Jehizkiah

Jehizkiah is one of four chiefs of Ephraim who stand against the returning northern army of Pekah and refuse to allow the Judahite captives — taken when Israel defeated Ahaz — to be brought into Samaria as slaves. He is named once, identified by his father Shallum, and acts as part of a small delegation that intervenes on a moral and prophetic ground.

Chief of Ephraim against the captive-taking

In the wake of the war between Pekah of Israel and Ahaz of Judah, when an enormous host of Judahite men, women, and children has been driven north as spoil, the prophet Oded confronts the army at Samaria. The text then records who stood with the prophet: "Then certain of the heads of the sons of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against those who came from the war," (2Ch 28:12). Jehizkiah stands third in the list of four. Their stand turns the moment: the captives are clothed, fed, anointed, set on donkeys, and returned across the border to Jericho. The single verse is the whole record of Jehizkiah — a chief whose name is preserved because he refused to receive enslaved kin.