Hezekiah will go down in history as the king who enlarged the Temple Mount until it formed the shape of a square of about 800 feet on a side.
He later added more buildings to the Temple infrastructure.
This included a water tunnel that was created by boring a hole through pure stone all the way to the pool of Siloam under the City of David.
The purpose was to protect Jerusalem’s water supply.
This is an AMAZING piece of architecture, and if you visit the Holy City today, you can even go and walk inside the tunnel.
However, after all of this hard work, a major setback happened in the 14th year of Hezekiah’s reign.
Another Assyrian homie named King Sennacherib decided to attack Judah.
He succeeded and gained control over several cities.
This aggression was meant to communicate to Hezekiah that a new sheriff was in town.
He got the message, and capitulated.
To hold onto his throne and keep Judah intact as a Jewish nation, Hezekiah coughed up large sums of money to pay off Sennacherib.
Here’s the Scripture explaining what happened:
“It was at that time that Hizkiyahu stripped the gold from the doors of the sanctuary of ADONAI and from the doorposts which Hizkiyahu king of Y’hudah himself had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Ashur.” – 2 Kings 18:16
So a pattern is beginning to reveal itself here.
What we see so far is a cycle where the Temple is damaged, repaired, then damaged again (or looted), then restored once again over and over again.
So here’s the thing.
The Temple underwent so much heavy remodeling that by the time the Babylonians came around to destroying it, it hardly resembled the original structure Solomon had built.
It’s kinda like a homie who gets plastic surgery numerous times.
It may be the same face.
But does it look like the same person after all them alterations?
Probably not.
The Temple had suffered robbery, earthquakes, attacks from the goyim nations, and also just the normal wear and tear that comes with the passing of time.
Some scholars think the Temple descriptions in 1 Kings 6–7 and 2 Chronicles 3–4 aren’t talking about the exact same point in history.
In other words, they believe the Temple had changed over time, so each book is describing it during a different period.
Most scholars disagree.
They say the differences are nothing more than mistakes made by scribes while copying the biblical text over the centuries.
My take?
The differences ain’t copyist errors at all.
They’re evidence of what we’ve been talking about here.
In other words, the Temple underwent modifications up the yin-yang between the time of Solomon and the days of King Ahaz.
So here’s the takeaway that hit me today.
Earlier, I mentioned that after everything it went through, Solomon’s Temple was barely recognizable from what it originally looked like.
Well, isn’t that exactly what sin does to us?
At first, one sin here and one sin there may not seem like a big deal.
You don’t notice much of a change.
But if we keep rebelling against God…
If we spend countless hours binging on porno…
Or make a habit of lying, stealing, or chasing idols…
Little by little, those sins reshape us.
They don’t just corrupt our character.
I believe they eventually affect our appearance too.
If we stay on that path long enough, we become like Solomon’s Temple…
Barely recognizable from the innocent people God created us to be.
Alrighty, that’s it for today.
See ya next time.
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