Isaiah 38

Fifteen Years and a Song of Thanks

King Hezekiah turns his face to the wall and prays, the Lord adds fifteen years to his life, and the king writes a psalm of gratitude.

c. 703–701 BC, shortly before the Assyrian siege Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Chapters 38 and 39 are not in chronological order with 36 and 37. Verse 6 promises that the Lord will deliver Jerusalem from Assyria, so Hezekiah’s illness came before the…

Chapters 38 and 39 are not in chronological order with 36 and 37. Verse 6 promises that the Lord will deliver Jerusalem from Assyria, so Hezekiah’s illness came before the deliverance described in chapter 37. The dates fit: Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kgs. 18:2), and if fifteen of them were added around 702 BC, he died around 687 BC, which is close to where most chronologies put the accession of his son Manasseh.

Why tell the story out of order? The most persuasive answer, argued by Childs and Seitz among others, is that the arrangement is theological. Chapters 36–37 end the Assyrian threat that dominates chapters 1–35. Chapter 39 introduces Babylon, and that sets the stage for chapters 40–66, which speak to the exiles in Babylon. Chapters 36–39 are the hinge on which the whole book turns, and chapter 38 is its most personal panel: the fate of the king’s body mirrors the fate of the city.

The chapter has two parts: the story of Hezekiah’s illness and healing (verses 1–8, 21–22), and a psalm Hezekiah wrote after he recovered (verses 9–20). The parallel account in 2 Kgs. 20:1–11 is shorter in some ways and fuller in others. It omits the psalm but includes details Isaiah leaves out, such as the promise that Hezekiah would go up to the temple “on the third day.”

The thread through the chapter

Isaiah 38 is about what a person learns when life is given back. The story begins with a hard message.

Isaiah 38 is about what a person learns when life is given back.

The story begins with a hard message. Isaiah tells the king, “Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live” (verse 1). Hezekiah turns his face to the wall, prays, and weeps. And before Isaiah has even left the palace grounds (2 Kgs. 20:4), the Lord sends him back: “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years” (verse 5). As a sign, the shadow on the stairway of Ahaz moves backward ten steps (verse 8). Time itself runs backward for a man whose time had run out.

Then Hezekiah writes a song. It moves from despair to gratitude. First he describes what it felt like to face death: his life being folded up like a shepherd’s tent and cut off like cloth from a loom, moaning like a dove (verses 10–14). Then comes the turn: “thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit… for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (verse 17). He ends by resolving to spend his added years praising the Lord and teaching his children (verses 19–20).

The chapter shows a God who hears prayer and sees tears, and who can revise a pronounced sentence. It also shows that healing came through both a miracle and ordinary means, since Isaiah prescribed a poultice of figs (verse 21). And it gently raises a question every person who has been given more time must answer: What will I do with the years the Lord adds? Chapter 39 will show that Hezekiah’s own answer was mixed.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–3

“Thou shalt die, and not live”

In plain words

About that time Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Give your final instructions to your household, because you are going to die. You will not recover.” Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord: “Please, Lord, remember how I have lived before You faithfully and wholeheartedly, and how I have done what is good in Your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.

Word & Language #

“Set thine house in order”

The Hebrew is short and blunt: ṣaw lĕbêtekā, “give command to your house.”

The Hebrew is short and blunt: ṣaw lĕbêtekā, “give command to your house.” The verb ṣāwâ is the one behind miṣwâ, “commandment.” Isaiah is telling the king to give his final charge: settle the succession, make arrangements, say what needs to be said. Ahithophel did the same before his death (2 Sam. 17:23), and dying patriarchs gave such charges to their sons (Gen. 49:33; 1 Kgs. 2:1–4).

The instruction is not only practical. For a king of David’s line, the “house” was also the dynasty (2 Sam. 7:11–16). At this point Hezekiah apparently had no heir: Manasseh was twelve when he began to reign (2 Kgs. 21:1), so he was born about three years into the added fifteen. A later Jewish tradition (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 10a) even suggests that Hezekiah’s neglect to marry and raise children was part of why the sentence fell on him. That is a rabbinic reading, not something the text says, but it notices something real: the survival of David’s line was riding on this one sick man.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988.

2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,

Liken It #

Face to the wall

Why the wall? The text doesn’t explain, and interpreters have guessed.

Why the wall? The text doesn’t explain, and interpreters have guessed. Some think Hezekiah turned toward the temple. Others see a sick man turning away from the room, from courtiers and physicians, to be alone with God. The Savior counseled, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret” (Matt. 6:6). A dying king in a crowded palace has no closet, so he makes one out of a wall.

His prayer (verse 3) may sound self-justifying to modern ears: remember how I have walked before You. But “a perfect heart” (lēb šālēm, a whole or undivided heart) is covenant language. It is how Kings describes a king who was loyal to the Lord alone (1 Kgs. 8:61; 1 Kgs. 15:14), and Hezekiah’s reforms had earned it (2 Kgs. 18:3–6). He is not boasting. He is appealing to the covenant, the way Nehemiah later prays, “Remember me, O my God, for good” (Neh. 13:31).

3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

Verses 4–8

Fifteen years and a sign

In plain words

Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. I am adding fifteen years to your life. I will rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. And this is the sign from the Lord that He will do what He has promised: I am going to make the shadow that has gone down the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” And the sunlight went back up the ten steps it had already gone down.

4 Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,

5 Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.

Witness of Christ #

A sentence revised

Verse 1 sounds final: “thou shalt die, and not live.” Two verses later the Lord adds fifteen years.

Verse 1 sounds final: “thou shalt die, and not live.” Two verses later the Lord adds fifteen years. Did God change His mind?

The Bible treats many prophetic pronouncements as conditional even when they are stated without conditions. The Lord explains the principle through Jeremiah: if a nation He has threatened “turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (Jer. 18:7–10). Jonah announced Nineveh’s destruction with no escape clause, and Nineveh was spared when it repented (Jonah 3:4–10). The Lord tells the Latter-day Saints the same thing about His own commands: “I, the Lord, command and revoke, as it seemeth me good” (D&C 56:4). The announced outcome is real, but it is a response to present conditions, and prayer is one of the conditions.

Notice what moved the Lord: not an argument, but prayer and tears. He introduces Himself as “the God of David thy father,” reminding Hezekiah that the covenant with David is still in force. Jesus Christ is the one who “in the days of his flesh… offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard” (Heb. 5:7).

6 And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.

7 And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;

8 Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.

History & Setting #

The shadow on the stairs of Ahaz

The KJV’s “degrees” and “sun dial” both translate one Hebrew word, maʿălôt, which means steps.

The KJV’s “degrees” and “sun dial” both translate one Hebrew word, maʿălôt, which means steps. The same word appears in the titles of the “Songs of Degrees” (Psalms 120–134), the “songs of ascents” sung by pilgrims going up to Jerusalem. The picture is a stairway built by King Ahaz on which the shadow of a wall or pillar crept down as the sun rose higher. It may or may not have been designed as a clock. Egyptian and Mesopotamian astronomers did use step-shaped timekeeping devices, but none has been found in Judah.

The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsaᵃ) reads “the steps of the upper chamber of Ahaz,” an interesting variant. 2 Kgs. 23:12 mentions altars “on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz,” so the stairway may have led to a rooftop room in the palace complex.

How did the shadow go back? Scripture says only that the Lord did it. Some writers have suggested a solar eclipse or an unusual refraction of light, but these are guesses, not evidence. Latter-day Saint readers often connect the event with Mormon’s comment that when the Lord seems to make the sun go back, “surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun” (Hel. 12:14–15). Mormon’s point is not an astronomical mechanism but the Lord’s power over the whole created order.

Sources: The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988.

Verses 9–14

Hezekiah’s psalm: facing death

In plain words

This is what Hezekiah king of Judah wrote after he had been sick and had recovered:

I said, “In the middle of my life I must go through the gates of the grave. I am robbed of the rest of my years.” I said, “I will never again see the Lord in the land of the living. I will never again look on another human being among those who live in the world.” My home is pulled up and taken from me like a shepherd’s tent. Like a weaver I have rolled up my life, and He cuts me loose from the loom. Between morning and night You bring me to an end. I waited quietly until morning, but like a lion He crushed all my bones. Between morning and night You bring me to an end. I chirped like a swift or a thrush. I moaned like a dove. My eyes grew tired from looking up to heaven. Lord, I am overwhelmed. Stand as my guarantor!

9 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness:

Word & Language #

“The writing,” or “a psalm”?

Hezekiah’s song (verses 9–20) has a superscription just like the psalms: author, occasion, and genre.

Hezekiah’s song (verses 9–20) has a superscription just like the psalms: author, occasion, and genre. It is the only psalm of its kind in the prophetic books and one of only a few outside the Psalter (compare Jonah 2 and 1 Sam. 2:1–10).

The word translated “writing” is miktāb. Many commentators think it is a scribal slip for miktām, a rare word that heads six psalms attributed to David (for example Ps. 16 and Ps. 56). The two words differ by one letter. If the emendation is right, the heading ties Hezekiah’s psalm to David’s songs of deliverance. That is a plausible conjecture, not a certainty; either way the effect is the same. A son of David, rescued from death, sings like David.

The poem follows the pattern of an individual thanksgiving psalm: the sufferer recalls his lament (verses 10–14), tells how God answered (verses 15–17), and vows public praise (verses 18–20). It is hard Hebrew. Verses 12–16 contain several words whose meaning is uncertain, and modern translations differ widely, which is worth knowing before building too much on any one phrase.

Sources: Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. New York: Doubleday, 2000–2003.

10 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

11 I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

Word & Language #

“The LORD, even the LORD”

The Hebrew here doesn’t use the full divine name YHWH. It says Yāh, Yāh, the short form of the name familiar from hallelu-jah, “praise Yah.”

The Hebrew here doesn’t use the full divine name YHWH. It says Yāh, Yāh, the short form of the name familiar from hallelu-jah, “praise Yah.” The repetition is like a sob.

What Hezekiah fears is not pain but separation. To die is to leave “the land of the living,” where the Lord is worshipped in the temple, and to go where no one sees Him. That idea runs through the psalm, and it leads to one of the chapter’s most important theological questions (see the note on verse 18).

A small textual note: the last word of the verse in the Masoretic Text is ḥādel, “cessation.” A few Hebrew manuscripts and most modern translations read ḥeled, “the world” or “lifespan,” the same letters with two of them reversed. The KJV’s “the inhabitants of the world” follows that reading.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000.

12 Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

Imagery & Symbol #

A tent pulled down, cloth cut from the loom

Hezekiah uses two images from ordinary work. A shepherd’s tent goes up and comes down in a morning; it leaves no trace.

Hezekiah uses two images from ordinary work. A shepherd’s tent goes up and comes down in a morning; it leaves no trace. And a weaver who finishes a piece rolls up the cloth and cuts the threads that tie it to the loom. Death is the moment the cloth is cut free.

Paul uses the tent image for the mortal body: “if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God… eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). Peter, expecting death, wrote, “shortly I must put off this my tabernacle” (2 Pet. 1:14). Hezekiah sees the tent coming down. Paul and Peter know there is another house waiting.

13 I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

Witness of Christ #

“Undertake for me”: be my surety

The Hebrew verb is ʿorbēnî, from ʿārab, “to stand surety” or “to guarantee” someone’s debt.

The Hebrew verb is ʿorbēnî, from ʿārab, “to stand surety” or “to guarantee” someone’s debt. It is the word Judah uses when he pledges his own life for Benjamin: “I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him” (Gen. 43:9). Job uses it when he asks God to be his guarantor, since no one else will (Job 17:3).

So Hezekiah is not just saying “help me.” He is saying, in effect: I am oppressed by a debt I cannot pay. Put up the bond for me.

The New Testament gives Jesus exactly this role. He is “made a surety of a better testament” (Heb. 7:22), the Greek engyos, the one who guarantees the covenant with His own life. The Book of Mormon uses the same logic when it describes Christ as one who stands between us and justice, “having… taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:9). Hezekiah’s cry, “undertake for me,” is one Christ has answered.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.

Verses 15–20

Hezekiah’s psalm: life given back

In plain words

What can I say? He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it. I will walk humbly all my years because of the bitterness I went through. Lord, by such things people live, and my spirit finds life in them too. You have restored me and let me live. Look: my bitterness has turned into peace. In Your love You kept me from the pit of destruction, because You have thrown all my sins behind Your back. The grave cannot thank You. Death cannot praise You. Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today. Fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness. The Lord has saved me. So we will play my songs on stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.

15 What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

16 O LORD, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.

17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

Word & Language #

Held back from the pit

Verse 17 is the hinge of the psalm. It opens with a play on sound: lĕšālôm mar-lî mār, literally “for peace, bitter to me, bitter.”

Verse 17 is the hinge of the psalm. It opens with a play on sound: lĕšālôm mar-lî mār, literally “for peace, bitter to me, bitter.” The bitterness was real, but it has become peace.

The next line has a textual puzzle. The Masoretic Text reads ḥāšaqtā, “You loved (my soul).” The KJV preserves that sense with “in love to my soul.” Many scholars prefer ḥāśaktā, “You held back,” which differs by one letter and fits the phrase “from the pit” better. The same phrase occurs in Job: “He keepeth back his soul from the pit” (Job 33:18). Both readings are defensible, and both are true. God held Hezekiah back from the pit, and He did it because He loved him.

Job 33 goes on to speak of a messenger who says, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). That ransom is exactly what Hezekiah asked for in verse 14.

Witness of Christ #

Sins behind His back

To put something behind your back is to refuse to look at it again. Hezekiah connects his physical healing with forgiveness, which was a natural link in ancient Israel.

To put something behind your back is to refuse to look at it again. Hezekiah connects his physical healing with forgiveness, which was a natural link in ancient Israel. When the Savior healed the paralyzed man, He first said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” (Mark 2:5).

Scripture has a whole vocabulary for what the Lord does with forgiven sin. He casts it “into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19), removes it “as far as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103:12), blots it out and does not remember it (Isa. 43:25). The Lord told the Latter-day Saints, “he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42).

Sources: Boyd K. Packer, “The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness”, general conference, Oct. 1995.

18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

Restoration Insight #

Can the dead praise God?

“The grave” here is šĕʾôl, Sheol, the Hebrew name for the realm of the dead.

“The grave” here is šĕʾôl, Sheol, the Hebrew name for the realm of the dead. Hezekiah’s argument, which appears in several psalms, is that the dead cannot praise God, so God should keep him alive to do it: “In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps. 6:5; compare Ps. 88:10–12).

This is an accurate report of how most of the Old Testament speaks about death. Sheol is shadowy and silent, and the hope of resurrection comes into sharper focus only in a few passages, among them Isaiah’s own “Thy dead men shall live” (Isa. 26:19) and Dan. 12:2. Most scholars see a real development in Israel’s understanding over time. That is a historical observation, and it doesn’t need to trouble a believer. Revelation often comes “line upon line” (Isa. 28:10).

Latter-day revelation opens the rest of the picture. The spirits of the dead are not silent. Christ went and “preached unto the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:18–19), and President Joseph F. Smith saw the righteous dead “filled with joy and gladness… rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand” (D&C 138:15). Hezekiah was right that the living have a special opportunity: “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32). He was wrong that the dead can’t praise.

Sources: “Sheol”, Bible Dictionary. “Hell”, Bible Dictionary.

19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.

Liken It #

Telling the children

Hezekiah’s vow ends with teaching. The added years are for praise, and praise includes passing the story on.

Hezekiah’s vow ends with teaching. The added years are for praise, and praise includes passing the story on. Moses commanded Israel to teach the Lord’s works “diligently unto thy children” (Deut. 6:7), and the Psalms repeat the ideal: “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD” (Ps. 78:4).

There is a painful irony here. The son born during these added years was Manasseh, who became the most wicked king in Judah’s history (2 Kgs. 21:1–16). Whatever Hezekiah told him didn’t take, at least not until late in Manasseh’s life, when the Chronicler reports that he humbled himself and repented (2 Chr. 33:12–13). Faithful parents can’t guarantee their children’s choices. They can make sure the children have heard the truth.

20 The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.

Verses 21–22

The figs and the sign

In plain words

Isaiah had said, “Have them bring a cake of pressed figs and put it on the boil, and he will recover.” And Hezekiah had asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the house of the Lord?”

21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover.

History & Setting #

A poultice of figs

The healing came by miracle and by medicine together. Pressed figs were a known remedy in the ancient Near East.

The healing came by miracle and by medicine together. Pressed figs were a known remedy in the ancient Near East. A veterinary text from Ugarit (around the 13th century BC) prescribes pressed figs for a sick horse. The word for “boil,” šĕḥîn, is the same one used for the plague of boils in Egypt and for Job’s affliction (Job 2:7).

Latter-day Saints will recognize the pattern. The Lord promised healing by faith and also instructed that the sick who lack that faith “shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food” (D&C 42:43). Faith and medicine are not rivals. The prophet who promised fifteen years also asked for figs.

One textual detail: in the Great Isaiah Scroll, verses 21–22 were not written by the original scribe. They were added later by another hand, squeezed into the space at the end of the chapter and the margin. In 2 Kgs. 20:7–8 the same material appears in its natural place, before the sign. Most scholars conclude that these two verses were added to Isaiah’s version from Kings to fill in the story. That explains why they read like an afterthought.

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

Witness of Christ #

Up to the temple on the third day

In Kings the promise is more specific: “on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD” (2 Kgs. 20:5).

In Kings the promise is more specific: “on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD” (2 Kgs. 20:5). A king under a sentence of death is raised up and goes to the temple on the third day.

It would be too much to call this a prophecy of the Resurrection; neither Isaiah nor Kings presents it that way. But Hosea uses the same pattern for Israel’s restoration: “in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight” (Hosea 6:2). And Christians who knew their scriptures could hardly miss the echo. The Son of David who was actually dead, not merely sick unto death, rose on the third day, and His first recorded act was to tell His disciples, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17).

Seeing Christ in Isaiah 38

Hezekiah is a son of David under a sentence of death, who prays with tears and is heard. The New Testament describes Jesus in almost exactly those terms: “in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard” (Heb. 5:7). The difference is that Hezekiah was spared death, and Christ was saved through it.

Hezekiah’s cry in verse 14, “undertake for me,” asks for a guarantor who will pay a debt the sufferer cannot pay. Jesus is that surety (Heb. 7:22). The psalm’s turning point, “thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (verse 17), describes what His Atonement accomplishes. And Hezekiah’s fear that the dead cannot praise God (verse 18) is answered by Christ’s visit to the spirit world, where the righteous dead sang praises and “bowed the knee and acknowledged the Son of God as their Redeemer” (D&C 138:23).

Liken it to yourself

If I were told to “set thine house in order,” what would I need to do? What would I want to say, and to whom? Is there a reason to wait?
Hezekiah’s psalm makes room for honest lament before it gets to gratitude. Do I let my prayers be that honest?
What “added years” has the Lord already given me: recovery from illness, a second chance, time I didn’t expect? What am I doing with them?
Verse 21 pairs a miracle with a fig poultice. Where might I be expecting one and neglecting the other?
Hezekiah vowed to teach his children. Manasseh still went his own way. How do I hold both the responsibility to teach and the reality of others’ agency?

Worth exploring next

The parallel accounts. Compare Isaiah 38 with 2 Kgs. 20:1–11 and 2 Chr. 32:24–26. What does each add, and why might Isaiah’s version include the psalm?
Other songs of deliverance. Read Hezekiah’s psalm alongside Jonah 2, Ps. 30, and Ps. 116. All three move from the pit to praise.
The surety. Follow the verb ʿārab from Judah’s pledge for Benjamin (Gen. 43:9; Gen. 44:32–33) to Heb. 7:22.
Death and the spirit world. Trace the development from Sheol in the Psalms to Dan. 12:2, 1 Pet. 3:18–20, 1 Pet. 4:6, and D&C 138.
Isaiah’s hinge. Read chapters 36–39 as a unit and ask how Hezekiah’s personal story mirrors Jerusalem’s.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

2 Kgs. 20:1–11 — The same account, without the psalm, with the fig poultice and sign in their natural order.
2 Chr. 32:24–26 — The Chronicler’s brief summary, which adds that Hezekiah’s heart was lifted up afterward.
Hel. 12:14–15 — Mormon on the Lord’s power over the earth and sun.

Sources & further reading

“Hezekiah”, Bible Dictionary.
Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
Christopher R. Seitz, Zion’s Final Destiny: The Development of the Book of Isaiah, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988.
John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998.
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. New York: Doubleday, 2000–2003.
Donald W. Parry, Jay A. Parry, and Tina M. Peterson, Understanding Isaiah, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1998.
Chapter 16: The God of Israel and the Nations (Isaiah 36–47), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

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