Hizkiah

Hizkiah was an ancestor of the prophet Zephaniah, named in the opening verse of Zephaniah's book as part of the unusually detailed genealogy tracing the prophet's lineage back four generations to a Hizkiah. Most commentators have identified this Hizkiah with the famous King Hezekiah of Judah, interpreting the extended genealogy as an effort to establish Zephaniah's royal credentials and explain his access to the court of King Josiah. If this identification is correct, Zephaniah was a great-great-grandson of Hezekiah.

The name Hizkiah means the strength of the LORD, a form related to the more common Hezekiah (Yah strengthens). The variant spelling in Zephaniah 1:1 distinguishes this reference from the king, though many scholars treat them as the same individual. The pedigree given to Zephaniah—son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hizkiah—is the longest prophetic genealogy in the Hebrew scriptures, suggesting this lineage carried particular significance for the book's original audience.