Later text
Now Isaiah had said, "Prepare a lump of pressed figs and apply it to 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?"
Intertextuality Pair
Quotation
Later text
Now Isaiah had said, "Prepare a lump of pressed figs and apply it to 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?"
Earlier text
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?"
Isaiah 38:21-22 and 2 Kings 20:7-8 are parallel accounts of the same two details from Hezekiah's recovery: Isaiah's prescription of a fig poultice (דְּבֶלֶת תְּאֵנִים, develet te'enim) for the boil (שְׁחִין, shechin), and Hezekiah's request for a confirming sign. The texts are nearly verbatim, indicating direct literary dependence. The placement differs significantly: in 2 Kings, these details appear in chronological sequence within the main narrative; in Isaiah 38, they are appended as an afterthought following Hezekiah's psalm (38:9-20), creating a narrative flashback. This difference in arrangement reveals each author's literary priorities — Kings emphasizes the historical sequence, while Isaiah centers Hezekiah's poetic response to the crisis.