Isaiah 38:2-12

2 Hezekiah turned to the wall and prayed to the LORD.
3 "Please, LORD, remember how I've lived faithfully and sincerely in your presence. I've done what you consider right." And he cried bitterly.
4 Then the LORD spoke his word to Isaiah,
5 "Go and say to Hezekiah, 'This is what the LORD God of your ancestor David says: I've heard your prayer. I've seen your tears. I'm going to give you 15 more years to live.
6 I'll rescue you and defend this city from the control of the king of Assyria.'" [38:21] Then Isaiah said, "Take a fig cake, and place it over the boil so that the king will get well." [38:22] Hezekiah asked, "What is the sign that I'll go to the LORD's temple?"
7 [Isaiah said,] "This is your sign from the LORD that he will do what he promises.
8 The sun made a shadow that went down the stairway of Ahaz's upper palace. I'm going to make the shadow go back ten steps." So the sun on the stairway went back up the ten steps it had gone down.
9 King Hezekiah of Judah wrote this after he was sick and became well again:
10 I thought that in the prime of my life I would go down to the gates of Sheol and be robbed of the rest of my life.
11 I thought that I wouldn't see the LORD in this world. Even with all the people in the world, I thought I would never see another person.
12 My life was over. You rolled it up like a shepherd's tent. You rolled up my life like a weaver. You cut me off from the loom. You ended my life in one day.

Isaiah 38:2-12 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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