Hezekiah’s illness and healing
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📚In those days Hezekiah became sick and was near death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you are going to die and not live.’ ”2 📚Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, 3 📚“I beg you, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in your sight”. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 📚And it so happened that before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, the word of the LORD came 📖 to him, saying, 5 📚“Turn back and tell Hezekiah the leader of my people: ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David: I have heard 📖 your prayer, I have seen your tears. Now I will heal 📖 you. On the third day you will go up to the house of the LORD. 6 📚And I will add fifteen years to your days. And I will deliver 📖 you and this city from the hands of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’ ”
7 📚And Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs 📖”. And they took it and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
8 📚And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign 📖 that the LORD will heal me, and that I will go up to the house of the LORD on the third day?”
9 📚And Isaiah said, “This is the sign you have from the LORD, that the LORD will do what he has spoken: Shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go backward ten degrees?”
10 📚And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees. No, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees”.
20:10 Isa 38:8. This “sundial” was probably the stairway of Ahaz, constructed in such a way that it revealed the time of day. As the sun’s position in the sky moves to the west, shadows cast by things on earth naturally lengthen toward the east. For the shadows to shorten would have been contrary to nature, and, so, miraculous. God, who made the heavens and the earth, has no difficulty influencing any part He wishes at any time. See Josh 10:12-14.⚜
11 📚And Isaiah the prophet cried out to the LORD, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, from which it had gone down in the sundial of Ahaz.
Hezekiah and the envoys from Babylon
12 📚At that time Berodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. 13 📚And Hezekiah listened to them, and showed them all his treasure 📖 house, the silver and the gold and the spices and the valuable oil, and his armoury, and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house, or in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 📚Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They came from a far country, from Babylon”.
15 📚And he said, “What did they see in your house?” And Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything that is in my house. There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them”.
16 📚And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD. 17 📚‘See, the days are coming that all that is in your house, and what your fathers have stored up to this day, will be carried into Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 18 📚And some of your sons, your own offspring who will be born to you, will be taken away by them, and they will become eunuchs 📖 in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”
19 📚Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good”. And he said, “Is it not good, if there is peace and truth in my days?”
20 📚And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made a pool and a channel and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? 21 📚And Hezekiah slept 📖 with his ancestors, and his son Manasseh reigned in his stead.