For most Christians faith is having some preacher lay hands on you and shouting “beeeeeeee heeeeeald” while you are clinching your hands, closing your eyes and repeating over and over: “I believe, I believe” and if you have even a moment of doubt you’ve blown the whole opportunity to be healed. That is not Hezekiah’s story. In fact it seemed he did not even have the requisite two or three pray in agreement with him and there was no holy person laying hands on him as the prophet was outside the palace.

 

Well, there are a number of dynamics taking place which we will discuss tomorrow in class but I do want to point out that, yes, faith played a role but it was not whole bunches of faith and faith without a moment’s doubt it was pure faith expressed in the words that Hezekiah wanted to draw God’s attention to, that is that he served God with a levava shalom. A whole, or complete heart. The word heart has a double Beth which the Jewish sages teach is an expression of the unity of two hearts, God’s heart joined with your heart and the word whole is shalom which means complete. He did what was good in God’s sight. The word good is tov which means to be in harmony. In other words, Hezekiah’s faith was a pure faith based upon his heart joined in harmony with the heart of God.

 

He may not have had a ton of faith, he may have had doubts, but one thing he did have that caused God to change his plan for Hezekiah and that was a pure faith.

 

I am sure this raises a lot of questions which I cannot answer here on facebook but join our All Access class tomorrow and you can raise those questions or listen to the recording of the class and post your question on the Ask Chaim section of our All Access. You will be assured of a response.

You may join us at www.hebrewwordstudy.com