HEZEKIAH’S PRAYER
In this narrative there are three points of difficulty and many points of instruction.
I. THREE POINTS OF DIFFICULTY.
1. Why was Hezekiah afraid to die? Answer:
(1.) Even to a Christian man, death is an event of unutterable solemnity, for which he feels it necessary to make the most serious preparation, and which he would not like to have occur to him suddenly.
(2.) Hezekiah had not that clear view of the future which has been granted to us (Isaiah 38:18; 2 Timothy 1:10).
(3.) His kingdom was threatened by a powerful enemy, and the important reforms which he had been prosecuting were incomplete; and even good men are apt to forget that God can raise up others to do His work more efficiently than they have done it.
(4.) At that time he had no child, and that he should die childless appeared inconsistent with God’s promise to David (1 Kings 2:4). Probably it was a recollection of this promise that prompted his reference to his integrity (Isaiah 38:3). In those words there is no boastfulness; they are an appeal to the Divine faithfulness. On all these accounts a prolongation of his life seemed to Hezekiah desirable, and he sought it from God in prayer.
2. When we compare Isaiah 38:1; Isaiah 38:5, do we not find an astonishing reversal of a Divine decree altogether inconsistent with the doctrine of God’s unchangeableness? No. “The same decree that says, ‘Nineveh shall be destroyed,’ means, ‘If Nineveh repent, it shall not be destroyed.’ He that finds good reason to say, ‘Hezekiah shall die,’ yet still means, ‘If the quickened devotion of Hezekiah importune Me for life, it shall be protracted.’ And the same God that had decreed this addition of fifteen years had decreed to stir up the spirit of Hezekiah to that vehement and weeping importunity which should obtain it” (Bishop Hall).
3. What was the nature of the sign given to confirm Hezekiah’s faith? For a discussion of this point, see note [1258]
[1258] “And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.”— 2 Kings 20:11.
How was this wonderful result secured? Did God arrest the earth as it revolved on its axis, and wheel it round in the opposite direction? No one who considers what would be the natural result of such a proceeding, and what a stupendous series of miracles would have been needed to have prevented the destruction of all life upon the earth, will think so for a moment, especially when a course much simpler, and equally efficacious, is suggested by the very words of the different narratives. Isaiah indeed says, “So the SUN returned ten degrees” (Isaiah 38:8). But his record of what seemed to occur must be interpreted by what God had promised to do: “Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward.” And in the narrative in the Book of Kings it is the shadow and not the sun that is spoken of throughout. To reverse the shadow in the dial it needed nothing more than a miraculous refraction of the light; and we believe that this is what occurred, not because it was an easier thing for God to do, but because it is in harmony with all that He does to believe that when two courses were open to Him, one exceedingly simple and one exceedingly complex, He would choose the simple course. God never wastes power. The extraordinary results produced by the refraction of light are familiar to all who have given any attention to natural philosophy. The atmosphere refracts the sun’s rays so as to bring him in sight, on every clear day, before he rises on the horizon, and to keep him in view for some minutes after he is really below it. Contradictory as it may sound, on almost any summer evening you may see the sun at least five minutes after he is set. It is entirely owing to refraction that we have any morning or evening twilight. That the rays of the sun can be so refracted as to cause him to be seen where he actually is not is thus a matter of daily experience. And there are some extraordinary cases on record. Kepler, the great astronomer, mentions that some “Hollanders, who wintered in Nova Zembla in the year 1596, were surprised to find that, after a continual night of three months, the sun began to rise about seventeen days sooner than he should have done.” This can only be accounted for by a miracle, or by an extraordinary refraction of the sun’s rays passing through the cold dense air in that climate. In 1703 again, the prior of the monastery at Metz, in Lothringen, and many others, observed that the shadow of a sundial went back an hour and a half. It is thus abundantly plain that the result related could have been secured by a refraction of the light, a common occurrence in Nature, The miracle consisted in its happening at that particular moment; just as in the case of the fish that Peter caught which contained money. Many fish containing money have been caught; but here was the miracle—that this fish was caught at the very time which Christ had indicated. In like manner the miraculous element in the regression of the shadow on the sun-dial of Ahaz was its occurring just at the very time at which it was needed to verify the prophet’s word and strengthen the monarch’s faith.
II. MANY POINTS OF INSTRUCTION.
1. Sickness and death are the common lot of mankind. Kings are liable to them as well as beggars (H. E. I. 1536, 1537).
2. In the extremity of suffering, when all human help is vain, the righteous can turn to God. Pitiable would have been Hezekiah’s case, monarch though he was, if he could only have “turned his face to the wall.”
3. In every extremity, the most powerful of all remedies is prayer (H. E. I. 3720–3724).
4. How promptly God sometimes answers prayer (2 Kings 20:4).
5. God answers prayer instrumentally. In this case He did it by suggesting a simple remedy (Isaiah 38:21), which perhaps the court physicians had thought it beneath their dignity to employ.
6. Those who have been restored from dangerous illness should make public acknowledgment; of God’s goodness.
7. How great are our privileges in possessing the Gospel, through which “life and immortality are brought to light,” and death stripped of its terror! In the market-place of Mayence stands a statue of Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, on the base of which there is this honourable inscription:—“The knowledge which was once the exclusive possession of princes and philosophers he has put within the reach of the common people.” A similar statue might be erected to the honour of our Saviour, who has made those views of the future life which cheered only a few of the noblest saints (such as David in Psalms 23:6) the common heritage of the whole Church. No true believer can now be so much afraid of death as Hezekiah was (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).