The Grass Withereth
by susan dayley in

With the story of King Hezekiah finished, I find myself in a state between sending out queries and beginning research for my next project. But sometimes I stop to reread the story again. Is it because I'm the author of this writing of his story that I became so attached to Hezekiah? Perhaps I like his story because despite the mistakes he made, he was still a great king. "And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord his God" (II Chronicles 31:20).

Also the lessons of his day seem so relevant to our time as insurmountable odds surround our nation. What choices will we make? Do our choices reflect Ahaz or Hezekiah? Compromise or faith and obedience?

"Hezekiah, King of Judah passed away in the still of the night while his beloved people slept peacefully. There were no enemies at the gates or pagan fires burning to false gods throughout the land. The vines were ripe and the granaries were full. And the people studied the Law of the Lord daily and came often to his temple.

"All of Jerusalem honored Hezekiah at his death as well as many from throughout Judah, and other nations. Thirty-six thousand men, with bare shoulders in sign of mourning, preceded the king’s bier as it was carried through Jerusalem to the tombs of the kings. And upon his bier a scroll of the Law was placed. They buried King Hezekiah in the best of the sepulchers of the sons of David and for many days boys were taught the Law at the entrance to the tomb in remembrance.

“Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem…And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done,” (II Chronicles 29:1,2)


All flesh is grass,
and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it:
surely the people is grass.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
Isaiah 40:6-8

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