2 Kings 20:3

3. I have walked before thee in truth He appeals to his piety and zeal for Jehovah, as evinced by his destruction of idolatry and trust in God, which were matters of record. Compare 2 Kings 18:3-7. This language of the king is not to be regarded as self-praise. “Hezekiah stood in the economy of the Old Testament, that is, in the economy of legal righteousness; the entire revelation of the Old Testament is concentrated in the Law of Moses, as that of the New Testament is concentrated in the Gospel; so that to walk according to this law is not to be morally pure and free from sin, but to serve Jehovah as the only God, to fear him, to trust him, and to love him with all the heart. Hezekiah could say all this without pharisaical self-praise, just as well as Paul could say, without self-righteousness, ‘I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith.’ ” Bahr.

Wept sore Wept greatly, or violently. Josephus says, he was afflicted because he had no heir to succeed him in the kingdom. Such a fact may have increased his grief, for it appears from 2 Kings 20:6, compared with 2 Kings 21:1, that his son and successor, Manasseh, was born three years after this; but his chief agony seems to have been that he was about to be cut off in the midst of life, and such a calamity was looked upon as a stroke of Divine anger, and evidence of great wickedness. See Job 15:32; Job 22:16; Psalms 55:23; Proverbs 10:27; Ecclesiastes 7:17. It is easy to see, then, why Hezekiah appeals so earnestly to his righteous acts. It is not in self-praise, but in self-vindication.