April 8

“There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them.” Isaiah 39:4

Hezekiah was the prosperous king of a historic little country. The king of Babylon was the ruler of a growing powerful one. His congratulations to Hezekiah on the occasion of the latter’s miraculous recovery from illness seemed thus genuinely flattering.

Hezekiah felt his stature enhanced by them: he was mixing with the great ones. Because his vanity had been thus boosted, he betrayed himself into a foolish exposure of all his treasures.

Like him, we are all too ready to be glad when attention is paid to us, whether by men or by God. If one soul is saved or healed when we are involved, or if people are helped by something we have said, then we are flattered and begin to expose the sacred treasures of God by recounting them to others. But God, through his prophet, soon made it clear to Hezekiah that such behavior leads only to loss. Let us seek grace, rather, to be silent before him.