2 Kings 20:3 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

In truth, i.e. sincerely, with an honest mind, as the following words explain it. I have in some measure (human frailty excepted) kept the condition which thou didst require, 1 Kings 8:25, and therefore do humbly beg of thee that the promise made to David and to his posterity upon that condition may not fail in my person, for as yet thou hast not given me a son. See Poole on "2 Kings 20:1". I am not conscious to myself of any gross exorbitances in the course of my life, for which thou usest to shorten men's days, and cut off my life in thy displeasure, which by this sharp message thou threatenest to do. Hezekiah wept sore; partly for that horror of death which is and was common to men, especially in the times of the Old Testament, when the grace of God in Christ was not so fully manifested as now it is; and principally for the distracted and miserable condition in which the church and state were then likely to be left, through the uncertainty of the succession to the crown, and the great proneness of the people to backslide to their false worship and evil practices; which he easily perceived, and which he knew would bring far worse calamities upon them if he were removed, as afterwards it came to pass.