2 Kings 20:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Remember how I have walked before thee in truth Sincerely, with an honest mind. I am not conscious to myself of any exorbitances, for which thou art wont to shorten men's days. And Hezekiah wept sore “Under the law, long life and uninterrupted health were promised as the rewards of obedience, and premature death was denounced as a punishment; see Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:33; and Deuteronomy 30:16. When we reflect on this, we need not be surprised at the sorrow which this good king expressed at his approaching dissolution. He looked upon it as a punishment, and consequently as a mark of the divine displeasure. Other reasons too might strongly operate upon a good mind. The suddenness of this terrible and unexpected denunciation; the unsettled state both of his public and domestic affairs; and the natural dread of death inherent in the human mind, which might in this case possibly be augmented from a sense of his own defects, and from a thorough persuasion that God was displeased at him, by cutting him off in such a manner, in the very flower of his age, and when his kingdom and family particularly required his best assistance. However, be the reasons what they might, it behooves us certainly to judge with great candour of a prince, whose character is so good as that of Hezekiah: and, perhaps, blessed as we are, with a clearer knowledge of a future state than Hezekiah enjoyed, there are but few who can look upon death, awful as it is even to the best, without some degree of very serious concern.” Dodd.