Sometimes the name Hezekiah is used to joke about quotations that are supposedly in the Bible but really aren’t. People will say something like, “‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’ is found in Hezekiah 3:16.” While there is no book of Hezekiah in the Bible, there really was a king with that name.
Hezekiah was the 13th king of Judah. He was one of the good kings. As a matter of fact, “there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him” (2 Kings 18:5). He did exceptional things for the Lord, especially protecting the worship of the Lord. He was also a man of prayer. In one incident, he was about to die and prayed to God, who sent Isaiah to tell him that he would have 15 more years of life.
In the eighth century BCE the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem. Hezekiah had seen the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by these same forces and now they threatened Judah. The Assyrians openly defied God, comparing Yahweh to the impotent gods of the nations they had defeated.
Hezekiah was afraid and went to the house of the Lord, tearing his clothes and putting on sackcloth. He sent for the prophet Isaiah, who told him not to be afraid. Isaiah said that the king of Assyria would return to his own land and die by the sword there.
He basically said that God had Hezekiah’s back.
I once had a remarkable experience, showing me that God had my back, exactly when I needed it the most. In 1990 I was preparing to go to Brazil to teach the children of missionaries with an organization called, “Youth With A Mission,” or YWAM. I was excited but also very anxious about the logistics of the trip. I had many unanswered questions [and remember, this was in the days before email and cell phones].
One day I was driving home to Eureka from the Bay Area and planned to attend a worship service along the way. However, I picked up a couple hitchhiking who had been at a music festival and lost track of their ride. After we had driven for a while we saw their friends and pulled over so the hitchhikers could join them. I happened to be near a tiny town that had a church. I went into the service and discovered that the guest speaker was the national director of YWAM Brazil! He was the one person who could answer all my logistical questions!
My anxiety disappeared. God knew before I did that I needed reassurance and put the very person I needed in my path to provide it.
Dena Lawrence spent 19 years with YWAM and several years taking care of her ailing father. She received her BA in sociology and now works with elementary school children.