Hezekiah’s Prayer
14 Then Hezekiah took the [f]letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and [g]spread it out before the Lord. 15 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, who are [h]enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. 19 Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God.”
I love Hezekiah’s “why” in his prayer for deliverance. He rightly points out what the Assyrians failed to mention. Which is, no doubt, partly because the Assyrian gods were also the “work of men’s hands” made of wood and stone. But Hezekiah ends by asking for deliverance “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know” what the Israelites (should) already know: He alone is God, there is no other.
Now, it’s not like Hezekiah is appealing to God’s ego, because although God is supreme, He is also totally secure. He knows nothing else compares because He created everything that exists. Therefore, God needs no reassurance, there is no reason to be puffed up, because one only does that to try and impress others. God has no need of that, what He already is, is enough, and more than enough.
Rather, Hezekiah’s prayer reveals his own heart, that he knows God is the only God, and that Hezekiah has surrendered his own efforts to rescue his people from impossible odds. Hezekiah knew, and confessed in his prayer, that he needed God to intervene and he surrendered any plans he might have to the (only) living God.
That is a bold step, and one that is hard for all of us, let alone a king. But Hezekiah did it, and we are asked to do it also. God will take us on an adventure, if only we surrender our will and submit to His lead in our lives.