IN THOSE DAYS - Hezekiah seems to have died 697 B.C.; and his illness must belong to 713 or 714 B.C. (compare 2 Kings 20:6), a date which falls early in the reign of Sargon. The true chronological place of this narrative is therefore prior to all the other facts related of Hezekiah except his religi... [ Continue Reading ]
HE TURNED HIS FACE TO THE WALL - Contrast 1 Kings 21:4. Ahab turned in sullenness, because he was too angry to converse; Hezekiah in devotion, because he wished to pray undisturbed.... [ Continue Reading ]
REMEMBER NOW - The old covenant promised temporal prosperity, including length of days, to the righteous. Hezekiah, conscious of his faithfulness and integrity 2 Kings 18:3, ventures to expostulate (compare also 2 Kings 21:1 note). According to the highest standard of morality revealed up to this ti... [ Continue Reading ]
THE MIDDLE COURT - i. e., of the royal palace. This is preferable to the marginal reading.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CAPTAIN OF MY PEOPLE - This phrase (which does not occur elsewhere in Kings) is remarkable, and speaks for the authenticity of this full report of the actual words of the prophet’s message (abbreviated in Isaiah 38:1, etc.). The title, “Captain נגיד _nāgı̂yd_ of God’s people,” commonly used of... [ Continue Reading ]
The king of Assyria in 714 and 713 B.C. was Sargon (B.C. 721-705). If then the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies which agree exactly in the year of the taking of Samaria (721 B.C.), are to be depended on, the king of Assyria here must have been Sargon. It may be conjectured that he had taken offenc... [ Continue Reading ]
A LUMP OF FIGS - The usual remedy in the East, even at the present day, for ordinary boils. But such a remedy would not naturally cure the dangerous tumor or carbuncle from which Hezekiah suffered. Thus the means used in this miracle were means having a tendency toward the result performed by them,... [ Continue Reading ]
AND HEZEKIAH SAID - Previous to the actual recovery, Hezekiah, who at first may have felt himself no better, asked for a “sign” that he would indeed be restored to health. Asking for a sign is a pious or a wicked act according to the spirit in which it is done. No blame is attached to the requests... [ Continue Reading ]
TEN DEGREES - literally, “ten steps.” It is not, perhaps, altogether certain whether the “dial of Ahaz” 2 Kings 20:11 was really a dial with a gnomon in the center, and “degrees” marked round it, or a construction fur marking time by means of “steps.” Sundials proper had been invented by the Babylon... [ Continue Reading ]
IT IS A LIGHT THING - It seemed to Hezekiah comparatively easy that the shadow, which had already begun to lengthen, should merely make a sudden jump in the same direction; but, wholly contrary to all experience that it should change its direction, advancing up the steps again when it had once begun... [ Continue Reading ]
BERODACH-BALADAN - The correct form of this name, Merodach-baladan, is given in Isaiah Isaiah 39:1. It is a name composed of three elements, Merodach, the well-known Babylonian god Jeremiah 50:2, but (pal) “a son;” and iddin, or iddina, “has given;” or Baladan may be a form of Beliddin. This king of... [ Continue Reading ]
HEZEKIAH HEARKENED UNTO THEM, AND SHEWED THEM - The Jewish king lent a favorable ear to the proposals of the ambassadors, and exhibited to them the resources which he possessed, in order to induce them to report well of him to their master. ALL THE HOUSE OF HIS PRECIOUS THINGS - literally, the “spi... [ Continue Reading ]
Hezekiah did not answer Isaiah’s first question, “What said these men?” but only his second. Probably he knew that Isaiah would oppose reliance on an “arm of flesh.” Babylon now for the first time became revealed to the Jews as an actual power in the world, which might effect them politically. As ye... [ Continue Reading ]
This prophecy had two fulfillments, each complementary to the other. Manasseh, Hezekiah’s actual son, was “carried to Babylon” 2 Chronicles 33:11, but did not become a eunuch in the palace. Daniel and others, not his actual sons, but of the royal seed Daniel 1:3, and therefore Hezekiah’s descendants... [ Continue Reading ]
GOOD IS THE WORD ... - The language is, according to some, that of a true spirit of resignation and humility; according to others, that of a feeling of relief and satisfaction that the evil was not to come in his day. Such a feeling would be but natural, and though not according to the standard of C... [ Continue Reading ]
Consult the marginal references.... [ Continue Reading ]