Thursday, October 29th, 2025
This will be the final blog on the use of the word for heart (leb or lebab) in the story of King Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29-32). In my personal life, God has been showing me much about the state of my heart. A little about what has already been softened and much about the stony parts that still need an exchange. King Hezekiah’s story has been helpful in starting to address those parts.
The next verse in these four chapters is from 2 Chronicles 32:6. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had come to make war on the people of Jerusalem. Hezekiah gathered the people together and again “spake comfortably to them”. He told them to be strong and courageous and that even though the Assyrians had an arm of flesh, the Israelites had the Lord their God with them (v. 7-8). Hezekiah once again knew how to encourage his people in the depths of their emotions, will and passions.
Occurrence eight and nine of leb/lebab I am going to talk about together. In 2 Chronicles 32:24-25 we see that Hezekiah had become sick. We know from 2 Kings 20 that Hezekiah prayed, was healed and given 15 more years of life. 2 Chronicles 32:25 says that in his healing his heart was lifted up and he did not repay according to the favor shown to him. So he had fallen victim to some pride. The next verse (26) says:
26 Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
When I sin like that, I hope it only takes me one verse to recognize and repent for my ways. I mean I guess we really have no way of knowing how long this is, but I know there have been plenty of times it took me a few dozen (or a few hundred) verses between my sin and my repentance.
The last use of lebab in this portion of scripture is from 2 Chronicles 32:31:
31 …God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.
Sometimes we (maybe just me) tend to over-dramatize the challenges in our life. Our thoughts ricochet from, “Why me?” to, “What did I do now?” to, “When will this ever end?” In reality, what if God is just testing us to see if we really trust Him? Perhaps He just wants to know if we really mean all the things we say when we worship and pray. I feel like the simple recognition that whatever we are facing is just a test has an innate way of causing us to take a deep breath, stand up a little straighter, and dig in a little deeper.
Final Thoughts…
King Hezekiah’s life shines a light on the importance of the state of our heart. He was an incredible king who certainly wasn’t perfect, but had a heart focused on serving God and pushing back on the resistance that wanted to do anything but. From David, who was a man after God’s own heart, to Hezekiah, who covenanted his heart with God, it’s no wonder that Jesus was a descendant of both of these men. They were a foreshadow of the perfect heart that we saw in Jesus. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”