By Eugene Garner

ISAIAH - CHAPTER 38

THE SICKNESS AND HEALING OF KING HEZEKIAH

    As chapters 36 and 37 looked back to the first 35 chapters of Isaiah's prophecy, so, chapters 38 and 39 prepare the way for what is to follow in chapters 40 through 66. The first part dealt basically with the relationship of God's people to the Assyrians; the later will deal with their relationship with the Babylonians.

   In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken; Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

    1. During the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign (before the coming of Sennacherib), while the king was very sick, the Lord sent Isaiah to him with a startling message: "Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live", (vs. 1; II Kings 18:2-6; 20:1-6).
    2. Deeply distressed, the king turned his face to the wall (obviously to hide his grief), and prayed unto the Lord, (vs. 2-3).
      a. He could arrange no orderly succession in his house, for he had no heir to sit upon the throne of David, (vs. 2; comp. II Sam. 17:23).
      b. Thus, he pleads, with a broken and contrite heart, that the Lord remember his effort to walk uprightly before Him, and to do what was right in His sight, (vs. 3; cp. Neh. 13:14; II Kings 18:5, 6).
    3. Isaiah had hardly left the king's presence when the Lord sent him back with a message for Hezekiah, (vs. 4-6).
      a. The God of David, his father, has seen and heard and extended the king's life by fifteen years, (vs. 5; II Kings 18:2, 13).
      b. He will deliver both Hezekiah and Jerusalem out of the hand of the Assyrians, (vs. 6; 31:5; 37:35).
      c. God Himself is their defence, (Psa. 5:11; 31:2-3; Zech. 9:14-15; 12:8).
    4.Just as he had offered Ahaz a sign of confirmation, and a choice, so he now offers the same to Hezekiah, (vs. 7-8; comp. 7:10-12) which he accepts and by which he is comforted. It is as if his life has been rolled back by fifteen years - his sins forgiven and cast behind God's back.
    5.Furthermore, Isaiah commanded that a plaister of figs be laid upon the boil, by which the king was afflicted, to effect his healing, (vs. 21; II Kings 20:7).

   The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me. 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. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Behold, 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. For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD. For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover. Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

    1. Consider, first, Hezekiah's fear and complaint, (vs. 10-14).
      a. It is obvious that he is heart-broken at the prospect of his life being cut off when only half fulfilled, (vs. 10; comp. Psa. 102:24).
      b. His concept of death and the grave is one of dreadful hopelessness - a passing into darkness, where the face of God will be left behind as surely as that of men, (vs. 11; comp. Psa. 27:13; contrast Phil. 1:20-23).
        1) He likens it to being snatched up and taken into exile (like a shepherd's tent), which involved the most extreme despair for the Jew; it implied absence from God, salvation and worship, (vs. 12a; comp. II Cor. 5:1, 4; II Pet. 1:13-14).
        2) Again, he sees his life being rolled up, as threads, and cut loose from the loom before the cloth is finished - leaving life's yearnings, hopes and expectations unfulfilled, (vs. 12b; Job 7:6; contr. Job 6:8-9).
      c. In his extremity, Hezekiah pictures himself as a twittering swallow, or a moaning dove, before God (the lion) who is about to crush all his bones, (vs. 13; Psa. 51:8).
      d. Hopeless and helpless, he finally casts himself upon God, saying: "Be thou my surety!" (vs. 14b; comp. Job 17:3; Psa. 119:22).
    2. Then follows Hezekiah's expression of gratitude for divine mercy, (vs. 15-20).
      a. Having asked God to be his Surety, he is almost startled into speechlessness: the Lord both speaks to him and accepts his burden, (vs. 15; Psa. 39:9; Num. 23:19; Heb. 10:23) - something that will cause him to go softly, in the years to come, as he remembers the bitterness of his own soul, (comp. Psa. 42:4; I Kings 21:27; Job 7:11; 10:1).
      b. Hezekiah recognizes the experience as having been for his own good - bringing him into the very newness of life, with a new sense of forgiveness and peace, a new dignity, and a consciousness of God's nearness, (vs. 16-17; Psa. 119:71, 75; 30:3; 86:13; Isa. 43:25; Mic. 7:18-19).
      c. It is the living who can praise and rejoice the Lord, hope in His faithfulness, and bear witness thereof to their offspring, (vs. 18-19; Psa. 118:17-18; 119:175; 6:5; 88:10-12; 115:17-18; Deut. 6:7; 11:19; Psalm 78:5-7).
      d. Since the Lord has been ready to deliver him, Hezekiah purposes to sing his songs in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, (vs. 20; Psa. 86:5; 33:1-4; 104:33; 116:1-2, 17-19).
    Because he had no son to sit on the throne of Judah, king Hezekiah has pleaded with God to spare his life - unable to trust Him to solve the problem of succession according to His own wisdom and power. With what presumptuous pride and shortsightedness of vision do men so often attempt to set aside the wisdom of God's perfect plan!
    After God added 15 years to the kings life, sons were born to him. Manasseh, his disgraceful successor, (the king that should never have been born) reigned in Judah for 55 dreadful years. He reversed all the good reforms that his father had undertaken. Furthermore, he re-established the worship of idols, caused his own sons to pass through the fires of Molech, defied the prophets of God and dealt ruthlessly with any who dared oppose his policies. It is quite probable that the beloved Isaiah, his father's best friend, fell victim to this insanity!