Right in HIS Sight

The divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah had a long history of strife.  The peace that they had once known in the early reign of King Solomon later devolved with his apostacy.  As he continuously ignored the dictates of the Lord, and allowed his hundreds of foreign wives to turn his heart to worship their idols, Solomon himself set up the kingdom for division.  His lack of loyalty to God set the stage for generations of heartache for his people. As Abraham Lincoln aptly noted, a house divided against itself cannot stand.  Israel’s history was the most disturbing, as not one king ever chose to do what was right in the sight of the Lord.  Every time, they followed after their own ways.  To “follow their heart”, so to speak, was to ignore the good of the nation, and to superimpose their own wishes above the Word of God.  What a mess they were.

Judah, however, was a testament to God keeping his promise to David that there would always be a descendant of his on the throne in Jerusalem. Occasionally, they even had a king that chose RIGHT.  Hezekiah was one such anomaly.  His great-grandfather, Uzziah, was another.  Eventually, Hezekiah’s great-grandson, Josiah, was another.  During those periods, the people of Judah were re-directed back to worshipping the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of Moses, who delivered them from slavery; the God whom David served with his whole heart.  In those times, Judah knew prosperity and protection.  They were delivered from their enemies, and they were in covenant with their Maker.  But it took a leader to bring about the reforms they needed in order to thrive.

Hezekiah became king at the young age of twenty-five.  I can’t even begin to understand the responsibility thrust upon him at such a tender age, but he seems to have been gifted with an excellent head on those inexperienced shoulders.  2 Kings 18:3 says, “And he did that which was RIGHT in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.”

How?  What did he do that which was “right,” or pleasing in the sight of the Lord?

Hezekiah initiated the following reforms:

·      He removed the “high places”—places of pagan worship

·      He broke down the images (idols)—destroying and desecrating them

·    He cut down the grove—the Hebrew word here is “Asherah,” (H842) who is supposed to be the consort of Baal

·   He even broke the brazen serpent that Moses had once made—because they had come to worship IT, instead of the God who had designed it!

Where did Hezekiah get his instructions for such reforms?  Had he gone crazy?  Or was he bringing the kingdom back into line with the Law of God?  Consider Exodus 34:8-14 KJV:

⁸ And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

⁹ And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

¹⁰ And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

¹¹ Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

¹² Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

¹³ But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

¹⁴ For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Hezekiah got a hold of the WORD.  He knew what he had to do to eradicate the snare that had weakened Judah, the things that had blocked the blessings of God from being the inheritance of God’s people.  He had to destroy the influence of the enemy.

It was not a live-and-let-live attitude for the kingdom of Judah.  The pagans could do whatever they liked in their own land, but when the influence of the world began to poison the purity of God’s commands, that was where Hezekiah drew the line.  Why?  Hezekiah recognized the blessing and the abundance that came from obedience.  He wasn’t willing to see one more child sacrificed to the fires of Molech, or any of the other abominable things that their neighboring cultures saw as “worship”.  Hezekiah himself was fortunate to have escaped such a fate, as many of his brothers and sisters had been sacrificed by his father Ahaz during his time as King.  He knew that he HAD to try to bring about a major course-correction, no matter the cost.  One of the most powerful statements recorded of any man in scripture tells exactly what the Lord felt about Hezekiah: 

2 Kings 18:5-7 KJV

⁵ He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

⁶ For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.

⁷ And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.

Another way to translate “clave” (H1692) is “pursue hard.”  Hezekiah pursued the Lord hard.  While that’s not exactly a preferred grammatical way to express the intent of Hezekiah’s heart, the visual it produces is unmistakable.  It seems Hezekiah had a striking similarity to David in this respect.  Because of this attribute, the Lord was WITH him and PROSPERED him wherever he went.

Sounds like being “right in His sight” is the only logical place to be.  Why in the world would I want to be anywhere else?

Lord, teach me how to be right in YOUR sight.  Help me to “pursue hard” the things that matter to YOU.