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Hezekiah Saved Four Books and Buried One

Hezekiah directed his scribes to copy Isaiah, Proverbs, and the Song of Songs. Then he buried a book of cures, and the rabbis praised both decisions.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Copyists in the Palace
  2. Why Those Books Were at Risk
  3. The Book He Buried
  4. The Logic of the Two Acts Together
  5. What He Did Not Hide

The Copyists in the Palace

Before the printing press, before multiple copies were the ordinary condition of a text's survival, a book existed in the hands of the people who held it. Lose those people and the book was gone. Hezekiah understood this. He organized his scribes to copy the books that mattered most, making the royal court a center of textual preservation at a scale that only a king's resources could sustain.

The books they copied were Isaiah, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs. These texts existed in the collections of individual teachers and schools, and any one of those collections could be lost to war, fire, or the death of its keeper. Hezekiah multiplied the copies and distributed them. He was not composing. He was insuring.

The Talmud's phrasing in tractate Bava Batra is precise: Hezekiah's men wrote these books. This was a matter of historical record. Isaiah the prophet was alive during Hezekiah's reign. Isaiah composed his prophecies. Hezekiah's scribes ensured they did not disappear.

Why Those Books Were at Risk

Two of the four had been the subjects of debate about whether they belonged in the sacred canon at all. Ecclesiastes contradicted itself, acknowledged the futility of human effort in terms that made some sages nervous, and concluded with a call to fear God that did not fully redeem the bleakness of the chapters before it. The Song of Songs was, on its surface, love poetry about a man and a woman, and while the tradition understood it as an allegory, the literal reading was persistent enough to make its canonical status uncomfortable for some.

Hezekiah's scribes copied them anyway. A king who had seen his father close the schools and destroy every form of sacred transmission was not willing to let ambiguous texts be quietly left aside. Everything went into the archive.

The Book He Buried

The Sefer ha-Refuot, the Book of Cures, was a medical manual. It contained remedies that worked. It described treatments for ailments and procedures for recovery that the people had been using and trusting. The sages before Hezekiah had approved of it.

Hezekiah hid it. He buried it, removed it from circulation, made it inaccessible to the people who had been relying on it. His reason was simple: the people were trusting the book more than God. When a person fell ill, they reached for the manual before they prayed. The availability of technique had displaced the necessity of faith. The cure was working too well.

The rabbis approved of this too. The Talmud lists the hiding of the book among the acts for which Hezekiah was praised, alongside the preservation of the sacred texts and the reopening of the schools. They were approving, in other words, of a king who deliberately removed something useful because its usefulness was producing a harmful dependence.

The Logic of the Two Acts Together

At first glance the two acts seem opposed. Preserve texts that might be lost. Bury a text that is being used. But the logic is consistent. What Hezekiah was doing in both cases was asking: what does this text do to the people who have access to it? The books of Isaiah and Proverbs and the Song of Songs deepened the people's understanding of their relationship to God. The Book of Cures, whatever its medical value, was weakening the people's sense that God was the ultimate source of healing. Preserve what draws the people toward God. Remove what draws them away from God, even if it is practically useful.

This is a king making theological judgments about information. The rabbis endorsed the judgment not as a precedent for censorship of useful knowledge but as a recognition that Hezekiah had correctly diagnosed what was happening in his kingdom and acted on the diagnosis.

What He Did Not Hide

He did not hide the uncomfortable texts. Ecclesiastes, with its declaration that all is vanity, was copied and preserved. The Song of Songs, which later sages would call the holiest of all texts precisely because of its surface challenge, was preserved. A king who buried the Book of Cures to prevent people from trusting it more than God preserved the most theologically difficult texts in the canon. The logic held: the difficult texts produced questions that drove people toward God. The easy text, the one with practical answers, drove them away.

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 9:41Legends of the Jews

He was one of the most righteous kings of Judah, a real standout. He lived way back when, around the 8th century BCE. And he's remembered for some seriously impressive things.

The Talmud actually praises Hezekiah to the heavens, claiming he wanted to annihilate the Assyrian King Sennacherib, an enemy of the Jewish people, through magical means using the Divine Name (Sanhedrin 94a).

Here’s one thing he’s specifically celebrated for: preserving Hebrew literature. Before the printing press, before the internet, everything had to be copied by hand. It was painstaking, meticulous work. And Hezekiah made it happen. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 15a) tells us that it was Hezekiah and his court who ensured that we have copies of the books of Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and Proverbs. These are core texts, foundational to Jewish thought and spirituality.

A world without them.

But there's a twist. According to the Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah, Hezekiah hid away books containing medical remedies. Why would he do that? Was he afraid people would rely on texts rather than prayer, or that this knowledge might be misused? The Zohar doesn't explicitly tell us why, but the implication is clear: knowledge can be a double-edged sword.

What kind of king withholds healing knowledge?

Hezekiah’s death was met with profound mourning. Thirty-six thousand men, with bare shoulders as a sign of grief, walked before his coffin. But the most remarkable tribute? A Sefer Torah, a scroll of the Law, was laid upon his bier. The sages proclaimed, "He who rests in this bier has fulfilled all that is ordained in this book.” Now, that's a legacy. He was buried near David and Solomon, among the giants of Jewish history.

It's a powerful image, isn't it? To have one's life so aligned with the Torah that it becomes the ultimate eulogy. Hezekiah, the preserver of sacred words, rests with the sacred word itself.

But it leaves us with a question: what are we preserving? What stories are we passing down? And what knowledge, perhaps for good reason or perhaps not, are we choosing to conceal? Food for thought,.

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Legends of the Jews 9:25Legends of the Jews

The story of King Hezekiah gives us a glimpse.

His father, Ahaz, hadn't exactly been a champion of Jewish learning. In fact, according to the legends, he actively suppressed it! Can you imagine? Academies closed, the study of Torah forbidden… It paints a pretty bleak picture.

Then came Hezekiah.

The Legends of the Jews tells us that Hezekiah made it his mission to undo the damage. Where Ahaz had forbidden study, Hezekiah issued a decree that was, shall we say, rather strongly worded: "Who does not occupy himself with the Torah, renders himself subject to the death penalty." (Ginzberg).

Now, that might sound a bit harsh to our modern ears, but remember the context. He was trying to jolt the people awake, to reignite their passion for learning. And it worked. The academies that had been shuttered were reopened, burning bright day and night. And Hezekiah himself? He made sure the oil lamps stayed lit, quite literally fueling the intellectual revival.

The result? A transformation. Ginzberg continues, describing a generation so well-versed in Torah that you could search the entire land, "from Dan even to Beer-sheba," and not find a single ignoramus (Ginzberg). Imagine that! Everyone, even the women and children, knew the laws of tahor and tamei, clean and unclean (Ginzberg). That’s profound.

And how did God respond to Hezekiah's dedication? According to the tales, he was rewarded with a resounding victory over Sennacherib.

So, what's the takeaway? Perhaps it’s about the power of leadership, the importance of education, or the rewards that come with piety. Or maybe it's about the enduring strength of a people when they commit to learning and understanding their traditions. Whatever it is, Hezekiah's story is a powerful reminder of the impact one person can have on the course of history.

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Legends of the Jews 9:26Legends of the Jews

Legends of the Jews turns to Death of King Hezekiah.

The sheer scale of it is staggering. This wasn't just an army; it was a mobile city. The camp stretched for four hundred parasangs – an ancient unit of distance, roughly equivalent to a league or a few miles, depending on who you ask. And the animals? A solid line of saddle-beasts, neck to neck, stretching forty parasangs long. Forty! You could walk for days and still be passing Sennacherib’s horses.

The army was even divided into four divisions, just to keep things organized, I guess. And here’s the kicker: the first division, according to the legend, nearly emptied the Jordan River just by quenching their thirst! Can you imagine? The second division had to drink from the puddles left by the horses. The third division had to dig for water. And by the time the fourth division arrived, they were just kicking up dust.

It's a vivid image, isn't it? This unstoppable force, descending upon Hezekiah's kingdom. It makes you wonder, how could anyone possibly stand against that? What hope could there be in the face of such overwhelming power?

Of course, that's where the story gets even more interesting. But that's a tale for another time. What this image leaves us with is the question of how we face seemingly impossible odds. What do we do when we feel hopelessly outnumbered, outmatched, and outgunned? Perhaps the story of Hezekiah, and the fate of Sennacherib's massive army, can offer some clues.

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