8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What is to be the sign that the Lord will make me well, and that I will go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?
9 And Isaiah said, This is the sign the Lord will give you, that he will do what he has said; will the shade go forward ten degrees or back?
10 And Hezekiah said in answer, It is a simple thing for the shade to go forward; but let it go back ten degrees.
11 Then Isaiah the prophet made prayer to the Lord, and he made the shade go back ten degrees from its position on the steps of Ahaz.
12 At that time, Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters with an offering to Hezekiah, because he had news that Hezekiah had been ill.
13 And Hezekiah was glad at their coming and let them see all his store of wealth, the silver and the gold and the spices and the oil of great price, and the house of his arms, and everything there was in his stores; there was nothing in all his house or his kingdom which Hezekiah did not let them see.
14 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, What did these men say and where did they come from? And Hezekiah said, They came from a far country, even from Babylon.
15 And he said, What have they seen in your house? And Hezekiah said in answer, They saw everything in my house: there is nothing among my stores which I did not let them see.
16 And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Give ear to the word of the Lord.
17 Truly, days are coming when everything in your house, and whatever your fathers have put in store till this day, will be taken away to Babylon: all will be gone, says the Lord.
18 And your sons, the offspring of your body, they will take away to be unsexed servants in the house of the king of Babylon.
19 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which you have said. Then he said, ... if in my time there is peace and righteousness?
20 Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his power, and how he made the pool and the stream, to take water into the town, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?
21 And Hezekiah went to rest with his fathers; and Manasseh his son became king in his place.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Kings 20
Commentary on 2 Kings 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
In this chapter we have,
2Ki 20:1-11
The historian, having shown us blaspheming Sennacherib destroyed in the midst of the prospects of life, here shows us praying Hezekiah delivered in the midst of the prospects of death-the days of the former shortened, of the latter prolonged.
2Ki 20:12-21
Here is,
Lastly, Here is the conclusion of Hezekiah's life and story, v. 20, 21. In 2 Chr. ch. 29-32 much more is recorded of Hezekiah's work of reformation than in this book of Kings; and it seems that in the civil chronicles, not now extant, there were many things recorded of his might and the good offices he did for Jerusalem, particularly his bringing water by pipes into the city. To have water in plenty, without striving for it and without being terrified with the noise of archers in the drawing of it, to have it at hand and convenient for us, is to be reckoned a great mercy; for the want of water would be a great calamity. But here this historian leaves him asleep with his fathers, and a son in his throne that proved very untoward; for parents cannot give grace to their children. Wicked Ahaz was the son of a godly father and the father of a godly son; holy Hezekiah was the son of a wicked father and the father of a wicked son. When the land was not reformed, as it should have been, by a good reign, it was plagued and ripened for ruin by a bad one; yet then tried again with a good one, that it might appear how loth God was to cut off his people.