There is nothing to surprise us in the fact that we are carried back to the time when Jerusalem was still threatened by the Assyrian, since the closing vv. of chapter 37 merely contain an anticipatory announcement, introduced for the purpose of completing the picture of the last Assyrian troubles, by adding the fulfilment of Isaiah's prediction of their termination. It is within this period, and indeed in the year of the Assyrian invasion (Isaiah 36:1), since Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years, and fifteen of these are promised here, that the event described by Isaiah falls - an event not merely of private interest, but one of importance in connection with the history of the nation also. “In those days Hizkiyahu became dangerously ill. And Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah, Set thine house in order: for thou wilt die, and not recover. Then Hizkiyahu turned (K. om.) his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah, and said (K. saying ) , O Jehovah, remember this, I pray, that I have walked before thee in truth, and with the whole heart, and have done what was good in Thine eyes! And Hizkiyahu wept with loud weeping.” “Give command to thy house” ( ל , cf., אל , 2 Samuel 17:23) is equivalent to, “Make known thy last will to thy family” (compare the rabbinical tsavvâ' âh , the last will and testament); for though tsivvâh is generally construed with the accusative of the person, it is also construed with Lamed (e.g., Exodus 1:22; cf., אל , Exodus 16:34). חיה in such a connection as this signifies to revive or recover. The announcement of his death is unconditional and absolute. As Vitringa observes, “the condition was not expressed, because God would draw it from him as a voluntary act.” The sick man turned his face towards the wall ( פּניו הסב , hence the usual fut. cons. ויּסּב as in 1 Kings 21:4, 1 Kings 21:8, 1 Kings 21:14), to retire into himself and to God. The supplicatory אנּה (here, as in Psalms 116:4, Psalms 116:16, and in all six times, with ה ) always has the principal tone upon the last syllable before יהוה = אדני (Nehemiah 1:11). The metheg has sometimes passed into a conjunctive accent (e.g., Genesis 50:17; Exodus 32:31). אשׁר את does not signify that which, but this, that, as in Deuteronomy 9:7; 2 Kings 8:12, etc. “In truth,” i.e., without wavering or hypocrisy. שׁלם בלב , with a complete or whole heart, as in 1 Kings 8:61, etc. He wept aloud, because it was a dreadful thing to him to have to die without an heir to the throne, in the full strength of his manhood (in the thirty-ninth year of his age), and with the nation in so unsettled a state.

The prospect is now mercifully changed. “And it came to pass (K. Isaiah was not yet out of the inner city; keri סהצר , the forecourt, and ) the word of Jehovah came to Isaiah (K. to him) as follows: Go (K. turn again) and say to Hizkiyahu (K. adds, to the prince of my people ), Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thine ancestor, I have heard thy prayer, seen thy tears; behold, I (K. will cure thee, on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah ) add (K. and I add) to thy days fifteen years. And I will deliver thee ad this city out of the hand of the king of Asshur, and will defend this city (K. for mine own sake and for David my servant's sake ) .” In the place of העיר (the city) the keri and the earlier translators have הצר . The city of David is not called the “inner city” anywhere else; in fact, Zion, with the temple hill, formed the upper city, so that apparently it is the inner space of the city of David that is here referred to, and Isaiah had not yet passed through the middle gate to return to the lower city, where he dwelt. The text of Kings is the more authentic throughout; except that עמּי נגיד , “the prince of my people,” is an annalistic adorning which is hardly original. סהלו ך in Isaiah is an inf. abs. used in an imperative sense; שׁוּב , on the other hand, which we find in the other text, is imperative. On yōsiph , see at Isaiah 29:14.

The pledge desired. “ (K. Then Isaiah said ) and (K. om.) let this be the sign to thee on the part of Jehovah, that ( אשׁר , K. כּי ) Jehovah will perform this (K. the ) word which He has spoken; Behold, I make the shadow retrace the steps, which it has gone down upon the sun-dial of Ahaz through the sun, ten steps backward. And the sun went back ten steps upon the dial, which it had gone down” (K. “Shall the shadow go forward [ הל ך , read הל ך according to Job 40:2, or היל ך ] ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps? Then Yechizkiyahu said, It is easy for the shadow to go down ten steps; no, but the shadow shall go back ten steps. Then Isaiah the prophet cried to Jehovah, and turned back the shadow by the steps that it had gone down upon the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten steps backward” ) . “Steps of Ahaz” was the name given to a sun-dial erected by him. As m a‛ălâh may signify either one of a flight of steps or a degree (syn. m adrigâh ), we might suppose the reference to be to a dial-plate with a gnomon; but, in the first place, the expression points to an actual succession of steps, that is to say, to an obelisk upon a square or circular elevation ascended by steps, which threw the shadow of its highest point at noon upon the highest steps, and in the morning and evening upon the lowest either on the one side or the other, so that the obelisk itself served as a gnomon. It is in this sense that the Targum on 2 Kings 9:13 renders gerem hamma‛ălōth by d e rag shâ‛ayyâ' , step (flight of steps) of the sun-dial; and the obelisk of Augustus, on the Field of Mars at Rome, was one of this kind, which served as a sun-dial. The going forward, going down, or declining of the shadow, and its going back, were regulated by the meridian line, and under certain circumstances the same might be said of a vertical dial, i.e., of a sun-dial with a vertical dial-plate; but it applies more strictly to a step-dial, i.e., to a sun-dial in which the degrees that measure definite periods of time are really gradus . The step-dial of Ahaz may have consisted of twenty steps or more, which measured the time of day by half-hours, or even quarters. If the sign was given an hour before sunset, the shadow, by going back ten steps of half-an-hour each, would return to the point at which it stood at twelve o'clock. But how was this effected? Certainly not by giving an opposite direction to the revolution of the earth upon its axis, which would have been followed by the most terrible convulsions over the entire globe; and in all probability not even by an apparently retrograde motion of the sun (in which case the miracle would be optical rather than cosmical); but as the intention was to give a sign that should serve as a pledge, and therefore had not need whatever to be supernatural, it may have been simply through a phenomenon of refraction, since all that was required was that the shadow which was down at the bottom in the afternoon should be carried upwards by a sudden and unexpected refraction. Hamma‛ălōth (the steps) in Isaiah 38:8 does not stand in a genitive relation to tsēl (the shadow), as the accents would make it appear, but is an accusative of measure, equivalent to בּמּעלות in the sum of the steps (2 Kings 20:11). To this accusative of measure there is appended the relative clause: quos ( gradus ) descendit ( ירדה ; צל being used as a feminine) in scala Ahasi per solem , i.e., through the onward motion of the sun. When it is stated that “the sun returned,” this does not mean the sun in the heaven, but the sun upon the sun-dial, upon which the illuminated surface moved upwards as the shadow retreated; for when the shadow moved back, the sun moved back as well. The event is intended to be represented as a miracle; and a miracle it really was. The force of will proved itself to be a power superior to all natural law; the phenomenon followed upon the prophet's prayer as an extraordinary result of divine power, not effected through his astronomical learning, but simply through that faith which can move mountains, because it can set in motion the omnipotence of God.

As a documentary proof of this third account, a psalm of Hezekiah is added in the text of Isaiah, in which he celebrates his miraculous rescue from the brink of death. The author of the book of Kings has omitted it; but the genuineness is undoubted. The heading runs thus in Isaiah 38:9 : “Writing of Hizkiyahu king of Judah, when he was sick, and recovered from his sickness.” The song which follows might be headed Mikhtam , since it has the characteristics of this description of psalm (see at Psalms 16:1). We cannot infer from bachălōthō (when he was sick) that it was composed by Hezekiah during his illness (see at Psalms 51:1); vayyechi (and he recovered) stamps it as a song of thanksgiving, composed by him after his recovery. In common with the two Ezrahitish psalms, Ps 88 and 89, it has not only a considerable number of echoes of the book of Job, but also a lofty sweep, which is rather forced than lyrically direct, and appears to aim at copying the best models.

Strophe 1 consists indisputably of seven lines:

“I said, In quiet of my days shall I depart into the gates of Hades:

I am mulcted of the rest of my years.

I said, I shall not see Jah, Jah, in the land of the living:

I shall behold man no more, with the inhabitants of the regions of the dead.

My home is broken up, and is carried off from me like a shepherd's tent:

I rolled up my life like a weaver; He would have cut me loose from the roll:

From day to night Thou makest an end of me.”