When Hezekiah inherited the throne as Judah's 12th king, he decided right away not to follow in the footsteps of his father, Ahaz. The kingdom of Judah had long faced a problem common to other surrounding areas of that day—constant attacks from the Assyrian Empire. And Ahaz had chosen what was perhaps the easy way out—paying tribute to Assyria, and even compromising Judah's monotheistic religious practices for the polytheistic religion of Assyria.
The three books where Hezekiah's story appears in the Hebrew Scriptures—II Kings, II Chronicles, and Isaiah—tell the story of Hezekiah's push for religious and political freedom. His first order of business as king was to restore the worship of a single God, the one whom his people called Yahweh. His second goal was to claim Judah's independence from vassal servitude under the rule of Assyria. In the words of II Kings, "he rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him." II Kings 18:7.
Hezekiah's decision to rebel was a risky one, considering he was already aware of Assyria's power. And he soon realized that standing up for his kingdom's independence wasn't without its consequences. When at one point he appealed to the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, for a peace settlement, Hezekiah ended up handing over the silver from inside the Temple, and even the gold-covered doors, in the effort to pacify the Assyrians. It may have been Hezekiah's hope that Assyria would finally leave Judah alone after this. Yet Hezekiah was probably not so unrealistic. He knew that no other kingdom had been successful in escaping being taken over by Assyria.
