Hezekiah is named in the first verse of Isaiah, but then disappears for the first 35 chapters. He comes on stage in person in chapters 36-39, but then disappears again for the rest of the book. We often read Isaiah’s portrayal in the light of the portrayal in 2 Kings, but it is a helpful exercise to examine the portrayal found in Isaiah itself.

One of the interesting effects of this internal reading is how little information we have about Hezekiah. So far as the reader of Isaiah knows, when Hezekiah appears at the beginning of chapter 36, he is an identical twin of his vacillating, compromised father Ahaz. When the Rabshakeh takes his position in the same place as Isaiah did in Isaiah 7, it seems we are set up for a repeat of Ahaz’s faithlessness.

Much of what we know of Hezekiah’s reign as king comes from the Rabshakeh rather than from Isaiah himself.

We know from 2 Kings, for instance, that Hezekiah was a faithfu king who embarked on a program of liturgical reform that pleased yahweh. The only reference to that reform in Isaiah is in 36:7: “Is it not Yahweh whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar.’” Because we have read Kings, we know that the Rabshakeh is spinning the reform to undermine Hezekiah. But we can’t know that from Isaiah itself. Is Hezekiah on Yahweh’s side or not? What is “this altar”? Jeroboam also set up an altar and demanded that the Northern kingdom worship there (1 Kings 12:25-33). Is Hezekiah perhaps another Jeroboam? We can’t tell from the opening paragraphs of the story of Isaiah 36, which puts us in the same position of uncertainty and bewilderment as the men on the wall of Jerusalem who overhear the exchange between the Rabshakeh and Hezekiah’s delegation.

We know further from 2 Kings 18 that Hezekiah had once been a vassal of Assyria, then rebelled, but again the only oblique reference to this in Isaiah comes from the Rabshakeh (Isaiah 36:5). Can we trust the Rabshakeh? Is he giving us the straight story? His evaluation of Egypt (Isaiah 36:6) is similar to Isaiah’s own; like Isaiah too, he claims that Yahweh has sent Assyria into Judah (v. 10). He sounds a lot like Isaiah. Perhaps his evaluation of Hezekiah’s reforms and rebellion is also Isaiah’s own. Perhaps Isaiah too would denounce Hezekiah’s reform as an attack on Yahweh; perhaps he would discourage rebellion (as Jeremiah does later). Again, if we stick strictly with what Isaiah records about Hezekiah, we are as uncertain about the truth of the Rabshakeh’s claims as the men who listen to him.

As a literary device, deleting references to Yahweh’s approval of Hezekiah’s reforms has the effect of putting us into the middle of the confusions of the events alongside the participants. Within the narrator’s point of view - a narrator who provides Yahweh’s own evaluations - we are left uncertain.

Even when his delegation rends clothes and returns to the king in mourning, it’s not clear that Hezekiah is any better than Ahaz. We’re not told why they rend their clothes. They might, after all, be mourning the future devastation of the city. Only at the beginning of chapter 37 do things become clear: Hezekiah rends his clothes too, but then immediately makes his way to the house of God. Then he sends for Isaiah - a very un-Ahaz thing to do. Then he refers to the “reproach” against Yahweh that has come from the Rabshakeh. As chapter 37 continues, Hezekiah’s faithfulness shines even more clearly, as he offers a model prayer in the house of prayer (vv. 14-20). The uncertainties of chapter 36 give way to the clarify of chapter 37.