Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.
For there shall be peace ... in my days. The punishment was not, as in David's case (2 Samuel 24:13-15), sent in his time. How perverse Newman's remark is ('Hebrew Monarchy,' 274), that Hezekiah's reply was 'false resignation, combining selfishness with silliness!' True repentance humbly acquiesces in all God's ways as just and right; just, because they are God's, and meekly finds cause of thanksgiving in any mitigation.
Remarks: When prosperity attends the godly, even they are treated with consideration by the worldly. But the smiles of the world are to be more dreaded than its frowns. The heart is tempted to be "glad" of earthly goods rather than glad in the Lord: even as Hezekiah was tempted by the flattering embassy of Merodach-baladan to display ostentatiously, and to exult in his 'precious things, silver, gold, and spices,' and in "his armour." The quarter the embassy came from, idolatrous Babylon, should have made Hezekiah regard it with a very different feeling from gladness. If he could have foreseen the result, how different would have been his feeling!