2 Kings 20:7

Take a lump[R.V. cake] of figs Except here and in Isaiah 38. -cake" is the constant rendering of A.V. for this word. See 1Sa 25:18; 1 Samuel 30:12; 1 Chronicles 12:40. The figs were closely pressed together for better keeping when they were dried, just as we find is done at the present time.

The virtue of figs made into a plaster has long been celebrated. Gerarde in his Herball (p. 1328) says, -Figs stamped and made into the form of a plaister … soften and ripen impostumes … all hot and angry swellings, and tumours behind the eares". The boilfrom which Hezekiah was suffering was clearly something of this character, and confined to one spot, so that it could be treated by a poultice. It was therefore most likely some sort of carbuncle, which in certain parts of the body, as the back of the neck, can prove fatal. The conjectures some of which make the disease to be pleurisy, others the plague, contracted from the Assyrians, others, elephantiasisor leprosy, are not so probable, as none of them appear likely to have been treated by a plaster.