The Book of Isaiah

Word Study

Explanation

At the height of his reign Hezekiah falls "sick unto death," and Isaiah brings a crushing word: "Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live." Hezekiah's response is to turn "his face toward the wall" and pray, appealing to his sincere walk, "how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart", and he "wept sore." Before Isaiah has even left the palace grounds, God sends him back with a changed word: "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years." God also renews His promise to defend the city against Assyria. And He gives an astonishing sign to seal it: "I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward." The shadow on the steps moves backward, time itself seeming to reverse, "so the sun returned ten degrees." The God who holds the sun in His hand gives Hezekiah a sign written across the sky that his prayer has been heard.

Gospel Focus

Two tender truths shine here. First, God hears prayer and sees tears: "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears." Even a word already spoken by the prophet, "thou shalt die," was answered by earnest prayer. This does not mean we can bend God to our will, but it does mean prayer is never wasted, and God is genuinely moved by the cries and tears of His people. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16), and "he putteth my tears into his bottle." When you are at the wall, weeping before God with no one else to see, He sees. Second, God is Lord over time and nature; He turned the very shadow backward. Nothing is beyond Him, not the sun, not the length of your days. Yet a caution whispers through this chapter for the thoughtful reader: Hezekiah begged for more years, and in those added years came both his prideful stumble with the Babylonians (chapter 39) and the birth of Manasseh, Judah's most wicked king. What we plead for is not always pure blessing. It is a reminder to pray as Jesus taught, "not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42), trusting that the God who hears our tears also knows what is truly best.

Word Study

Explanation

Hezekiah records his ordeal in a psalm. He remembers the despair of facing death: "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave." He felt his life snipped off "like a weaver" cutting the thread, folded up "as a shepherd's tent." He chattered in pain "like a crane or a swallow" and mourned "as a dove," his eyes failing "with looking upward," until he could only cry, "O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me." Then the tone turns to grateful wonder. He sees that his very suffering had a purpose, "by these things men live." He confesses the mercy at the heart of it: "for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." He reflects, with the limited light of the Old Testament, that "the grave cannot praise thee," and resolves that "the living, the living, he shall praise thee," passing the truth on, "the father to the children shall make known thy truth." And he ends in worship: "The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs... in the house of the LORD."

Gospel Focus

The jewel of Hezekiah's psalm is verse 17: "thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." He learned that his healing was really about more than his body, it was about forgiveness. To have our sins "cast behind God's back" is to have them put where He will never look at them again, the same mercy the whole Bible celebrates: "as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12); "thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea" (Micah 7:19); "their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 8:12). This is what Christ accomplished at the cross, taking our sins and carrying them out of sight forever. Notice too Hezekiah's fear that "the grave cannot praise thee." He spoke with the partial light of his day, when the hope beyond death was dim. But the gospel has answered his fear: Jesus "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light" (2 Timothy 1:10). The grave is no longer a silence; for those in Christ it is the door to seeing His face. If God had cast Hezekiah's sins behind His back in shadow, how much more has He cast ours into the sea through the blood of His Son, so that "the living, the living" praise Him now, and the redeemed will praise Him forever.

Word Study

Explanation

These two verses fill in details of the healing. Isaiah had directed a practical remedy: "Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover." God's miracle did not bypass ordinary means; the promise of healing and the poultice of figs worked together. And Hezekiah "had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?", the question answered by the backward-moving shadow of verse 8. Notice what the king longed for most: not power or long life for its own sake, but to "go up to the house of the LORD," to worship again among God's people. His healing was, in his own mind, for the sake of praise.

Gospel Focus

There is quiet wisdom in the lump of figs. The same God who turned back the sun also told them to apply a fig poultice, and there is no contradiction. God often joins His power to ordinary means, the word preached, the bread and cup, the counsel of the wise, the care of a physician, and using the means He provides is not a lack of faith but an act of it. Luke, after all, was "the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14), and Paul told Timothy to "use a little wine for thy stomach's sake" (1 Timothy 5:23). We trust God for healing and gratefully use the means He gives. And notice the aim of Hezekiah's heart: to "go up to the house of the LORD." When God gives us recovery, more days, a way through, the right response is Hezekiah's, to turn our new strength into worship. He did not want life merely to live; he wanted life to praise. May every mercy God adds to our days, whether by a miracle or a lump of figs, carry us back to the house of the LORD with a song.