Hezekiah's ascension to the throne in Jerusalem was accompanied by a comprehensive religious reform and substantial political changes. He restored the worship of God following a lengthy period when idol-worship had prevailed in the city, and he renewed the pilgrimage tradition of the Passover week. Hezekiah took advantage of that festival to consolidate his religious reforms and to bring the people back to the worship of God.
Concurrently Hezekiah revised the political approach of his father Ahaz,
asking Egypt to halt the Assyrian expansion. His pragmatism was scornfully criticized by the prophet Isaiah, who was highly influential in Jerusalem during this period. The prophet's theopolitical approach held that the Assyrian conquests were merely a sign to the people to resume the worship of God. For the same reason he rejected the attempts to form an alliance with Babylon. Hezekiah also took concrete measures to prepare for the Assyrian siege, which was finally implemented in 701 BCE by Sennacherib, notably an amazing engineering feat in which a tunnel 533 meters long was dug to provide access to the waters of the Gihon Spring which lay outside the city. In addition, a wall was built around the city, which in this period expanded to the slopes of Mount Zion. An impressive and still visible remnant of this structure, the building of which is described in Isaiah 22:11, is the "broad wall". Miraculously the city was spared the siege, a fact which has also been explained in realistic terms. |
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