New Archaeological Evidence of King Hezekiah’s Religious Reform

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Today we're going to be talking about a brand new uh study that came out from the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology related to the time period of the biblical king Hezekiah and his religious reforms and what excavations at Talon in the south of Israel can tell us about this cross-section or this meeting point between the Bible and archaeology. If you haven't liked and subscribed to our channel, please do so if you like our content. You can also request our magazine, Let the Stone Speak. This is a free magazine that comes out out six times per year. It's available to you wherever you are in the world. You just need to go to our website armstronginstitute.org and on the front page you'll find a place where you can sign up or you can write an email to letters armstronginstitute.org.

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[00:01:28]This article that I'm about to go through with you is written by Avaram Fast from Baralan University excavated from Telon for a number of years. He actually just wrote this book uh the Bible's first kings uncovering the story of Saul David and Solomon Abram Fast and Zev Farber. Um read through it pretty interesting agree with I would say 90% of it and there's some points which is pretty good. uh and then some points of debate in the end of it. However, he's using one of his main excavation sites is this site in the south of Israel. In this book, he focuses on that and what it has to tell us and the larger picture from the time period of the late 11th early 10th century or 10th century. At the same site though, the the preponderance of archaeological remains takes place at the end of the 8th century, which is the time period of King Hezekiah. And King Hezekiah, if you're unfamiliar, just briefly, this is the king that um countered or faced up against the Assyrians uh from he's the king of Judah. The kingdom of Israel in the north went into captivity to the uh Assyrians in the late 8th century. And then the Assyrian juggernaut came further south and um tried to do the same in Judah. Was largely successful in many of the walled cities and towns um but unsuccessful in Jerusalem or at least did not take Jerusalem. The Bible says this, the army of Snakaribb of 185,000 was put to death at that time which preserved Jerusalem.

[00:03:00]And there's so much of this period that's been archaeologically attested.

[00:03:04]Um, you've got the seal impression of King Hezekiah that was found in Jerusalem back on our excavations with Dr. Elot Mazar, released to the public in 2015, pretty recent. Uh and then you have all the inscriptions um that we've talked about in this program in Nineveh and Sakaribb's palace. Um I think there is over a hundred inscriptions from ancient Assyria that mention uh King Hezekiah. So he's definitely a historical personality. Um but I think what's so important about this figure is that he is referenced as being one of the greatest um perhaps outside King David of the Kingdom of Judah. And he is a a story of of of um coming into power at a young age and then leading a religious revival. Also some moments where he weak weakened in faith uh of course as well and then through the prophet help from the prophet Isaiah who overlaps this period just really did rely eventually on on God's deliverance and that deliverance came according to the Bible. And there's just so much evidence for this period. We have Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem. This article talks more about the religious reforms and the archaeological evidence that we can find for that particularly from Telon. But this is a largely debated topic based on what happened at other sites around the end of the 8th century during Hezekiah's time Arad Beva where you have um evidence of religious worship and a lot of that being put out of use um and even uh um being vandalized or even just like um not just put out of use but um desecrated as well. I'm going to go through this with you. Well written, it's free. It's available for you at JJ Jar the website. I'll leave a link for you in the show notes of today's program. If you want to go through it yourself, take some time with it. It reads really well. It reads like a lay person can read it. Um, someone without the the background in archaeology. I still think you can get through this pretty well and see where the debate lies. Just the abstract here, it's just kind of interesting. Straight from the beginning, it says, "The historicity of Hezekiah's reforms is a hotly debated topic. And as the historical credibility of the biblical texts gradually eroded, so the reliance on archaeological data increased. It's just just so interesting to me that this is a heavily debated topic. Um just because there is a prepoundonderance of evidence supporting this pro this period perhaps more than any other biblical figure or period. You you have it all. You got the Assyrian documents. You got the Judeian docu Judeian writing about this time period.

[00:05:45]You have archaeological evidence as well. Um, so this is a hotly debated topic probably because some one of the greatest miracles ever in biblical history took place during Hezekiah's time. Sun going back um and then that that accompanied the the the uh impending saving of Jerusalem as well as miraculous healing of Hezekiah. I will mention the Hezekiah Bullah, the seal impression that says belonging to Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah.

[00:06:15]The only seal impression ever discovered in a controlled scientific excavation that bears the name of a biblical king, be it Judah or Israel. It's this one found in Jerusalem on the Ofel area just south of the Temple Mount Wall and alongside one that says Isaiah Navevie, prophet. um which there's disputed there's people that would debate that but most likely Isaiah the prophet um you have so much evidence of this figure and these events and yet it's the most hotly contested of course it is it would be because um this you you have to try and you would have to try and if you don't believe in the accuracy of the biblical text you'll have to take down the story and you'll have to take down the archaeological evidence or come come up with your own reasons of why certain archaeological evidence exists that looks to back up and support the biblical narrative. That's what happens and that's why it's hotly debated. Let's get into the text here. The historicity of Hezekiah's reforms is a hotly debated topic and as the historical credibility of the biblical text gradually eroded, so the reliance on archaeological data increased. Drawing on the high resolution resolution excavations of a large residency at Telon. This article presents evidence for cult related or religious related changes at the site.

[00:07:34]During the building's first phase, a large standing stone or matzva was erected in the largest and one of the innermost rooms of the building. It was positioned so that it was visible to anyone standing at the entrance to the structure in and in most of the courtyard. At some point towards the end of the 8th century B.C.E. the standing stone was laid down and concealed within a within a stone platform that was built around it. The article this article reviews the concealment within the broader cultic landscape of the 8th century B.CE Judah and its possible association with Hezekiah's reform. The information from Telon not only provides an additional example of cultic changes in the 8th century B.C.E. but also underscores a relatively underresarched type of setting that of dome of domestic cult which could hold the key to the debate over the religious history of Judah. So what it's saying is there you have state cult or state religion, let's put it that way. Uh get rid of the negative connotations of cult. Um and then you have what was happening in people's homes. Uh what religious activity was happening in private residencies. Now this residency is more private, but it's still huge. Like it's it's very very large. They call it perhaps even the governor's residence of this place. And in it, you do have a standing stone uh just like you have at some other places. Standing stone at Keb Kayafa um many other places this article goes into. And all of a sudden at the end of the 8th century in both the more established religious centers outside of Jerusalem, Ard and Bereva and also some other places that have state function gate to that city and then also at a more private use here. There is a doing away of a religious worship that was done before. And we could just jump over to the Bible. They do this later on in the article, but I do want to reference these couple of verses um so that you have that at the top of your in your top of your mind as we're going through this. Uh this is on page 46 of this article. Just a couple of verses here.

[00:09:37]This is 2 Kings 18 and verse4. It says he removed Hezekiah did the high places, smashed the sacred stones, cut down the asherupoles, the groves. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made. For up to that time, the Israelites had been burning incense to it. So this is pretty interesting. There was some, of course, his his dad was Ahaz, so um not and he kind of revolutionized religion in the wrong way. uh in Judah. So there was probably lots to happen. But there's even some things that he was doing there where there was religious worship that was at the start or at least um you know in referring to this bronze snake. This is the snake that that the bronze snake that Moses made and when there was a plague going through in the wilderness.

[00:10:27]And so eventually you know this going down to Hezekiah's time, this thing that was at once an okay thing to have was treated as an idol. And so it was smashed by Hezekiah. And so sometimes you have these standing stones that at some point might have been okay in the sanctioned religion. And at this point Hezekiah is it looks like in this place and others doing things for them to to to make sure that they're not part of the religious worship.

[00:10:58]Again another another verse here 2 Kings 18:22.

[00:11:02]He says, "But if you say,"It says, "But if you say to me, we are depending on the Lord our God, isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed." And 2 Chronicles 31:1 says, "He smashed the sacred stones, smashed the sacred stones, cut down the Asher.

[00:11:19]They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim and Manasseh even, even though those tribes were about to be deported at the time." So that's what the Bible says. The Bible definitely does say that Hezekiah went to town getting rid of the worship um religious worship of of items that were previously tolerated. Let's go now and talk about Tel Eton.

[00:11:44]This is 2.1 in the article. It says Teleton is a large site located in the southeastern part of the Judeian which separates the hill country from the lands. According to our research, and FA is the one that led this excavation, the site was occupied in the early Bronze Age, exper experienced a hiatus. The mint intermediate and probably in the middle bronze ages, formed a substantial city during much of the late Bronze Age, contracted to a small settlement in the iron age, 12th to 11th centuries, expanded into a sizable city in the iron uh 2A. And that's why he talks about this site and relates it to King David because he's got carbon dates from underneath the floors of this building that date to that time period expanded into a sizable city in the iron 2A uh and roughly 10th to 8th centuries BCE according to Mazar's chronology's chronology and was eventually destroyed by the Assyrian army in the late 8th century BCE.

[00:12:45]So this is mainly what we're talking about going down. It says the late 8th century BCE remains are the most extensively excavated at Telton so far.

[00:12:56]Usually recovered in a good state of preservation. They include numerous buildings segments in areas A, B and D as well as a few walls and installations area C. Among the major finds from this period late 8th century time of Hezekiah is building 101 a large longitudinal or four space LFS. This is his his way of talking about the four room house um unearthed at the top of the mound. So four room houses we actually have part of an article about that inside the latest edition of let the stone speak to talk about the distribution of four room houses in the Chiron area and how that indicates Israelite presence. These are these are a style of architecture that existed almost exclusively, you could say exclusively in areas under Israelite control and they come into being in the iron one period around 1200 BC BC and they continue all the way to 586 when Jerusalem is destroyed. Then after that time, no more four room houses or as he puts it large longitudinal fourspace house. Um, brilliant. Definitely Israelite architecture. Nobody disputes that. You kind of know what the Israelites house houses look like. Very cool. So, they have one of these really large oneth century all the way through to the 8th century when this site is um destroyed and that destruction is at the hand of the Assyrians and they debate whether it's the hands of Sargon or Sinakaribb um uh because it happened they believe around 7-Eleven. Very interesting. There is an end note to this paper that is deeply fascinating for anyone that is interested in the the the competing theories regarding when exactly Hezekiah came into re came into power. Was it more um 729 728 BC which means Hezekiah would overlap with the destruction demise of the northern kingdom of Israel the besiegement of Samaria. Chronicles definitely says this happens or is it later on 7:15 and so on um which many people believe that as well and they've got an endote that goes into how the destruction of this site might play into perhaps providing um some more evidence for an early Hezekiah rule. Very interesting. So get to that if you're interested in that. But here you've got this building destroyed 8th century time of Hezekiah. Most of the remains of the site relate to this time period. Why?

[00:15:27]This is the destruction of the site.

[00:15:28]Makes sense that you're going to have most of the remains belonging to the 8th century. Okay, moving on. It says building 101, which is the four room house, and the excavation of room 101B. Building 101 was excavated over the course of 10 seasons, ending in 2015. It was found in excellent state of preservation. Most of its walls stood at 1 to 1.5 m high and hundreds of vessels and artifacts as well as botanical remains and other finds were recovered from inside it. All sediments were sifted. All shreds including body shs were registered and large segments of the building's floors were excavated in a 20x 20 cm grid.

[00:16:11]Given the high resolution of the excavation and so on like this place was excavated well. Um doesn't say wet sifting. This was only kind of coming around at the s time so I understand about but this was a well excavated site. Going down it says already in 2006 we realized that below the foundations of a large fortified building which was later dated to the Persian early Hellenistic period were excellently preserved iron 2 remains sealed within a massive late 8 layer. This means they found the destruction later during Hezekiah's time at the hands of the Assyrians.

[00:16:50]We did not need long to understand that the main features in the area, this area is a sizable LFS house or for room house. Having estimated its contours, we adjusted our excavation strategy to uncover the house in its entirety. We exposed, documented, and removed the later remains along with the anticipated contours of the iron 2 building, thus allowing us to excavate the structure below. So you'll see some foot some pictures of this. You can easily tell the layout. They're excavating inside the forroom house and they've got the destruction layer from the 8th century Hezekiah's time. Um again uh very interesting. Now let's get to this part about the standing stone that they found there and the state of it. This was a gradual process. Room 101B in the building's southwestern part was mostly excavated towards the end in the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Only its eastern walls in the area near the entrance were excavated earlier. In 2014, we excavated square 022 which included the southwestern part of the room. Here below the massive destruction debris from the 8th century of the 8th century we unearthed a thick and dense layer of small to medium-sized stones which included one exceptionally large worked stone carved stone as the stone layer was quite dense. We initially suspected it was the lower part of the walls collapsed debris and thus sought to remove it after recording in each in order to reach the floor. However, unlike the situation in most other rooms, the floor below the stones was devoid of complete vessels and artifacts. By the end of the season, we lifted all these stones except for the very large one. We considered breaking it, but eventually decided to leave it in its place. In 2015, we excavated the rest of the room, expecting to find the thick stone layer covering the whole floor. However, this was not what we found. The stone layer ended in the northern and eastern bulks. The only exception was the large work stone adjacent to the huge stone that was left in Situ during the 2014 season. So massive or not a huge room, big small room inside the big building. Um excavate half of it in one season, half of it the next season. After they go through the destruction layer, they find where they find this big um stone floor.

[00:19:19]They're starting to remove all these stone stones from the floor to get underneath it. There's one big stone, half of it, um, that they're finding.

[00:19:27]They decide to leave that stone there.

[00:19:30]Okay. They remove those, come back the next season, dig the other side of the room, go all the way down. No stones. No stones. They didn't continue all over way over apart from this um portion of the the standing stone, the matsa, as they'll go on to explain.

[00:19:49]really good job here narrating how the excavation was done uh in this paper.

[00:19:55]Moreover, although one apparently the smallest sh fragment shifted, the two parts match in dimension, proportion and even local indentation. Hence, the two stones are one stone. Anyway, we would like to propose that the matsa and the standing stone served at the h as the house's religious focus from the time of its construction until the time it was taken down. Very interesting. So from the time of its constructions really early on, perhaps even the 10th century um from the 10th century, we do have matzah found at other sites as well. And yet during Hezekiah's time, right at the end here, this stone is laid down.

[00:20:35]Um and there's some pictures of it. They have point number four here. We'll just cover it briefly, saying, well, it basically says that you you could see the mativar as soon as you entered the main courtyard through the entrance of the building. you would see this at the end. So, it's purposely in a visible location. Uh, this is the next page, page 44. The situation at Teleton suggests something similar. While the standing stone was cancelled, it was not removed. And there are no signs of intentional defilement. The stone could have been broken into smaller pieces and thrown away. Although it was not standing anymore, the inhabitants of the house built a platform around it, concealing, perhaps even preventing people from unintentionally walking on it. If there was an act of desecration, it was minimal and nothing like the one suggested for the Lish Gate Shrine. It appears that the inhabitants of building 101 abided by the new religious reforms of Hezekiah, but were not happy to desecrate an element that was the focus of their household worship for so long.

[00:21:27]Therefore, they therefore dismantled the mats and incorporated it into the new platform. So very interesting and uh you can read through this to just it talks briefly about what happened at at at these three other sites of um Berev Arad and Lish. In Lish you have the situation that inside the gates you you found what the excavators believe one of the chambers where there was some cultic um improper religious worship going on. And so then you have this toilet that is placed like an ancient toilet made out of stone. We've written about this on the website. Placed in this room to desecrate it and and never be used.

[00:22:07]Apparently, the excavators believe that the toilet was just put there but not used. But this was an act of desecration of what was considered wrong religious practice and they said this is part of Hezekiah's reform. So you have three other sites where there is strong evidence and most people actually degree agree with the dating, believe it or not, um, of this evidence of the destruction of putting it out of use at each of these different sites. And there's there's obviously a lot of chronological debates going on here.

[00:22:37]We're not going to get into it, but the broad the broader picture is that we do have and now we can add teley ton to this discussion that there were changes that took place. Um, one other section here. Why was the matzah dismantled in the first place? And what was this part?

[00:22:55]And was this part of a known religious reform? To answer this question, we need to date the dismantling. And this is what they say. However, all we can say with certainty is that it took place before the house was destroyed by the Assyrian army in the late 8th century B.C.E. since the platform was then in use and a cooking pot was found on top of it.

[00:23:17]But how long before the destruction did the dismantling take place? We cannot at this stage determine. And so this is an argument that comes out. Well, Hezekiah didn't actually do anything. Um what happened was there was this great destruction by the Assyrians and Acarb all over and inside that destruction you also have uh destroyed rema religious remains. Therefore, the later biblical authors say, "Hey, what the Assyrians actually did, that was Hezekiah." And this is coming out and saying, "No, there was the religious reform before the destruction. This place was changed, the function of it, the mativas put down, the courtyard, you have living space on top of it, then destruction."

[00:24:08]And so it can't be that at least at Telon and implied through these other sites that it was not the Assyrians that destroyed um the religious um um that that destroyed the religious works at these sites and that it wasn't co-opted by later Jewish scribes to go and glorify what Hezekiah did. No, it was actually done by Hezekiah.

[00:24:35]And then it says this, who could have been responsible for the dismantling? It is of course possible that the dismantling was a local initiative. But since such operations are often associated with religious reforms, we ought to consider this possibility closely. The best known and widely discussed religious reforms of the biblical period are attributed to Hezekiah from this time period and Josiah. We know that. We know that. And so it's far too early for Josiah's time, but it matches with um Hezekiah's time. He goes and he disputes with a couple of people that uh that have written off the previous evidence as being evidence of Hezekiah's reform. Uh Nadav Naman, one of them. As noted in the introduction, there is yet, this is not fast, there is as yet no clear archaeological evidence for of cult reforms of the kind expected according to the book of Deuteronomy and implemented according to the histories of Hezekiah and Josiah. Well, not really. Well, sorry, I'll let I'll let FA do this. While the lack of positive evidence does not indicate that they did not occur, scholars must be aware of the fact that the Bible remains our so main source of these reforms and that positive evidence has yet to be found.

[00:25:58]Only when such evidence is dis is discovered will we be able to speak with confidence about the historicity of the cult reforms attributed to Judici kings in the book of kings.

[00:26:10]Well, you've already got some evidence and now you've got more. This is what FA then writes. The priority historians and biblical scholars like Na man Elderman and others assigned to the archaeological evidence is justified.

[00:26:23]However, the negative assessment expressed in the quotes above is problematic as what is viewed as limited evidence rests on a misunderstanding. We must remember that very few Iron Age 2 Israelite cultic sites were excavated, but all so there's not many of them. Okay. But where we do find them, where we do find evidence of cultic practice or religious practice in the late 8th century outside Jerusalem, what do we find? But all 8th century cultic sites offer evidence for cult cancellation or at least alteration. Every single one. Four from four.

[00:27:05]While one can argue against this scenario in individual cases, they cannot be construed as negative evidence.

[00:27:14]Um, since contra naman, there is not a single known excavated temple or cultic building that continued uninterruptedly from the 8th century to the 7th century B. Hence, the limited evidence does not reflect the lack of evidence, but is indicative of the nature of the cult of religion and the scarcity of temples at that at that time.

[00:27:35]So really great um paper. I'm not just saying it's a great paper because it agrees with the biblical text uh because that is my bias. However um and FA even when he's writing in this book, he's not he's not all in with the the biblical text as being inherent um in in any way. Um, however, we do have a really good match here for what they found at Telon, adding to the evidence of a cancellation of something that was deemed okay in prior time to Hezekiah. The Bible says Hezekiah trusted in the Lord as like no king that was before him or after him.

[00:28:16]And in this case, we see early on in his reign, the Bible does put a religious reform that takes place. And though he would waver in faith as time went on, uh eventually uh Jerusalem would be spared by um for David's sake and for Jerusalem's sake as it says repeatedly in 2 Kings, in Chronicles, and in the prophec the the book of Isaiah. So, here we just have another great bit of uh a great paper just come out from Israel detailing something that corresponds really well with the biblical text for the religious reforms of Hezekiah. Thanks very much for being with me today. I'll leave this in the show notes so that you can get to it yourself. Definitely download it.

[00:28:59]It's worth a read. Um, there's much more in it than I went through, especially this tantalizing end note about the date of the destruction of this and the possible implications for the date of Hezekiah's reforms. Um, I'll leave that to my friend Christopher Emmes to work up an article about that. He's been thinking about this for years and so I'm sure he'll have something about that in the future. Please subscribe to our channel if you haven't already. And don't forget to request our magazine, Let the Stone Speak. Just go to our website, armstrongstitute.org. org and uh go to the front page. You'll find a place to sign up there or write an email to letters armstronginstitute.org.

[00:29:38]Please put your name and address so that we can uh follow up with you uh with that. Uh thanks also for to our generous supporters out there that are supporting uh the work that we're doing uh through their donations as well. That's how your subscription is paid. Thanks for being with me and I'll talk to you next time.