Isaiah 38

Hezekiah’s psalm (vv. 10–20) is a written record of his illness and recovery, turning a private crisis into public thanksgiving.

Calvin: the writing of Hezekiah. Though sacred history gives no account of this writing, yet it deserves to be recorded; Hezekiah was unwilling to pass in silence, or to bury in forgetfulness, so remarkable a blessing; this song may be regarded as a public record. This is a very melancholy song; for it contains complaints rather than prayers; he was oppressed by so great perplexity that he was weary with groaning, and sunk in lamentations.

Hezekiah describes his illness as being cut off mid-life, robbed of the years he had expected. The song begins with honest despair before it turns to thanks.

Calvin: I said in the cutting off of my days. This is a very melancholy song; he believed that an angry and offended God had broken off the course of his life; he does not merely say that his life is cut short by a violent disease, but recognises that undoubted judgment of God as the cause of the cutting off. The residue of the years: those years had been taken from him which he might have lived, if it had been the good pleasure of God.

For Hezekiah the worst of dying is losing the LORD’s presence in the land of the living. His grief is religious before it is personal.

Calvin: I said, I won’t see God. The message of God’s vengeance affected him as if he had been deprived of God’s fatherly love; if he was unworthy of beholding the sun, how could he hope for what was of higher value? Not that hope was altogether effaced from his mind, but having his attention fixed on the curse of God, he cannot so soon rise to heaven. We were created and born on the express condition that we should devote ourselves to the knowledge of God.

Two images of sudden ending: a shepherd’s tent packed up overnight, and a weaver cutting finished cloth from the loom. Life feels already rolled up.

Calvin: my dwelling is departed. After he had dwelt at ease in a royal palace, his lot was changed, just as if a shepherd’s tent were pitched for two days in one field and afterwards removed to another. I have cut off, as a weaver, my life: I have cut this thread for myself, so that I alone am the cause of my death. And yet it is not without reason that he soon afterwards ascribes to God what he had acknowledged to have proceeded from himself; although we give to God grounds for dealing severely with us, yet he is the judge who inflicts punishment. From day even to night: in a short space of time he was brought down; he consumes men by the breath of a moment.

Wesley: I reckon—When I could not rest all the night even 'till morning, my thoughts were presaging that God would instantly break me to pieces, and the like thoughts followed me from morning 'till evening.

Hezekiah waited out the night expecting God to break him like a lion. Wesley describes the dread returning from morning to evening.

Calvin: I reckoned till the dawn. From this verse it may be inferred that Hezekiah labored two days at least under the disease; though he reached the dawn, still through constant tossings he was hastening to death. As a lion, so hath he broken my bones. The comparison of God to a lion ought not to be reckoned strange, though God is naturally gracious, merciful, and kind; we cannot be aware of that gentleness when we have provoked him by our crimes. Thus must the godly be sometimes terrified by the judgment of God, that they may be more powerfully excited to desire his favor.

Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

Hezekiah describes his illness with birdlike sounds—chattering and moaning—and eyes worn out from looking upward. His prayer is short: “Be my security.”

Calvin: as a crane, or a swallow. Hezekiah cannot satisfy himself in explaining the severity of his anguish; he was reduced so low that he could not utter an articulate voice, but muttered some confused sound, like persons almost at the point of death. Still it is certain that this indistinct sound of the voice is nevertheless heard by God. My eyes were lifted up on high: although his eyes were nearly worn out with weakness, yet he did not cease to lift up his eyes to heaven. O Lord, it hath oppressed me; comfort me: he asks comfort from God, that he may not sink under the violence of disease.

“What can I say?” God spoke and God acted, so Hezekiah resolves to walk humbly all his years. The anguish becomes a lasting humility.

Calvin: what shall I say? This is generally supposed to be an exclamation of joy, as if he congratulated himself on having already obtained his wish. But I think differently. Hezekiah appears to proceed in his complaints; life and death are in his hand; it is useless for me to argue or contend with him. God hath actually fulfilled what he had threatened by his word. Hezekiah enjoins silence on himself on this ground, that it is useless to contend with God. I shall walk trembling all my life: a trembling and feeble step; Hezekiah had been reduced to so great weakness that he despaired of ever afterwards recovering his former strength.

Wesley: By these—By thy promises, and thy performance of them; therefore it is not strange, that one word of God hath brought me back from the jaws of death.

Wesley reads “these things” as God’s promises and his keeping of them. One word from God brought Hezekiah back from death.

Calvin: O Lord, even to all who shall live after them. I rather think that Hezekiah’s meaning was this: O Lord, whosoever shall live beyond those years, to them also will the life of my spirit be known; this favor will be acknowledged not only by the men of that age, but also by posterity. And didst cause me to sleep, and didst make me alive: he magnifies the greatness of the favor; by the word sleep he means death; he compares this mortal disease to death; it will be reckoned to be a kind of resurrection.

The bitterness turns out to be for his good, and the deliverance reaches his sins as well as his body. God has cast them behind his back—out of sight and out of reckoning.

Calvin: lo, in peace my bitterness was bitter. The disease seized him suddenly while he enjoyed ease and quietness; I think that Hezekiah fell into this disease after the defeat of Sennacherib. Thou hast cast behind thy back all my sins: he looks at something higher than the cure of the body; he had been guilty before God, but by his grace had been forgiven; he reckons it of higher value that he has been reconciled to God than a hundred or a thousand lives. Hezekiah perceived the cause of his distress, that is, his sins; and when he had received the forgiveness of them, he knew that punishment also ceased and was remitted. Thou hast cast behind thy back: the remembrance of them is altogether effaced.

Wesley: Praise—The dead are not capable of glorifying thy name among men upon earth. They cannot expect nor receive the accomplishment of thy promised goodness in the land of the living.

From Hezekiah’s vantage the grave offers no chance to praise God among the living. That is why recovery is an occasion for thanksgiving now.

Calvin: for hell shall not confess thee. He declares that the highest and most desirable advantage that life can yield to him is that he will praise God. Yet Hezekiah appears to employ language which is too exclusive; for the death of believers declares the glory of God not less than their life, and, being after death perfectly united to God, they do not cease to proclaim his praises along with the angels. The pious king, when he had been struck by God’s wrath, grieved that by his sins he had excluded himself from life; they who are ruined and lost will have no ground of thanksgiving. The saints, when they spoke in this manner, did not consider what kind of condition awaited them after death, but looked only at the end for which they were created and preserved in the world.

“The living, the living” repeats for emphasis: those still alive must praise. Thanksgiving passes from father to children, so one man’s healing becomes the family’s testimony.

Calvin: the living, the living, he shall confess thee. He does not include all men without exception; for many live who yet extinguish the glory of God by their ingratitude. But he simply declares that men, so long as God supports them in this life, may justly be regarded as the lawful heralds of his glory. As I do this day: he will be one of the witnesses of the glory of God, not only to the men of his own age, but also to posterity. The father shall make known to the sons thy truth: children are given to men on the express condition that every man, by instructing his children, shall endeavor to transmit the name of God to posterity.

Wesley: Was ready—Was a present help. Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.

The song ends in worship: the LORD saved him, so music in the LORD’s house will mark the rest of his life.

Calvin: Jehovah to save me. He acknowledges that he was delivered, not by the aid or industry of men, but solely by the kindness of God; he contrasts God’s keeping with the death to which he had been sentenced; having formerly dreaded him as a severe judge, he now avows him as his deliverer, and leaps with joy. And we will sing our songs: he not only prepares himself for singing in token of gratitude, but also calls on others to join and accompany him, and on this account mentions the Temple; much more then was the king bound to bring others to unite with him in thanksgiving. All the days of our life: not only for one day or for one year, but as long as he shall live.

The healing comes through a poultice of figs as well as a promise. God uses ordinary means without making them the source of the cure.

Calvin: and Isaiah said. Isaiah now relates what was the remedy which he prescribed to Hezekiah. Some think that it was not a remedy, because figs are dangerous and hurtful to boils, but that the king was taught by this sign that the cure proceeded from nothing else than from the favor of God alone. But since figs are employed even by our own physicians for maturing a pustule, it is possible that the Lord, who had given a promise, gave also a medicine; although the Lord does not need secondary means, yet he makes use of them whenever he thinks proper. And the value of the promise is not lessened by this medicine, which without the word would have been vain and useless.

Wesley: shalt go—to give me solemn praise for this mercy.

Hezekiah’s question shows what he wanted his life back for: to go up to the LORD’s house.

Calvin: now, Hezekiah had said. It is more probable that in this passage the order has been reversed, as frequently takes place with Hebrew writers, and that what was spoken last is related first. Isaiah did not at the beginning say that Hezekiah had asked a sign, though the sacred history attests it; and therefore he adds what he had left out at the proper place. That I will go up: he means that it will be his chief object throughout his whole life to celebrate the name of God; he did not desire life for the sake of living at ease and enjoying pleasure, but in order to defend the honor of God and the purity of his worship.