Reflections on Isaiah 38

Isaiah 38 (Contemporary English Version)
1. About this time, Hezekiah got sick and was almost dead. So I went in and told him, "The LORD says you won't ever get well. You are going to die, and so you had better start doing what needs to be done."
   
2. Hezekiah turned toward the wall and prayed,
   
3. "Don't forget that I have been faithful to you, LORD. I have obeyed you with all my heart, and I do whatever you say is right." After this, he cried hard.
   
4. Then the LORD sent me
   
5. with this message for Hezekiah: I am the LORD God, who was worshiped by your ancestor David. I heard you pray, and I saw you cry. I will let you live fifteen years more,
   
6. while I protect you and your city from the king of Assyria.
   
7. Now I will prove to you that I will keep my promise.
   
8. Do you see the shadow made by the setting sun on the stairway built for King Ahaz? I will make the shadow go back ten steps. Then the shadow went back ten steps.
   
9. This is what Hezekiah wrote after he got well:
   
10. I thought I would die during my best years and stay as a prisoner forever in the world of the dead.
    
11. I thought I would never again see you, my LORD, or any of the people who live on this earth.
    
12. My life was taken from me like the tent that a shepherd pulls up and moves. You cut me off like thread from a weaver's loom; you make a wreck of me day and night.
    
13. Until morning came, I thought you would crush my bones just like a hungry lion; both night and day you make a wreck of me.
    
14. I cry like a swallow; I mourn like a dove. My eyes are red from looking to you, LORD. I am terribly abused. Please come and help me.
    
15. There's nothing I can say in answer to you, since you are the one who has done this to me. My life has turned sour; I will limp until I die.
    
16. Your words and your deeds bring life to everyone, including me. Please make me healthy and strong again.
    
17. It was for my own good that I had such hard times. But your love protected me from doom in the deep pit, and you turned your eyes away from my sins.
    
18. No one in the world of the dead can thank you or praise you; none of those in the deep pit can hope for you to show them how faithful you are.
    
19. Only the living can thank you, as I am doing today. Each generation tells the next about your faithfulness.
    
20. You, LORD, will save me, and every day that we live we will sing in your temple to the music of stringed instruments.
    
21. I had told King Hezekiah's servants to put some mashed figs on the king's open sore, and he would get well.
    
22. Then Hezekiah asked for proof that he would again worship in the LORD's temple.

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The events of this chapter actually precede those of the previous two chapters. Hezekiah became terminally ill. He knew the illness was terminal because the prophet Isaiah told him what the Lord had said about it: "'Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover." Hezekiah was devastated by this message and turned his face to the wall and prayed that God would remember his faithfulness to Him. Then he "wept bitterly." (38:3) Soon afterward, Isaiah brought another message to the king from the Lord. The Lord said, "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I am going to add 15 years to your life." Then he adds, "And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city," one of our clues that Hezekiah's illness came before Assyria laid sieze to Jerusalem as described in the previous two chapters.

Then God promised Hezekiah a sign by which he would know that He would do what He said. He would make the sun's shadow go backward 10 steps on Ahaz's stairway, a sundial type devise. This is an amazing sign requiring the Creator of the universe to do what only the Creator could do - reverse the course of the sun or the earth. Such a sign would leave no doubt that the One who could work this miracle could easily provide healing for a terminal illness. We should note, however, the method of God's healing for Hezekiah. A fig poultice was applied to the afflicted skin which aided the healing. We should not presume the methods God will use for His miraculous work. In this case, He worked through the medicinal practices of the day as He still does today. The medicine would not have worked successfully without God's hand in the healing. But it was no less a miracle because medicine was involved.

Appropriately, Hezekiah praised God for his healing, which he did through a poem, and he made it known to his children and others that it was God who healed him. In his poem, Hezekiah acknowledges a truth we would all do well to acknowledge. He said, "Indeed, it was for my own welfare that I had such great bitterness." (38:17) We are not prone to respond to difficult circumstances without bitterness. Rather than recognizing the good that God might work from it, we focus only on the difficulty of the situation and the trauma it causses us emotionally. But as Romans 8:28 tells us, "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God." God has a good intent for everything that happens, whether He causes it or simply allows it to happen. But it is our response to God and the situation that will determine whether or not God's intended good will come to pass.