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 has just come through the crisis of his reign. Now the same prophet arrives with a message about the king's own body. Why would God cut short a life so devoted to Him? And what should a believer do when told to prepare for death?
One commentator explains that Isaiah has placed this story out of order on purpose.
In history this event comes before the enemy's attack against Jerusalem, but it follows it in all three accounts that we have… It was necessary to set Hezekiah's faithful career before our eyes before his grievous illness, which threatened to put an end to it. From the prophetic point of view, this makes Hezekiah's tears and pleadings all the more moving. His death might have looked like a judgment of God, when his whole life had been spent before Him in integrity.
The Assyrian threat came from outside. This new one did not. One writer sets the king's successes beside the message that followed them.
Hezekiah had been passing through much that the enemy could easily use to puff him up: a long course of devotion to the service of God, the great reformation carried out through him, and the splendid deliverance the Lord of hosts granted him over a most formidable foe. All these things were likely to work on the pride of his heart… But how we must admire the faithfulness of our God when we hear the solemn words that open this chapter. It was now to be a personal question. "Your house." He had been much taken up with the Lord's house, and happily so. But now the Lord would come more closely to His servant. "Set your house in order." This was indeed a searching word… Before, we saw God delivering His servant from an enemy; now we see Him delivering him from himself.
The message did more than tell him what was coming. It put him where every believer must one day stand.
In this sickness God will teach him death, and how terrible it is to man as man… Every believer must in one way or another enter into this discipline and endure it. This dreadful moment to nature must be learnt and felt. What a moment! Everything a man cares for falls apart. Everything that ties him to his own works and will is gone. Man as he is in himself no longer exists. The greater his place here, the wider his work, the more engaged his affections, the more terrible the wrench of death… His suffering as he faced death was not because he doubted his final salvation. It was the thought of death cutting him off from all that interested and engaged him here.
Hezekiah's weeping puzzles many readers. One writer traces it to how little his day knew about life past the grave.
He was a godly man, yet the news of his coming death shook him and moved him deeply. God's people in Old Testament times knew little about the things beyond the grave. They also held that an early death marked God's displeasure. These things no doubt produced much of this grief. How differently believers in New Testament times can face death! Life and immortality are now brought to light by the gospel.
God reversed the sentence and gave fifteen more years. Commentators point out what those years contained.
2 Kings 21:1 shows that his son Manasseh, who followed him, was only 12 years old when he began to reign. So Manasseh was born after Hezekiah's recovery, in his added 15 years of life… Let us learn from this. We may beg God for something we regard as a favour, and He may grant it. Yet we may afterwards discover that the "favour" we demanded carried consequences that were not favourable at all.
Another writer speaks more sharply, while still refusing to judge him.
We must not presume to judge God's honoured servant, but it does look as if he would have done better to submit meekly to God's will in his sickness.
The scene means more than one man's illness. One writer reads Hezekiah here as a picture of Israel's future.
In this the king pictures beforehand the spiritual work God will one day do in His people. Israel is destined in that day to do more than give a grand outward display of His power. Israel must also go through a deep inward change — the great practical lesson of death and resurrection.
- Timing. The illness came before the Assyrian siege. Isaiah records it afterwards, so we see Hezekiah's faithful life first and feel how undeserved the sentence seemed.
- Personal. God had already dealt with the kingdom. Now the words "your house" turned the dealing inward, where success could have made him proud.
- Discipline. God sent the sickness to teach him death — an exercise every believer must in some form pass through.
- Contrast. Hezekiah's tears show how little his day knew beyond the grave. The gospel has since brought life and immortality to light.
- Outcome. He got the years he asked for, and Manasseh came with them — a warning that God may grant a request that carries what we never asked for.
And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah,
Word came to Hezekiah, king of Judah, that his illness was fatal and that he should put his affairs in order. He turned away from everything in the room and spoke to God. Commentators praise that instinct, and then look closely at the prayer itself.
Hezekiah could no longer walk to the temple. One writer shows that this put nothing between him and God.
Well, what will Hezekiah do in this hour of his need? He cannot go up to the house of the Lord; but he can go up to the Lord Himself, and so he does. "Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD." This was his remedy now as at all times. The Lord only intended to give His dear servant a proper sense of his real condition of dependence. He would show him this: the very same hand that had just rescued his kingdom from the jaws of the enemy must now rescue Hezekiah himself from the jaws of death. What divine harmony exists between the words, "Set your house in order" and "Hezekiah turned his face to the wall!"
The wall was not a random place to look. One writer reads the movement as a sick man's version of a familiar journey.
During the siege this man took himself to the temple. Now, in his sickness, his feet can no longer walk the courts of the house of his God. So he collects himself, turns, and prays from his bed in that direction. "I have set the Lord always before me," is the language of faith. So far all is right. But we need to look a little closer, and consider not simply the fact of his praying, but the character of his prayer.
He does not ask for mercy. He asks God to look at his record. The same writer sets this beside what Hezekiah had once carried into the temple.
He is calling on God to witness to his faithfulness, to the perfectness of his heart, and to the goodness of his ways. He points to his zeal against idolatry and to 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 out his own graces before the Lord, and appeals to Him on the strength of them.
Commentators differ on how much blame this deserves. Another writer points to when Hezekiah lived, not to a flaw in him.
There was no public declaration of righteousness until Christ was risen. So when Hezekiah was dying, or thought he was, he pleaded his character, his personal piety.
Hezekiah's tears puzzle readers who expect a believer to face death in peace. One commentator answers by dating the change.
Up to this time no one could say that death was conquered, for indeed it was not. Even to a believer death still had its terrors. Now death has lost its terrors. It is no longer the king of terrors to a Christian, and for this simple reason: death must now serve the Christian. It must usher the departing Christian into the presence of the Lord. This is not loss, but gain. Who would weep bitterly at a great gain?
One writer looks back at the years just before this illness.
He had given a long life to the service of God. He was the instrument of a glorious reformation. He had great influence over the priests and Levites, the men of Judah and Israel. Last of all, the Lord of hosts gave him a splendid deliverance over a most formidable foe. All these things were well suited to work on the pride of his heart. But how we must admire the faithfulness of our God! After the brilliant scenes of this good man's life, we listen to the solemn words with which this chapter opens.
The same writer sets this prayer between two other tests. The third one ends badly.
When the king of Assyria sent letters to him, "he went up to the house of the LORD and spread them before the LORD." So he conquered. When summoned to prepare for death, "he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD." So he was raised up. But when the ambassadors from the king of Babylon came to him, "he showed them the house of his precious things." SO HE FELL. Hezekiah was off his guard. No prayer — no seeking the Lord — no spiritual perception to detect the hook hidden under this attractive bait.
- Turn. With the temple out of reach, Hezekiah went to God directly — the same hand that had saved his kingdom now had to save him.
- Direction. The wall was faith's compass; he prayed from his bed toward the house of God he could no longer walk to.
- Plea. He spread out his own record where he had once spread out an enemy's letter. Christ had not yet risen, so he had no declared righteousness to lean on.
- Tears. He wept because death was still unconquered. For the Christian, death now serves, bringing him into the Lord's presence.
- Purpose. Success had been working on his pride, so God made it personal. The danger came back when he stopped praying and showed Babylon his treasures.
and said, Ah, Jehovah, remember, 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 much.
Isaiah has just told Hezekiah that his sickness will end in death. The king answers with prayer, an appeal to his own record, and tears. Two questions follow: was this a good prayer, and why did a godly man dread death so much?
Hezekiah is too ill to reach the temple.
What will Hezekiah do in this hour of his need? He cannot go up to the house of the Lord; but he can go up to the Lord Himself, and so he does. "Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD." This was his remedy now as at all times... The Lord only meant to give His dear servant a proper sense of his real condition of dependence. He would show him this: the very same hand that had just rescued his kingdom from the jaws of the enemy must now rescue him from the jaws of death.
He comes to God with his own record in his hands.
He is calling on God to witness his faithfulness, the perfectness of his heart, and the goodness of his ways. He points to his zeal against idolatry, and to his diligence in restoring the feasts, and worship, and order of Israel. In the temple he had spread the enemy's letter with its blasphemies. Now he spreads his graces before the Lord, and appeals to Him on the strength of them.
God does not dismiss what Hezekiah says about himself.
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.
Hezekiah's appeal to his own walk belonged to an order of things that has since changed.
Before the coming of Christ, people under law could be righteous before God, walking "blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord" (Luke 1:6). Such people could plead their integrity. They could ask God to judge them by it (Ps. 26:1). They could look to Him to hear their prayer because they had walked before God "in faithfulness and with a whole heart" (Isa. 38:3). Since the Lord's death, and the full unfolding of Christian truth, no real soul could take that ground.
The tears measure what death still was at that time.
Up to this time no one could say that death was conquered, for indeed it was not. Even to a believer death was not without its terrors. Now death is stripped of its terrors. It is no longer the king of terrors to a Christian, and for this simple reason: death must now serve the Christian. It must usher the departing Christian into the presence of the Lord. This is not loss, but gain. Who would weep bitterly at a great gain?
Being a good and useful man made the blow heavier, not lighter.
The experience of Hezekiah tells us how a man of God, a regenerate soul, feels the wrench... a man's goodness and usefulness here, instead of softening the desperateness of the blow, deepens it.
Christ also wept, but not over the same thing.
The Lord never wept over the lot that awaited Him, for He had come into this world to die. He wept over rebellious Jerusalem. He wept before the tomb of Lazarus, as He saw the power of death weigh on poor fallen men. But He never wept for Himself. In one way only He was like Hezekiah: He "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death" (Heb. 5:7 — the older translation reads "save him out of death"). But it was not, like Hezekiah, in order not to die. It was to be saved out of death... As for Hezekiah, tears became him, as they will become the upright remnant.
The sickness comes straight after the defeat of Assyria, and the two rescues belong together.
There is the outward deliverance (Isa. 36, 37), and the inward one (Isa. 38). Resurrection power was applied to the sickness of the son of David. He is a picture of a greater one, who truly died and rose to bring in the sure mercies of David.
- Turn. Cut off from the temple, Hezekiah turned to God Himself. The hand that saved his kingdom was the only hand that could save him.
- Plead. He turned with his own record in his hands, spreading his graces before God as he had once spread an enemy's letter.
- Heard. God did not deny the truth of what he said; He took it at its worth and added fifteen years.
- Changed. That way of pleading belonged to believers before Christ's death. Since then no true soul stands on it.
- Conquered. He wept because death was not yet defeated. For the Christian, death now serves as the door into the Lord's presence.