Hezekiah and the Centralization of Worship (2 Kgs 18:4.22)

Abstract

Did Hezekiah carry out religious reforms aimed at centralizing worship in Jerusalem? It is difficult to give an unequivocal answer to this question. The description of reforms is laconic and stereotypical (2 Kgs 18:4.22). The historical circumstances, however, seem to favor its recognition as historical. Also archaeological research, although not confirming unequivocally, does not allow to deny such a possibility either, even if many researchers believe that there was no massive influx of migrants from the north and that the population growth towards the end of 8th c. BCE was a natural demographic process. Texts devoted to the monarchy (1–2 Sam; 1–2 Kgs) and to the centralization of worship (Deut 12) fit better with the situation at the end of the 7th c. BCE (time of Josiah), both when we look at them from the point of view of literary criticism and from the perspective of political and social situation. However, the figure of Hezekiah could be considered by the authors of the 7th c. BCE as a precursor of the reforms of Josiah’s time due to the “historical” information about his destruction of the serpent cult of Nehushtan.