2 Kings 20:1

Ver. 1-3. In these days was Hezekiah sick unto death,.... Of this sickness of Hezekiah, the message of the prophet Isaiah to him, and his prayer upon it, [See comments on Isaiah 38:1], [See comments

In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. In those days was Hezekiah sick.

2 KINGS CHAPTER 20 Hezekiah receiving a message of death, by prayer hath his life lengthened; for a sign the sun goeth backward, . The king of Babylon’ s ambassadors come to Hezekiah with letters and a present; he showeth them all his treasures, ; whereupon Isaiah foretelleth him the Babylonish captivity: he dieth; and Manasseh is king, . In those days, i.e. in that year of the Assyrian invasion, as is manifest from hence, that that was in Hezekiah’ s fourteenth year, , and God now added fifteen years more to him, ; and yet Hezekiah reigned only twenty-nine years in all, . And this happened either, first, After the destruction of Sennacherib’ s army. Or, secondly, Before it, as may be thought from , where he speaks of his deliverance from the king of Assyria as a future thing. It is true, that when Hezekiah received that insolent message from the Assyrian, he was in health, and went into the temple to pray, ; but there might be time more than enough for this sickness and recovery between that threatening and this destruction of the Assyrian. Set thine house in order; take care to make thy will, and to settle the affair of thy family and kingdom; which he the rather presseth upon him, because the state of his kingdom required it; for it is plain that Hezekiah had not as yet any son, Manasseh his heir and successor not being born till three years after this time, by comparing this , with . For thou shalt die, and not live; according to the course of nature, and of thy disease, which is mortal in its kind, and will be so in effect, if God doth not miraculously prevent it. Such threatenings, though absolutely expressed, have ofttimes secret conditions, which God reserves in his own breast: see .

2 Kings 20:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.Ver. 1. In those days.] In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’ s reign, as appeareth by comparing 2 Kings 20:6, and 2 Kings 18:13; then, when Hannibal ad portas, the Assyrian was in the land. Crosses commonly come thick and many together, and all for the best. Was Hezekiah sick unto death.] Sick of the plague, as it is thought, and may be probably gathered from 2 Kings 20:7, and had the tokens likely; so that in human apprehension he was a dead man, neither could he recover but by a miracle. A good man may have the plague, and die of it too - as did Oecolampadius, Franeiscus Junius, Chimedontius, Mr Stafford, Mr Greenham, Mr John Blackwell (my most loving friend), and Mr Jeremy Burroughs, if I mistake not - notwithstanding that patent for preservation, Psalms 91:1. All such promises being conditional, as was also this following sentence; and so Hezekiah understood it; else he would not have prayed, as he did, that it might not be accomplished. For thou shalt die, and not live.] That is, In the order of second causes to their effects, thy disease is deadly, for it hath seized upon the vitals: dispositio corporis tui ad mortem ordinatur. When the prophets foretold things ut futura in seipsis, then they always happened: but when they foretold them only as in their causes, they might happen or not, as 1 Kings 21:20 Jonah 3:4, and here. That is an uncharitable gloss that some Rabbis set upon these words, Thou shalt die here, and not live in the world to come. But they have an edge against him, yet without all cause, as intent only to his own preservation for his time in peace, and therefore say they, the prophet Isaiah out of a dislike of that his answer, turneth to the people, saying, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," &c.

(1) In those days—i.e., in the time of the Assyrian invasion. The illness may have been caused, or at least aggravated, by the intense anxiety which this grave peril created. Hezekiah reigned 29 years (2 Kings 18:2), and the invasion began in his 14th year (2 Kings 18:13). In 2 Kings 20:6 he is promised 15 years of life, and deliverance from the king of Assyria. That Hezekiah recovered before the catastrophe recorded at the end of the last chapter, is evident from the fact that no allusion to the destruction of his enemies is contained in his hymn of thanksgiving (Isaiah 38:10-20). Set thine house in order.—The margin is right (Comp. 2 Samuel 17:23.)

CHAPTER XX Hezekiah's sickness, and the message of the prophet to him, to prepare for death, 1. His distress and prayer to God, 2, 3. The Lord hears, and promises to add fifteen years to his life, and Isaiah prescribes a means of cure, 4-7. Hezekiah seeks a sign; and to assure him of the truth of God's promise, the shadow on the dial of Ahaz goes back ten degrees, 8-11. The King of Babylon sends a friendly message to Hezekiah, to congratulate him on his recovery; and to these messengers he ostentatiously shows all his treasures, 12, 13. Isaiah reproves him, and foretells that the Babylonians will come and take away all those treasures, and take the people into captivity; and degrade the royal family of Judah, 14-18. Hezekiah bows to the Divine judgment, 19. His acts and death, 20, 21. NOTES ON CHAP. XX Verse 1. Set thine house in order] It appears from the text that he was smitten with such a disorder as must terminate in death, without the miraculous interposition of God: and he is now commanded to set his house in order, or to give charge concerning his house; to dispose of his affairs, or in other words, to make his will; because his death was at hand. "This sickness," says Jarchi, "took place three days before the defeat of Sennacherib." That it must have been before this defeat, is evident. Hezekiah reigned only twenty-nine years, 2Kg 18:2. He had reigned fourteen years when the war with Sennacherib began, 2Kg 18:13, and he reigned fifteen years after this sickness, 2Kg 20:6; therefore 14+15=29, the term of his reign. Nothing can be clearer than this, that Hezekiah had reigned fourteen years before this time; and that he did live the fifteen years here promised. That Hezekiah's sickness happened before the destruction of Sennacherib's army, is asserted by the text itself: see 2Kg 20:6.

Ch. 2 Kings 20:1-11. Sickness of king Hezekiah. His life is prolonged in answer to his prayer. The sign given by God that this should be so (2 Chronicles 32:24; Isaiah 38:1-22) 1. In those days was Hezekiah sick] Scripture writers are not precise in specifying times, and ‘in those days’ may mean no more than ‘about that time’ either before or after the defeat of the Assyrians. But there are one or two marks which may help us to come to a conclusion. In verse 6 the promise is made ‘I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria’. But these words seem to relate rather to a further continued preservation than to the overthrow which drove Sennacherib away. Though the Assyrians were gone, it was not unlikely that they would return. It is to deliverance from all such future attacks that God’s promise is best referred. For the visit of the ambassadors of the king of Babylon was ‘at that time’ (verse 12), clearly when Hezekiah had recovered, and when time enough had elapsed for the news about the sickness and the recovery to have reached Babylon. But the embassy was not merely for the purposes of congratulation, but to secure Hezekiah’s alliance with Babylon against Assyria. The time would seem to the Babylonians most opportune for shaking off the Assyrian yoke, and the help of that power in attacking which the Assyrians had suffered so much loss, would appear the very best help that could be sought. Hence Berodach-baladan availed himself of the excuse of congratulating Hezekiah on his recovery to send an embassy to sound the king of Judah on the subject of an alliance. Hezekiah’s answer was given by the exhibition of his supplies and stores of armour. Connecting the events together thus, we come to the conclusion that Hezekiah’s sickness occurred soon after the Assyrian overthrow, and that thus the notes of time which fix (2 Kings 18:13) Sennacherib’s invasion in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, and promise the king fifteen years more of life are substantially exact, and fill up together the twenty-nine years assigned to Hezekiah’s reign in 2 Kings 18:2. And the prophet Isaiah [R.V. Isaiah the prophet] the son of Amoz] The change of order conforms to Isaiah 38:1. Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live] One can hardly read these words without the conviction that the conduct of Hezekiah, after his deliverance from the Assyrian siege, had not been such as to find favour with God. A message of this kind would not be sent from God without good cause. Either there had been a lack of thankfulness, or the king was too much elated with the glory of so miraculous a deliverance. That Hezekiah could think of his own greatness and forget to point to God as its author is seen as we read of the display he made before the Babylonian embassy, which is recorded in this chapter.

In those days - Hezekiah seems to have died 697 B.C.; and his illness must belong to 713 or 714 B.C. (compare 2 Kings 20:6), a date which falls early in the reign of Sargon.

’S AND , 2 Kings 20:1-7. 1. In… days — About the time of the first Assyrian invasion, for Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years in all, and lived fifteen after this sickness, so that, according to