In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: 'Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.'" Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, "Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what was good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, "Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: 'I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city. This will be a sign to you from the LORD that He will do what He has promised: I will make the sun's shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.'" So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.
In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: 'Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.'" Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “Go back and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I will surely heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the house of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’” Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice of figs." So they brought it and applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah recovered. Now Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the house of the LORD on the third day?" And Isaiah had replied, “This will be a sign to you from the LORD that He will do what He has promised: Would you like the shadow to go forward ten steps, or back ten steps?” “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps,” answered Hezekiah, “but not for it to go back ten steps.” So Isaiah the prophet called out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow back the ten steps it had descended on the stairway of Ahaz.
Significance
These are parallel accounts of Hezekiah's illness, prayer, and healing. Both record Isaiah's initial death sentence, Hezekiah's tearful prayer facing the wall, God's reversal adding fifteen years, and the sundial sign. Isaiah 38 uniquely includes Hezekiah's psalm of thanksgiving (Isa 38:9-20), a poetic meditation on death and deliverance absent from Kings: "The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today" (Isa 38:19). The Kings account provides straightforward historiography; Isaiah embeds the same events within the prophetic book, where Hezekiah's deliverance parallels Jerusalem's deliverance from Assyria, both demonstrating Yahweh's power over death.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Direct Quotation
Connection Method(s)
Redemptive-Historical Progression — parallel accounts of the death sentence, the tearful prayer, the fifteen-year reprieve, and the sundial sign: Kings records the event as royal historiography, while Isaiah sets the king's rescue from death beside Jerusalem's own rescue from Assyria (chs. 36-37), so that one deliverance interprets the other within the advancing storyline of the LORD's life-giving faithfulness to David's house.
