Isaiah 38:14-22

14 Like a swallow [or] a crane, so did I chatter; I mourned as a dove; mine eyes failed [with looking] upward: Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
15 What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done [it]. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.
16 Lord, by these things [men] live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit; and thou hast recovered me, and made me to live.
17 Behold, instead of peace I had bitterness upon bitterness; but thou hast in love delivered my soul from the pit of destruction; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
18 For not Sheol shall praise thee, nor death celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit do not hope for thy truth.
19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
20 Jehovah was [purposed] to save me. -- And we will play upon my stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah.
21 Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.
22 And Hezekiah had said, What is the sign that I shall go up into the house of Jehovah?

Isaiah 38:14-22 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.

Footnotes 3

The Darby Translation is in the public domain.