Isaiah 38: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Hezekiah, king of Judah, becomes deadly ill, and Isaiah tells him he will not recover. Hezekiah prays and weeps, and the LORD answers by adding fifteen years to his life and promising to rescue him and Jerusalem from the king of Assyria, with a sign: the shadow on the stairway of Ahaz moves back ten steps. The chapter then gives the writing Hezekiah composed after he recovered, in which he describes facing death and thanks God for sparing him. The last two verses record Isaiah's instruction to put a lump of figs on the boil and Hezekiah's question about the sign.

Claim by Claim

1. 38:1
   • In those days Hezekiah fell sick to the point of death.
   • Isaiah the prophet, son of Amoz, came to Hezekiah.
   • Isaiah told Hezekiah that this is what the LORD says.
   • The LORD commanded Hezekiah to give orders concerning his household.
   • The LORD said Hezekiah was going to die.
   • The LORD said Hezekiah would not live.
2. 38:2
   • Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall.
   • Hezekiah prayed to the LORD.
3. 38:3
   • Hezekiah asked the LORD to remember how he had walked before him in truth and with a whole heart.
   • Hezekiah said he had done what was good in the LORD's sight.
   • Hezekiah wept greatly.
4. 38:4
   • The word of the LORD came to Isaiah.
5. 38:5
   • The LORD told Isaiah to go and speak to Hezekiah.
   • The LORD identified himself as the God of David, Hezekiah's father.
   • The LORD said he had heard Hezekiah's prayer.
   • The LORD said he had seen Hezekiah's tears.
   • The LORD said he would add fifteen years to Hezekiah's days.
6. 38:6
   • The LORD said he would deliver Hezekiah from the hand of the king of Assyria.
   • The LORD said he would deliver this city from the hand of the king of Assyria.
   • The LORD said he would defend this city.
7. 38:7
   • A sign from the LORD would be given to Hezekiah.
   • The sign would confirm that the LORD would do the thing he had spoken.
8. 38:8
   • The LORD said he would bring the shadow back ten steps.
   • The shadow had gone down by the sun on the steps of Ahaz.
   • It is ambiguous whether the steps of Ahaz are stairs or the graduations of a dial.
   • The sun went back ten steps on the steps by which it had gone down.
9. 38:9
   • This is a writing of Hezekiah king of Judah.
   • Hezekiah wrote it in connection with his sickness and his recovery from it.
10. 38:10
    • Hezekiah said that in the middle of his days he would go into the gates of Sheol.
    • Hezekiah said he was deprived of the remainder of his years.
    • The word for what happened to the remainder of his years is ambiguous between being deprived of them and being assigned them.
11. 38:11
    • Hezekiah said he would not see the LORD in the land of the living.
    • Hezekiah said he would no longer look on man.
    • Hezekiah said this would be so among the inhabitants of the place of ceasing.
    • It is ambiguous whether the inhabitants named are those of a world of ceasing or those of the fleeting world.
12. 38:12
    • Hezekiah said his dwelling was pulled up and removed from him like a shepherd's tent.
    • It is ambiguous whether the thing pulled up is his dwelling or his generation or his life-span.
    • Hezekiah said he had rolled up his life like a weaver.
    • Hezekiah said he was being cut off from the loom.
    • Hezekiah said that from day until night God would make an end of him.
13. 38:13
    • Hezekiah said he had composed himself until morning.
    • It is ambiguous whether he means he set himself calm or he cried out until morning.
    • Hezekiah said that like a lion God breaks all his bones.
    • Hezekiah said that from day until night God would make an end of him.
14. 38:14
    • Hezekiah said he chirped like a swift or a crane.
    • Hezekiah said he moaned like a dove.
    • Hezekiah said his eyes grew weak from looking upward.
    • Hezekiah said to the Lord that he was oppressed.
    • Hezekiah asked the Lord to be his surety.
15. 38:15
    • Hezekiah asked what he could say.
    • Hezekiah said God had spoken to him.
    • Hezekiah said God himself had done it.
    • Hezekiah said he would walk slowly all his years because of the bitterness of his soul.
16. 38:16
    • Hezekiah said that by such things men live.
    • Hezekiah said that in all of them is the life of his spirit.
    • Hezekiah said God would restore him to health.
    • Hezekiah said God would make him live.
    • The form of the last two statements is ambiguous between assertion and plea.
17. 38:17
    • Hezekiah said that for peace he had great bitterness.
    • Hezekiah said God had in love delivered his soul from the pit of destruction.
    • Hezekiah said God had cast all his sins behind his back.
18. 38:18
    • Sheol does not thank God.
    • Death does not praise God.
    • Those who go down to the pit do not hope for God's faithfulness.
19. 38:19
    • The living one thanks God.
    • Hezekiah said he was thanking God on that day.
    • A father makes God's faithfulness known to his children.
20. 38:20
    • The LORD is the one to save Hezekiah.
    • They will play stringed music all the days of their life.
    • They will do this at the house of the LORD.
21. 38:21
    • Isaiah said to take a cake of figs.
    • Isaiah said to spread it on the boil.
    • Isaiah said that Hezekiah would then recover.
22. 38:22
    • Hezekiah asked what the sign would be that he would go up to the house of the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

38:1

"In those days" links this to the Assyrian crisis of chapters 36–37, though the illness probably began before that siege ended; ancient writers often grouped material by subject rather than strict order. "Put your household in order" is a standard idiom for a dying man settling his affairs, naming an heir, dividing property, giving final instructions. Hezekiah was king of Judah around 700 BC, and at this point he had no recorded son old enough to succeed him.

38:2

He was lying in bed. Turning his face to the wall meant turning away from everyone in the room so he could be alone with God.

38:3

"Lived before you" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally "walked before you", the whole conduct of a life lived in someone's sight and service. "Whole heart" means undivided loyalty rather than moral perfection.

38:5

David had been dead for roughly 250 years; "your father David" means ancestor and founder of the royal line Hezekiah belonged to.

38:6

Assyria was the dominant empire of the age, based in what is now northern Iraq. Its army had already destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and was pressing on Jerusalem, so a promise about the city's survival was a promise about Hezekiah's whole political situation.

38:7

A sign here means proof: something you can see happen that shows a promise will really be kept.

38:8

Ahaz was Hezekiah's father and predecessor as king. The Hebrew word used here means "steps" or "degrees" and is the ordinary word for stairs; it seems to describe a staircase built so that a shadow crossing its steps marked the passing hours, functioning as a clock. Older translations call it a sundial, but no dial in the modern sense is described.

38:9

Verses 9–20 are a poem, marked off from the surrounding narrative, a thanksgiving song of the kind collected in the Psalms, written after recovery and looking back on the illness.

38:10

The Hebrew phrase behind "in the middle of my life" is uncertain; it may mean the noon or quiet of his days, that is, the prime of life rather than old age. "The grave" here is Sheol, the shadowy underworld where the Hebrew Bible pictures all the dead going, pictured as a walled city with gates.

38:11

"The land of the living" means the world of those still alive, as opposed to Sheol. "Seeing the LORD" was ordinary language for going up to worship at the temple, so the loss he names is exclusion from both worship and human company.

38:12

Two pictures of something taken down fast. A shepherd's tent was pulled up, folded and carried off in minutes when the flock moved on. A weaver, when the cloth was finished, cut the finished piece free of the threads holding it to the loom, the work ends abruptly, at someone else's decision.

38:13

The Hebrew of the opening phrase is obscure. It has been read as "I composed myself," "I waited patiently," and "I cried out", the sense of enduring a night of pain is clear even where the wording is not.

38:14

The birds are named for their sounds: thin, broken, repeated cries, not song. "Stand up for me and take my side" translates a legal and commercial term, to go surety, to put up security for someone who cannot cover their own debt.

38:15

The Hebrew phrase rendered "walk slowly" is uncertain. It may mean to go about subdued or in solemn procession, or to move as one who has been humbled; older translations render it "go softly."

38:16

This verse is one of the most difficult in the book; the Hebrew is broken, and translations differ widely on what "such things as these" refers to.

38:17

To throw something behind your back is an idiom for putting it deliberately out of sight and refusing to look at it again. "The pit" is another name for the realm of the dead.

38:18

This states the older Israelite picture of death plainly: the dead in Sheol are cut off from the worship of the living, unable to join in the praise offered in the temple. The point being made is about the value of the present life, not a settled doctrine of the afterlife.

38:19

There were almost no books, and few people could read. Families kept the stories of what God had done by telling them out loud to their children.

38:20

"The house of the LORD" is the temple in Jerusalem. Stringed instruments accompanied the singing there, so Hezekiah is promising public thanksgiving in the national place of worship, not private music.

38:21

A poultice of mashed dried figs was a known remedy in the ancient Near East, used to draw and soften an inflamed swelling. A "boil" here translates a general word for a severe skin ulcer or inflamed sore.

38:22

Verses 21 and 22 return to the narrative and fill in details out of sequence; the parallel account in 2 Kings 20 places them earlier in the story. "Go up" is the standard expression for going to the temple, which stood on the higher ground of the city.