In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.
Hezekiah had restored the worship of the true God in Judah. Then, with the Assyrian army still in his land, Isaiah brought him a death sentence from the LORD. Why would God strike down His servant at the height of his usefulness?
The chapter opens with "In those days" instead of a date. That vagueness matters: the illness belongs earlier than its place on the page suggests.
Hezekiah reigns twenty-nine years. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Sennacherib comes up against him. 2 Kings 20 tells us that after his prayer, when he was sick to death, the Lord added fifteen years to his days. So his illness came at the start of the Assyrian invasion, before its defeat. It is not set down here in the order it happened… By this we can measure the depth of the trial this man of God had to pass through. On one side, the enemy had overrun his whole country except Jerusalem. On the other, a fatal illness — and this at the very time when he had restored the worship of the true God to his people, wiped out idolatry, and freed Judah from Assyrian bondage!
Every crisis before this had been national. Now it reaches his own body, and one writer points to what his successes could have done to his heart.
God lets him feel, as it were, the withering breath of death, the king of terrors, just as before he had felt the arrogant threats of the king of Assyria. God brings him to feel that he must take refuge in Him, not only for his kingdom but for himself… He had a long record of devoted service to God. A glorious reformation had come through him. And the Lord of hosts had given him a splendid deliverance over a most formidable foe. All these things were well fitted to work on the pride of his heart… He had been much taken up with the Lord's house. Now the Lord would deal with him about his own house. It was now to be a personal question. "Your house."
The message did more than end his life. It seemed to cancel his whole record with God.
He must die. What misery! He who could say, "Ah, LORD, remember, I beg You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in Your sight" — this man must die! For a godly Jew, to walk before God in the land of the living was a clear sign of His favour. Was that favour now withdrawn from the king? God would take no account of fourteen years of devotion to Himself, to His cause, and to His house!
Ordered to settle his affairs, Hezekiah turned first to God — and one writer finds perfect harmony in that.
He cannot go up to the house of the Lord, but he can go up to the Lord Himself, and so he does… The Lord only meant to give His dear servant a right sense of how dependent he really was. He would show him this: the same hand that had just rescued his kingdom from the jaws of the enemy must now rescue him from the jaws of death. Until both he and his kingdom could stand in the power of resurrection, there could be no permanence for either… What divine harmony there is between the words "Set your house in order" and "Hezekiah turned his face to the wall"!
Hezekiah wept at the sentence. One writer explains what has changed about death since then.
Up to this time death was not conquered. Even for a believer death still had its terrors. Now death is stripped of its terrors. For a Christian it is no longer the king of terrors. The reason is simple: death is now made the servant of the Christian, made to bring the departing Christian into the presence of the Lord. This is not loss, but gain. Who would weep bitterly over a great gain?
Yet the Christian still faces death. Another writer says the difference lies elsewhere.
The Christian too must pass through this ordeal. He passes through it victoriously. That is not because death is anything less to him than it was to Hezekiah. It is because he has received through grace life in the risen Son of God. He does not suffer less, but he enjoys infinitely more than Hezekiah.
Hezekiah's story points past him to Christ, but the likeness has a limit.
All this speaks to us of what happened to the Messiah, of whom Hezekiah is only a faint picture. He too had to be cut off in the middle of His days, and cast down after being lifted up. He too, the faithful Witness who had done only the will of God, had to suffer death… But Christ — unlike Hezekiah — suffered these things because He was bearing the iniquity of a great people. He had to suffer God's righteous condemnation in our place. A man like Hezekiah could in no way redeem his brother or give God a ransom for him.
- Timing. The illness struck while the Assyrian still held the country. The double blow fell at Hezekiah's best moment.
- Personal. After years of public success, God moved the test from the kingdom to the man: "your house," not the nation's.
- Prayer. The order to settle his affairs drove him to the wall, and to the hand that had already saved his city.
- Grace. He wept because death was not yet conquered. The Christian meets the same wrench holding life in the risen Son of God, so death becomes a servant and a gain.
- Urgency. The message still lands: "How soon the divine order may go out, 'Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.' How sad, then, to put off the solemn matter of the soul's salvation!" — H. H. Snell
And he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah saying,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Ah! Jehovah, remember, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept much.
The prophet Isaiah has just told Hezekiah to put his house in order, because he will not recover. He does not argue; he turns his face to the wall, asks God to remember how he has lived, and weeps (older versions read "in truth and with a perfect heart" for the ESV's "in faithfulness and with a whole heart" — the wording the writers below use).
The sickness comes after Hezekiah's best years of service. One writer shows how easily those years could have fed his pride, and how the message now turned personal.
Hezekiah had been through much that the enemy could easily use to puff him up. He had served God faithfully for a long time. A great reformation had come through him. He had influence over the priests and Levites and the men of Judah and Israel. Last of all, the Lord of hosts had given him a splendid rescue from a most formidable foe. All these things were very likely to work on the pride of his heart... It was now to be a personal question. "Your house."
The plea can sound strange today. One writer explains why living on in the land mattered so much to a godly Jew, and why the death sentence looked like lost favour.
He who could say, "Ah! Jehovah, remember, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done what is good in your sight" — this man must die! For a godly Jew, to walk before God in the land of the living was a clear sign of His favour. Was this favour then withdrawn from the king? God would take no account of fourteen years of devotion to Himself, to His cause, and to His house!
One writer sets this prayer beside an earlier scene in the temple.
He is calling on God to witness to his faithfulness, to the perfectness of his heart, to the goodness of his ways. He calls Him to witness his zeal against idolatry, and his diligence in restoring the feasts, the worship and the order of Israel. In the temple he had spread out the letter with its blasphemies. Now he spreads his graces before the Lord, and appeals to Him on the strength of them.
Commentators differ. Some read the appeal as proper ground for a believer living before the cross.
Before the coming of Christ people under law could be righteous before God... Such people could plead their integrity. They could ask God to judge them in line with it. They could look to Him to hear their prayer because of their walk before God "in truth, and with a perfect heart." Since the Lord's death, and the full unfolding of Christian truth, no real soul could take that ground.
Others hear self-righteousness in it, surfacing as Hezekiah discovers what is in himself.
Old me, old I, must die, must perish, must be turned to the wall. Like Job long before, this brings out the leaven of self-righteousness... it is hard work to learn the death lesson of the flesh fully. The rage of the enemy outside is a mere trifle compared with the full discovery of the death within.
Why does a man of such faith weep? One writer answers from what death was then, and what it is now.
Up to this time no one could say death was conquered, for indeed it was not. Even to a believer death was not without its terrors. Now death has lost its terrors. It is no longer the king of terrors to a Christian, and the reason is simple: death now has to serve the Christian, and to usher the departing Christian into the presence of the Lord. This is not loss, but gain. Who would weep bitterly at a great gain?
God's reply shows what He makes of the plea.
Will the Lord admit the plea? He is not unrighteous to forget; He does not deny the truth of what Hezekiah says. He takes it at its worth, and tells him He will yet add fifteen years to his life.
The same writer draws out what such discipline is for.
However humbling the needed process God puts His saints through, the grace that does it is pure. We gain the profit when the discipline has exercised us, and we turn from self and from eyeing our own graces to find our help in God.
- Sentence. After his best years, God made it personal — not the kingdom now, but "your house."
- Plea. He asked God to remember his walk in truth and a perfect heart. Once he had spread an enemy's letter before the Lord; now he spread his own graces.
- Difference. Commentators differ. Some say a believer before the cross could plead his integrity. Others hear self-righteousness surfacing instead.
- Tears. He wept because death was not yet conquered. For the Christian, death now serves: it ushers him into the Lord's presence.
- Answer. God did not deny what Hezekiah said. He took it at its worth and added fifteen years. The profit comes when we stop eyeing our graces and find our help in God.
And it came to pass before Isaiah had gone out into the middle city that the word of Jehovah came to him saying,
Isaiah has just told King Hezekiah he will die. God stops the prophet before he is out of the palace — and the verse turns on that speed, and on why the sickness came at all.
Isaiah was still in the middle court when the answer caught him. Commentators point to that detail. Almost no time passed between Hezekiah's cry and God's reply.
It was not long; it was immediate. The prophet came that same minute — or at any rate the word of the Lord came to the prophet. "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears" — for God did not despise them.
Another writer looks at what lay behind the speed.
God's answer does not wait long… Hezekiah's soul has hardly been searched out when the word of the Lord comes to Isaiah. One senses that God had already prepared for the king everything He here grants him in his affliction.
The reply Isaiah carries back names two things: a prayer and tears.
He knows the pains of the human heart, though He is on high. This was true long ago. When Hezekiah was sick to the point of death, the Lord's message to him was, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears, and your shuddering at the thought of the grave." The king's sorrow had brought the Lord and His anointed together. God spared Hezekiah's life and turned his sadness into songs.
(The last phrase follows an older translation; the ESV reads, "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears.")
Isaiah does not go back with a bare reprieve. One writer counts out what the new message holds.
Hezekiah's prayer was heard and answered at once. It is one of the most striking answers to prayer. Isaiah had not gone far — he had just reached the middle of the court — when God told him to turn back and bring Hezekiah the answer. This new message to the weeping king holds seven things. "I have heard your prayer"; "I have seen your tears"; "I will heal you"; "you shall go up to the house of the LORD"; "I will add fifteen years to your life"; "I will deliver you"; "I will defend this city."… Hezekiah's experience is a great encouragement for God's people to pray.
Notice whose name carries the promise. When God defends the city, the reason lies outside the sick man altogether.
The Lord would defend the city, not even for Hezekiah's sake, but for His own sake and for the sake of David His servant.
Hezekiah had pleaded his own record before God. One writer lists what he put forward.
He is calling on God to witness to his faithfulness, to the perfectness of his heart, and to the goodness of his ways. He calls Him to witness his zeal against idolatry, and his diligence in restoring the feasts, the worship, and the order of Israel. In the temple he had spread out the letter with its blasphemies; now he spreads his graces before the Lord, and appeals to Him on the strength of them.
God does not rest His answer on that record. He sends back healing and fifteen added years anyway.
One writer sees a lesson in the sickness that the healing did not cancel. He ties the king's rescue to the city's.
Here we learn in the clearest way that both Judah and Judah's king must pass through death and resurrection. … Yet the Lord did not deliver His servant in a way that interfered, even slightly, with the lesson He wanted to teach him. … The experience Hezekiah poured out afterwards could never have been gained in the middle of the congregation. Not on the battlefield. Nowhere but exactly where God put him — on the sick bed. None can teach like God.
- Heard. God answered before Isaiah crossed the courtyard. The reply was ready before the cry ended.
- Seen. God took in the weeping as well as the words. He did not despise the tears, and the sorrow itself brought the king and his God together.
- Turned back. The messenger who brought the death sentence brings the reprieve — seven promises: healing, worship restored, added years, rescue, and a defended city.
- Granted. Hezekiah pleaded his own good record. God did not deny it, but He staked the city's safety on His own name and on David.
- Taught. The reprieve did not cancel the lesson. God kept His servant on the sick bed to teach him what no battlefield could. No one teaches like God.
Return, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and I will add to 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 for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
Hezekiah is dying, and he prays. Before the prophet can leave the palace, God sends him back with a promise: more years for a life already under sentence, and safety for a city under threat. Two questions follow. Why did God reverse the sentence He had just announced? And why did He spare the city?
Writers note how little time passed between the sentence of death and its reversal.
Before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer." Again it was not long; it was immediate. In the earlier case, the destroying angel came that same night. Now, I may say, the prophet came that same minute — or at any rate the word of the Lord came to the prophet. "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears" — for God did not despise them.
The verse joins a personal cure to a national rescue. One writer sees in that pairing how complete the Lord's victory is, and what the heart still has to learn.
When the Lord promised Hezekiah recovery from his sickness, He also promised him deliverance from the Assyrian. The victory of the Lord is complete. It is a victory over oneself, and over every other oppressor. But the heart has to learn something. Having passed through death, it can endure better when death and pressure lie ahead than when it meets recognition and flattery.
God gives His reason for defending Jerusalem. It has nothing to do with the king.
The Lord would defend the city, not even for Hezekiah's sake, but for His own sake and for the sake of David His servant.
David's name is not there by accident. One writer links it to what Hezekiah's death would have put at risk.
The message of approaching death startled the king because at that time he had no son. If he had died, what then would have become of the Messianic hope through the house of David? It is beautiful to hear the Lord say through Isaiah, "Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father."
The number is also a date-marker. It places the sickness near the Assyrian invasion. One writer uses it to warn against correcting Scripture by outside records.
"In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death." "Those days" must refer to the time of the Assyrian invasion, or just after Sennacherib came up. That was the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign. The prophet had said God would add fifteen years to his life. As he reigned twenty-nine years, there is no difficulty at all in fixing the exact time of his sickness. Men make difficulties for themselves where there are none. They listen to uncertain records carved on monuments instead of holding to the simple and sure statements of Holy Scripture.
Commentators read the added days as a figure of something far wider.
Here again we find, in a figure, the principle that Israel's deliverance is tied to. The deliverance of all men is tied to it as well. Elisha pointed to this principle, and Jesus accomplished it. Hezekiah is raised as from the dead. He had been sick to the point of death. But the Lord heard his prayer. When Hezekiah humbled himself, the Lord revoked the sentence He had pronounced through Isaiah.
Commentators do not treat the fifteen years as a simple happy ending. What followed is a warning.
Would we want time reversed in our lives? If God gave us time to live some years over again, would we do better than before? Hezekiah found through experience that things don't work that way. For in his added 15 years he spoiled the devotedness of his testimony for God, as we see soon after.
One writer follows those added years into the next generation.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he succeeded his father Hezekiah. So he was born during the fifteen extra years God granted Hezekiah in answer to his prayers and tears. No doubt Manasseh received careful teaching in the ways of God. Hezekiah himself said, "the father makes known to the children Your faithfulness." Let every Christian father note this, and follow Hezekiah's good example. Despite his early advantages, Manasseh became the wickedest king Judah had ever known.
- Heard — God turned Isaiah back before he crossed the middle court. He did not despise the tears.
- Doubled — one answer carried two gifts: healing for the man and deliverance for the city.
- Grounded — God defends the city for His own sake and for David's, not for the king's record. The promised line through David's house was at stake.
- Raised — a man under sentence of death gets his life back. Commentators read this as resurrection in figure.
- Spent — Hezekiah still had to live the gift out. The years that followed show how easily a man wastes extra time.
And Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
Hezekiah has been told he will die. Then God promises to heal him — and the prophet calls for a cake of figs. Why send a remedy when the healing is already promised?
One dictionary traces the word behind "boil" to two of the worst afflictions in Scripture.
The Hebrew word shechin means a common swelling on the flesh, with inflammation. The boils were surely deadly when God sent them as a plague in Egypt (Ex. 9:9-11), and they were severe in Job's case when Satan struck him (Job 2:7). Hezekiah's boil seems to have been a severe kind, though God blessed a lump of figs to bring about his recovery.
God had already promised to heal the king. He still chose to work through something He had made.
The Lord, however, did not heal Hezekiah apart from a natural remedy. Isaiah told them to place a lump of figs on Hezekiah's boil, and he recovered (v.7). God had made the figs and He knew they would be effective in this case. Suppose someone demanded that God heal him, yet refused a natural remedy. That would not be faith healing. Faith gives God credit for supplying whatever means of healing He sees fit.
Figs on a sore are ordinary. What followed was not.
A plaster of figs does not usually cure a badly infected boil, but it did in this case, as an act of God.
Rossier sees more here than a healed sore.
Hezekiah is brought back to life by a sort of resurrection. To all appearances the means had no value, but applied at the prophet's word it proves to be the power of God for salvation.
The promise came with an order to obey.
God also commanded Isaiah to use means — a lump of figs, laid on the boil. If they had ignored this simple remedy, if there had been disobedience, the recovery would not have taken place.
Does trusting God rule out the use of medicine? One writer answers with this verse and a second passage about remedies.
Using a passage of Scripture as a substitute for the medicines God has provided in nature is not only unwarranted. It goes against the principle of Scripture and the apostles: use remedies for ailments (see both 2 Kings 20:7 and 1 Tim. 5:23). It is theological quackery.
Another writer sets the figs beside miracles that needed no remedy at all.
In His New Testament miracles of healing He showed once for all His power as the First Cause. He used no material remedies as go-betweens, but did what He purposed with a word or a touch. He was pleased to use a plaster of figs to make Hezekiah well, but the king knew it was Jehovah who had healed him. He said, "He has both spoken to me, and He Himself has done it" (Isa. 38:15). The Gospels show us Jesus at work in person, and that encourages us. We may use our medicines, sure that He is just as active today, both in sympathy and in power to heal.
Rossier reads the whole sequence — death sentence, news of healing, the means, the sign — as a pattern.
Death is decreed, and there is no appeal. This message brings deep distress to the soul that receives it. At once Isaiah announces the happy news of the king's healing. He then points to the means of healing and applies it to the deadly boil. Last of all, he makes known the sign. By reversing the order of nature, the Lord binds Himself to do what He has promised... We have here a complete example of what the gospel brings to the soul of every sinner.
Some readers think a note about figs is too small for the Bible to record. Kelly answers them.
This added detail may seem unimportant or fake to the natural mind. It was not so to the Spirit who inspired it. God shows His interest in His own, whatever their weakness. He explains the means used, and why the sign was given. To unbelief such a detail has no value. Literary criticism knows as little of God's love, or of the soul's need, as human philosophy does.
- Sentence — the boil was of a severe kind, and the word over Hezekiah was death, not illness he might shake off.
- Word — God promised healing first; the figs came after the promise, never in place of it.
- Means — He heals through what He Himself made. A remedy does not insult faith. Faith credits God for supplying it.
- Obedience — the healing came through doing what the prophet said. Skip the remedy, and there is no recovery.
- Glory — the plaster stayed a plaster. Hezekiah said God had spoken and God had done it. Believers may use medicine the same way.