Week 137, Day 5: An Extension

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 38:1-22

Some thoughts from today’s reading…

Hezekiah’s life is full of interesting events. He comes along and turns Israel back from their evil practices (or you could say he managed to restrain them from openly practicing these things like before), he renewed the temple worship by spurring the Levites to consecrate themselves to serve God and instituted a restoration of the temple, the passover was observed with such a crowd of worshipers that had not been seen since the times of Solomon and David, he even invited the people of the northern tribes to return to God, destroyed the idols, and he instituted other reforms. And yet it is during his reign that the armies of Assyria begin to invade Judah. It is during his reign that Jerusalem was besieged by an army of 185,000 plus and now we have him lying sick on his bed and told that he will die. To man these series of events in the life of a good king doesn’t make much sense. In many ways I think this demonstrates how different our perspective on life is than how God in His wisdom sees things. Judah needed to be punished for the rampant idolatry they had been practicing and the siege of Jerusalem turned into a great demonstration of God power. Even with Hezekiah’s illness, because he turns to God and pleads with Him he is granted an extension on life. There is no guarantees that anyone will live a long life. Not even a righteous person “deserves” to live long. And keep in mind that Hezekiah’s prayer would not have been heard in the first place had he not been a righteous man. All of these things is why I say that Hezekiah’s life was very interesting.

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