Isaiah 38:21

Brenton's Septuagint

Now Esaias had said to Ezekias; Take a cake of figs, and mash them, and apply them as a plaster, and thou shalt be well.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of pressed figs and apply it to his infected skin, so that he may recover.”

Hebrew Names Version
Now Yesha`yahu had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster on the boil, and he shall recover.

King James Version
For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.

English Standard Version
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover."

New American Standard Bible
Now Isaiah had said, "Have them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover."

New Century Version
Then Isaiah said, "Make a paste from figs and put it on Hezekiah's boil. Then he will get well."

Amplified Bible
Now Isaiah had said, "Have them take a cake of figs and rub it [as an ointment] on the inflamed spot, that he may recover."

World English Bible
Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster on the boil, and he shall recover.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Then said Isaiah, Take a lumpe of drye figs and lay it vpon the boyle, and he shall recouer.

Legacy Standard Bible
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take up a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may live."

Berean Standard Bible
Now Isaiah had said, "Prepare a lump of pressed figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover."

Contemporary English Version
I had told King Hezekiah's servants to put some mashed figs on the king's open sore, and he would get well.

Complete Jewish Bible
Then Yesha‘yahu said, "Have them take a fig-plaster and apply it to the inflammation, and he will recover."

Darby Translation
Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.

Easy-to-Read Version
Then Isaiah told Hezekiah, "Crush figs together and put them on your sore. Then you will get well."

George Lamsa Translation
And Isaiah said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it as a plaster upon the boil and he shall recover,

Good News Translation
Isaiah told the king to put a paste made of figs on his boil, and he would get well.

Lexham English Bible
And Isaiah said, "Let them take a lump of figs, and let them rub it on the boil so that he may recover."

Literal Translation
For Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs and rub it on the ulcer, and he will live.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And Esay sayde: take a playster offyges, and laye it vpon the sore, so shal it be whole.

American Standard Version
Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.

Bible in Basic English
And Isaiah said, Let them take a cake of figs, and put it on the diseased place, and he will get well.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And Isaiah said: 'Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.'

King James Version (1611)
For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lumpe of figges, and lay it for a plaister vpon the boile, and he shall recouer.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And Esai sayde: Take a plaster of figges, and lay it vpon the sore, so shall it be whole.

English Revised Version
Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And Ysaie comaundide, that thei schulden take a gobet of figus, and make a plaster on the wounde; and it schulde be heelid.

Webster's Bible Translation
For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay [it] for a plaster upon the boil, and he will recover.

New English Translation
Isaiah ordered, "Let them take a fig cake and apply it to the ulcerated sore and he will get well."

New King James Version
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover."

New Living Translation
Isaiah had said to Hezekiah's servants, "Make an ointment from figs and spread it over the boil, and Hezekiah will recover."

New Life Bible
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs and put it on the sore, that he may get well."

New Revised Standard
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover."

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and let them press it over the boil, that he may recover.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Now Isaias had ordered that they should take a lump of figs, and lay it as a plaster upon the wound, and that he should be healed.

Revised Standard Version
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs, and apply it to the boil, that he may recover."

Young's Literal Translation
And Isaiah saith, `Let them take a bunch of figs, and plaster over the ulcer, and he liveth.'

THE MESSAGE
Isaiah had said, "Prepare a poultice of figs and put it on the boil so he may recover." Hezekiah had said, "What is my cue that it's all right to enter again the Sanctuary of God ?"

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Now Isaiah had said, "Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover."

Contextual Overview

⁹ THE PRAYER OF EZEKIAS KING OF JUDEA, WHEN HE HAD BEEN SICK, AND WAS RECOVERED FROM HIS SICKNESS. ¹⁰ I said in the end of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I shall part with the remainder of my years. ¹¹ I said, I shall no more at all see the salvation of God in the land of the living: I shall no more at all see the salvation of Israel on the earth: I shall no more at all see man. ¹² My life has failed from among my kindred: I have parted with the remainder of my life: it has gone forth and departed from me, as one that having pitched a tent takes it down again: my breath was with me as a weaver’s web, when she that weaves draws nigh to cut off the thread. ¹³ In that day I was given up as to a lion until the morning: so has he broken all my bones: for I was so given up from day even to night. ¹⁴ As a swallow, so will I cry, and as a dove, so do I mourn: for mine eyes have failed with looking to the height of heaven to the Lord, who has delivered me, and removed the sorrow of my soul. ¹⁶ Yea, O Lord, for it was told thee concerning this; and thou hast revived my breath; and I am comforted, and live. ¹⁷ For thou hast chosen my soul, that it should not perish: and thou hast cast all my sins behind me. ¹⁸ For they that are in the grave shall not praise thee, neither shall the dead bless thee, neither shall they that are in Hades hope for thy mercy. ¹⁹ The living shall bless thee, as I also do: for from this day shall I beget children, who shall declare thy righteousness,

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

For Isaiah: 2 Kings 20:7, Mark 7:33, John 9:6

Reciprocal: Leviticus 13:18 - a boil 2 Chronicles 32:24 - gave him a sign

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For Isaiah had said,.... Before the above writing was made, which ends in the preceding verse; for this and the following are added by Isaiah, or some other person, taken out of 2 Kings 20:7. The Septuagint version adds, "to Hezekiah"; but the speech seems rather directed to some of his servants, or those that were about him:

let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover; which was done, and he did accordingly recover. Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and. Kimchi, all of them say, that this was a miracle within a miracle, since figs are hurtful to ulcers; and so say others; though it is observed by some, that they are useful for the ripening and breaking of ulcers; however, it was not from the natural force of these figs, but by the power of God, that this cure was effected; for, without that, it was impossible so malignant an ulcer and so deadly a sickness as Hezekiah's were could have been cured, and especially so suddenly; nor were these figs used as a medicine, but as a sign of recovery, according to the Lord's promise, and as a means of assisting Hezekiah's faith in it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For Isaiah had said - In the parallel place in Kings the statement in these two verses is introduced before the account of the miracle on the sun-dial, and before the account of his recovery 2 Kings 20:7-8. The order in which it is introduced, however, is not material.

Let them take a lump of figs - The word used here (דבלה d^ebēlâh) denotes “a round cake” of dried figs pressed together in a mass 1 Samuel 25:18. Figs were thus pressed together for preservation, and for convenience of conveyance.

And lay it for a plaster - The word used here (מרח mârach) denotes properly to rub, bruise, crush by rubbing; then to rub, in, to anoint, to soften. Here it means they were to take dried figs and lay them softened on the ulcer.

Upon the boil - (משׁחין mash^echı̂yn). This word means a burning sore or an inflamed ulcer Exodus 9:9, Exodus 9:11; Leviticus 13:18-20. The verb in Arabic means to be hot, inflamed; to ulcerate. The noun is used to denote a species of black leprosy in Egypt, called elephantiasis, distinguished by the black scales with which the skin is covered, and by the swelling of the legs. Here it probably denotes a pestilential boil; an eruption, or inflamed ulceration produced by the plague, that threatened immediate death. Jerome says that the plaster of figs was medicinal, and adapted to reduce the inflammation and restore health. There is no improbability in the supposition; nor does anything in the narrative prohibit us from supposing that natural means might have been used to restore him. The miracle consisted in the arrest of the shade on the sun-dial, and in the announcement of Isaiah that he would recover. That figs, when dried, were used in the Materia Medica of the ancients, is asserted by both Pliny and Celsus (see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiii. 7; Celsus, v. 2, quoted by Lowth.)

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 38:21. Let them take a lump of figs, c. — God, in effecting this miraculous cure, was pleased to order the use of means not improper for that end. "Folia, et, quae non maturuere, fici, strumis illinuntur omnibusque quae emollienda sunt discutiendave." - PLIN. Nat. Hist. xxiii. 7. "Ad discutienda ea, quae in corporis parte aliqua coierunt, maxime possunt-ficus arida," c. - CELSUS, v. 11. See the note on 2 Kings 20:7. Philemon Holland translates the passage as a medical man: - "The milke or white juice that the figge tree yieldeth is of the same nature that vinegre: and therefore it will curddle milke as well as rennet, or rendles. The right season of gathering this milkie substance is before that the figs be ripe upon the tree and then it must be dried in the shadow: thus prepared, it is good to break impostumes, and keepe ulcer open."