Isaiah 38:17-22

17 Behold, [it was] for [my] peace [that] I had great bitterness: But you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; For you have cast all my sins behind your back.
18 For Sheol can't praise you, death can't celebrate you: Those who go down into the pit can't hope for your truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do this day: The father to the children shall make known your truth.
20 Yahweh is [ready] to save me: Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments All the days of our life in the house of Yahweh.
21 Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster on the boil, and he shall recover.
22 Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh?

Isaiah 38:17-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 38

This chapter gives an account of Hezekiah's sickness, recovery, and thanksgiving on that account. His sickness, and the nature of it, and his preparation for it, as directed to by the prophet, Isa 38:1, his prayer to God upon it, Isa 38:2,3 the answer returned unto it, by which he is assured of living fifteen years more, and of the deliverance and protection of the city of Jerusalem from the Assyrians, Isa 38:4-6, the token of his recovery, the sun going back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, Isa 38:7,8, a writing of Hezekiah's upon his recovery, in commemoration of it, Isa 38:9, in which he represents the deplorable condition he had been in, the terrible apprehensions he had of things, especially of the wrath and fury of the Almighty, and his sorrowful and mournful complaints, Isa 38:10-14, he observes his deliverance according to the word of God; expresses his faith in it; promises to retain a cheerful sense of it; owning that it was by the promises of God that he had lived as other saints did; and ascribes his preservation from the grave to the love of God to him, of which the forgiveness of his sins was an evidence, Isa 38:15-17, the end of which salvation was, that he might praise the Lord, which he determined to do, on stringed instruments, Isa 38:18-20, and the chapter is closed with observing the means of curing him of his boil; and that it was at his request that the sign of his recovery was given him, Isa 38:21,22.

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