Isaiah 38:22

Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:9-22 We have here Hezekiah's thanksgiving. It is well for us to remember the mercies we receive in sickness. Hezekiah records the condition he was in. He dwells upon this; I shall no more see the Lord. A good man wishes not to live for any other end than that he may serve God, and have communion with him. Our present residence is like that of a shepherd in his hut, a poor, mean, and cold lodging, and with a trust committed to our charge, as the shepherd has. Our days are compared to the weaver's shuttle, Job 7:6, passing and repassing very swiftly, every throw leaving a thread behind it; and when finished, the piece is cut off, taken out of the loom, and showed to our Master to be judged of. A good man, when his life is cut off, his cares and fatigues are cut off with it, and he rests from his labours. But our times are in God's hand; he has appointed what shall be the length of the piece. When sick, we are very apt to calculate our time, but are still at uncertainty. It should be more our care how we shall get safe to another world. And the more we taste of the loving-kindness of God, the more will our hearts love him, and live to him. It was in love to our poor perishing souls that Christ delivered them. The pardon does not make the sin not to have been sin, but not to be punished as it deserves. It is pleasant to think of our recoveries from sickness, when we see them flowing from the pardon of sin. Hezekiah's opportunity to glorify God in this world, he made the business, and pleasure, and end of life. Being recovered, he resolves to abound in praising and serving God. God's promises are not to do away, but to quicken and encourage the use of means. Life and health are given that we may glorify God and do good.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hezekiah also had said - What evidence or proof have I that I shall be restored, and permitted to go to the temple? The miracle on the sun-dial was performed in answer to this request, and as a demonstration that he should yet be permitted to visit the temple of God (see the note at Isaiah 38:7).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. house of the Lord—Hence he makes the praises to be sung there prominent in his song (Isa 38:20; Ps 116:12-14, 17-19).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Hezekiah also had said; or, For Hezekiah had said; had asked a sign, which is here added as the reason why Isaiah said what is related in the foregoing verse, to wit, in answer to Hezekiah’s question.

That I shall go up, within three days, as is more fully related, 2 Kings 20:5,8,

to the house of the Lord; for thither he designed in the first place to go, partly that he might pay his vow and thanksgiving. to God, and partly that he might engage the people to praise God with him, and for him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hezekiah also had said,.... Unto Isaiah, as in 2 Kings 20:8,

what is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? both of his health, and of his going up to the temple with thanksgiving for it; though the former is not here mentioned, as it is elsewhere; partly because it is supposed in the latter, for without that he could not have gone up to the temple; and partly because he was more solicitous for the worship and honour of God in his house, the for his health. The Syriac version transposes these verses, "Hezekiah had said, what is the sign? &c. and Isaiah had answered, let them take a lump of figs", &c. as if this latter was the sign; whereas it was that of the sun's going down ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, Isaiah 38:7; see Gill on Isaiah 38:7, Isaiah 38:8.

Geneva Study Bible

Hezekiah also {a} had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

(a) As in Isa 38:7.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - Hezekiah also had said; literally, and Hezekiah said. Our translators, both in this verse and at the commencement of ver. 21, have endeavoured to conceal the awkwardness of the nexus, or rather want of nexus, with what precedes, by a modification of the rendering. The true sense is brought out by the proceeding, which is, however, a little arbitrary.



Isaiah 38:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The text of Isaiah is not only curtailed here in a very forced manner, but it has got into confusion; for Isaiah 38:21 and Isaiah 38:22 are removed entirely from their proper place, although even the Septuagint has them at the close of Hezekiah's psalm. They have been omitted from their place at the close of Isaiah 38:6 through an oversight, and then added in the margin, where they now stand (probably with a sign, to indicate that they were supplied). We therefore insert them here, where they properly belong. "Then Isaiah said they were to bring (K. take) a fig-cake; and they plaistered (K. brought and covered) the boil, and he recovered. And Hizkiyahu said (K. to Isaiah), What sign is there that (K. Jehovah will heal me, so that I go up) I shall go up into the house of Jehovah?" As shechı̄n never signifies a plague-spot, but an abscess (indicated by heightened temperature), more especially that of leprosy (cf., Exodus 9:9; Leviticus 13:18), there is no satisfactory ground, as some suppose, for connecting Hezekiah's illness (taken along with Isaiah 33:24) with the pestilence which broke out in the Assyrian army. The use of the figs does not help us to decide whether we are to assume that it was a boil (bubon) or a carbuncle (charbon). Figs were a well-known emmoliens or maturans, and were used to accelerate the rising of the swelling and the subsequent discharge. Isaiah did not show any special medical skill by ordering a softened cake of pressed figs to be laid upon the boil, nor did he expect it to act as a specific, and effect a cure: it was merely intended to promote what had already been declared to be the will of God. על ויּמרהוּ is probably more original than the simpler but less definite על ויּשׂימוּ. Hitzig is wrong in rendering ויּהי, "that it (the boil) may get well;" and Knobel in rendering it, "that he may recover." It is merely the anticipation of the result so common in the historical writings of Scripture (see at Isaiah 7:1 and Isaiah 20:1), after which the historian goes back a step or two.

Isaiah 38:21On Isaiah 38:21, Isaiah 38:22, see the notes at the close of Isaiah 38:4-6, where these two vv. belong.