And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
Remember now, O Lord ... He mentions his past religious consistency not as a boast, or a ground for justification, but according to the Old Testament dispensation, wherein temporal rewards (as long life, etc., Exodus 20:12) followed legal obedience, he makes his religious conduct a plea for asking the prolongation of his life.
Walked - life is a journey: the pious 'walk with God' (Genesis 5:24; 1 Kings 9:4).
With a perfect heart - sincere. not absolutely perfect, but aiming toward it (Matthew 5:45): single-minded in walking as in the presence of God (Genesis 17:1), The letter of the Old Testament legal righteousness was, however, a standard very much below the spirit of the law as unfolded by Christ (Matthew 5:20-48; 2 Corinthians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 3:14; 2 Corinthians 3:17).
And Hezekiah wept sore. Josephus says the reason why he wept so sorely was that, being childless, he was leaving the kingdom without a successor. How often our wishes, when gratified, prove curses! Hezekiah lived to have a son, late in life (for his son was only twelve years old at his accession, 2 Kings 21:1), about three years after Hezekiah's sickness. That son was the idolater Manasseh, the chief cause of God's wrath against Judah, and of the overthrow of the kingdom (2 Kings 23:26-27).