2 Kings 18:1

2 Kings 18:1-8. Hezekiah king of Judah. He reigns well and destroys the brasen serpent. Some of his successes in war (2 Chronicles 29:1-2)

1. in the third year of Hoshea In 2 Kings 16:2 we are told that Ahaz reigned sixteen years: in 2 Kings 17:1 that Hoshea began to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz, and here that Hezekiah succeeded his father Ahaz in Hoshea's third year. We can see from this that the sixteen years of Ahaz must have been made up of fourteen complete years, and a broken year at the commencement, and another at the close of his reign. This makes Hezekiah to have been born when his father was extremely young. He ascended the throne at twenty-five. Ahaz had done so at twenty (2 Kings 16:2). Add to this a little more than fourteen years (say fifteen) for his reign. Thus his whole life must have been but thirty-five years; so that his son, according to this chronology, must have been born when Ahaz was ten years of age.