Hezekiah’s Boil

Abstract

Hezekiah had a potentially fatal boil which suggests that he had bubonic plague. This also destroyed the Assyrian army threatening Jerusalem. The king made a miraculous recovery. Isaiah first predicted that the king would die for his sin (of destroying the high places) but he then promised recovery. The prophet’s two explanations of the king’s suffering inspired the Fourth Servant Song, which depicted the suffering servant first as a sinner and then as the sin bearer. This is evidence for a sin-bearing priest-king, and for Isaiah’s hostility to the so-called ‘reforms’ of the cult. Evidence from Lachish and ancient eclipses supports this reconstruction, and so calls into question the suggestion that it was a later fiction.