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Hezekiah’s Illness

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the L ord: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.” ²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the L ord: ³“Remember now, O L ord, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Then the word of the L ord came to Isaiah: ⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the L ord, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. ⁶I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and defend this city.

⁷ “This is the sign to you from the L ord, that the L ord will do this thing that he has promised: ⁸See, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.

⁹ A writing of King Hezekiah of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

I said: In the noontide of my days

I must depart;

I am consigned to the gates of Sheol

for the rest of my years.

I said, I shall not see the L ord

in the land of the living;

I shall look upon mortals no more

among the inhabitants of the world.

My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me

like a shepherd’s tent;

like a weaver I have rolled up my life;

he cuts me off from the loom;

from day to night you bring me to an end;

I cry for help until morning;

like a lion he breaks all my bones;

from day to night you bring me to an end.

Like a swallow or a crane I clamor,

I moan like a dove.

My eyes are weary with looking upward.

O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security!

But what can I say? For he has spoken to me,

and he himself has done it.

All my sleep has fled

because of the bitterness of my soul.

O Lord, by these things people live,

and in all these is the life of my spirit.

Oh, restore me to health and make me live!

Surely it was for my welfare

that I had great bitterness;

but you have held back my life

from the pit of destruction,

for you have cast all my sins

behind your back.

For Sheol cannot thank you,

death cannot praise you;

those who go down to the Pit cannot hope

for your faithfulness.

The living, the living, they thank you,

as I do this day;

fathers make known to children

your faithfulness.

The L ord will save me,

and we will sing to stringed instruments

all the days of our lives,

at the house of the L ord.

²¹ Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover.” ²²Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the L ord?”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

21. And Isaiah said Isaiah now relates what was the remedy which he prescribed to Hezekiah. Some think that it was not a remedy, becausefigs are dangerous and hurtful to boils; but that the pious king was warned and clearly taught by this sign that the cure proceeded from nothing else than from the favor of God alone. As the bow in the sky, ⁹⁷⁹⁷ “L’arc en la nuce.” “The bow in the cloud.” by which God was pleased to testify that mankind would never be destroyed by a flood, (Genesis 9:13,) appears to denote what is absolutely contrary to this; (for it makes its appearance, when very thick clouds are gathering, and ready to fall as if they would deluge the whole world;) so they think that a plaster, which was not at all fitted for curing the disease, was purposely applied by the Prophet, in order to testify openly that God cured Hezekiah without medicines. But since figs are employed even by our own physicians for maturing a pustule, it is possible that the Lord, who had given a promise, gave also a medicine, as we see done on many other occasions; for although the Lord does not need secondary means, as they are called, yet he makes use of them whenever he thinks proper. And the value of the promise is not lessened by this medicine, which without the word would have been vain and useless; because he had received another supernatural sign, by which he had plainly learned that he had received front God alone that life of which he despaired.

⁹⁷ “L’arc en la nuce.” “The bow in the cloud.”