2 Kings 20:7

Verse 2 Kings 20:7. Take a lump of figs - and laid it on the boil] We cannot exactly say in what Hezekiah's malady consisted. שחין shechin signifies any inflammatory tumour, boil, abscess, c. The versions translate it sore, wound, and such like. Some think it was a pleurisy others, that it was the plague; others, the elephantiasis; and others, that it was a quinsey. A poultice of figs might be very proper to maturate a boil, or to discuss any obstinate inflammatory swelling. This Pliny remarks, Omnibus quae maturanda ant discutienda sunt imponuntur. But we cannot pronounce on the propriety of the application, unless we were certain of the nature of the malady. This, however was the natural means which God chose to bless to the recovery of Hezekiah's health; and without this interposition he must have died.