3 Remember now, O Jehovah, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day. Remember unto me, O my God, this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy lovingkindness.
and for the wood-offering, at times appointed, and for the first-fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.
Remember unto me, O my God, for good, all that I have done for this people.
And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in Jehovah, the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor `among them' that were before him. For he clave to Jehovah; he departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses.
Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who knoweth whether Jehovah will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?
ZAYIN. Remember the word unto thy servant, Because thou hast made me to hope.
Jehovah is nigh unto all them that call upon him, To all that call upon him in truth.
Like a swallow `or' a crane, so did I chatter; I did moan as a dove; mine eyes fail `with looking' upward: O Lord, I am oppressed, be thou my surety.
and thou shalt swear, As Jehovah liveth, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
For our glorifying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah; and he wrought that which was good and right and faithful before Jehovah his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and prospered.
and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be thou perfect.
That Jehovah may establish his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel.
And Solomon said, Thou hast showed unto thy servant David my father great lovingkindness, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great lovingkindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as was the heart of David his father.
But the high places were not taken away: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with Jehovah all his days.
and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and turned away from evil.
I am weary with my groaning; Every night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: According to thy lovingkindness remember thou me, For thy goodness' sake, O Jehovah.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 20
Commentary on 2 Kings 20 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 20
In this chapter is an account of Hezekiah's sickness, and of the means of his recovery, and of the sign given of it, 2 Kings 20:1 of the king of Babylon's congratulatory letter to him upon it, when he showed to the messengers that brought it his treasures, in the pride and vanity of his heart, 2 Kings 20:12 for which he was reproved by the prophet Isaiah, and was humbled, and submitted to the sentence pronounced on his house, 2 Kings 20:14, and the chapter is concluded with his reign and death, 2 Kings 20:20.
In these days was Hezekiah sick unto death,.... Of this sickness of Hezekiah, the message of the prophet Isaiah to him, and his prayer upon it; see Gill on Isaiah 38:1; see Gill on Isaiah 38:2; see Gill on Isaiah 38:3.
And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court,.... Of the king's palace, which is called the other court within the porch, 1 Kings 7:8 so it is according to the marginal reading, which we follow; but the textual reading is, "the middle city"; Jerusalem was divided into three parts, and this was the middle part Isaiah was entering into: but before he did, so it was:
that the word of the Lord came to him, saying; as follows.
Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people,.... The king of them, as the Targum:
thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; See Gill on Isaiah 38:5.
behold, I will heal thee; instantly, miraculously; and none but God could heal him, his disease being in its kind mortal, and he had been told from the Lord that he should die:
on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord: the temple, to give thanks for his recovery; and this he should do on the third day from thence; so soon should he be well, which would show the cure to be miraculous.
And I will add unto thy days fifteen years,.... See Gill on Isaiah 38:5.
and I will deliver thee, and this city, out of the hand of the king of Assyria; by which it appears that this sickness and recovery were before the destruction of the Assyrian army:
and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake: for the sake of his honour and glory in the temple, and the service of it, that were in Jerusalem, and for the sake of his promise to David and his seed.
And Isaiah said, take a lump of figs,.... Not moist figs, but a cake of dried figs, as the word used signifies, and so the less likely to have any effect in curing the boil:
and they took, and laid it on the boil, and he recovered; made a plaster of it, and laid it on the ulcer, and it was healed. Physicians observeF21Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 620. Vid. Levin. Lemnii Herb. Bibl. Explicat. c. 19. p. 60. , that as such like inflammations consist in a painful extension of the fibres by the hinderance of the circulation of the blood, through the extreme little arteries, which may be mitigated, or dissipated, or ripened, by such things as are emollient and loosening, so consequently by figs; and, in a time of pestilence, figs beaten together with butter and treacle have been applied to plague of boils with great success; yet these figs being only a cake of dry figs, and, the boil not only malignant, but deadly, and the cure so suddenly performed, show that this was done not in a natural, but in a supernatural way, though means were directed to be made use of.
And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah,.... Or "had said",F23ויאמר "dixerat autem", V. L. Vatablus. before the plaster of figs was directed to, or, however, laid on, and as soon as he was told he should be healed:
what shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day? not that he disbelieved the promise of God, or doubted of a cure, but this he requested for the confirmation of his faith; which good men sometimes asked, when they doubted not, as Gideon; and Ahaz, Hezekiah's father, was bid to ask a sign for the like purpose, and it was resented in him that he did not, see Judges 6:17.
And Isaiah said, this sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken,.... Cure him of his disorder, so that he should be able to go to the temple on the third day:
shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? that is, the shadow of the sun on a dial plate; it was left to his option to choose which he would, as the confirming sign of his recovery.
And Hezekiah answered, it is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees,.... That is, it was comparatively so, otherwise to go down ten degrees at once would be extraordinary and miraculous; but that was more agreeable to the nature and course of it to go forward, and so the miracle would be less apparent:
nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees; which was directly contrary to its natural order and course, whereby the miracle would appear more clear and manifest: these degrees are by some saidF24Weemse's Christ. Synagog. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 6. p. 167. See his Exposition of the Judicial Laws, c. 25. p. 90. &c. to be half hours, and not full ones, since it is observed the sun shines not twenty full hours on any dial, unless under the pole; the sun is supposed to have been now at the fifth full hour; the sun was brought back five whole hours, then came forward five, then came forward two degrees, or one hour, to the sixth hour; which made sixteen; then it was six hours to sunset; so that day was prolonged twenty two hours: the ChineseF25Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 4. p. 138. relate, that, in the time of Kingcungus, the planet Mars, for sake of the king, went back three degrees.
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord,.... Or prayed, as the Targum; and was very earnest in prayer, that what Hezekiah had desired might be granted:
and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz; Ben Gersom understands it not of the sun itself, but of the shadow of it only; See Gill on Isaiah 38:8.
At that time Berodachbaladan,.... He is called Merodachbaladan, Isaiah 39:1, so here in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions; See Gill on Isaiah 39:1; and by MetasthenesF26Ut supra. (De Judicio Temp. fol. 221. 2.) his father is called Merodach, and he Ben Merodach, who reigned twenty one years, and his father fifty two; from hence to the end of 2 Kings 20:12 the same account is given in the same words as in Isaiah 39:1 throughout, except in 2 Kings 20:13, where it is, "hearkened unto them", and there, "glad of them"; heard the letter the ambassadors brought with pleasure; see the notes there. See Gill on Isaiah 39:1 and following.
And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might,.... Which he exerted in his wars with his enemies, and in the reformation of religion, and abolition of idolatry:
and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city; at the same time that he cut it off from the enemy without, see 2 Chronicles 32:3,
are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? a book often referred to in this history, but since lost; many of his acts are recorded in the canonical book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 29:1.
And Hezekiah slept with his fathers,.... Died, as they did; no mention is here made of the place of his burial, but there is in 2 Chronicles 32:33 where he is said to be buried in the principal part of the sepulchres of the sons of David, and to have honour done him at his death by the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, by the vast concourse of people attending his interment, and by burning spices for him, and making a public mourning on his account a certain stated time:
and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead; of whose wicked reign an account is given in the next chapter.