Jeremiah 26:17-19 - Did Hezekiah not fear the Lord?

26:17,18

They kept records of what previous prophets had said, and Micah was one of the prophets who was around at roughly the same time as Isaiah, in the reign of Hezekiah. He too had prophesied that the land would be destroyed (Mic 3:12). The elders pointed back to these words and used them to interpret the present situation. This was a very wise thing to do. The normal thing to do would be to look at things purely in terms of the present, in terms of what they wanted to happen or not happen, in terms of their own “wisdom”. The better thing to do, much better, is to interpret things in the light of God’s word.

26:19

Having looked at the word of Micah, they then looked at the reaction of the king at the time, Hezekiah. Hezekiah was one of the few kings who gets a good write up in the Bible! He did not have Micah put to death. Instead he “feared the Lord and sought His favour”. And the Lord did relent, Assyria was not allowed to destroy Jerusalem. So the elders argued that they should follow Hezekiah’s lead.