VII.
Today look again at the form of Hezekiah’s prayer. Pay attention to the order of the different elements in his prayer.

VIII.
2 Kings 19:14–20, 29–31 (NRSVue)

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, I pray you, from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard your prayer to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria.

“And this shall be the sign for you: This year you shall eat what grows of itself and in the second year what springs from that; then in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward, for from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

IX.
Did you notice that first he puts himself physically in a place of prayer?

Then he acknowledges he is addressing himself to the “Lord the God of Israel

He asks for God’s attention, then he comes to the specific thing that has brought him to prayer and asks, “O Lord our God, save us….”

Can you think of times you have come to prayer and if not following Hezekiah’s sequence, have included in one way or another some (or all) of what he has addressed?

What answer to his prayer does he receive? Why do you think almost all of the “sign” deals with the future and not his present circumstances?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}