Isaiah 38:1-22--Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery

Isaiah 38
English Standard Version

Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery
38 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.” 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. 6 I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.

7 “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised: 8 Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.

9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

10 I said, In the middle of my days
    I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
    for the rest of my years.
11 I said, I shall not see the LORD,
    the LORD in the land of the living;
I shall look on man no more
    among the inhabitants of the world.
12 My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
    like a shepherd's tent;
like a weaver I have rolled up my life;
    he cuts me off from the loom;
from day to night you bring me to an end;
13     I calmed myself until morning;
like a lion he breaks all my bones;
    from day to night you bring me to an end.

14 Like a swallow or a crane I chirp;
    I moan like a dove.
My eyes are weary with looking upward.
    O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety!
15 What shall I say? For he has spoken to me,
    and he himself has done it.
I walk slowly all my years
    because of the bitterness of my soul.

16 O Lord, by these things men live,
    and in all these is the life of my spirit.
    Oh restore me to health and make me live!
17 Behold, it was for my welfare
    that I had great bitterness;
but in love you have delivered my life
    from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
    behind your back.
18 For Sheol does not thank you;
    death does not praise you;
those who go down to the pit do not hope
    for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living, he thanks you,
    as I do this day;
the father makes known to the children
    your faithfulness.

20 The LORD will save me,
    and we will play my music on stringed instruments
all the days of our lives,
    at the house of the LORD.
​
21 Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” 22 Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

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As I think I mentioned previously, we're fairly certain that the events of chapter 39 preceded the events of chapter 38, but it is Isaiah's intent here to go from the good to the bad to the ugly parts of Hezekiah's life.  Where we were left last time ready to call Hezekiah the best king Judah had seen in a long time, we now realize that would have been a mistake and it is fair to say that he "shows promise" but "needs improvement."  Specifically, we see in this passage that he has too high a view of himself and his "good deeds" in the past and not a high enough view of God and what He wants to do in the future.

The LORD sent Isaiah to King Hezekiah (though likely the king sent for Isaiah because of the king's ailment), and the LORD told Hezekiah through Isaiah that this sickness would lead to death.  He should spend his last days getting his house in order.  However, Hezekiah cries out to the LORD to save him because of the many good things he did in the past (notice he's not really listing anything contemporaneous that he is currently doing).  It does not say that Hezekiah was humbled or that he repented or anything of the sort, just that the LORD heard Hezekiah's prayer and saw his tears and sent Isaiah back to Hezekiah to tell him that he had given him 15 more years.  That should have been plenty of time for him to continue doing those good things he was talking about, preparing his son to be king, and making sure his son was surrounded by all the right officials that would give him good and godly advice (like David tried to do for Solomon), but Hezekiah did none of these things.  I think it is fair to say that Judah would have been better off if the LORD had killed Hezekiah when He first told Isaiah He was going to.  Why?

These fifteen years simply revealed to us what the LORD already knew was in Hezekiah's heart. (we assume his death would not have prevented the acts of the next chapter because we assume those events already happened, and this may have been judgement in part for those actions he committed them and his attitude towards the message he was given then).

Though he says the words that sound like he is giving praise to the LORD for both physical and spiritual healing, I can't help but feel that his prayer of thanksgiving is still rather self-centered (though much of the time, our prayers of thanksgiving do come in the form of "Thank you, God, for what you have done for me."  I just would expect more from him as king to see this as a chance to right the ship of his nation, to lead his people well, to work to disciple his son who would take the throne after him (wo will undoubtedly be one of the worst kings that Judah has ever seen because his father did nothing to disciple or discipline him).  we get a bad feeling about all this for sure when Isaiah gives Hezekiah instructions on how to have the infection taken away and he asks, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”  The prophet God has sent you just spoke the Word of the LORD to you--you need no other sign unless you are like the wicked and adulterous generation of Jesus' time that kept asking for signs because they didn't want to believe everything that they had already seen.  Our suspicions about his heart condition seem to be validated by the story in the next chapter, and I think that's Isaiah's point in putting things out of chronological order as many assume he did.