Jesaja 38:21

The text of Isaiah is not only curtailed here in a very forced manner, but it has got into confusion; for Isa 38:21 and Isa 38:22 are removed entirely from their proper place, although even the Septuagint has them at the close of Hezekiah's psalm. They have been omitted from their place at the close of Isa 38:6 through an oversight, and then added in the margin, where they now stand (probably with a sign, to indicate that they were supplied). We therefore insert them here, where they properly belong. "Then Isaiah said they were to bring (K. take) a fig-cake; and they plaistered (K. brought and covered) the boil, and he recovered. And Hizkiyahu said (K. to Isaiah), What sign is there that (K. Jehovah will heal me, so that I go up) I shall go up into the house of Jehovah?" As shechı̄n never signifies a plague-spot, but an abscess (indicated by heightened temperature), more especially that of leprosy (cf., Exo 9:9; Lev 13:18), there is no satisfactory ground, as some suppose, for connecting Hezekiah's illness (taken along with Isa 33:24) with the pestilence which broke out in the Assyrian army. The use of the figs does not help us to decide whether we are to assume that it was a boil (bubon) or a carbuncle (charbon). Figs were a well-known emmoliens or maturans, and were used to accelerate the rising of the swelling and the subsequent discharge. Isaiah did not show any special medical skill by ordering a softened cake of pressed figs to be laid upon the boil, nor did he expect it to act as a specific, and effect a cure: it was merely intended to promote what had already been declared to be the will of God. על ויּמרהוּ is probably more original than the simpler but less definite על ויּשׂימוּ. Hitzig is wrong in rendering ויּהי, "that it (the boil) may get well;" and Knobel…

This chapter proceeds in the history of Hezekiah. Here is, I. His sickness, and the sentence of death he received within himself (Isa 38:1). II. His prayer in his sickness (Isa 38:2, Isa 38:3). III. The answer of peace which God gave to that prayer, assuring him that he should recover, that he should live fifteen years yet, that Jerusalem should be delivered from the king of Assyria, and that, for a sign to confirm his faith herein, the sun should go back ten degrees (Isa 38:4-8). And this we read and opened before, Kg2 20:1, etc. But, IV. Here is Hezekiah's thanksgiving for his recovery, which we had not before (Isa 38:9-20). To which are added the means used (Isa 38:21), and the end the good man aimed at in desiring to recover (Isa 38:22). This is a chapter which will entertain the thoughts, direct the devotions, and encourage the faith and hopes of those that are confined by bodily distempers; it visits those that are visited with sickness.

38:21-22 Hezekiah received a sign, reminiscent of another sign the prophet had offered Ahaz (7:11). Ahaz and Hezekiah were two bookends to a long story. Ahaz represented the ungodly king and Hezekiah the godly king. The former brought disaster on his people, while the latter rescued his people (but see ch 39).