“In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.”’ Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, ‘Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, ‘I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD’”’” (2 Kings 20:1–5).
What is the point of this passage? Is it to tell us that God will always heal us from terminal illnesses when we ask Him? The Lord indeed answers prayer in powerful ways, but I’ve known many godly saints whose requests for healing went unanswered. And no doubt, Hezekiah serves as an incredible example of someone who overcomes both military and medical threats by faith.
But still, I don’t think the primary purpose in the context of 1–2 Kings is to tell us to act like Hezekiah—although I believe we should! For the author of Kings, and also for the author of Isaiah, Hezekiah is a paradigmatic figure of Israel’s future Messiah. He is, in many ways, a king like David, and so he is a Messianic figure. In the book of Isaiah, the prophecies concerning the Messianic King in Isaiah 7–11 are so incredibly similar to the stories about Hezekiah in Isaiah 36–38 that we could easily assume the two are the same.
But they’re not, for Hezekiah doesn’t live up to the Messianic ideal, nor does he establish God’s eternal kingdom. Still, we must be clear that Hezekiah is a Messianic figure, and his deeds also serve as a sign of the future Messiah. And in this Messianic light, Hezekiah’s “resurrection” from the dead on the third day (2 Kings 20:5) becomes all the more remarkable. In reading this story about Hezekiah’s transformation from death to life on the third day, we see the resurrection of our Messiah!