Isaiah 38

This chapter contains an account of Hezekiah’s illness and miraculous recovery, together with a Psalm which he composed in commemoration of his sufferings and deliverance. The parallel passage (2 Kings 20:1-11) varies more from that before us than in the preceding chapter. So far as they are parallel, the narrative in Kings is more minute and circumstantial, and at the same time more exactly chronological in its arrangement. On the other hand, the Psalm is wholly wanting in that passage. All these circumstances favor the conclusion that the text before us is the first draft, and the other a repetition by the hand of the same writer.

Isaiah 38:1

8:1 “In those days Hezekiah was sick unto death, and Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the Prophet, came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah, Order thy house, for thou (art) dying, and art not to live.” As Hezekiah survived this sickness fifteen years (v. 5), and reigned in all twenty-nine (2 Kings 18:2) those days must be restricted to the fourteenth year, which was that of the Assyrian invasion. Whether this sickness was before the great catastrophe or after it, is not a question of much exegetical importance. In favor of the former supposition is the promise in v. 6, according to its simplest and most obvious meaning, though it certainly admits of a wider application. It is also favored by the absence of allusions to the slaughter of Sennacherib’s host in the song of Hezekiah. But on the other hand, his prayer is only for recovery from sickness, without any reference to siege or invasion. It has been objected to the hypothesis which makes the sickness previous in date to the destruction of the host, that it would not have been omitted in its proper place.

It is altogether natural, however, that the Prophet, after carrying the history of Sennacherib to its conclusion, should go back to complete that of Hezekiah also. ‘Order thy house is ambiguous,’ both in Hebrew and in English. The sense may be, give orders with respect to thy house; or, command thy household, (i.e., make known to them thy last will). In either case, the general idea is that of a final settling of his affairs in the prospect of death. (Compare 2 Samuel 17:23). The modern writers infer from the treatment described in v. 21, and said to be still practiced in the east, that Hezekiah had the plague, which would make it less improbable that this was the instrument employed in the destruction of Sennacherib’s army. Of those who make the sickness subsequent to this great deliverance, some suppose the former to have been intended, like the thorn in Paul’s flesh, to preserve Hezekiah from being exalted above measure. That he was not wholly free from the necessity of such a check, may be inferred from his subsequent conduct to the Babylonian envoys.

Isaiah 38:2

8:2 “And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah.” As Ahab turned his face away in anger (1 Kings 21:4), so Hezekiah does the same in grief.

Isaiah 38:3

8:3 “And he said, Ah Jehovah, remember, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and that which is good in Thine eyes I have done.” The figure of walking before God includes the ideas of communion with Him and subjection to Him, and is therefore more comprehensive than the kindred phrase of walking with Him. By truth we are here to understand sincerity and constancy. This verse is not an angry expostulation, nor an ostentatious self-praise, but an appeal to the only satisfactory evidence of his sincerity.

Isaiah 38:4

8:4 “And the word of Jehovah was (or came) to Isaiah, saying” (what follows in the next verse). The middle city may either mean the middle of the city (media urbs), or a particular part of Jerusalem so called, perhaps that in which the temple stood, or more generally that which lay between the upper city on Mount Zion and the lower city on Mount Akra. The communication may have been through the middle gate mentioned by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 39:3). In either ease, the interval could not have been a long one, though sufficient to try the faith of Hezekiah.

Isaiah 38:5

8:5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears (or weeping); behold, I am adding (or about to add) unto thy days fifteen years.” The parallel passage (2 Kings 20:5) has: ‘return and say to Hezekiah, the chief (or leader) of my people, Thus saith Jehovah etc.’ After tears it adds: ‘behold, (I am) healing (or about to heal) thee; on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah.’ David is particularly mentioned as the person to whom the promise of perpetual succession had been given (2 Samuel 7:12). The threatening in v. 1 was conditional, and the second message was designed from the beginning no less than the first. The design of the whole proceeding was to let Hezekiah feel his obligation to a special divine interposition for a recovery which might otherwise have seemed the unavoidable effect of ordinary causes.

Isaiah 38:6

8:6 “And out of the hand of the king of Assyria I will save thee and this city, and I will cover over (or protect) this city.” This probably refers to subsequent attacks or apprehensions. The parallel passage (2 Kings 20:6) adds, ‘for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant,’ as in Isaiah 37:35.

Isaiah 38:7

8:7 “And this (shall be) to thee the sign from Jehovah, that Jehovah will perform this word which He hath spoken.” The English Version has a sign; but the article is emphatic, the (appointed) sign (proceeding) from Jehovah (not merely from the Prophet). The parallel narrative in Kings is much more circumstantial. What occurs below, as the last two verses of this chapter, there stands in its regular chronological order, between the promise of recovery and the announcement of the sign, so that the latter appears to have been given in compliance with Hezekiah’s own request and choice. “And Isaiah said, This (shall be) to thee the sign from Jehovah, that Jehovah will perform the thing which He hath spoken; shall the shadow advance ten degrees, or shall it recede ten degrees? And Hezekiah said, It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees (2 Kings 20:9-10). As to the transposition of vs. 21, 22, see below.

Isaiah 38:8

8:8 “Behold, I (am) causing the shadow to go back, the degrees which it has gone down (or which have gone down) on the degrees of Ahaz with the sun, ten degrees backward; and the sun returned ten degrees on the degrees which it had gone down.” As to the nature of the phenomenon here described, there are various opinions, but it is not a question of much exegetical or practical importance, since it neither can nor need be ascertained, whether the course of the sun (or of the earth around it) was miraculously changed, or the shadow miraculously rendered independent of the sun which caused it. The former hypothesis is favored by the statement that the sun went back, if taken in its strictest and most obvious sense, although it may be understood as a metonymy of the cause for the effect. At any rate, little would appear to be gained by paring down a miracle to certain dimensions, when even on the lowest supposition it can only be ascribed to the almighty power of God, with whom all things are not only possible but equally easy. If shut up to the assumption of a miracle, it matters little whether it be great or small. It is enough that God alone could do it or infallibly predict it. If this be admitted, and the historical truth of the narrative assumed, the safest course is to expound it in its simplest and most obvious sense. Still less important is the question whether the degrees here mentioned were the graduated scale of a dial, or the steps of a staircase. It was alleged by some early writers on the subject, that the use of dials was unknown in the days of Hezekiah. Later investigations have destroyed the force of this objection, and made it probable that solar chronometers of some sort were in use among the Babylonians at a very early period, and that Ahaz may have borrowed the invention from them, as he borrowed other things from the Assyrians (2 Kings 16:10). There is therefore no historical necessity for assuming that the shadow here meant was the shadow cast upon the steps of the palace, called the stairs of Ahaz because he had built them or the house itself. The only question is, whether this is not the simplest and most obvious explanation of the words, and one which entirely exhausts their meaning. If so, we may easily suppose the shadow to have been visible from Hezekiah’s chamber, and the offered sign to have been suggested to the Prophet by the sight of it. This hypothesis relieves us from the necessity of accounting for the division into ten or rather twenty degrees, as Hezekiah was allowed to choose between a precession and a retrocession of the same extent (2 Kings 20:9). These two opinions are by no means so irreconcilable as they may at first sight seem. Even supposing the degrees of Ahaz to have been an instrument constructed for the purpose of measuring time, it does not follow that it must have been a dial of modern or of any very artificial structure. It is quite as probable that a column at the top of a staircase cast a shadow which was found available for a rude measurement of time.

Isaiah 38:9

8:9 “A writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he was sick, and lived (i.e., recovered) from his sickness.” This is the title or inscription of the following psalm (vs. 10-20), prefixed, according to the ancient oriental usage, by the author himself, and therefore forming an integral part of the text. The inspiration and canonical authority of this production are clear from its having been incorporated by Isaiah in his prophecies, although omitted in the second book of Kings. There is nothing in the psalm itself at all inconsistent with the supposition, that it was conceived, and perhaps composed, if not reduced to writing, before the complete fulfillment of the promise in the king’s recovery. The contrary hypothesis has tended to embarrass and perplex the interpretation as will be more distinctly seen below. The idiomatic phrase ‘to live from sickness,’ in the sense of convalescence or recovery, occurs repeatedly elsewhere, either fully or in an abbreviated form. (See for example 1 Kings 1:2; Genesis 20:7).

Isaiah 38:10

:10 “I said in the pause of my days I shall go into the gates of the grave, I am deprived of the rest of my years.” The words ‘in the pause of my days’ may naturally qualify either the foregoing or the following verb, ‘I said in the pause of my days,’ or, ‘in the pause of my days I shall go’; but the latter construction is the best. The general idea is the same as in Psalms 102:24, ‘I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.’ The preposition before ‘gates’ may mean either to, through, or into; but the last is its usual sense after verbs of motion. As parallel expressions may be mentioned the gates of death (Psalms 9:13) and the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18). The last verb expresses not mere loss or privation, but penal infliction. It was because Hezekiah regarded the threatened abbreviation of his life as a token of God’s wrath, that he so importunately deprecated it.

Isaiah 38:11

:11 “I said, I shall not see Jah, Jah in the land of the living; I shall not behold man again (or longer) with the inhabitants of the world.” Jah Jah is an intensive repetition similar to those in vs. 17, 19. Or the second may be added to explain and qualify the first. He did expect to see God, but not in the land of the living. For other explanations of the name see above, on Isaiah 12:2 and Isaiah 26:4. The land of the living is the present life. The preposition with may connect what follows either with the subject or the object of the verb; ‘I with the inhabitants’, or, ‘man with the inhabitants’.

The last words of the verse bear the same relation to ‘I shall not see man’, that the words ‘in the land of the living’ bear to ‘I shall not see Jah’. If the latter designate the place it which he was no more to see God, then the former would naturally seem to designate the place in which he was no middle man.

Isaiah 38:12

:12 “My dwelling is plucked up and uncovered by me (or away from me) like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up, like the weaver, my life; from the thrum (a fringe of warp threads remaining on the loom when the web has been cut off) He will cut me off; from day to night Thou wilt finish me.” The same thing is here represented by two figures. The first is that of a tent, the stakes of which are pulled up, and the covering removed, with a view to departure. The second figure is that of a web completed and removed by the weaver from the loom. ‘From the thrum,’ (i.e., the ends of the threads by which the web is fastened to the beam). ‘From day to night’ is commonly explained to mean before to-morrow, within the space of one day. The verb in the last clause might, without violence to etymology or usage, be explained to mean, ‘Thou wilt (or do thou) make me whole.’ But interpreters appear to be agreed in giving it the opposite sense of Thou wilt make an end of me. Some suppose moreover that the figure of a weaver and his web is still continued, and that the idea expressed in the last clause is that of finishing a piece of work.

Isaiah 38:13

:13 “I set (Him before me) till the morning (i.e., all night) as a lion, (saying) so will He break all my bones; from day to night Thou wilt make an end of me.” Either these last words are repeated in a different sense, or else the repetition shows that they have no special reference, in the foregoing verse, to the process of weaving. ‘I set Him before me,’ (i.e., viewed Him as present, imagined) or conceived of Him as a lion, and expected Him to act as such, saying, ‘so (i.e., as a lion) He will crush all my bones’. This construction gives uniformity of meaning to the clauses, as descriptive of the sufferer’s apprehensions.

Isaiah 38:14

:14 “Like a swallow (or) a crane (or like a twittering swallow), so I chirp; I moan like the dove; my eyes are weak (with looking) upward (or on high); O Jehovah, I am oppressed, undertake for me (or be my surety).” In the first clause the meanings of the sufferer are compared, as in many other cases, to the voice of certain animals. The dove is often spoken of in such connections, and the mention of it here makes it probable that the parallel expressions are also descriptive of a bird or birds. The comparison is evidently meant to be descriptive of inarticulate moans or murmurs. The reference of the verbs in the first clause to past time (I chirped, I moaned), though assumed by most interpreters, is perfectly gratuitous, when the future proper yields so good a sense. This violation of the syntax has arisen from assuming that the clause must be a retrospective description of something already past, and not an expression of present feeling such as he might have uttered at the moment. That this last is no unnatural hypothesis, is certain from the fact that all interpreters adopt it in the other clause.

But if that may be the language of the sufferer at the time of his distress, it is equally natural, or rather more so, to explain the first clause in the same way. The same word is used in Psalms 119:122, in the sense of ‘undertake for me’ or ‘be my surety’, (i.e., interpose between me and my enemies). The reference is rather to protection than to justification.

Isaiah 38:15

:15 “What shall I say? He hath, both spoken to me, and Himself hath done (it); I shall go softly all my years for the bitterness of my soul.” This, which is substantially the common version, is the one adopted by most modern writers, who regard the verse as an expression of surprise and joy at the deliverance experienced. ‘What shall I say?’ (i.e., how shall I express my gratitude and wonder?) He hath said and done it, He has promised and performed, perhaps with an implication that the promise was no sooner given than fulfilled. The recollection of this signal mercy he is resolved to cherish all his years, (i.e., throughout his life), by going softly, solemnly, or slowly, on account of the bitterness of his soul, (i.e., in recollection of his sufferings). Some, however, understand these last words to mean, in the bitterness of my soul, (i.e., in perpetual contrition and humility). But the preposition is properly expressive, not of the manner of his going, but of its occasion. Compare 1 Kings 21:27.

Another interpretation of the verse, which might, at first sight, seem more natural, regards it as the language of Hezekiah during his sickness, and as expressive, not of joy and wonder, but of submission. ‘What shall I say, in the way of complaint? He hath both said and done it,’ (i.e., threatened and performed it). But this view of the first clause cannot be reconciled with any natural interpretation of the second.

Isaiah 38:16

:16 “Lord, upon them they live, and as to everything in them is the life of my spirit, and Thou wilt recover me and make me live.” This exceedingly obscure verse is now most generally understood to mean, that life in general, and the life of Hezekiah in particular, was dependent on the power and promise of God. Upon them, the promise and performance implied in the verbs said and did of the preceding verse, they live, (i.e., men indefinitely).

Isaiah 38:17

:17 “Behold, to peace (is turned) my bitter bitterness, and Thou hast loved my soul from the pit of destruction, because Thou hast cast behind Thy back all my sins.” The English Bible, and some other versions, put an opposite meaning on the clause, as a description, not of his restoration but of his affliction. ‘For peace I had great bitterness, or, on my peace (came) great bitterness.’ The other interpretation agrees better with the usage of the preposition and makes the parallelism more exact. We have here another instance of pregnant construction, to love from, (i.e., so to love as to deliver from). This sense is expressed in the English Bible by a circumlocution. The word translated destruction means properly nonentity, annihilation, here put for perdition or destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The last clause shows that Hezekiah regarded the threatened destruction as a punishment of sin. To cast behind one, or behind one’s back, in Hebrew and Arabic, is to forget, lose sight of, or exclude from view. The opposite idea is expressed by the figure of setting or keeping before one’s eyes. (See Psalms 90:8; Psalms 109:14-15; Jeremiah 16:17; Hosea 7:2).

Isaiah 38:18

:18 “For the grave shall not confess Thee (nor) death praise Thee; they that go down to the pit shall not hope for Thy truth.” Here, as often in the Psalms, the loss of the opportunity of praising God is urged as a reason, not only why he should be loathe to die, but why God should preserve him. (See Psalms 6:5; Psalms 30:9; Psalms 88:10-11). The language is that of extreme agitation and distress, in which the prospect of the future is absorbed in contemplation of the present, and so far as he does think of futurity, it is upon the supposition of God’s wrath. Regarding death, in this case, as a proof of the divine displeasure, he cannot but look upon it as the termination of his solemn praises. The truth mentioned in the last clause is the truth of God’s promises, to hope for which is to expect the promised blessing.

Isaiah 38:19

:19 “The living, the living, he shall thank Thee, like me (or as I do) to-day; father to sons shall make known, with respect to Thy truth, (i.e., the truth of Thy promises), as in the verse preceding. Only the living could praise God in that way to which the writer was accustomed, and on which his eye is here fixed, with special reference, no doubt, to the external service of the temple. The last clause must be taken in a general sense, as Hezekiah was himself still childless.

Isaiah 38:20

:20 “Jehovah to save me! And my songs we will play, all the days of our life, at the house of Jehovah.” The obvious ellipsis in the first clause may be variously filled with came, hastened, commanded, was ready, be pleased, or with the verb is, is to save for will save. The reference to the future and the past is equally admissible, since God, in one sense, had already saved him, and in another was to save him still. The singular form, ‘my song’, refers to Hezekiah as the author of this composition; the plurals, we will sing and our lives, to the multitude who might be expected to join in his public thanksgiving, not only at first, but in after ages. The general sense is that of public and perpetual praise, the promise of which closes this remarkable production.

Isaiah 38:21

:21 “And Isaiah said, Let them take a lump (or cake) of figs, and rub them (or lay them softened) on the boil (or inflammation), and he shall live” (or let him live), (i.e., recover). It is a common oriental practice to apply figs to pestilential pustules, for the purpose of maturing their discharge.

Isaiah 38:22

:22 “And Hezekiah said, What sign that I shall go up (to) the house of Jehovah?” The ellipsis is easily supplied by reading, what sign dost thou give, or what sign is there, or more simply still, what is the sign? The question is more fully given in 2 Kings 20:8 as follows. ‘And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What sign that Jehovah is about to heal me, and that I shall go up, on the third day, to the house of Jehovah?’ The reference is to the promise as recorded in v. 5 of the same chapter. ‘Return and say to Hezekiah the chief of my people, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I am about to heal thee; on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah.’ The last two verses of this chapter in Isaiah are evidently out of their chronological order, and the question has been raised, whether this transposition is to be ascribed to the original writer, and if so how it is to be accounted for. The obvious and simple supposition is that the passage before us is the first draft or original form of Isaiah’s narrative, in which the facts recorded in these two last verses were added by a kind of afterthought, and that in re-writing the account, as a part of the national history, he naturally placed them in their chronological order. It would probably be easy to produce many parallel cases from the correspondence of voluminous letter-writers, or from other cases of repeated composition on the same subject by the same writer.