Illness and cure of Hezekiah
1 ① In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him with a message from Yahweh, “Put your house in order for you shall die; you shall not live.”
2Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh, 3“Ah Yahweh! Remember how I have walked before you in truth and wholeheartedly, and done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4Then the word of Yahweh came to Isaiah, 5“Go and tell Hezekiah what Yahweh, the God of his father David, says: I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. See! I am adding fifteen years to your life 6and I will save you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria. I will defend it for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.
7Isaiah then said, “Bring a fig cake to rub on the ulcer and let Hezekiah be cured!”
8Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?” 9Isaiah answered, “This shall be for you a sign from Yahweh, that he will do what he has promised. 10See! I shall make the shadow descending on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had covered on the stairway.
Canticle of Hezekiah
11Canticle of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:
12Once I said: In the noontime of my life I go;
I am sent to the land of the dead, for the rest of my years.
13I said: Never again shall I see Yahweh in the land of the living;
never again shall I see the inhabitants of the earth.
14Like a shepherd’s tent, my dwelling has been pulled down and thrown away; like a weaver, you rolled up my life and cut it from the loom:
from day to night you made me waste away.
15I have cried for help until morning. Like a lion, he has broken all my bones.
16I have uttered shrill cries
like a swallow or a crane,
I have moaned like a dove.
My eyes all the while are growing weary as I look up to the heavens:
Come and help me, O Lord!
For I am troubled.
17But how can I speak and what shall I say to him, if he himself is doing this to me? I will have to walk all my years bearing this anguish of my soul. 18O Lord, give me back my health and give me back my life!
19My anguish has turned to peace; you have retrieved my life
from the pit of corruption;
you have cast all my sins behind you. 20For the dead cannot give you thanks, death cannot give you praise;
those who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your kindness.
21The living, the living alone
can give you thanks and praise, as I do; fathers will tell their sons of your fidelity.
22O Yahweh, come and save me! We will sing, accompanied by harps, in the Temple of Yahweh
all the days of our life.
- Is 38,1 This incident must have taken place before the 701 siege. Here we see King Hezekiah sick and worried about his health. Isaiah offers to cure him on God's behalf and adds the promise to protect and defend the Holy City. Yahweh's perspective is much broader than that of the pious Hezekiah. If God cures him it is with a view to his own plan of salvation for all. Hezekiah's canticle is a psalm of thanksgiving like those we find in the book of Psalms. It expresses the profound feelings of the believers of the Old Testament for whom dying meant losing everything and who tried to convince God that he would gain nothing in letting his faithful disappear forever.
