Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Isaiah 38:21

Clarke's Commentary

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."

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Hezekiah’s illness and recovery (38:1-22)

The events recorded in Chapters 38 and 39 probably happened before those of the previous chapters. Hezekiah was about to die (38:1), but in answer to his prayer God gave him an extension of life. It seems that the reason for preserving Hezekiah’s life was to enable him to bring Judah through the time of conflict with Assyria (2-6). God gave Hezekiah a miraculous sign to confirm that this extension of life was according to the divine will (7-8).
Hezekiah then sang a psalm of praise to God for his recovery. He had expected to die, and his lack of knowledge of the future life gave him no cause for joy at all. Life seemed to him so short. Death, it seemed, would cut him off from all living things, even God (9-13). He was depressed, knowing he could do nothing to help himself, for life and death were in God’s hands (14-15).
This realization, however, now gave Hezekiah cause for hope. If his life was in God’s hands, God could save him. He realized that his sickness had been sent by God for his own benefit, so that his faith might be strengthened (16-17). He could not praise God if he were dead, but he could if he remained alive. He therefore determined that he would keep on praising God, both privately before his children and publicly in the temple (18-20).
Isaiah, who had announced God’s promise of healing to the king (see v. 4-6), adds a note to explain how the healing may have come about (21-22).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"Now Isaiah had said, Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover. Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Jehovah?"

This injection of some pertinent fact into a narrative subsequently to its actual chronological occurrence is a typical feature of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. As an example, in Jonah, after the men cast lots and charged him with being the cause of the danger they were in, learned that Jonah was a follower of Jehovah; "Then, the men were exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, What is this that thou hast done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from Jehovah, because he had told them" (Jonah 1:10). Thus there appears here a fact that the mariners had learned at the time of Jonah's taking passage on the ship of Tarshish.

The fact that dried figs were used in the medical practice of the ancients is confirmed by both Roman historians, Pliny, and Celsus.Robert Lowth's Commentary, p. 308. The significance is that natural means were frequently utilized by the Lord in the performance of those wonders with which the Bible is filled.

The additional information provided in these last two verses was summarized thus by Dummelow: "The remedy for the king's disease was suggested by Isaiah, and the sign was given at the king's request."J. R. Dummelow's Commentary, p. 439.

In this connection, even during the charismatic age of the church when elders endowed with the gift of healing, prayed for the sick, they also anointed the sufferer with oil, as in James 5:13-15.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole 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.)

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

21.And Isaiah said Isaiah now relates what was the remedy which he prescribed to Hezekiah. Some think that it was not a remedy, becausefigs are dangerous and hurtful to boils; but that the pious king was warned and clearly taught by this sign that the cure proceeded from nothing else than from the favor of God alone. As the bow in the sky, ⁽⁹⁷⁾ by which God was pleased to testify that mankind would never be destroyed by a flood, (Genesis 9:13,) appears to denote what is absolutely contrary to this; (for it makes its appearance, when very thick clouds are gathering, and ready to fall as if they would deluge the whole world;) so they think that a plaster, which was not at all fitted for curing the disease, was purposely applied by the Prophet, in order to testify openly that God cured Hezekiah without medicines. But since figs are employed even by our own physicians for maturing a pustule, it is possible that the Lord, who had given a promise, gave also a medicine, as we see done on many other occasions; for although the Lord does not need secondary means, as they are called, yet he makes use of them whenever he thinks proper. And the value of the promise is not lessened by this medicine, which without the word would have been vain and useless; because he had received another supernatural sign, by which he had plainly learned that he had received front God alone that life of which he despaired.

(97) “L’arc en la nuce.” “The bow in the cloud.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 38

In 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 your house in order: for you shall die, and not live ( Isaiah 38:1 ).

These are pretty heavy tidings. You get sick and a prophet of God comes and says, "Hey, set your house in order, man, this is it. You're going to die and not live." There are things that we must take care of before we die. Important things to take care of. The most important thing that I take care of before I die is my relationship with God. And that's really what the prophet was referring to. "Set your house in order. You're going to die and not live."

So Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before you in truth and with a complete heart, and have done that which is good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept. Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying, Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will add fifteen years to you. And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken; Behold, 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 ( Isaiah 38:2-8 ).

Interesting thing. Just to prove a point that what God said is true. "All right, I'll give you fifteen years. Don't cry. And to prove it, I'll bring the shadow on the sundial back ten degrees." So here is actually a long day. Ten degrees backward, and by the time it started again would give you about a forty-five minute lapse time here as God took... Now how did God pull that one off? I don't know. There are those who scoff at the miracles in the Bible and try to either rationalize them completely or just say that they didn't exist. We have the case in Joshua's time where the sun stood still for the space of almost a day in order that Joshua was able to completely wipe out the enemies.

Now if the sun stood still in the evening time and the moon there in the valley of Ajalon, then it would mean that over here on this side of the earth they would have had a long night, which, of course, the Aztec and Inca records do record. And Velikovsky in his book, Worlds in Collision, traces this long day of Joshua around the world. Now there are the scoffers who say, "Wait a minute, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth anyhow. We have that kind of an illusion only because the earth is spinning on its axis. So rather than the sun standing still, it must be that the earth came to a halt. But the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and if the earth would suddenly stop, everybody would be thrown off." And so they tried to deny the reality of that miracle through this idea that anything stopped spinning at a thousand miles an hour, everything would be thrown off of it.

Well, who said God put on the brakes that hard? Say God took fifteen minutes to slow the earth to a stop? Oh my, that's easing down, because from a thousand miles in fifteen minutes, you would hardly even notice the brakes being applied at that speed. So if God, say, slowed it down in five minutes, it would be like applying your brakes at sixty miles an hour to stop at a signal that is a half a mile away. So there's no problem. God didn't just slam on the brakes, yank, and everybody goes flying off. He just applied the brakes, stopped the thing. The miracle to me is how did He get it going again? Now here is a little bit better. He actually reversed the thing a little bit. Let it go back ten degrees before He fired it up. So the only reason why people have difficulty with these facets of scriptures is because their concept of God is so small. And the reason why their concept of God is small is because they have created their own ideas of God.

If you believe in the God that is revealed in the Bible, then these things present absolutely no problem at all. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" ( Genesis 1:1 ). That's a pretty big God. And if He created the heavens and the earth, He has no problem in guiding and directing and in stopping if He wants the rotation of this earth upon its axis for a moment. Starting it up again. It's an interesting thing Velikovsky in his book believes that when God started up again, He started in the opposite direction. That actually the earth used to rotate from west to east. He believes and seeks to prove it in his book. But interesting. God just to prove to the king, "Hey, I mean it. Show you little proof just to encourage you."

Now when Hezekiah was sick, this is what he wrote. You talk about a negative confession. I mean, this guy had a classic negative confession. So this is what Hezekiah wrote when he was sick.

I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go down to the gates of hell: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I 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. Mine 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. I 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 ( Isaiah 38:10-13 ).

Boy, what a negative confession! Now if what you say is what you get, then Hezekiah really would have been done in. But in spite of all of his negative confessions, God answered his prayer and gave him fifteen years. But that brings up a problem. Should he really have died at that time? It would appear that God's primary will for Hezekiah was that he should die at that time.

There's a theological debate on whether or not prayer really changes things. Can I by prayer really change the mind of God? God declares, "Behold, I am God, I change not" ( Malachi 3:6 ). Should I by prayer seek to change the mind of God? What would be the purpose of changing the mind of God? The only purpose I can see of seeking to change the mind of God is that I've got a smarter thought than God does. "Now God, I want You to see it my way."

It is interesting how that so often in our prayers they are really real hyped jobs in trying to, in a sense, change the mind of God-at least the way we pray it. It is as though we're trying to make God see it our way and to convince God that our way is right. To sell God on my program here. But is that really the real thrust of prayer and the purpose of prayer, to change the mind of God? Does prayer really change God?

Now it would appear that there is a direct will of God for our lives, but then there is this area that we might title the permissive will of God for us. And quite often, God's direct will is expressed first. This is what is best. But I get in there and I begin to push and shove and insist and God says, "Well, all right. If that's what you really want, have at it."

It would appear that this did happen when Barak the king sent to Balaam to curse the people that were coming through the land. And Balaam prayed unto the Lord and the Lord said unto Balaam, "Do not go down to the king. Do not curse these people because they are My people." So Balaam sent back a message to Barak and said, "I'm sorry, king, I can't come down. The Lord won't let me. Neither can I curse these people for the same reason." So king Barak sent other messengers with great rewards, a lot of loot, and said, "Just come on down and counsel me concerning these people that are coming through the land." So Balaam was a greedy fellow and when he saw all the loot that the king was offering for counseling fees, he thought, "Wow, could I ever use that! Get me a new donkey and a new house." And greed really filled his heart.

So he prayed again. Now God had already said don't go down. But I can hear Balaam this time, "Oh, Lord, just please let me go. Lord, just, I'll be good, Lord. But oh, just let me go down, Lord. After all, what can it hurt me going down, Lord? Please, God." God finally said, "All right, go ahead, but you just be careful you don't say any more than what I tell you." But the anger of the Lord was kindled against Balaam. Evidently, you see, though Balaam insisted and God more or less gave him a tentative, "Sure do it," yet it wasn't God's direct will for this guy's life because an angel of the Lord stood in the path with a drawn sword. And that wise little donkey saw the angel though Balaam didn't. And he turned off the path and Balaam beat him and got him back on the path. But again the angel of the Lord stood where there was a cliff and the donkey edged up against the side of the cliff and got old Balaam's ankle, and he beat the donkey again and got him going. The third time and the angel stood in the path there was no place for the donkey to go; he just sat down. And Balaam began to beat him. And the donkey turned around and said, "You think that's right beating me three times? Haven't I been a faithful donkey ever since you owned me? Have I ever done anything like this to you before?" Balaam was so angry he answered the donkey back and said, "You bet your life I'd do right to beat you. If I had a stick I'd kill you."

He evidently was insisting that God allow him to go and God permissively said, "Yes, go." And yet, it wasn't the direct will of God. God allows things that are not His direct will. I can force my will. I can force my way. Where God more or less reluctantly says, "Well, if that's what you want, have at it." But yet, it isn't really pleasing to God. Now whenever these issues are forced, then the consequences are always disastrous.

I believe that Hezekiah's time to die had come and I think he would have been much better off. I know the nation of Israel would have been much better off had Hezekiah died at that time. Those extra fifteen years that God allowed him were disastrous. For two years later he had a son named Manasseh who became the ruler, the king over Judah when Hezekiah died, and Manasseh was indeed the foulest, rottenest king that ever reigned in Judah. And it was a result of Manasseh's ungodly reign that Judah got on the road downhill from which it was never able to recover. Now had Hezekiah died when God planned and wanted him to die, then Manasseh would never have been born and the history for the nation could have been different.

Whenever we insist upon our way over God's, you're not getting the best. God's way is always the best. Though we may not understand it or see it at the time, God's way is always the best. So it is possible that through our pig-headed bullishness, we might be able to get God to consent to something that we desire. But the result is always negative. How much better that we learn to say, "Oh God, Thy will be done," and to flow in the center of God's will. So Hezekiah prayed, cried, oh, he really was going at it.

Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter ( Isaiah 38:14 ):

All night long here he was chattering like a little bird.

I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me ( Isaiah 38:14 ).

You see, he was really going at it. And God said, "Come on, you want fifteen years, all right." The guy's just really going at it. God said, "Ah, shut up. Fifteen years, go ahead, take it."

What 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. O 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. Behold, 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. For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. The LORD was ready to save me: therefore will we sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life ( Isaiah 38:15-20 )

So this is a song that he wrote during this time and it's a psalm of Hezekiah.

For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it on as a plaster on his boil, and he shall recover. Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD? ( Isaiah 38:21-22 ) "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Hezekiah’s record of his crisis 38:9-22

The bulk of this section is a psalm of lamentation and thanksgiving that Hezekiah composed after his recovery (Isaiah 38:10-20). It is the only extant narrative in the Old Testament written by a king of Judah after the time of Solomon. [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 744. ] Compare King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon’s similar testimony of praise, after God delivered him from insanity (Daniel 4:34-35). This psalm is also chiastic in structure. It begins with reference to the gates of Sheol and sorrow at the prospect of shortened days (Isaiah 38:10), and it ends with reference to the house of the Lord and joy at the prospect of lengthened days (Isaiah 38:20). The king began by referring to the land of the living being exchanged for the departed (Isaiah 38:11), and he ended with reference to the land of the departed exchanged for the land of the living (Isaiah 38:18-19). In the middle, he contrasted God’s hostility (Isaiah 38:12-14) with His restoration (Isaiah 38:15-17). [Note: Motyer, p. 292.] Hezekiah described his condition first (Isaiah 38:9-14), and then he praised God for His mercy (Isaiah 38:15-20).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The poem having ended, Isaiah now added a postscript giving more detail about Hezekiah’s recovery. Isaiah 38:21-22 are more smoothly integrated into the story of Hezekiah’s recovery in 2 Kings 20 than they are here. This fact has led scholars to speculate about which account was first, which was second, or did both draw from a common source? There is no way to answer this question for sure. Hezekiah had evidently suffered from a boil, but the boil was probably only a symptom of a more serious disease (cf. Isaiah 38:1). When Isaiah, acting as a physician, applied a fig poultice to the boil, the king recovered (cf. James 5:14).

"This is an example of healing occurring because of a combination of prayer, medicine, and God’s work." [Note: J. Martin, p. 1090.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole 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.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      9 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness:   10 I 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.   11 I 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.   12 Mine 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.   13 I 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.   14 Like 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.   15 What 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.   16 O 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.   17 Behold, 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.   18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.   19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.   20 The 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.   21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.   22 Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

      We have here Hezekiah's thanksgiving-song, which he penned, by divine direction, after his recovery. He might have taken some of the psalms of his father David, and made use of them for his purpose; he might have found many very pertinent ones. He appointed the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David,2 Chronicles 29:30. But the occasion here was extraordinary, and, his heart being full of devout affections, he would not confine himself to the compositions he had, though of divine inspiration, but would offer up his affections in his own words, which is most natural and genuine. He put this thanksgiving in writing, that he might review it himself afterwards, for the reviving of the good impressions made upon him by the providence, and that it might be recommended to others also for their use upon the like occasion. Note, There are writings which it is proper for us to draw up after we have been sick and have recovered. It is good to write a memorial of the affliction, and of the frame of our hearts under it,--to keep a record of the thoughts we had of things when we were sick, the affections that were then working in us,--to write a memorial of the mercies of a sick bed, and of our release from it, that they may never be forgotten,--to write a thanksgiving to God, write a sure covenant with him, and seal it,--to give it under our hands that we will never return again to folly. It is an excellent writing which Hezekiah here left, upon his recovery; and yet we find (2 Chronicles 32:25) that he rendered not again according to the benefit done to him. The impressions, one would think, should never have worn off, and yet, it seems, they did. Thanksgiving is good, but thanksliving is better. Now in this writing he preserves upon record,

      I. The deplorable condition he was in when his disease prevailed, and his despair of recovery, Isaiah 38:10-13; Isaiah 38:10-13.

      1. He tells us what his thoughts were of himself when he was at the worst; and these he keeps in remembrance, (1.) As blaming himself for his despondency, and that he gave up himself for gone; whereas while there is life there is hope, and room for our prayer and God's mercy. Though it is good to consider sickness as a summons to the grave, so as thereby to be quickened in our preparations for another world, yet we ought not to make the worse of our case, nor to think that every sick man must needs be a dead man presently. He that brings low can raise up. Or, (2.) As reminding himself of the apprehensions he had of death approaching, that he might always know and consider his own frailty and mortality, and that, though he had a reprieve for fifteen years, it was but a reprieve, and the fatal stroke he had now such a dread of would certainly come at last. Or, (3.) As magnifying the power of God in restoring him when his case was desperate, and his goodness in being so much better to him than his own fears. Thus David sometimes, when he was delivered out of trouble, reflected upon the black and melancholy conclusions he had made upon his own case when he was in trouble, and what he had then said in his haste, as Psalms 31:22; Psalms 77:7-9.

      2. Let us see what Hezekiah's thoughts of himself were.

      (1.) He reckoned that the number of his months was cut off in the midst. He was now about thirty-nine or forty years of age, and when he had a fair prospect of many years and happy ones, very happy, very many, before him. This distemper that suddenly seized him he concluded would be the cutting off of his days, that he should now be deprived of the residue of his years, which in a course of nature he might have lived (not which he could command as a debt due to him, but which he had reason to expect, considering the strength of his constitution), and with them he should be deprived not only of the comforts of life, but of all the opportunities he had of serving God and his generation. To the same purport (Isaiah 38:12; Isaiah 38:12), "My age has departed and gone, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent, out of which I am forcibly dislodged by the pulling of it down in an instant." Our present residence is but like that of a shepherd in his tent, a poor, mean, and cold lodging, where we are upon duty, and with a trust committed to our charge, as the shepherd has, of which we must give an account, and which will easily be taken down by the drawing of one pin or two. But observe, It is not the final period of our age, but only the removal of it to another world, where the tents of Kedar that are taken down, coarse, black, and weather-beaten, shall be set up again in the New Jerusalem, comely as the curtains of Solomon. He adds another similitude: I have cut off, like a weaver, my life. Not that he did by any act of his own cut off the thread of his life; but, being told that he must needs die, he was forced to cut off all his designs and projects, his purposes were broken off, even the thoughts of his heart, as Job's were, Job 17:11; Job 17:11. Our days are compared to the weaver's shuttle (Job 7:6), passing and repassing very swiftly, every throw leaving a thread behind it; and, when they are finished, the thread is cut off, and the piece taken out of the loom, and shown to our Master, to be judged of whether it be well woven or no, that we may receive according to the things done in the body. But as the weaver, when he has cut off his thread, has done his work, and the toil is over, so a good man, when his life is cut off, his cares and fatigues are cut off with it, and he rests from his labours. "But did I say, I have cut off my life? No, my times are not in my own hand; they are in God's hand, and it is he that will cut me off from the thrum (so the margin reads it); he has appointed what shall be the length of the piece, and, when it comes to that length, he will cut it off."

      (2.) He reckoned that he should go to the gates of the grave--to the grave, the gates of which are always open; for it is still crying, Give, give. The grave is here put not only for the sepulchre of his fathers, in which his body would be deposited with a great deal of pomp and magnificence (for he was buried in the chief of the sepulchres of the kings, and all Judah did him honour at his death,2 Chronicles 32:33), which yet he himself took no care of, nor gave any order about, when he was sick; but for the state of the dead, that is, the sheol, the hades, the invisible world, to which he saw his soul going.

      (3.) He reckoned that he was deprived of all the opportunities he might have had of worshipping God and doing good in the world (Isaiah 38:1; Isaiah 38:1): "I said," [1.] "I shall not see the Lord, as he manifests himself in his temple, in his oracles and ordinances, even the Lord here in the land of the living." He hopes to see him on the other side death, but he despairs of seeing him any more on this side death, as he had seen him in the sanctuary, Psalms 63:2. He shall no more see (that is, serve) the Lord in the land of the living, the land of conflict between his kingdom and the kingdom of Satan, this seat of war. He dwells much upon this: I shall no more see the Lord, even the Lord; for a good man wishes not to live for any other end than that he may serve God and have communion with him. [2.] "I shall see man no more." He shall see his subjects no more, whom he may protect and administer justice to, shall see no more objects of charity, whom he may relieve, shall see his friends no more, who were often sharpened by his countenance, as iron is by iron. Death puts an end to conversation, and removes our acquaintance into darkness, Psalms 88:18.

      (4.) He reckoned that the agonies of death would be very sharp and severe: "He will cut me off with pining sickness, which will waste me, and wear me off, quickly." The distemper increased so fast, without intermission or remission, either day or night, morning or evening, that he concluded it would soon come to a crisis and make an end of him--that God, whose servants all diseases are, would by them, as a lion, break all his bones with grinding pain, Isaiah 38:13; Isaiah 38:13. He thought that next morning was the utmost he could expect to live in such pain and misery; when he had outlived the first day's illness the second day he repeated his fears, and concluded that this must needs be his last night: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. When we are sick we are very apt to be thus calculating our time, and, after all, we are still at uncertainty. It should be more our care how we shall get safely to another world than how long we are likely to live in this world.

      II. The complaints he made in this condition (Isaiah 38:14; Isaiah 38:14): "Like a crane, or swallow, so did I chatter; I made a noise as those birds do when they are frightened." See what a change sickness makes in a little time; he that, but the other day, spoke with so much freedom and majesty, nor, through the extremity of pain or deficiency of spirits, chatters like a crane or a swallow. Some think he refers to his praying in his affliction; it was so broken and interrupted with groanings which could not be uttered that it was more like the chattering of a crane or a swallow than what it used to be. Such mean thoughts had he of his own prayers, which yet were acceptable to God, and successful. He mourned like a dove, sadly, but silently and patiently. He had found God so ready to answer his prayers at other times that he could not but look upwards, in expectation of some relief now, but in vain: his eyes failed, and he saw no hopeful symptom, nor felt any abatement of his distemper; and therefore he prays, "I am oppressed, quite overpowered and ready to sink; Lord, undertake for me; bail me out of the hands of the serjeant that has arrested me; be surety for thy servant for good,Psalms 119:122. Come between me and the gates of the grave, to which I am ready to be hurried." When we recover from sickness, the divine pity does, as it were, beg a day for us, and undertakes we shall be forthcoming another time and answer the debt in full. And, when we receive the sentence of death within ourselves, we are undone if the divine grace do not undertake for us to carry us through the valley of the shadow of death, and to preserve us blameless to the heavenly kingdom on the other side of it--if Christ do not undertake for us, to bring us off in judgment, and present us to his Father, and to do all that for us which we need, and cannot do for ourselves. I am oppressed, ease me (so some read it); for, when we are agitated by a sense of guilt and the fear of wrath, nothing will make us easy but Christ's undertaking for us.

      III. The grateful acknowledgment he makes of God's goodness to him in his recovery. He begins this part of the writing as one at a stand how to express himself (Isaiah 38:15; Isaiah 38:15): "What shall I say? Why should I say so much by way of complaint when this is enough to silence all my complaints--He has spoken unto me; he has sent his prophet to tell me that I shall recover and live fifteen years yet; and he himself has done it: it is as sure to be done as if it were done already. What God has spoken he will himself do, for no word of his shall fall to the ground." God having spoken it, he is sure of it (Isaiah 38:16; Isaiah 38:16): "Thou wilt restore me, and make me to live; not only restore me from this illness, but make me to live through the years assigned me." And, having this hope,

      1. He promises himself always to retain the impressions of his affliction (Isaiah 38:15; Isaiah 38:15): "I will go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul, as one in sorrow for my sinful distrusts and murmurings under my affliction, as one in care to make suitable returns for God's favour to me and to make it appear that I have got good by the providences I have been under. I will go softly, gravely and considerately, and with thought and deliberation, not as many, who, when they have recovered, live as carelessly and as much at large as ever." Or, "I will go pleasantly" (so some understand it); "when God has delivered me I will walk cheerfully with him in all holy conversation, as having tasted that he is gracious." Or, "I will go softly, even after the bitterness of my soul" (so it may be read); "when the trouble is over I will endeavour to retain the impression of it, and to have the same thoughts of things that I had then."

      2. He will encourage himself and others with the experiences he had had of the goodness of God (Isaiah 38:16; Isaiah 38:16): "By these things which thou hast done for me they live, the kingdom lives" (for the life of such a king was the life of the kingdom); "all that hear of it shall live and be comforted; by the same power and goodness that have restored me all men have their souls held in life, and they ought to acknowledge it. In all these things is the life of my spirit, my spiritual life, that is supported and maintained by what God has done for the preservation of my natural life." The more we taste of the loving-kindness of God in every providence the more will our hearts be enlarged to love him and live to him, and that will be the life of our spirit. Thus our souls live, and they shall praise him.

      3. He magnifies the mercy of his recovery, on several accounts.

      (1.) That he was raised up from great extremity (Isaiah 38:17; Isaiah 38:17): Behold, for peace I had great bitterness. When, upon the defeat of Sennacherib, he expected nothing but an uninterrupted peace to himself and his government, he was suddenly seized with sickness, which embittered all his comforts to him, and went to such a height that it seemed to be the bitterness of death itself--bitterness, bitterness, nothing but gall and wormwood. This was his condition when God sent him seasonable relief.

      (2.) That it came from the love of God, from love to his soul. Some are spared and reprieved in wrath, that they may be reserved for some greater judgment when they have filled up the measure of their iniquities; but temporal mercies are sweet indeed to us when we can taste the love of God in them. He delivered me because he delighted in me (Psalms 18:19); and the word here signifies a very affectionate love: Thou hast loved my soul from the pit of corruption; so it runs in the original. God's love is sufficient to bring a soul from the pit of corruption. This is applicable to our redemption by Christ; it was in love to our souls, our poor perishing souls, that he delivered them from the bottomless pit, snatched them as brands out of everlasting burnings. In his love and in his pity he redeemed us. And the preservation of our bodies, as well as the provision made for them, is doubly comfortable when it is in love to our souls--when God repairs the house because he has a kindness for the inhabitant.

      (3.) That it was the effect of the pardon of sin: "For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back, and thereby hast delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, in love to it." Note, [1.] When God pardons sin he casts it behind his back, as not designing to look upon it with an eye of justice and jealousy. He remembers it no more, to visit for it. The pardon does not make the sin not to have been, or not to have been sin, but not to be punished as it deserves. When we cast our sins behind our back, and take no care to repent of them, God sets them before his face, and is ready to reckon for them; but when we set them before our face in true repentance, as David did when his sin was ever before him, God casts them behind his back. [2.] When God pardons sins he pardons all, casts them all behind his back, though they have been as scarlet and crimson. [3.] The pardoning of the sin is the delivering of the soul from the pit of corruption. [4.] It is pleasant indeed to think of our recoveries from sickness when we see them flowing from the remission of sin; then the cause is removed, and then it is in love to the soul.

      (4.) That it was the lengthening out of his opportunity to glorify God in this world, which he made the business, and pleasure, and end of life. [1.] If this sickness had been his death, it would have put a period to that course of service for the glory of God and the good of the church which he was now pursuing, Isaiah 38:18; Isaiah 38:18. Heaven indeed praises God, and the souls of the faithful, when at death they remove thither, do that work of heaven as the angels, and with the angels, there; but what is this world the better for that? What does that contribute to the support and advancement of God's kingdom among men in this state of struggle? The grave cannot praise God, nor the dead bodies that lie there. Death cannot celebrate him, cannot proclaim his perfections and favours, to invite others into his service. Those who go down to the pit, being no longer in a state of probation, nor living by faith in his promises, cannot give him honour by hoping for his truth. Those that lie rotting in the grave, as they are not capable of receiving any further mercy from God, so neither are they capable of offering any more praises to him, till they shall be raised at the last day, and then they shall both receive and give glory. [2.] Having recovered from it, he resolves not only to proceed, but to abound, in praising and serving God (Isaiah 38:19; Isaiah 38:19): The living, the living, he shall praise thee. They may do it; they have an opportunity of praising God, and that is the main thing that makes life valuable and desirable to a good man. Hezekiah was therefore glad to live, not that he might continue to enjoy his royal dignity and the honour and pleasure of his late successes, but that he might continue to praise God. The living must praise God; they live in vain if they do not. Those that have been dying and yet are living, whose life is from the dead, are in a special manner obliged to praise God, as being most sensibly affected with his goodness. Hezekiah, for his part, having recovered from this sickness, will make it his business to praise God: "I do it this day; let others do it in like manner." Those that give good exhortations should set good examples, and do themselves what they expect from others. "For my part," says Hezekiah, "the Lord was ready to save me; he not only did save me, but he was ready to do it just then when I was in the greatest extremity; his help came in seasonably; he showed himself willing and forward to save me. The Lord was to save me, was at hand to do it, saved me a the first word; and therefore," First, "I will publish and proclaim his praises. I and my family, I and my friends, I and my people, will have a concert of praise to his glory: We will sing my songs to the stringed instruments, that others may attend to them, and be affected with them, when they are in the most devout and serious frame in the house of the Lord." It is for the honour of God, and the edification of his church, that special mercies should be acknowledged in public praises, especially mercies to public persons, Psalms 116:18; Psalms 116:19. Secondly, "I will proceed and persevere in his praises." We should do so all the days of our life, because every day of our life is itself a fresh mercy and brings many fresh mercies along with it; and, as renewed mercies call for renewed praises, so former eminent mercies call for repeated praises. It is by the mercy of God that we live, and therefore, as long as we live, we must continue to praise him, while we have breath, nay, while we have being. Thirdly, "I will propagate and perpetuate his praises." We should not only praise him all the days of our life, but the father to the children should make known his truth, that the ages to come may give God the glory of his truth by trusting to it. It is the duty of parents to possess their children with a confidence in the truth of God, which will go far towards keeping them close to the ways of God. Hezekiah, doubtless, did this himself, and yet Manasseh his son walked not in his steps. Parents may give their children many good things, good instructions, good examples, good books, but they cannot give them grace.

      IV. In the Isaiah 38:21; Isaiah 38:22 of this chapter we have two passages relating to this story which were omitted in the narrative of it here, but which we had 2 Kings 20:1-21, and therefore shall here only observe two lessons from them:-- 1. That God's promises are intended not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage, the use of means. Hezekiah is sure to recover, and yet he must take a lump of figs and lay it on the boil,Isaiah 38:21; Isaiah 38:21. We do not trust God, but tempt him, if, when we pray to him for help, we do not second our prayers with our endeavours. We must not put physicians, or physic, in the place of God, but make use of them in subordination to God and to his providence; help thyself and God will help thee. 2. That the chief end we should aim at, in desiring life and health, is that we may glorify God, and do good, and improve ourselves in knowledge, and grace, and meetness for heaven. Hezekiah, when he meant, What is the sign that I shall recover? asked, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord, there to honour God, to keep up acquaintance and communion with him, and to encourage others to serve him? Isaiah 38:22; Isaiah 38:22. It is taken for granted that if God would restore him to health he would immediately go up to the temple with his thank-offerings. There Christ found the impotent man whom he had healed, John 5:14. The exercises of religion are so much the business and delight of a good man that to be restrained from them is the greatest grievance of his afflictions, and to be restored to them is the greatest comfort of his deliverances. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee.