Hezekiah (or Ezekias) (Hebrew: חזקיה or חזקיהו, "the Lord has strengthened") was the 13th king of independent Judah and the son of King Ahaz and Abijah (2 Chronicles 29:1), who was a daughter of a man (who was not the prophet) named Zechariah. (Abijah was also known as Abi (2 Kings 18:1-2).) He reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2). He is also one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
William F. Albright has dated his reign to 715 BCE-687 BCE, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 716 BCE-687 BCE. Under either of these chronologies, Hezekiah ruled the southern kingdom of Judah during the conquest and forced resettlement of the northern kingdom of Israel by Sargon's Assyrians. Judah absorbed many refugees from the northern kingdom during Hezekiah's reign, about a hundred years before the destruction of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadrezzar's Babylonians.