Isaiah 38

Wesley: Hezekiah in his sickness receives from Isaiah a message of death. Those days—in the year of the Assyrian invasion. Set—make thy will, and settle the affairs of thy family and kingdom. Not live—such threatenings, though absolutely expressed, have often secret conditions.

Isaiah’s message is blunt: set your house in order, for you will die. Wesley notes that such threats often carry an unstated condition, as Hezekiah’s prayer will show.

Calvin: in those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. The pious king was seized with a mortal disease and despaired of life; he suffered dreadful agony from a warning of his death, as if in a hostile manner God had thundered on his head from heaven. More probable that he was attacked after the siege had been raised; after one ship-wreck, another. Give charge concerning thy house: his chief care ought to be, not about testaments and heirs, but about promoting the salvation of those whom the Lord has committed to his charge. Thou shalt die, and shalt not live: that Hezekiah may not look around him as if he were uncertain, he is twice informed that he must die.

Wesley: turned his face—as he lay in his bed. He could not retire to his closet, but he retired as well as he could, turned from the company, to converse with God. By prayer, v. 2, 3. Hath his life lengthened.

Hezekiah turns his face to the wall in prayer. Wesley pictures a sick man in bed turning away from the room to speak with God alone.

Calvin: then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall. He does not break out into rage or indignation like unbelievers, but bears this affliction patiently. He does not debate with God, as if he had already endured enough of distresses from enemies. Overwhelmed by shame and grief, as if he shunned the face of men, he summons up his energy, and turns wholly to God, so as to rely entirely upon him; in this manner he sharpens his eagerness for prayer. Yet it is a remarkable pattern of piety, that, when he has received the sentence of death, he does not cease to call upon God.

Wesley: in truth—sincerely with an honest mind. I am not conscious to myself of any gross exorbitances, for which thou usest to shorten mens days. Wept—for that horror of death which is and was common to men, especially, in the times of the Old Testament, when the grace of God in Christ was not so fully manifested, as now it is: and, for the distracted condition in which the church and state were then likely to be left, through the uncertainty of the succession to the crown.

Hezekiah appeals to his faithful life and weeps bitterly. Wesley explains the tears: the natural dread of death, sharper before Christ’s resurrection, and fear for a kingdom with no heir.

Calvin: I beseech thee, Jehovah. He appears here to expostulate with God, and to remonstrate with him about his own past life, as if he were undeservedly distressed; but the case is far otherwise. He does not plead his merits against God, or remonstrate with him as if he were unjustly punished, but fortifies himself against a sore temptation, that he may not think that God is angry with him for correcting the vices and removing the corruptions which prevailed throughout the whole of his kingdom, and especially in regard to religion. Tears: not that in themselves tears procure favor, or have any power of appeasing God, but because they distinguish sincere prayers from those which are offered in a careless manner.

Wesley (from 2 Kings 20:4): this is noted to shew God’s great readiness to hear the prayers of his children.

The word comes before Isaiah has left the palace courtyard (2 Kings 20:4). Wesley takes it as evidence of God’s readiness to hear his children.

Calvin: then came the word of Jehovah. Isaiah had departed, leaving the sting, as the saying is, in the wound. The glad tidings of life were not brought until, after long and severe struggles, he perceived that he was utterly ruined; the favor of God does not all at once shine on them, but is purposely delayed till they are sincerely humbled. While death was threatened against Hezekiah, still God had not decreed it, but determined in this manner to put to the test the faith of Hezekiah. We must suppose a condition to be implied in that threatening; God threatened the death of Hezekiah, because he was unwilling that Hezekiah should die.

Wesley: God of David—I am mindful of my promise made to David and his house, and will make it good in thy person. Fifteen years—we have not an instance of any other, who was told before-hand just how long, he should live. God has wisely kept us at uncertainties, that we may be always ready.

God answers as “the God of David your father,” tying the healing to the covenant with David’s house. He has heard the prayer and seen the tears; the fifteen years are a gift in response.

Calvin: thus saith Jehovah the God of David thy father. From a regard to his covenant which he made with David, he is inclined to mercy. I have heard thy prayer: we must not imagine that prayers are meritorious; in giving freely what he freely promised, he adds this as the crowning excellence of his kindness. I have seen thy tears: not that in themselves tears procure favor. I add to thy days fifteen years: this might appear to be absurd, for we were created on the condition of not being able to pass, by a single moment, the limit marked out for us, as Job says, Thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot pass; but what is said about an extended period must be understood to refer to the views of Hezekiah, who had been excluded from the hope of life, and must have justly reckoned to be gain what was afterwards added, as if he had been raised up from the grave to a second life.

Wesley (on vv. 4–8): I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city. Those days remain the year of the Assyrian invasion.

The promise to Hezekiah includes the city: his fifteen years and Jerusalem’s deliverance go together.

Calvin: and I will deliver thee. Those who think that Hezekiah was sick during the time of the siege found an argument on this, that otherwise this promise would appear to be superfluous. But there is little force in that reasoning; for the Assyrian might have recruited his forces, and mustered a fresh army, at a later period. That promise is far from being superfluous, because along with life it promises protection from the enemy, against whom he would not otherwise have been secured, and may be regarded as an enlargement and increase of that blessing which the Lord promised to Hezekiah.

The sign is a pledge that the promise will be kept. God gives Hezekiah something to hold while he waits.

Calvin: and this shall be a sign to thee. The sacred history relates that Hezekiah asked a sign from the Lord, and that it was granted to him. We must not accuse him of unbelief, because his faith was weak; for we shall not find any person who ever had faith which was perfect and complete in every respect. In seeking some assistance to support his weakness, he cannot be blamed on that account; having embraced the promise made to him by the Prophet, he shews his confidence in God by seeking a remedy for distrust. Believers never rushed forward at random to ask signs, but were guided by a secret and peculiar influence of the Spirit.

Wesley: the sun goeth backward for a sign thereof. Go down—in an instant: for that motion of the sun is natural for the kind of it, though miraculous for the swiftness of it; but the other would be both ways miraculous. Degrees—these degrees were lines in the dial: but whether each of these lines or degrees noted an hour, or half an hour, or a quarter of an hour, is uncertain. But the sun itself went back, and the shadow with it.

The shadow goes back ten steps on the sundial of Ahaz. Wesley calls it a double miracle: not only a reversal but a sudden one.

Calvin: lo, I bring back the shadow of degrees. This sign bears a resemblance to the event itself, as all other signs generally do; for it is as if he had said, As it is in my power to change the hours of the day, and to make the sun go backwards, so it is in my power to lengthen thy life. As to the shadow not going back as many degrees as there were years added to his life, that was impossible, because there were not more than twelve degrees on the sundial; we need not give ourselves any uneasiness about the number; it is enough that there is a manifest correspondence and resemblance. On the sundial of Ahaz: here the Jews make fables according to their custom; there is no history of this, and it is entirely destitute not only of evidence but of probability; nor is there anything said here about the death of Ahaz, but about the sundial which he had made.