Expert: Thurman C. Petty, Jr. - 8/26/2009

Question
I am reading your book Siege at the Gates.  Where do you come up with Hezekiah taking the throne at 12 years of age?  Everything I find shows him taking the throne at 25 years old.

Answer
Dear Sandee,

Thank you for reading my book Siege at the Gates, and for your question regarding the chronology.

I wanted to make the book as accurate as possible according to history, the Bible, archaeology, and every other source. So chronology played an important part. If I were to go with the dates that have been accepted by most commentaries then I would have placed him as coming to the throne at the death of Ahaz in 716 BC.

But there’s a problem with that, because, according to 2 Kings 18:1, Hezekiah came to the throne in the 3rd year of Hoshea, king of Israel.

1. How could Hezekiah come to the throne in the 3th year of Hoshea, king of Israel, when Israel—and Hoshea—were all taken into captivity in 722 BC—6 years before Ahaz died?

2. 2Chron. 29:3ff says that Hezekiah, in the first year of his reign, opened the Temple and had it purified. In chapter 30 the king sent letters to Israel, and the text specifically mentions Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to Passover in the 2nd month.  How could Hezekiah send invitations to the kingdom of Israel for the Passover in the first year of his reign if Israel had been carried into captivity?

I found that Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, had been co-regent with his father Jotham, for 5 years before his father’s death. This was somewhat common in ancient Israel and Judah. We have evidence that Hezekiah’s son Manasseh co-reigned with his father for 10 years before Hezekiah’s death. This seemed to be an ancient version of apprenticeship.

So it was no stretch of the imagination for me to picture Hezekiah as a co-regent with Ahaz. But Ahaz was a pagan idol worshiper, and had pagan shrines in the Temple. He had even moved the altar of Yahweh over to one side and put the altar of Ashur in it’s place. It would have been impossible for Hezekiah to have cleansed the Temple in the first year of his co-regency if his father had full control. So, for some reason, Ahaz seems to have passed from the scene in 728 BC, allowing Hezekiah to do this.

I agonized over this for a long time, and finally came to the conclusions that you find in the book:

1. That Ahaz made Hezekiah a co-regent at the age of 12;

2. That for some reason (my portrayal is merely a guess) Ahaz allowed Hezekiah full power;

3. And that 12-year-old King Hezekiah called for the cleansing of the Temple in the first month of his reign and invited Israel to Passover in the second month.

And Israel died 6 years later.

The length of Hezekiah’s reign as stated in 2 Kings 18, would then have been counted from the time of Ahaz’ death when Hezekiah was king in his own right.

My calculations and reasoning may be flawed, but this was the best I could do with the facts I had.*

If you haven’t already done so, I invite you to visit my web site www.PettyPress.com where I’ve posted the 4 other books in the Gate series, and 13 other books, as well as 42 Bible Study Guides, and much more.

God be with you and draw you close to Him.

Thurman C. Petty, Jr.
PettyPress@gmail.com

*I read an article in the journal “Andrews University Seminary Studies” after the book was published, in which the chronology of Hezekiah’s reign was presented in the way I had concluded. Unfortunately I have lost the article.