Isaiah 38King James Version
Hezekiah becomes sick and is told he will die. He turns his face to the wall and weeps. God gives him fifteen more years and moves the shadow on the sundial backward as a sign. Hezekiah writes a poem about his recovery: 'I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave.'
Hezekiah falls ill and is told by Isaiah he will die. He turns his face to the wall and prays with great bitterness. God reverses the sentence and adds fifteen years. The sun's shadow goes backward ten degrees as a sign. Hezekiah writes a psalm of thanks, describing the bitterness of facing death and the sweetness of restoration.
Prayer to God in the face of death is not superstition or bargaining: it is the right use of the relationship. God answers before Isaiah even leaves the court.
verse: "I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul", Hezekiah's post-recovery life is marked not by triumphalism but by a deepened gravity, the kind that only comes from having faced the wall.
Jerusalem's palace around 701 BC. Hezekiah is probably forty years old. Isaiah enters, delivers the sentence, and leaves. In the time it takes him to reach the middle court, God reverses course. The sign of the retreating sun shadow on Ahaz's sundial is witnessed by the court. Then Hezekiah writes a psalm about being alive when you almost were not.
Hezekiah, king of Judah, ill and facing death. Isaiah the prophet who delivers both the death sentence and the reprieve. God, who hears Hezekiah's prayer before Isaiah has left the outer court. The writing of Hezekiah, his personal psalm.
The reversal of the sun's shadow is one of the most unusual signs in prophetic literature, a visible rollback of natural time. Hezekiah's psalm (vv. 10-20) is a rare first-person account of what it feels like to face death, making it one of the most psychologically intimate passages in Isaiah. The fifteen additional years include the birth of Manasseh, whose wickedness will be legendary.
For when you feel death approaching, whether literally or in the loss of something central to your life. Hezekiah does not accept the sentence with noble calm; he weeps bitterly, and that response is what the chapter honors.
1In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.
2Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,
3And said, Remember now, O LORD, 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 sore.
4Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,
5Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.
6And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.
7And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;
8Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
9The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness:
10I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.
11I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
12Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
13I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
14Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.
15What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.
16O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.
17Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
18For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
19The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
20The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
21For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.
22Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?