Isaiah 38:2

“In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.” The words “in those days” tie this account to the events around it. Isaiah 36–37 tell how the LORD saved Jerusalem from the army of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and Isaiah 39 tells of the envoys who came from Babylon after the king recovered. Hezekiah’s own psalm of thanks for his healing follows these verses in Isaiah 38:9–20. The same events are told in 2 Kings 20, and 2 Chronicles 32:24 records his sickness and prayer briefly. Chapters 38 and 39 close the first great part of Isaiah’s book, chapters 1 to 39, and lead on to the prophecies about Babylon.

Hezekiah reigned over Judah from about 715 to 686 BC, when Assyria was the great power of the world. In verse 6 God still speaks of delivering the king and the city from Assyria as something to come, so Hezekiah fell ill around the time of Sennacherib’s invasion, with Jerusalem’s rescue still ahead. If the fifteen years God added ran to his death in 686 BC, the illness came about 701 BC.

Hezekiah was one of the most faithful kings Judah ever had. He destroyed the idols, restored the true worship of the LORD and trusted him so fully that the record of his reign says there was none like him among the kings of Judah, before him or after (2 Kings 18:3–7). Yet this king lay dying like any other man. Later, after his recovery, he showed all his treasures to the Babylonian envoys and drew a solemn warning from Isaiah (Isaiah 39:1–8).

The word for sick, châlâh, means to be weak or ill, and “sick unto death” means the illness was carrying him to the point of death. Then Isaiah, named here in full as “the prophet the son of Amoz”, comes to the king in person with “Thus saith the LORD”. The verb ʼâmar is the everyday word for saying, and the prophet uses it to mark what follows as the LORD’s own words. God reveals his purposes to his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7) and sends them to speak in his name (Ezekiel 2:4). He put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth (Jeremiah 1:9–10) and made Ezekiel a watchman to warn the people (Ezekiel 3:17), and Isaiah comes to Hezekiah with the same authority.

The message ends “for thou shalt die, and not live.” The sentence says it both ways, with mûwth, to die, and châyâh, to live, so that Hezekiah could only take it as final. Behind it stands the truth Scripture states plainly, that the LORD both kills and makes alive (Deuteronomy 32:39, 1 Samuel 2:6). The king of Judah held his life from God like every one of his subjects.

Hezekiah’s first response is to pray. “Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD.” The verb çâbab means to turn around, and pânîym is the face. The wall, qîyr, was most likely the wall of the room where he lay. By turning to it he shut out the room and everyone in it and spoke to God alone. Jesus teaches the same kind of prayer when he tells his disciples to go into the inner room, shut the door and pray to the Father in secret (Matthew 6:6).

His name, Chizqîyâh, means “strengthened of Jah”, and in the hour of his greatest weakness he turns to the LORD whose strength his name speaks of. He had just heard a word from the LORD that sounded final, and he carried that word straight back to the LORD who gave it. The verb for “prayed”, pâlal, is the usual word for praying and interceding. Abraham pleaded with the LORD in the same bold way over Sodom (Genesis 18:22–33). Hezekiah’s prayer shows that even a sentence of death from God’s own prophet can be brought before Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant God of Israel, who hears.

“Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying”. The word for “word”, dâbâr, means a word or speech, and it can also mean a matter or thing. “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s covenant name, which speaks of the self-existent, eternal God who binds himself to his people. The answer came quickly. The parallel account in 2 Kings says that Isaiah had not yet gone out of the middle court of the palace when this new word reached him.

God sends the prophet back with “Go, and say to Hezekiah”. “Go” is hâlak, the same verb as “walked” in Hezekiah’s prayer. The message opens again with “Thus saith the LORD”, and then God names himself “the God of David thy father”. David (Dâvid) was Hezekiah’s forefather, and the word for father, ʼâb, covers a forefather as well as a father. The name ʼĕlôhîym, God, joined to David’s name, calls to mind the covenant God made with David in 2 Samuel 7. There he promised David a house, a throne and a kingdom that would last for ever (2 Samuel 7:12–16), and through David’s line the Messiah would come. So the answer to Hezekiah rests on God’s faithfulness to David’s house as well as on his compassion for one sick man, and it keeps David’s line on the throne.

God adds to the promise of years a promise for the kingdom: “And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.” The verb nâtsal means to snatch away or rescue. Those rescued are the king and the city, and the danger they are taken from is “the hand of the king of Assyria”. The word for hand, kaph, is the hollow of the hand, the palm, and here it stands for the Assyrian king’s power and grip. The second verb, gânan, means to hedge about, to protect, so God will stand guard around the city he rescues. “This city” stands twice in the verse, because Jerusalem, the city of David and the place of God’s temple, is the particular object of his care.

The threat was real. Sennacherib had already taken the fortified cities of Judah (2 Kings 18:13), and the Assyrians were known for brutal warfare and for carrying whole peoples away. The full story is told in 2 Kings 18–19. Through Isaiah, God had already promised to defend Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:32–34), and he kept his word when the angel of the LORD struck down 185,000 men of the Assyrian army in one night and Sennacherib went home (Isaiah 37:36, 2 Kings 19:35).

This is the God who saved Israel at the Red Sea, when Moses told the people to stand still and see the salvation of the LORD (Exodus 14:13–14). The whole of Exodus 14 tells of that deliverance. God is our refuge and strength, so his people need fear nothing though the earth be moved (Psalm 46:1–3). He brings the plans of the nations to nothing (Psalm 33:10), and those he rescues love him because he has heard their voice (Psalm 116:1–2). God cares for the king’s body and for the king’s city in the same answer, and he is Lord over both one man’s sickness and the march of empires.

“And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken”. A sign, ʼôwth, is a signal or token, a word also used of a flag, a beacon or a monument, something that can be seen and that points beyond itself. “The LORD” stands twice in the verse, so the sign comes from the LORD and the doing belongs to the LORD. “This thing” is dâbâr, the same word translated “word” in verse 4, and “spoken” is the verb dâbar, to speak. What God has spoken he will do. He had offered a sign to Hezekiah’s father Ahaz as well (Isaiah 7:11).

God gives the sign out of kindness. A dying man had just been promised fifteen years and a rescued city, and God stooped to give him something he could see. Our trust rests on the God who gives the sign. His word is true, and what he has said he will make good (Numbers 23:19). “He spake, and it was done” (Psalm 33:9), and Jesus said that his words will outlast heaven and earth (Matthew 24:35).

“Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.” The shadow is tsêl, shadow or shade. The word behind “degrees” is maʻălâh, a step, stair or degree, and the KJV’s “dial” is the same word, so the Hebrew speaks of the steps of Ahaz, joined with the word for the sun. The word runs right through the verse. Ahaz’s “dial” was most likely a set of steps with marked gradations, on which the shadow of a pillar or post moved as the sun crossed the sky, so that the hour could be read from the step it reached. Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, was open to foreign ways, and he may have built it with learning from Assyria or Babylon.

The shadow had “gone down”, yârad, to descend, over the steps as the day went on. God would bring it back “ten degrees backward”. “Ten” is ʻeser and “backward” is ʼăchôrannîyth. “Bring again” and “returned” are the same verb, shûwb, to turn back or return, so the verse first gives God’s promise to turn the shadow back and then its fulfilment: “So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.”

The account in 2 Kings 20:8–11 adds that Isaiah let Hezekiah choose whether the shadow should go forward ten degrees or back ten degrees. Hezekiah chose backward, because for a shadow to go down is the ordinary course of things, and its turning back would be the clearer work of God. The sign fits the promise. A king whose days were running out watched the shadow that measured the day go back over steps it had already passed.

Hezekiah’s reprieve was a true gift, and it was for a time. After fifteen years he died, as every one of us will. Jesus, the Son of David, laid down his life of his own will and took it again (John 10:18). The God of David who added years to Hezekiah raised Jesus from the dead, fulfilling the promise made to the fathers (Acts 13:32–33). Christ, being raised, dies no more, and death has no more dominion over him (Romans 6:9–10). He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25–26), and he gives eternal life to all who believe in him (John 3:16, Romans 6:23). Through him death is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54–57).

Hezekiah appealed to a walk that was sincere though imperfect. Jesus walked before God in truth and with a perfect heart, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Hezekiah wept for his own life. Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and in Gethsemane he prayed in agony, his sweat falling like great drops of blood (Luke 22:44), and asked that his Father’s will be done even though it meant the cup of suffering and death (Matthew 26:36–46). The Father always heard the Son (John 11:41–42), and the risen Christ now lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25) as the one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

The word of the LORD came to Isaiah, and in the fullness of time the Word became flesh (John 1:14). God gave Hezekiah a sign that he would keep his promise, and in Christ all the promises of God are yea and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). The God who turned back the shadow showed the same power over creation in Jesus, who stilled the storm with a word (Mark 4:39), walked on the sea (Matthew 14:25) and fed the thousands (John 6:11). God delivered Hezekiah from the hand of Assyria, and he has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13–14).

These verses show us a God who speaks truthfully about death and who also hears a dying man’s prayer. Hezekiah took the worst news of his life straight to the LORD, with his face to the wall, his life laid open and his tears running, and the LORD’s answer named each thing he had brought: “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears.” The same God holds the length of our days, keeps his promises to David’s house, defends his people from enemies far stronger than they are, and can turn back a shadow on the steps to show that his word will stand. Every one of us must one day set our house in order, and this passage shows where Hezekiah took that news. In Christ the God of David gives a life that reaches past the end of every added year.