Hezekiah, or Ezekias, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Judah. He is considered a very righteous king in both the Second Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles. He is also one of the more prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Bible and is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. "No king of Judah, among either his predecessors or his successors, could ... be compared to him", according to 2 Kings 18:5. Edwin Thiele concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BCE.
According to the biblical narrative, Hezekiah witnessed the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by Sargon's Assyrians in c. 722 BCE and was king of Judah during the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 BCE. Hezekiah enacted sweeping religious reforms, including a strict mandate for the sole worship of Yahweh and a prohibition on venerating other deities within the Temple of Jerusalem. Isaiah and Micah prophesied during his reign.