Hezekiah (;, Ezekias, in the Septuagint ; ; also transliterated as Ḥizkiyyahu or Ḥizkiyyah ) was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah.

He ceased to pay the tribute imposed on his father, Ahaz, and " rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not ," but entered into a league with Egypt (; ).

Ahaz, king of Judah, at this crisis refused to co-operate with the kings of Israel and Syria in opposition to the Assyrians, and was on that account attacked and defeated by Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel (; ).

(; ) Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

Of notable importance is Isaiah 7: 14, where the prophet is assuring king Ahaz that God will save Judah from the invading armies of Israel and Syria ; the sign that will prove this is the forthcoming birth of a child called Emmanuel, " God With Us ".

So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was unmolested by the Assyrian power ; but on his accession to the throne, Hezekiah, who was encouraged to rebel " against the king of Assyria " (), entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt ().

Immanuel ( or Emmanuel or Imanu ' el, Hebrew ע ִ מ ָּ נו ּ א ֵ ל meaning " God is with us ") is a symbolic name which appears in chapters 7 and 8 of the Book of Isaiah as part of a prophecy assuring king Ahaz of Judah of God's protection against enemy kings ; it is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew as a sign verifying the divine status of Jesus.

As for Immanuel, " God is with us ", Isaiah might mean simply that any young pregnant woman in 734 BCE would be able to name her child " God is with us " by the time he is born ; but if a specific child is meant, then it might be a son of Ahaz, possibly his successor Hezekiah ( which is the traditional Jewish understanding ); or, since the other symbolic children are Isaiah's, Immanuel might be the prophet's own son.

Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Jehoash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, Zedekiah </ center >

Thus Ahaz appears in a form corresponding to Jehoahaz in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III.

This is what Matthew has done with Isaiah 7: 14: the Hebrew has the child being given the name Immanuel by " she " ( presumably its mother ), while the commonly-used Greek translation of the time ( the Septuagint ) has " you " ( presumably king Ahaz, to whom the prophecy was addressed ).

Ahaz wishes to ask Assyria for help, but Isaiah, at God's command, takes his son Shear-jashub ( a symbolic name meaning " a remnant shall return ") and assures Ahaz that the two enemy kings will not succeed ( Isaiah 7: 3-9 ).

Hezekiah was born in c. 739 BC as the son of King Ahaz and Abijah ().

Ahaz was twenty when he became king of Judah and reigned for sixteen years.

Edwin Thiele concluded that Ahaz was coregent with Jotham from 736 / 735 BC, and that his sole reign began in 732 / 731 and ended in 716 / 715 BC.

Jotham was succeeded by his son, Ahaz in the seventeenth year of Pekah's reign.

Isaiah 7: 1, 2 speaks of a league between Pekah and King Rezin of Aram that was a threat to Ahaz of Judah.

Isaiah 7: 1-8: 15, although set in the time of king Ahaz, apparently dates from the reign of Ahaz's son Hezekiah some thirty years later, and its purpose was to persuade Hezekiah not to join with other kings who intended to rebel against their joint overlord, Assyria.

A century later, in the time of Josiah, the prophecy was revised to present Ahaz as the faithless king who rejected God's promise of protection for Jerusalem and the house of David, with the result that God brought Assyria to devastate the land until a new and faithful king ( presumably Josiah ) would arise.

McLaughlin argues that Matthew recognizes that the prophecy Isaiah gave to King Ahaz in the referenced Old Testament passage concerned a virgin living at that time ( namely, Isaiah's wife ) and a child ( namely, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz ), who was born as a sign to Ahaz ( Isaiah 8: 1 ), and he argues that Matthew saw the act of salvation of which Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz's birth was a sign as a " type " ( or pre-figuring ) of the salvation that would come through the virgin and child he was describing ( namely, Mary and Jesus ).

Rabbinic sources such as Rashi explain that it was the original Torah written by Moses that was hidden from Ahaz.

And he was also delivered into the hand of the King of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter ". In the prophet says clearly that a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the prophecy is that Ahaz stands firm in his faith.

Isaiah's first significant acts as a prophet occurred when Judah, under king Ahaz, faced invasion from Israel and Aram Damascus ( Syria ) after refusing to join them in a revolt against Assyria, the dominant imperial power of the age.

In addition, Ahaz is specifically identified as " king of Judah.

* Ahaz, king of Judah ( 735 BC – 715 BC )

* 729 BC — Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah ( or 726 BC ).

* 726 BC — Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz as king of Judah ( or 729 BC ).

* 724 BC — Ahaz, king of Judah ( 740 BC – 726 BC ) dies.

In c. 732 BCE, when Pekah, king of Israel, allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

It bears the seal of King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 732-716 BC. Another important source regarding the historicity of Ahaz comes from Tiglat Pileser III annals, mentioning tributes and payments he received from Ahaz, king of Judah and Menahem, king of Israel

In c. 732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, and Ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help.

# Abijah ( queen ), the daughter of Zechariah ( 2 Chronicles 29: 1 ), who married King Ahaz of Judah.

Ahaz, against Isaiah's advice to seek the protection of God, invited the Assyrians to protect him, turning Judah into an Assyrian vassal.

" Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans ( which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh ) is not necessary for God.

Chapter 1: 1 identifies the prophet as " Micah of Moresheth " ( a town in southern Judah ), and states that he lived during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, roughly 750-700 BC.

King Ahaz's Seal which is a piece of reddish-brown clay that belonged to King Ahaz of Judah, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE.

" The Hebrew inscription, which is set on three lines, reads as follows: " l ' hz * y / hwtm * mlk */ yhdh ", which translates as " belonging to Ahaz ( son of ) Yehotam, King of Judah.

It is stated in the first verse of the Book of Isaiah that he prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah ( or Azariah ), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah ().

The seal impression of Ahaz King of Judah

The inscription reads: “ Belonging to Ahaz ( son of ) Yehotam, King of Judah .” Given the process that created and preserved bullae, they are virtually impossible to forge.

On the death of Ahaz, c. 715 BCE, his son Hezekiah followed a policy which Isaiah saw as dangerous, waging war on the Philistine cities and on Edom even though territory under direct Assyrian control ( i. e., the former kingdom of Israel ) now came to within a few miles of Jerusalem.

* One of the sons of Jehoadah, or Jarah, son of Ahaz ( 1 Chronicles 8: 36 ).

The child Maher-shalal-hash-baz is the second prophetic-name child after the birth of Immanuel-traditionally understood as the son of Abi the bride of king Ahaz, i. e. the future king Hezekiah, by many Jewish commentators, or of another woman.

At the time of Samaria's fall, there existed two kings in Judah — Ahaz and his son Hezekiah — who ruled as co-regents.

: Then said the LORD unto Isaiah: ' Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fullers ' field.

Traditionally Jotham is the man in green on the left and the child with him is his son Ahaz.

Albright, Jotham ruled from 742 BC until 735 BC and his son Ahaz ruled from his death until 715 BC.

* Isaiah 7: 1 " And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah ..."