Salvation or Thanks?

One point that we always have standing in class is the concept of personal salvation vs. national salvation, and which one the king at the time was doing, if any. In my last blog post I highlighted the high and the low points of חזקיהו's reign and how his reign went downhill, per say, in the 14th year. In this blog post I am going to tell you why חזקיהו was more focused on personal salvation, rather than national salvation. We just had to look harder and deeper into the text and events to understand which one it was. 

As we know everything was going very well in חזקיהו's reign up until his 14th year. Before that, חזקיהו did a whole bunch of things to lead the nation to salvation. After he had sinned in his 14th year, he went to ישעיהו to ask him to pray for him, but ישעיהו refused, and חזקיהו eventually prays to Hashem. In the beginning of פרק ל"ח we learn that חזקיהו is critically ill, and is about to die. Only then does he pray to Hashem. I think I am seeing a little bit of personal salvation here, because when it came to life or death, חזקיהו decided to pray. חזקיהו got 15 years added onto his life and got saved from the hands of Assyria. 

When Jerusalem was put under siege, חזקיהו took it well, and had control over everything. When the salvation of Jerusalem happened is another example of how חזקיהו was extremely self-absorbed. He didn't thank Hashem for removing his capital from the siege. That is the moment when we learn that he was really all about himself. חזקיהו only prayed to G-d when there was no other alternative. When חזקיהו shows Babylonia all of his treasure, that could have been a perfect time to recognize Hashem, because he helped him get all those treasures. From all of this we see why his 14th year took him down hill, he stopped recognizing Hashem.

I guess we could say it isn't as much personal or national salvation rather than thanking G-d. חזקיהו really just stopped thanking Him at a point during his reign. I don't know if it is because he got haughty or if it was for some other reason, but it ruined his whole reign, in my opinion. With thanksgiving in our rearview mirror, we always have to recognize when G-d is giving us everyday.