Surrounded by King Sennacherib’s Assyrian armies, Jerusalem groaned under “the King of Terror’s” death sentence (2Ki 20:8–11, Isa. 36–39). Judah’s King Hezekiah fell sick and neared death. In answer to his prayer, God moved his father Ahaz’s sundial back ten degrees as a sign that He would do as He had said. On the third day, Hezekiah rose up to worship at YHWH’s temple and lived for fifteen more years. When God healed Hezekiah, he said, “Yahweh was ready to save me: There we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the house of Yahweh” (Isa. 38:20). In Hebrew, each of the fifteen Songs of Degrees reads “A Song of the Degrees.” Referencing Scriptural clues that the Songs of the Degrees link to Hezekiah (Israel) being raised up on the third day (Hos. 6:2) and restored to worship YHWH, Bullinger posits Hezekiah’s ten Songs correspond to the ten degrees of Ahaz’ sundial turning back and the five added Songs tie to the fifteen years God extended his life (Bullinger, Ap. 67; see Blog 17: Mark of Restoration).

Hezekiah’s life of walking before YHWH in truth and with a loyal heart, doing what was pleasing in God’s sight, is the link to Israel becoming a blessing to the world (Isa. 38:3). Yearning to see YHWH’s ways working in his nation, Hezekiah (meaning ‘YHWH has strengthened’) opened and cleansed the desecrated temple and appointed the Passover observance, uniting Judah and Israel (the second Passover of Iyar 14, Num. 9:12, 2Ch. 30:20). In his reform, he smashed the pillars and cut down the groves of idolatrous nature religion. He even destroyed Moses’ bronze serpent because the people had burned incense to it (2Ki. 18:4). A spiritual awakening spread throughout the land, driven by Hezekiah’s longing for Israel to glorify their YHWH by receiving His covenant blessings.

Isaiah’s spiritual influence in Hezekiah’s life appeared in his quiet confidence in YHWH. Through prayer, he trusted YHWH alone, not entangling himself in alliances with foreign powers. Quietly preparing for a siege, he fortified the city by routing Jerusalem’s water supply from the Gihon Spring to a reservoir, the Pool of Siloam, within the city walls by boring a 1200 cubit-long (1750 ft.) tunnel through rock and blocking the Gihon from outside access (TCB, Ap. 68). Gihon, one of Eden’s rivers, means “to burst forth” (TCB, Ap 68; Strong’s H1518). The Gihon Spring’s source, a natural chasm under Mount Moriah, was a type of “rivers of living water flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb” to heal the nations (Rev. 22:1).

The Songs of the Degrees reflected Hezekiah’s faith when Sennacherib came against him, caging Jerusalem alive. Much of the wording of Hezekiah’s Songs is identical to Isaiah 37:21-35. Sennacherib typified demonic hordes closing in to annihilate Israel. The battle and the slaying of this giant were God’s. After angels killed Assyria’s army, Israel became a free remnant powered by a newfound faith. Relief from Sennacherib typified a future deliverance of Israel and the nation’s new birth.  God gave Hezekiah a heavenly sundial sign that He would rescue Israel’s remnant from the Assyrian king in the seventh-year land Sabbath (year forty-nine, 711 BC), followed by the Jubilee (year fifty, 710 BC). The Edenic sign embodied YHWH’s providence in Israel’s Sabbath and Jubilee (Isa. 37:30–32) identical to the end of the spring harvest’s seven Sabbaths count, the forty-ninth day followed by Pentecost, a jubilee of the firstfruits. During Hezekiah’s twenty-nine-year reign, there was only one jubilee. From the time Israel entered Canaan (1446 BC) to Hezekiah’s Jubilee, there were fifteen jubilees, and from Hezekiah to the jubilee Yeshua began His ministry, there were fifteen Jubilees. The 1470 years of thirty jubilees mark the years of Jacob, 147 times ten. The Promised Seed restored life to Israel’s generations in the Jubilee of His ministry (Luk. 4:15-21; Rth. 4:15). The seventh land Sabbath and the Jubilee sign (two years without planting) required Israel’s remnant to live by faith, trusting in every word that came forth from the mouth of God.

Hezekiah knew YHWH would raise Israel to represent God’s heart to all nations. The prophetic visions drove his work to reform Israel. Just as God had healed him and he returned to worship at the temple on the third day, so would his nation (Hos. 6:2) (The third day references resurrection and blowing trumpets). His arrangement of the fifteen Songs of the Degrees—a time wave turned back ten degrees—captures a stamp of certainty (3) of His grace (5) in the five clusters of three. The seventh land Sabbath and the Jubilee sign along with the sundial’s compressed ten-degree back-wave of time, creating an image of the spring Holydays in the fall Holydays, signaled to Hezekiah of YHWH’s restoration of Israel (see below Appendix 42: “Chronographic Time Waves”¹). Hezekiah placed David’s Psalm 133 of Passover unity in his Songs of the Degrees on the fourteenth of the seventh month, a day before Sukkot’s Opening Night, replicating the fourteenth Passover and fifteenth Night-to-be-Much-Observed of the first month. Hezekiah left us a clue by affixing his Songs of the Degrees to YHWH’s festivals.

Hezekiah’s nation partook of the second Passover in the second month of Iyar, bringing north Israel and south Judah together. In the last blog, I showed how Iyar’s days are identical to Tishri’s seventh month, and the days from Iyar 1 to Tishri 1 will always be 147 days (29 + 30 + 29 + 30 + 29). Because of the second-seventh-month connection, Hezekiah foresaw the restoration of his nation in the seventh month, Tishri. He placed David’s Passover Psalm 133 in his fifteen Song of the Degrees on the fourteenth of Tishri, moving his second Passover of the second month (29 days) to the seventh month (30 days). Like John’s Gospel, tying the second sign to its fulfillment in the seventh sign, Hezekiah prophesied of Israel’s establishment in the cosmic new creation in the seventh month.

Takeaway: 
YHWH’s signs of Hezekiah’s healing involved numbers linked to Israel’s restoration through the Holyday timeline. Hezekiah’s Songs of the Degrees amend Iyar’s second Passover to the seventh month, creating an image of Abib’s Holydays in the seventh month. YHWH’s purifying and healing of Hezekiah and Israel saves us from the ultimate terror of remaining caged alive in sin.

Fun Factors:
According to Bullinger, the Songs of the Degrees’ arrangement holds a unique pattern within a pattern. Hezekiah wrote ten (corresponding with the number of degrees by which the sun’s shadow went backward on the sundial of Ahaz). David wrote four (two on either side of the center), and the center Psalm 127 belongs to Solomon. YHWH occurs twelve times in each of the seven on either side of Psalm 127 (JAH occurs once in the third of each seven), totaling twenty-four. In the center psalm, YHWH occurs three times, for a total of twenty-seven. He arranged the fifteen Psalms in five groups of three, Psalms 120–123, 124:1–126:6, 128:1–131:3, 132:1–134:3, with a recurring theme: the first distress, the second trust in Yahweh, and the third peace in Zion (see Songs of the Degrees Chart below²). The Songs’ layout and wording are deliberate and cannot be accidental (TCB, Ap. 67).

The fifteen Psalms of Degrees, Psalms 121 through 134 have 3008 letters (8 × 8 × 47) in 759 words (3 × 11 × 23, or 11 × 69), totaling 188585, 5 × 37717, 379² + 212², saying behold (5) YHWH’s names (37) perfecting (7) in victory (17) according to His time (71, the 7 + 1 of the land Sabbaths and Jubilee).