King Hezekiah

[DCD]

Why would king Hezekiah be so distraught about death?

God Bless,
DCD

 

[NotWorthy]

Are you looking forward to death? Would you be worried if you didn’t have the potential reward of Heaven but only the total grayness of Sheol?

 

[DCD]

If I was in a state of mortal sin I would be distraught but King Hezekiah was a righteous man. What would keep someone from wanting to experience the beatific vision?

Peace,
DCD

 

[NotWorthy]

If I was in a state of mortal sin I would be distraught but King Hezekiah was a righteous man. What would keep someone from wanting to experience the beatific vision?

Peace,
DCD

Jews didn’t know about the beatific vision. All the rewards the Jews knew for being righteous is that God would take care of them in this world. All they knew of the after-life was Sheol, which was a bunch of endless nothingness.

It wasn’t until Jesus preached the Kingdom of Heaven that Jews were introduced to the thought of an afterlife filled with heavenly rewards. Although there seemed to be some regards for an afterlife based on “this life” in Maccabees, but there was no evidence of this belief during the time of Hezekiah, as evidenced by the Psalms.

Simply look at Psalm number 6 -

***5 Turn, LORD, save my life; in your mercy rescue me. ***6 For who among the dead remembers you? Who praises you in Sheol?

The thoughts on Sheol seemed to develop, but only gradually.

I don’t think the Psalms of Korah were written at the time of Hezekiah, but they show a more developed thought on Sheol. Psalm 49 reads

15 Like sheep they are herded into Sheol, where death will be their shepherd. Straight to the grave they descend, where their form will waste away, Sheol will be their palace. 16 But God will redeem my life, will take me from the power of Sheol.

 

[DCD]

The pharisees had some understanding of the afterlife. Psalm 49 also implies a hope that God will redeem.

To deny all of this material evidence and continue to hold that, for most of ancient Israel, a person had only this life for which to look forward, is to “take over that archaizing view of the Old Testament once found among the Sadduccees, and claim that the Jewish Scriptures in themselves know nothing of either immortality or resurrection.” Jospeh Ratzinger

Consider Ratzinger’s thought on these verses:

You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you…For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. (Psalm 16:2, 10)
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

Ratzinger, for one, sees in all these passages fairly obvious statements of a belief in the resurrection. No other reading makes sense to him. 31 One or another passage may be argued away as referring to something other than individual resurrection, for example Ezekiel 37:1-14 or Job 19:25-27. 32 But take all these passages together, and a definitive pattern exists. While the most complete unfolding of the belief of resurrection may not be as present in Genesis as it is in Daniel 12:2, this is not due to a radical shift in belief, but rather a more full explication of a doctrine already held in an embryonic form. Job may not have fully understood the mechanics of how his flesh would see God even after death, yet clearly he believed that somehow this would be so. “For a moment Job is consoled with the thought that perhaps when he is in his grave he will be permitted a vision of God standing at his side and vindicating him.” 33

The Beatific Vision was a poor choice on my part.

Peace,
DCD

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Why would king Hezekiah be so distraught about death?

God Bless,
DCD

Hezekiah was the first of the kings Since Solomon to return with full heart to the LORD.
He did it in part because he saw the punishment wasting away northern Israel which had become essentially Pagan (Samaria). Their worship of God was polluted, not entirely removed, and yet they were no more favored by God and easily conquered.

Isaiah the Prophet had already been preaching the destruction of Jerusalem; so to Hezekiah, who had turned to the LORD, there is a pending punishment to worry about from his father’s times – Ahaz, etc. For his father’s were all mixing worship of the LORD with worship of other Gods … eg: Solomon had many wives who brought various religions into Jerusalem, and the descendants of Solomon were led astray.

So, there is in the first place a reason for fear in Hezekiah that his own death – as it was predicted by God – was a form of punishment. Moses’ death too was a punishment…

This is deduced, not directly written, from reading about him in kings, chronicles, and in Isaiah.

Notice also: The messianic prophecy about the virgin and child was to his father Achaz.

There is in your question, a theological curiosity as well – for Hezekiah’s prayer becomes a point of pride to him, eg: his recovery makes him cavalier to the point where Hezekiah shows foreigners from Babylon his wealth in a boasting way – and it results in their greed being inflamed, which will eventually culminate in the Babylonian captivity of Hezekiah’s son and all Judah.

When God tells Hezekiah about what will happen, the curious reply is “Good…”. Hezekiah only cares about his own day; and that is something surely not pleasing in God’s eyes.

Beyond these superficial observations, I would not know whether Hezekiah was afraid/ditraught about death or not. It is certain that he asked God to remember the Good that he did, but I didn’t see anything explicitly pertaining to his state of mind. Do you have something that struck your fancy as to showing fear of death – rather than desire of life?

To be sure, the Hebrews even of Moses’ time understood that to see the face of God meant death for Moses told them. Exodus 33:20.

The theology of the resurrection is found quite clearly in the book of Maccabees, and Lazarus’ family testifies that the belief was well known in Jesus’ day. But, I don’t recall seeing much that would indicate the resurrection was understood except first in the book of Ezekiel, and the valley of dry bones.Ezeki 37:4.

However, even the patriarchs asked that their bones be carried to a burial place of their favor. And one of the greatest curses was to burn the bones of one’s enemy. There certainly was, then, an association with the remnant of a person and their welfare after death.

Again, even in life – Adam says of Eve – she is bone of my bone * in addition to flesh of his. (But nothing is said of fingernails, etc…)
Why the extra importance of the bone? and “break none of his bones” for the lamb of sacrifice?

Something to do a word study on, and a bit of meditation, I suppose…

Your brother in Christ,
–Andrew.

 

[NotWorthy]

The pharisees had some understanding of the afterlife. Psalm 49 also implies a hope that God will redeem.

To deny all of this material evidence and continue to hold that, for most of ancient Israel, a person had only this life for which to look forward, is to “take over that archaizing view of the Old Testament once found among the Sadduccees, and claim that the Jewish Scriptures in themselves know nothing of either immortality or resurrection.” Jospeh Ratzinger

Consider Ratzinger’s thought on these verses:

You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you…For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. (Psalm 16:2, 10)
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

Ratzinger, for one, sees in all these passages fairly obvious statements of a belief in the resurrection. No other reading makes sense to him. 31 One or another passage may be argued away as referring to something other than individual resurrection, for example Ezekiel 37:1-14 or Job 19:25-27. 32 But take all these passages together, and a definitive pattern exists. While the most complete unfolding of the belief of resurrection may not be as present in Genesis as it is in Daniel 12:2, this is not due to a radical shift in belief, but rather a more full explication of a doctrine already held in an embryonic form. Job may not have fully understood the mechanics of how his flesh would see God even after death, yet clearly he believed that somehow this would be so. “For a moment Job is consoled with the thought that perhaps when he is in his grave he will be permitted a vision of God standing at his side and vindicating him.” 33

The Beatific Vision was a poor choice on my part.

Peace,
DCD

But DCD, I think you are assuming that this has been understood from the very beginning of Israel. I’m not sure this is so.

The Catholic Church has surely had a development of doctrine, do you think the Jews didn’t as well?

As I said, compare Psalm 6 with 49 and understand that the psalms were compiled over several centuries.

 

[DCD]

Do we have the same understanding of development of doctrine? If you mean like an acorn that turns into an oak, then the acorn contains everything that is needed to become an oak. So granting the acorn has developed but its substance has always contained the oak.

I agree that Judaism developed an understanding of the afterlife but I believe its probable that some knew from reason.

Is it possible that Hezekiah feared punishment and not eternal soul sleep? In other words purgatory?

Peace,
David

 

[NotWorthy]

Do we have the same understanding of development of doctrine? If you mean like an acorn that turns into an oak, then the acorn contains everything that is needed to become an oak. So granting the acorn has developed but its substance has always contained the oak.

I agree that Judaism developed an understanding of the afterlife but I believe its probable that some knew from reason.

Is it possible that Hezekiah feared punishment and not eternal soul sleep? In other words purgatory?

Peace,
David

I’d say its a different kind of development of Doctrine. With Catholicism, it comes from reason. But that’s only because public revelation has ceased with the death of John the Apostle.

With the Jews back in ancient times, they were still visited upon by prophets. I think of it as a child trying to learn Calculus. First you gotta teach him addition, then subtraction…well, you get the picture. God had to teach the Jews to walk before He could get them to run.

Regarding some Jews and their “reasoning” regarding the afterlife, I believe the author of Hebrews speaks of Abraham figuring out that there was an afterlife, for he trusted that God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled through Isaac. And if Isaac was to be sacrificed, well there must be “something” after death. But do you notice that this is only discussed in Hebrews. None of the Old Testament writings spoke of Abraham’s “reasoning”.

And I don’t think that “reasoning” was limited to Abraham. The author of 2nd Maccabees speaks of an afterlife as if its common knowledge “for it is right to pray for the deceased”. But there is no Scripture in the Old Testament Writings that spelled this out for them, hence, we can assume it was reasoned.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I believe the author of Hebrews speaks of Abraham figuring out that there was an afterlife, for he trusted that God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled through Isaac. And if Isaac was to be sacrificed, well there must be “something” after death. But do you notice that this is only discussed in Hebrews. None of the Old Testament writings spoke of Abraham’s “reasoning”.

Discussed by others it isn’t, but Abraham does say (para Genesis 22:5
) “I will go with the boy, we-having-Adored, we-[would/will]-re-turn toward you.” (1st person plural)

So, contingent on who does adoration – they will return.
Notice that Abraham fore-seeing that his son could be raised from the dead is implicit in the sentence structure; but it also might suggest that the success/failure of both of them doing adoration determines whether or not they both return.

I’m not up to studying the Hebrew or exhaustively checking the Greek to clarify the point anytime in the near future, so you might want to do some research if it matters much to you…

I hope my comments helped!
Your brother in Christ,
–Andrew.

 

[NotWorthy]

Discussed by others it isn’t, but Abraham does say (para Genesis 22:5
) “I will go with the boy, we-having-Adored, we-[would/will]-re-turn toward you.” (1st person plural)

So, contingent on who does adoration – they will return.
Notice that Abraham fore-seeing that his son could be raised from the dead is implicit in the sentence structure; but it also might suggest that the success/failure of both of them doing adoration determines whether or not they both return.

I’m not up to studying the Hebrew or exhaustively checking the Greek to clarify the point anytime in the near future, so you might want to do some research if it matters much to you…

I hope my comments helped!
Your brother in Christ,
–Andrew.

I think the author of Hebrews indicates that Abraham’s Faith was in agreement with you. Good work!