Isaiah 38:10

10 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.

Isaiah 38:10 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 38:10

I said, in the cutting off of my days
When he was told that he should die, and he believed he should; this he calls a "cutting off" in allusion to the weaver's web, ( Isaiah 38:12 ) and a cutting off "his days", he being now in the prime of his age, about thirty nine or forty years of age, and not arrived to the common period of life, and to which, according to his constitution, and the course of nature, he might have attained. The Jews call such a death a cutting off, that is, by the hand of God, which is before a man is fifty years of age. The Vulgate Latin version is, "in the midst of my days"; as it was, according to the common term of life, being threescore and ten, and at most eighty, ( Psalms 90:10 ) : I shall go to the gates of the grave;
and enter there into the house appointed for all living, which he saw were open for him, and ready to receive him: I am deprived of the residue of my days;
the other thirty or forty years which he might expect to have lived, according to the course of nature; of these he was bereaved, according to the sentence of death he now had in him; what if the words were rendered, "I am visited with more of my years F6?" and so the sense be, when I was apprehensive that I was just going to be cut off, and to be deprived of the days and years I might have lived, and hoped I should, to the glory of God, and the good of my subjects; just when I saw it was all over with me, I had a gracious visit or message from the Lord, assuring me that fifteen years should be added to my life: and so this is mentioned as a singular instance of divine goodness, in the midst of his distress; and to this sense the Targum agrees,

``because he remembered me for good, an addition was made to my years.''

FOOTNOTES:

F6 (ytwnv rty ytdqp) "visitatus sum, eum adhuc superessent anni", Tigurine version.

Isaiah 38:10 In-Context

8 See, 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:
10 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.
11 I said, I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living; I shall look upon mortals no more among the inhabitants of the world.
12 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;
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.