originally been a marginal remark.*

* The critical questions connected with Isaiah 38:5, 6 cannot here be entertained.

With whomsoever it originated or however it passed into the text, the copyist, annotator, or editor,

who regarded the fourteenth year of Hezekiah as that of Sennacherib's invasion (2 Kings 18:13),

would naturally deduct this number from twenty-nine, the total of the years of Hezekiah's reign,

and so arrive at the number fifteen as that of the years added to the king's life.

But, on the other hand, this also implies that in the view of this early copyist, annotator, or editor,

the sickness of Hezekiah and the embassy of Merodach-baladan had immediately preceded the

campaign of Sennacherib. The narrative itself offers no special difficulties. As Hezekiah lay sick*

the prophet Isaiah was directed to go and bid him set his house in order (2 Sa muel 17:23), since

his illness would terminate fatally.

* The disease was probably a carbuncle - certainly, not pestilence.

The announcement was received by the king with the utmost alarm and grief. We have here to

remember the less clear views entertained under the Old Testament, before the LORD by His

coming and Resurrection had "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." Indeed,

our own experience teaches the gradual unfolding of truth with our growing capacity for its

perception. And any anticipation of fullest truth would neither have been in accordance with the

character of the preparatory dispensation and the training under it, nor have done honor to the new

Revelation which was to follow. Indeed, even now many of us learn slowly the joy of "departing,"

nor yet this without constant reference to that which is joined to it, the presence with the Lord, of

which they of old knew not. Thus it was neither fatalism nor resignation to the inevitable, but

faith, when they laid them down to s leep content with the assurance that sleeping or waking they

were still with the LORD, and that it was well in this also to leave themselves implicitly in the

hands of the covenant-keeping God. And so we can from every point of view understand it, that

the Psalmist should have prayed, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days" (Psalm

102:24), and that Hezekiah "turned his face to the wall* and prayed. . .and wept with great

* In token of sadness, as if to look away from everything else, and to concentrate all thought on

one's grief. So also Ahab (1 Kings 21:4), although in a very different spirit.

For, assuredly, this being taken away in the midst of his days and of his work, would seem to him

not only a mark of God's disfavor, but actual punishment. It is from this point of view, rather than

as the expression of self-righteousness, that we regard the language of Hezekiah's plea. And apart

from this there was not anything blameworthy either in the wish that his life should be spared, or

in the prayer for it, although here also we cannot but mark the lower stand-point of those under the

Old Testament.* The prayer of Hezekiah, as for the present we simply note, was heard. Before

Isaiah had passed "the middle city"** he was Divinely directed to return to the king with the

message that his request was granted, and to add to the promise of lengthened days the assurance

of the safety of the kingdom of David and of Jerusalem*** in anticipation of those dangers which

must have been foreseen as threatening the near future.

* The suggestion of Josephus and of some of the fathers: that the grief of Hezekiah was caused or

increased by the circumstance that, at the time, he had not a son to succeed him, is not only wholly

improbable but unsupported. The Rabbis however put it still more realistically, and explain: "thou

shalt die" - in this world, "and not live" - in the world to come, because Hezekiah had neglected

the command in not having children.

** So the Massoretic text. The Qeri has: "court" for "city" -which looks like an emendation to

heighten the miraculous.