Illness and cure of Hezekiah
1 In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him with a message from Yahweh, “Put your house in order for you shall die; you shall not live.”
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh,
3 “Ah Yahweh! Remember how I have walked before you in truth and wholeheartedly, and done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 Then the word of Yahweh came to Isaiah,
5 “Go and tell Hezekiah what Yahweh, the God of his father David, says: I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. See! I am adding fifteen years to your life
6 and I will save you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria. I will defend it for my sake and for the sake of David my ser vant.
21 Isaiah then said, “Bring a fig cake to rub on the ulcer and let Heze kiah be cured!”
22 Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”
7 Isaiah answered, “This shall be for you a sign from Yahweh, that he will do what he has promised. Is 37,30
8 See! I shall make the shadow descending on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had covered on the stairway.
Canticle of Hezekiah
9 Canticle of Hezekiah king of Judah
after his illness and recovery:
10 Once I said: In the noontime of my life I go;
I am sent to the land of the dead,
for the rest of my years.
11 I said: Never again shall I see Yah weh
in the land of the living;
never again shall I see the inhabitants of the earth.
12 Like a shepherd’s tent, my dwelling
has been pulled down and thrown away;
like a weaver, you rolled up my life
and cut it from the loom:
from day to night you made me waste away.
13 I have cried for help until morning.
Like a lion, he has broken all my bones.
14 I have uttered shrill cries
like a swallow or a crane,
I have moaned like a dove.
My eyes all the while are growing weary
as I look up to the heavens:
Come and help me, O Lord!
For I am troubled.
15 But how can I speak
and what shall I say to him,
if he himself is doing this to me?
I will have to walk all my years
bearing this anguish of my soul.
16 O Lord, give me back my health
and give me back my life!
17 My anguish has turned to peace;
you have retrieved my life
from the pit of corruption;
you have cast all my sins behind you.
18 For the dead cannot give you thanks,
death cannot give you praise;
those who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your kindness.
19 The living, the living alone
can give you thanks and praise, as I do; fathers will tell their sons of your fidelity.
20 O Yahweh, come and save me!
We will sing, accompanied by harps,
in the Temple of Yahweh
all the days of our life.
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Comments Isaiah, Chapter 38
• 38.1 This incident must have taken place before the 701 siege. Here we see King Heze kiah sick and worried about his health.
Isaiah offers to cure him on God’s behalf and adds the promise to protect and defend the Holy City. Yahweh’s perspective is much broader than that of the pious Hezekiah. If God cures him it is with a view to his own plan of salvation for all.
Hezekiah’s canticle is a psalm of thanksgiving like those we find in the book of Psalms. It ex presses the profound feelings of the believers of the Old Testament for whom dying meant losing everything and who tried to convince God that he would gain nothing in letting his faithful disappear forever.