all that was found in his treasuries” (2 Kings 19:19, 20:13).

The LORD sends Isaiah to confront Hezekiah, prophesying 115 years beforehand of Babylon’s return to Jerusalem to carry away everything they had just seen — even Hezekiah’s descendants. Hezekiah’s pride would have far-reaching consequences, and this account should serve as a serious warning to us. Hezekiah’s pride got in the way of him continuing to seek God. When we become self-centered, pompous, and self-satisfied, we stop looking to God, stop worshiping Him, and stop honoring Him.

So, how do we guard ourselves against pride? Remember “from Whom all blessings flow!” Paul puts it this way: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). When we remember that God is the Giver of all good things, there will be no room for pride.