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Harmony of the Life of Hezekiah Rick Aschmann

Last updated: 18-Sep-2020 at 17:36 (See History.) © Richard P. Aschmann

(biblechronology.net/Hezekiah.html)

Eventually I might like to do a harmony like this for the entire period of the kings of Israel and Judah (though I may never find it necessary), but for now I am only doing it for Hezekiah, since the events of his reign are too complicated and confusing to fit onto the main chart! As stated on the main page, I am following Leslie McFall’s revision of Edwin Thiele’s chronology, and it is during the life of Hezekiah that the largest discrepancies occur between the two, and they don’t even deal with all of the events below! (I also add a summary, in blue, of the kings after Hezekiah down to the time McFall realigns with Thiele and Smith.)

This page also harmonizes the entire book of Isaiah with the rest of the Bible, or at least the parts of Isaiah for which any dating information is provided.

The two McFall articles that I found had the most useful info were my enhancement of Leslie McFall’s adjustments and A Translation Guide to the Chronological Data in Kings and Chronicles. For Thiele a lovely chart can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Numbers_of_the_Hebrew_Kings.

As with all of my chronology material, I wrote this so that I would understand what happened, and hopefully it will help others as well.

Year B.C.	McFall’s specific dates	Events	Kingdom	2 Kings	2 Chronicles	Isaiah	Year given (or implied) by Smith and (usually) Thiele	Page in The Narrated Bible
740*		Hezekiah born	Judah	(18:1-2)	(29:1)		(750)
739	Apr.-Sep.	Uzziah (Azariah) dies, Jotham begins sole reign (age 36)	”	15:7,33	26:23,27:1,8	Ch. 6	739	801-803
735*	Sep.	Ahaz becomes co-regent (age 20)	”	16:1	28:1a		730 (?) ^1
731*	Sep. 732-Sep. 731	Jotham dies, Ahaz begins sole reign (age 24)	”	15:38, 16:2	28:1b		730 ^2	814
731*		Pekah allies with Aram/Syria to attack Judah	Israel			Ch. 7	732 (?) ^1,2	815
731*		Aram/Syria and Pekah defeat Judah		16:5-6	28:5-15		732 (?) ^1,2	824
731*		Ahaz asks Assyria for help	Judah		28:16-21			825
				16:7-18			732	832-833
731 ^2	Sep. 732-Sep. 731	Pekah assassinated, Hoshea becomes king of Israel	Israel	15:30			732 ^2	814
729*	Sep.	Hezekiah becomes co-regent (age 11!)	Judah	18:1
725*	Apr.-Sep.	Shalmaneser besieges Samaria	Israel	17:3-5, 18:9			726	860
723	Apr.-Sep.	Shalmaneser takes Samaria, kills Hoshea, exiles Israelites	Israel	17:6, 18:10-11			723	860
715*	Mar.	Ahaz dies, Hezekiah begins sole reign (age 25)	Judah	16:20, 18:2	28:27, 29:1	14:28-32	725? ^1	833
”		“April”: Hezekiah cleanses temple, restores worship	”		29:3-36		”	839-841
”		“May”: Passover observed, idolatry attacked	”		30:1-31:1		”	841-842
”		“June”-“October”: Collection of offerings	”		31:2-13		”	842-843
?		Hezekiah’s other reforms	”		31:14-21			843
711 ^3		Sargon of Assyria’s commander captures Ashdod	Ashdod			20:1-6	711	866
701	Sep. 702-Sep. 701	Sennacherib attacks Jerusalem	Judah	18:13-19:36	32:1-21b	36:1-37:37	701	870, 872-877 ^4
701		Hezekiah ill (age 39), is promised 15 additional years	”	20:1-11	32:24-26	Ch. 38	701	870-872 ^4
700*		Merodach-Baladan king of Babylon writes to Hezekiah	”	20:12-19	32:31	Ch. 39	701 (?)	872 ^4
697*	Sep.	Manasseh becomes co-regent (age 12!)	”	21:1	33:1
686*	Sep. 687-Sep. 686	Hezekiah dies (age 54), Manasseh becomes king	”	(18:2), 20:21	32:33		696	877
		Manasseh does evil	”	21:2-17	33:2-9
681		Sennacherib assassinated	Assyria	19:37 ^5	32:21c ^5	37:38 ^5	681	928
?		Manasseh taken captive	Babylon		33:10-11			928
?		Manasseh repents	”		33:12			928
?		Manasseh restored	Judah		33:13			928
		Manasseh does good	”		33:14-19			928
642*	Sep. 643-Sep. 642	Manasseh dies, Amon becomes king	”	21:18-19	33:20-21		641	934
640*	Sep. 641-Sep. 640	Amon dies, Josiah becomes king	”	21:23-24,26, 22:1	33:24-34:1		639	934
609	July	Josiah dies, Jehoahaz (Shallum) becomes king	”	23:29-31	35:20-24		609	988

* Indicates a date about which I disagree with F. LaGard Smith’s The Narrated Bible and Edwin Thiele. In all of these cases I have followed Leslie McFall, except where he does not provide the information, as in the case of Merodach-Baladan’s letter.

¹ (?) means I am not sure which year Smith is indicating. A simple question mark as in 725? means that Smith is in doubt about the year, so the question mark is his.

² In all cases where McFall has a whole year from September to September, I have put the second year, simply because this represents the majority of the year. So in the case of Pekah’s death my date technically does not disagree with Smith’s date, and Thiele agrees precisely with McFall in this case. So Jotham and Pekah died around the same time, and on page 29 of A Translation Guide to the Chronological Data in Kings and Chronicles McFall says that it is unclear which one died first. However, it seems to me that Isaiah 7 requires Jotham to have died before Pekah, since Ahaz seems to be king in his own right. McFall does not discuss Isaiah 7, nor apparently does Thiele.

Smith does not follow either Thiele or McFall in this case, and in fact his order makes no sense: he has Pekah dying two years before Jotham on page 814, but then includes Isaiah chapter 7 on page 815, which is impossible! (The Narrated Bible is in strict chronological order, or is supposed to be.) Apparently he departs from strict chronological order, because he has the events on pages 832-833 occurring in 732, but has Jotham dying in 730 on page 814. He also lists Pekah’s death on page 814, but Pekah remains alive as late as page 824!

³ McFall does not discuss this event. Smith dates it to 711, which apparently is based firmly on extra-biblical information. This article dates it to 712/711, citing two other articles which both date it to 712. The New Bible Dictionary dates it to 711: “Asdudu was sacked, according to Assyrian inscriptions, by Sargon II in 711 B.C.”

⁴ Smith complicates what should be simple, perhaps because he follows Thiele. These events are recounted in chronological order in all three books, though Smith assumes not. See ArchaeologicalFindsThatVerifyTheBible.html#MerodachBaladan for why I assign Merodach-Baladan’s letter to 700.

⁵ McFall does not discuss this event. Smith dates it to 681, which seems to be based firmly on extra-biblical information: all the sources I consulted agree on this date. The references in red are then clearly out of order in the Bible, in all three places where it is mentioned. This does not mean that the Bible is inaccurate, but simply that the narratives are tying up the loose ends of Sennacherib’s story at this point. Smith suggests that Manasseh’s capture and repentance probably takes place after this, perhaps during the reign of Esarhaddon, and this seems reasonable, since Manasseh’s reign prior to this was quite short. (In earlier versions of this article, prior to September, 2020, I had inadvertently misinterpreted Smith as saying that this occurred closely following Esarhaddon’s ascent to the throne, in 681, but this was incorrect.)