Hezekiah was a king of Judah remembered in the Orthodox tradition as a righteous and right-believing ruler who restored the worship of the God of Israel and trusted in Him during the Assyrian invasion of his kingdom. His reign is recorded principally in the biblical books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah, and he is commemorated on August 28.
According to the synaxarion, Hezekiah became king of Judah at the age of twenty-five and reigned for twenty-nine years at Jerusalem. A zealous worshipper of the true God, he reopened the Temple of Solomon for divine services and, during the celebration of the Passover, ordered the idols throughout his kingdom destroyed, reminding the people of the chastisements that had befallen their ancestors for forsaking the Lord. The tradition relates that as a result idol-worship ceased not only in Judah but in many places of the kingdom of Israel as well.
The central episode of his reign in the tradition is the Assyrian threat. In the fourteenth year of his reign the Assyrian king Sennacherib invaded Judah, captured the fortress of Lachish, and advanced toward Jerusalem demanding its surrender. Hezekiah turned to God in prayer, and an angel of the Lord struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers in the Assyrian camp, compelling Sennacherib to withdraw.
Afterward Hezekiah fell gravely ill, and the Prophet Isaiah told him to set his affairs in order, for he would die. Through his fervent prayer, the synaxarion relates, God prolonged his life by another fifteen years. He died at the age of fifty-four and was buried with great reverence at Jerusalem. His memory is also kept on Cheesefare Saturday among the righteous of the Old Covenant.
