May 29 Daily Devotional

2 Kings 20; Isa. 38

Hezekiah became sick unto death. Isaiah the prophet came to him and said, “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die.” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, wept sorely and prayed unto the Lord, saying, “I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight.” And it came to pass, before Isaiah had entered the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria.” And Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” And they took and laid it on the boil: and Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day?” And Isaiah said, “This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow (on the sundial) go forward ten degrees, or go backward ten degrees?” Hezekiah answered, “It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.” And Isaiah cried unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.

Hezekiah recovered and praised the Lord, saying “I said in the cutting of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. Like a crane of a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back.”