Question about Isaiah's behavior toward Kings Ahaz and Hezekiah

[Lief_Erikson]

I have a question I feel somewhat confused by, and I was wondering if anyone here can help. In Isaiah 7, we read the Prophet Isaiah encouraging Ahaz not to join the Anti-Assyria coalition led by King Rezin of Aram. Assyria was a brutal overlord, so it’s understandable that the kings of the Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, along with other powers, should want to throw off their yoke of tyranny. King Hezekiah, who is praised in the Bible as the greatest king of Judah’s history after the time of David, formed his own Anti-Assyria coalition later on. Hezekiah was Ahaz’s son or half-brother, depending on what interpretation of Biblical history one follows.

But here’s my problem. Isaiah supported Ahaz’s decision to stick with Assyria in the name of God, but then later on, he encouraged Hezekiah to resist the Assyrians (2 Kings 19, Isaiah 37). God supported Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria, but did not permit Ahaz to join a revolt against Assyria. I don’t understand what changed to cause God’s response to become so different.

Here’s the only solution I can think of. This is that what principally concerned God was how faithfully His people were obeying Him. King Pekah of Israel and King Rezin of Syria were not following Him faithfully, therefore, even though their cause against Assyria may have been just, because they were simultaneously fighting spiritually against God’s Kingdom in people’s hearts, He fought against their kingdoms. And He wished to use the Assyrians to judge them. However, the Assyrians also were unfaithful, so God judged them also (Isaiah 10), and He did so outside the walls of Jerusalem.

This solution, however, if accurate, leads me to another problem. King Ahaz was also performing great abominations, even building an altar to pagan gods in the Temple and sacrificing his own son. Yet God spared him (after judging Judah by bringing them defeat in a major battle). I don’t understand why he spared Ahaz but not Rezin and Pekah. However, I guess I’m so distanced by the gap of history and lack of available information that I don’t know enough about people’s hearts to have a right to speak about such things.

Does this “solution” to the question of God’s justice in dealing with Ahaz, Hezekiah and Assyria make sense? Or are there alternate explanations any of you can see for why God should fight against one Anti-Assyria coalition and in favor of the other?

And if this solution does make sense, how would any of you explain God’s showing mercy to Ahaz and not to Rezin and Pekah (whose cause against Assyria looks just)?

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Here’s another, trickier question. I’ve read that there are serious problems with the chronology of King Hezekiah’s reign as related in the Bible. The following was originally written in “A History of Ancient Israel and Judah,” p. 403.

Both the beginning and the end of Hezekiah’s reign as well as the synchronisms between his reign and those of Israelite and Assyrian kings present unusual chronological problems. His first year is correlated with the third year of Hoshea (2 Kings 18:1), his fourth year with the beginning of the siege of Samaria by Shalmaneser V, and his sixth year with the fall of the city (18:9-10), while his fourteenth year is correlated with Sennacherib’s invasion (18:13). Since Samaria fell to Shalmaneser V in the winter of 722-721 and Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah occurred in 701, we are given the following impossible synchronisms for Hezekiah’s reign: his sixth year = 722 and his fourteenth year = 701. The chronology we propose, which assigns his rule to 727-699, is based on the twenty-nine years assigned him in the notation on regnal years (2 Kings 18:2) and is calculated by moving backward from the certain date of the first Babylonian capture of Jerusalem (16 March 597).

Hezekiah is said to have been twenty-five years old when he began his reign, although his father is reported to have died at the age of thirty-six (2 Kings 16:2, 18:2). To believe that Ahaz fathered a child at the age of eleven is a bit difficult. Some figures are undoubtedly wrong, and we earlier noted irregularities in the regnal statements about Ahaz.

I want to know if the Biblical years can be understood in a way that maintains its inerrancy in these matters of historical truth, without assuming a Biblical transcription or translation error.

 

[DOShea]

I want to know if the Biblical years can be understood in a way that maintains its inerrancy in these matters of historical truth, without assuming a Biblical transcription or translation error.

The simple answer is no, they can’t be. Many numbers and dates in the Bible are recorded in a symbolic way rather than a straight, historical way.

Just for example, suppose we were talking about the history of baseball, and whenever we had a truly outstanding player, we noted that by using the number “4.” We might say he was in the major leagues for 14 years. He really was in baseball for 12 years, but by changing the 12 to 14, we are letting people know this was a true superstar (that served somewhere around 14 years, but it may or may not have been that exact number). If the same player stayed active for 20 years, we might record that he was in baseball 24 years, again that “4” denoting something special about them.

We might also note a top home run hitter by saying he hit 44 home runs, though in actuality he hit only 39. The number is relaying the more important fact that this player was a great long-ball hitter rather than the relatively insignificant fact that he happened to belt out 39 that year.

The language of the Old Testament uses devices like these when it comes to recording things like number of troops in an army, dates of a King’s reign, etc. It gets very hard at times to figure them all out, especially when you have the northern kingdom of Israel using one “device” and the kingdom of Judah using a different one. It can lead to a lot of head-scratching.

Imagine the baseball superstar example above if the American League used “4” to symbolize greatness but the National League used a “7” for the same thing. Now you get a player who played in both leagues who retires. The AL says he played 14 years, but the NL would say he played for 17 years. Get the idea?

The biblical language has subtleties like that, not exactly like it, but something like it. That’s why some dates don’t match exactly with other accounts. The experts have to sift through all the clues and figure it all out.