A King Hears the Loom Cutting His Life Short

Hezekiah reigned twenty nine years (2 Kings 18:2); fifteen added leaves the illness in his fourteenth year, the year of Sennacherib’s invasion (36:1). Manasseh was twelve when he succeeded (2 Kings 21:1), so he was born three years after this, which means Hezekiah likely had no heir when told to set his house in order.

Turning the face to the wall is turning away from the room, from the prophet and the attendants, to speak to God alone. Ahab once turned his face to the wall in a sulk (1 Kings 21:4); Hezekiah does it to pray. Later Jewish tradition read it as facing toward the temple.

“Remember now” is the plea Nehemiah makes again and again (Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 31). The claim is not idle: 2 Kings 18:5 says of Hezekiah that “after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah”. “Wept sore” is literally a great weeping, the grief of a man in his thirties.

The parallel in 2 Kings 20:4 adds that the word came before Isaiah had even crossed the middle court of the palace. Isaiah’s own book leaves out that timing but keeps its speed: the answer follows the tears with no interval at all.

“The God of David thy father” ties the reprieve to the dynasty, as 37:35 tied the city’s rescue to David. 2 Kings 20:5 adds “on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD”, the promise behind the question in verse 22. Heard prayer and seen tears are answered separately.

“Defend” is ganan, to cover or shield, the verb of 31:5 and 37:35, from the same root as gan, a walled garden. Promising deliverance from Assyria here puts the illness before the rescue of chapter 37 in time, though the book tells it after.

This is the third sign offered in these chapters: to Ahaz in 7:14, which he refused to ask for, to Hezekiah for the harvest in 37:30, and now for his own life. In 2 Kings 20:8-10 Hezekiah asks for it and chooses whether the shadow should go forward or back; here it is simply given.

“Degrees” is ma’alot, steps, the word that heads the fifteen Songs of Degrees, Psalms 120 to 134. The device was probably a stairway on which a shadow crept down step by step as the sun moved. It was built by Ahaz, the king who refused a sign; his son sees the shadow on his father’s steps turn back.

The poem that follows is found only in Isaiah; 2 Kings, which otherwise tells this whole episode, does not include it. “Writing” is mikhtav, which some scholars think should read miktam, the obscure title that heads Psalm 16 and Psalms 56 to 60.

“The cutting off of my days” may be read “the noontide of my days”, the middle of life. He was twenty five when he began to reign (2 Kings 18:2), so about thirty nine now. “Deprived” is literally mustered out, dismissed from service for the years still owed him.

“The LORD, even the LORD” is Yah Yah in Hebrew, the short form of the name said twice. “The world” is chadel, which as written means cessation; many read it as cheled, the world, with two letters swapped. As written, the phrase means “the inhabitants of the place where everything stops.”

A weaver rolls up the finished cloth and cuts it free from the thrum, the loose ends of warp tied to the loom. “Pining sickness” is dallah, which is that thrum. Hezekiah sees himself as a length of cloth, and God as the weaver cutting him off before the piece is done.

“I reckoned till morning” can mean “I quieted myself” or “I cried out”; either way it is a sleepless night. The refrain “from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me” repeats verse 12 exactly, the circling thought of a man with fever who can think of nothing else.

“Chatter” is the verb for the peeping of the mediums in 8:19, a thin twittering sound. The crane and the swallow are paired again in Jeremiah 8:7. “Undertake for me” is arveni, stand surety for me, the same root as the Rabshakeh’s “give pledges” in 36:8. Hezekiah asks God to guarantee his debt.

“Go softly” translates a rare verb used in Psalm 42:4 of walking in slow procession to the house of God. He hath spoken and he hath done it: the sentence and its lifting came from the same mouth, so there is no one else to thank or to blame.

The Hebrew here is among the hardest in the book, and every translation guesses. The King James reads “these things” as God’s words and deeds, recalling Deuteronomy 8:3, that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. “Recover” means to make strong, as young animals grow sturdy.

“In love... delivered” is chashaqta, “thou hast clung to”, a verb of passionate attachment used for Shechem’s longing for Dinah (Genesis 34:8) and for God setting his love on Israel (Deuteronomy 7:7). “Great bitterness” doubles the word: bitter to me, bitter. “The pit of corruption” is the pit of wasting away.

The same argument is pressed in Psalm 6:5, “in the grave who shall give thee thanks?”, and in Psalm 115:17, “The dead praise not the LORD.” “Hope for” is a verb of looking out expectantly. “Truth” is emet, faithfulness, the reliability of God’s word, which the dead can no longer wait to see kept.

Passing faith from father to children is the charge of Deuteronomy 6:7 and Psalm 78:4-6. It lands with some weight here, since the son born in Hezekiah’s added years was Manasseh, who rebuilt the high places his father had broken down (2 Kings 21:3).

“Stringed instruments” is neginot, the word in the headings of Psalms 4, 6 and others, “on Neginoth”. Hezekiah reorganised the temple music with the instruments of David (2 Chronicles 29:25-30). The singular “me” becomes “we” here: one man’s rescue is sung by the whole congregation.

“Plaister” is the 1611 spelling of plaster, a poultice spread on the skin. The “boil” is shechin, the word for the plague of boils in Egypt (Exodus 9:9) and for Job’s sores (Job 2:7). Fig poultices appear in old medical and veterinary recipes, including texts from Ugarit for sick horses.

The question hangs in the air at the end of the chapter, and the answer was already given in verse 8. The next chapter turns straight to another house: Hezekiah shows Babylon’s envoys “the house of his precious things” (39:2). The king who longed to go up to the LORD’s house is about to open his own treasury.