Hezekiah’s illness and recovery
38
📚In those days Hezekiah was sick to the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you will die, and not live”.2 📚Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, 3 📚and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I beg you, 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 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, 5 📚“Go and tell Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Now I will add fifteen years to your days. 6 📚And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. 7 📚And this will be a sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has spoken: 8 📚See, I will bring back the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward”. So the sun went back ten degrees that it had gone down on the sundial.
A writing of Hezekiah
9 📚The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he became sick and recovered from his sickness:
38:9 The only writing we have of good King Hezekiah. It is similar to some of the psalms. The psalms were known to Hezekiah (2 Chron 29:30). He may have begun this writing while he was ill and completed it after his recovery.⚜
10 📚“I said, In the prime of my life
I will go to the gates
of the grave 📖;
I am deprived of the remainder
of my years.
38:10 At the time of his illness Hezekiah was only 39 years old. He may have compared this brief span of life with the usual span mentioned in Ps 90:10.⚜
11 📚I said,
I will not see the LORD,
the LORD in the land of the living.
I will no longer see man among
the inhabitants of the world.
38:11 He believed he was going to die and had no hope of recovery.⚜
12 📚My dwelling is gone,
removed from me like
a shepherd’s tent 📖.
I have rolled up my life like
a weaver.
He will cut me off from
the loom 📖.
From day to night 📖 you make
an end of me.
13 📚I considered this
until morning.
Like a lion 📖,
he will break all my bones 📖.
From day to night you make
an end of me.
14 📚I chatter like a crane or
a swallow;
I mourn like a dove.
My eyes fail from looking
upward.
O LORD, I am oppressed.
Undertake for me.
15 📚What will I say?
He has both spoken
to me,
and he himself has done it.
I will walk carefully 📖 all my years
in the bitterness of my soul.
38:14-15 All he can do is make mournful sounds, look upward and cry to God. But this was enough. God heard him. God saw his tears. God answered him (v 5). See Ex 2:23-24; Ps 34:4, 6, 18; 103:13-14; 147:3. His mourning is turned to praise (v 15). He wonders how he can best express his great gratitude to God.⚜
16 📚O Lord,
by these things men live,
and in all these things is
the life of my spirit.
So you restore me,
and cause me to live.
38:16 Man’s life is entirely dependent on God’s will and merciful activity (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; Job 12:10; Dan 5:23; Acts 17:28). And so Ps 103:1-5.⚜
17 📚See,
for peace I had great
bitterness;
but in love for my soul
you have delivered it
from the pit 📖 of corruption,
for you have cast all my sins
behind your back 📖.
18 📚For the grave cannot
thank you,
death cannot praise you.
Those who go down into the pit
cannot hope for your truth.
19 📚The living,
the living praise you,
as I do this day.
The father will make known
your truth to the children 📖.
20 📚The LORD was willing
to save me.
Therefore we will sing my songs
for stringed instruments
all the days of our life in
the house of the LORD”.
21 📚For Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he will recover”.
22 📚And Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I will go up to the house of the LORD?”