2 Kings 20:1-11
Hezekiah’s Life Extended (2 Chronicles 32:24–26; Is. 38:1–8)
1 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.’”
2 Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying, 3 “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 5 “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. 6 And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.”’”
7 Then Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” So they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD the third day?”
9 Then Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?”
10 And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”
11 So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.
This account shows how king Hezekiah faced imminent death in a terminal illness, yet cried out to God for grace to live when the message from Him confirmed the approaching time. His heartfelt prayer reminded the LORD how he set his life in the direction of truth and loyal devotion, and how he always tried to do what was good and right in the sight of God. The messenger Isaiah who had brought the news confirming his imminent demise was sent back to Hezekiah before even leaving the area to give a better prognosis from the LORD who had heard the dying man’s prayerful pleas with abundance of tears from his sorrow of soul. God told him to enter into the house of the LORD in three days time and he would receive an added fifteen years on his life. He and the city of Jerusalem would also be delivered from the enemy’s siege as God Himself would defend them as promised to king David (1 Kings 11:13) long before until the Seed from him came among us (John 1:14) to deliver His people permanently and eternally. He was instructed to cover his boil with a fig compress and he recovered from the terminal sickness and granted the extension to his life as promised through the prophet Isaiah. He still asked for a sign to be certain that these things would come to fruition on the third day and Isaiah conveyed the message from the LORD that He would either move the sundial for or backward as Hezekiah asked for. The choice he made was for time to go backwards on the dial as it appeared harder to do than skipping ahead in time, but it also demonstrated that his own life would seem to reverse for that extra fifteen years promised him. This showed the king that the healing was real in a way that also demonstrated that there is nothing too hard for God (Jeremiah 32:17, 33:3, Matthew 19:26) to do for His own as He controls all of creation, just as the miracles of His Son on earth would further show us all whom He is and all He is omnipotently capable of doing on our behalf for His plans of grace and providence to give life just as on the third day when He rose from death to life (John 5:24, 28, Acts 10:40, 43, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4) as a promise proven for we the people of the Lord. This is then a picture of our own reprieve from death and certain judgment with an absolute hope of life as if the clock was turned back before the sin of disobedience was committed in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9, 16-17) and the tree of eternal life was once again set before us (Revelation 2:7, 22:2, 14) to eat from as it was never originally denied to our ancestors. This is all possible by the work and person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through repentance and faith that trusts in Him alone for life as He said and is written for us to rely on.
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