Hezekiah’s prayer

Xanthe Galanis

 Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God…

Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.  Isaiah 37:15-17, 20

We’ve been reading about King Hezekiah and his ever-increasing problems. He gets a message from the commander of the Assyrian armies who have surrounded Jerusalem containing the terms of surrender. How does Hezekiah respond?

He goes straight up to the temple of the Lord and spreads the letter before the Lord.

Would my first response have been to go into God’s presence and pray? Would I have been concerned for how insulted God would have felt over these words? Would I have called upon God to defend himself by defending me?

Hezekiah knows upon whom he must depend. If you read his whole prayer (Isaiah 37:16-20) you’ll notice that Hezekiah address his prayer to ‘Lord Almighty’, ‘God of Israel’, ‘God’ (twice), ‘Lord’ (four times).  Hezekiah relies on the position and character of God Almighty, a God who is ‘enthroned’, ‘over all’, and who ‘made heaven and earth’. And he gets straight to the point. He asks God to ‘hear’, to ‘see’, to ‘listen’, and finally, to ‘deliver’ him and his people.

In Hezekiah’s prayer we see boldness, dependence, trust, and an understanding of the nature of God. Hezekiah understands his own limitations; that he is weak and there is only one place to go for his defense.

Also notice that Hezekiah doesn’t just pray for his own safety, but for the glory and name of the Lord, and for the unreached people around him to know the name of the Lord and honor him. Does your prayer reflect the missionary heart of God?

Prayer: Lord, so often I try everything else before turning to you in prayer. Thank you that I can come before you with boldness because you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. Amen