5 Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of Yahweh.
"Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don't be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, A foreigner, as all my fathers were.
But most assuredly, God has listened. He has heard the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, Nor his loving kindness from me.
Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man out of the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel; and he shall save my people out of the hand of the Philistines: for I have looked on my people, because their cry is come to me.
Then Samuel took the vial of oil, and poured it on his head, and kissed him, and said, Isn't it that Yahweh has anointed you to be prince over his inheritance?
Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
You number my wanderings. You put my tears into your bottle. Aren't they in your book?
He said, No; but [as] prince of the host of Yahweh am I now come. Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said to him, What says my lord to his servant? The prince of Yahweh's host said to Joshua, Put off your shoe from off your foot; for the place whereon you stand is holy. Joshua did so.
'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."
For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
But the angel said to him, "Don't be afraid, Zacharias, because your request has been heard, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
and he said, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you."
Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh?
Go, and tell Hezekiah, Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: behold, I will add to your days fifteen years.
What will I give to Yahweh for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of Yahweh. I will pay my vows to Yahweh, Yes, in the presence of all his people.
I will come into your temple with burnt offerings. I will pay my vows to you, which my lips promised, And my mouth spoke, when I was in distress. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fat animals, With the offering of rams, I will offer bulls with goats. Selah.
He is chastened also with pain on his bed, With continual strife in his bones; So that his life abhors bread, And his soul dainty food. His flesh is so consumed away, that it can't be seen; His bones that were not seen stick out. Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, And his life to the destroyers. "If there is beside him an angel, An interpreter, one among a thousand, To show to man what is right for him; Then God is gracious to him, and says, 'Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.' His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; He returns to the days of his youth. He prays to God, and he is favorable to him, So that he sees his face with joy: He restores to man his righteousness.
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images.
Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, don't you fight against Yahweh, the God of your fathers; for you shall not prosper.
Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. They took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Yahweh will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh the third day?
Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in your heart; for Yahweh is with you. It happened the same night, that the word of Yahweh came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, Thus says Yahweh, Shall you build me a house for me to dwell in?
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.