Isaiah 38:14-22

14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I complain; I mourned as a dove; I raised my eyes upward, O LORD, I am suffering violence; comfort me.
15 What shall I say? He has both spoken unto me, and he himself has done it; I shall walk softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.
16 O Lord, even unto all those that shall live, in these fifteen years I shall proclaim the life of my spirit in them and how thou caused me to sleep, and afterwards hast given me life.
17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but it has pleased thee to deliver my life from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
18 For the grave shall not confess thee, nor shall death praise thee; nor shall those that go down into the pit wait for thy truth.
19 He who lives, he who lives, even he shall confess thee, as I do this day; the father to the sons shall make known thy truth.
20 The LORD is ready to save me: therefore we will sing our psalms in the house of the LORD all the days of our life.
21 Isaiah then said, Let them take a lump of figs and lay it for a plaster upon the boil and he shall be healed.
22 And Hezekiah had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

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.

The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010