History
Hezekiah was the 13th king of
indepedent Judah and the son of King Ahaz and
Abijah.The account of this king in the Bible
is contained in 2 Kings 18-20, Isaiah 36-39,
and
2 Chronicles 29-32. These sources
portray him as a great and good king, following
the example of his great-grandfather Uzziah.
He introduced religious reform, reinstated
religious traditions. He set himself to abolish
idolatry from his kingdom, and among other
things which he did for this end, he destroyed
the "brazen serpent," which had
been relocated at Jerusalem, and had become
an object
of idolatrous worship. A great reformation
was wrought in the kingdom of Judah in his
day.
LMLK Seals
LMLK seals were stamped on the handles
of large storage jars mostly in and around Jerusalem
during the reign of King Hezekiah (circa 700
BC) based on several complete jars found in Situ
buried under a destruction layer caused by Sennacherib
at Lachish.
LMLK stands for the Hebrew letters
Lamed Mem Lamed Kaf (L' Melech), which can be
translated from Hebrew as:
" belonging to
the king" (of Judah)
"
belonging to King" (name of a person or
deity)
"
belonging to the government" (of Judah)
Though most of these stamped jar handles have
been found in the southern kingdom (68 sites
in the ancient territory assigned to the tribes
of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon), some have
also been found in the northern kingdom (4
sites in the northwest region). Some of the
sites include Lachish, Jerusalem, Gibeon, Hebron
and Beth Shemesh.
The inscription on the seal, written in the
kind of Hebrew letters used before the Babylonian
Exile, reads:
"Belonging to Hezekiah son of
'Ahaz, king of Judah"
Detailed Information Link on the Seal
Hezekiah's Tunnel
2 Kings 20:20 "As for
the other events of Hezekiah’s reign,
all his achievements and how
he made the pool and the tunnel by which he
brought water into
the city"
2 Chron. 32:30 "It was Hezekiah who blocked
the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled
the water down to the west side of the City
of David."
Dating of King Hezekiah's Tunnel Verified by
Scientists
Modern radiometric dating of the
Tunnel in Jerusalem shows that it was excavated
about
700 years before the Common Era, and can thus
be safely attributed to the Judean King Hezekiah.
The research was conducted by Dr. Amos Frumkin
of the Geography Department at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, Dr. Aryeh Shimron of the Israel
Geological Survey, and Dr. Jeff Rosenbaum of
Reading University in England.
The presumption that King Hezekiah constructed
the Tunnel was based until today upon
the Biblical text itself and the characteristics
of the Siloam inscription (located in a museum
in Istanbul), although the inscription does
not say who constructed the tunnel. The new
findings refute a recent claim that suggested
a much later date for the tunnel. The complicated
tunneling project initiated by King Hezekiah
brought water into the city of Jerusalem, protecting
this valuable resource during the siege in
701 B.C.E. by the Assyrians, under their King
Sennacherib.
Scriptures
2 Kings 18:9 And
it came to pass in the fourth year
of king Hezekiah,
which was the seventh year of Hoshea
son of Elah king of Israel,
that Shalmaneser king
of Assyria came up against Samaria,
and besieged it.
2 Kings 18:13 Now
in the fourteenth year of king
Hezekiah did Sennacherib king
of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities
of Judah,
and took them.
Isaiah 38:9 The writing
of Hezekiah
king of Judah,
when he had been sick, and was recovered of
his sickness.
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