Friday, March 7, 2014

Archaeology and King Hezekiah of Judah







King Hezekiah
Isaiah 38:9 Hezekiah King of Judah
 
Seal of Hezekiah
Seal of Hezekiah. "Belonging to Hezekiah son of Ahaz, King of Judah.
 
Hezekiah's Tunnel
Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem. The tunnel contains the Siloam inscription now located in the Museum of Istanbul.
 
Hezekiah Tunnel
Hezekiah's Tunnel.
 
History
Hezekiah was the 13th king of indepedent Judah and the son of King Ahaz and Abijah.The account of this king in the Bible is contained in 2 Kings 18-20, Isaiah 36-39, and 2 Chronicles 29-32. These sources portray him as a great and good king, following the example of his great-grandfather Uzziah. He introduced religious reform, reinstated religious traditions. He set himself to abolish idolatry from his kingdom, and among other things which he did for this end, he destroyed the "brazen serpent," which had been relocated at Jerusalem, and had become an object of idolatrous worship. A great reformation was wrought in the kingdom of Judah in his day.
 
 
LMLK Seals. Seal of King HezekiahLMLK seals were stamped on the handles of large storage jars mostly in and around Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah (circa 700 BC) based on several complete jars found in Situ buried under a destruction layer caused by Sennacherib at Lachish.

LMLK stands for the Hebrew letters Lamed Mem Lamed Kaf (L' Melech), which can be translated from Hebrew as:

" belonging to the king" (of Judah)
" belonging to King" (name of a person or deity)
" belonging to the government" (of Judah)
Though most of these stamped jar handles have been found in the southern kingdom (68 sites in the ancient territory assigned to the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon), some have also been found in the northern kingdom (4 sites in the northwest region). Some of the sites include Lachish, Jerusalem, Gibeon, Hebron and Beth Shemesh.
The inscription on the seal, written in the kind of Hebrew letters used before the Babylonian Exile, reads:

"Belonging to Hezekiah son of 'Ahaz, king of Judah"


Detailed Information Link on the Seal
 
 
Hezekiah's Tunnel
2 Kings 20:20 "As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city"
2 Chronicles. 32:30 "It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David."

Dating of King Hezekiah's Tunnel Verified by Scientists
Modern radiometric dating of the Tunnel in Jerusalem shows that it was excavated about 700 years before the Common Era, and can thus be safely attributed to the Judean King Hezekiah. The research was conducted by Dr. Amos Frumkin of the Geography Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Aryeh Shimron of the Israel Geological Survey, and Dr. Jeff Rosenbaum of Reading University in England.

The presumption that King Hezekiah constructed the Tunnel was based until today upon the Biblical text itself and the characteristics of the Siloam inscription (located in a museum in Istanbul), although the inscription does not say who constructed the tunnel. The new findings refute a recent claim that suggested a much later date for the tunnel. The complicated tunneling project initiated by King Hezekiah brought water into the city of Jerusalem, protecting this valuable resource during the siege in 701 B.C.E. by the Assyrians, under their King Sennacherib.
 
 
Scriptures
2 Kings 18:9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it.
2 Kings 18:13 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.
Isaiah 38:9 The writing of Hezekiah King of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.


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Taken from: http://formerthings.com/hezekiah.htm

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