Right here I want you to begin to see the way the Bible is presenting Hezekiah. It is presenting Hezekiah as in control. He is the one bringing about the reform. Things are being done because Hezekiah wants them done. He is doing the kind of thing that the priests ought to be doing. The priests ought to be the ones leading the revival. Were they not the agents of God? Was not the high priest the mediator between God and man under their system? Absolutely! They should have been leading the revival, but they were not. The king was doing it. The king has taken charge.
The Bible shows very clearly, from the time of Moses, that civil authority exceeds the authority of religion. We have here a civil figure, a civil authority. Hezekiah is the driving force in regard to this revival. The Bible presents prophets that came after Moses as being outside of both civil and religious authority. They were sent by God and they operated, as it were, on their own.
They carried a powerful message, but they wielded no actual authority in the execution of their responsibility. They simply went to the king and said, "This is what you ought to do," or they went to the high priest and said, "The LORD has said this you need to do." They did not stand there with a rod and beat them, and say, "This you must do."
We see then a structure of government with the king being in supreme authority, and the high priest being subject to him. However, in this case the king has taken the authority to lead the revival himself. This is a very interesting situation.
Under Samuel, the prophet, the priest, and the judge were combined in one man; that is, in Samuel. It separated again whenever God made Saul king. Once again civil authority was now in the hand of the king. But Saul did not do too well in that office, and so he was replaced by David—a man who would do God's bidding.
David was a man who was responsible for writing many psalms, and he was undoubtedly a very great man in God's eyes. However, whenever David sinned, who corrected him? The priest did. That should have been the priest's responsibility. Nathan was a faithful priest, and Nathan did what was his responsibility to do.
Now that should have happened here. The priests should have been leading the revival. They should have gone to the king and said, "Now look, King Hezekiah, you should be doing thus and such." But we do not see that. We see that Hezekiah has grabbed the bull by the horns, and he is the one who is giving the orders. The spiritual man was not the priest in this case. It was the king, and he was the driving force both in civil and in spiritual affairs.
Hezekiah has made a major step, and he has assumed authority over the priesthood in a way that other kings did not. A unique situation has arisen here, and God, in His mercy, allowed it to be put in His word so we would have an example that this was done.
Now why did Hezekiah do it? This faithful man, Hezekiah, came on the scene during a period of extreme spiritual rebellion. Something had to be done because they were just about, according to Hezekiah's judgment, going to be allowed to go into captivity, and so he grabbed the bull by the horns and he did what had to be done.
