Isaiah 38:17 Kommentar

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.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 38 This chapter gives an account of Hezekiah's sickness, recovery, and thanksgiving on that account. His sickness, and the nature of it, and his preparation for it, as directed to by the prophet, Isa 38:1, his prayer to God upon it, Isa 38:2 the answer returned unto it, by which he is assured of living fifteen years more, and of the deliverance and protection of the city of Jerusalem from the Assyrians, Isa 38:4, the token of his recovery, the sun going back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, Isa 38:7, a writing of Hezekiah's upon his recovery, in commemoration of it, Isa 38:9, in which he represents the deplorable condition he had been in, the terrible apprehensions he had of things, especially of the wrath and fury of the Almighty, and his sorrowful and mournful complaints, Isa 38:10, he observes his deliverance according to the word of God; expresses his faith in it; promises to retain a cheerful sense of it; owning that it was by the promises of God that he had lived as other saints did; and ascribes his preservation from the grave to the love of God to him, of which the forgiveness of his sins was an evidence, Isa 38:15, the end of which salvation was, that he might praise the Lord, which he determined to do, on stringed instruments, Isa 38:18, and the chapter is closed with observing the means of curing him of his boil; and that it was at his request that the sign of his recovery was given him, Isa 38:21.

For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee,.... That is, they that are in the grave, and under the power of death, they cannot celebrate the praises of God with their bodily organs; their souls may praise him in heaven, but they in their bodies cannot till the resurrection morn, or as long as they are under the dominion of the grave; so the Targum, "they that are in the grave cannot confess before thee, and the dead cannot praise thee;'' in like manner the Septuagint and Arabic versions: this shows the design of God in restoring him from his sickness, and the view he himself had in desiring life, which was to praise the Lord; and which end could not have been answered had he died, and been laid in the grave: they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth: for the performance of promises, in which the truth and faithfulness of God appear; or for the Messiah, the truth of all the types of the former dispensation; those that go down to the pit of the grave, or are carried and laid there, can have no exercise of faith and hope concerning these things.

(Verse 17) Behold, in peace is my bitterest bitterness. But you have saved my soul from perishing: you have cast all my sins behind your back. But you have delivered my soul, so that it would not perish, either in this present life or in the future. You have cast all my sins behind me, so that I may not behold them in sadness, but rather contemplate your mercy.

And then he sets out: behold in peace, as if to say: in the people having peace from the Assyrians, bitterness, hangs over me: laughter shall be mingled with sorrow (Prov 14:13). Second, he recalls his liberation from punishment: but you have delivered my soul, my life; and from guilt: you have cast all my sins behind your or my back, as though forgetting them: you have mercy upon all, Lord (Wis 11:24–25).

The princes of Judah, taking offense at Jeremiah on account of his predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Chaldeans, cause him to be cast into a deep and miry dungeon, Jer 38:1-6. Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian, gets the king's permission to take him out, Jer 38:7-13. Jeremiah advises the king, who consulted him privately, to surrender to the Chaldeans, Jer 38:14-23. The king promises the prophet that he will not put him to death, and requires him not to reveal what had passed to the princes; to whom he accordingly gives an evasive answer, telling them only so much of the conference as related to his request for his life, Jer 38:24-28.

For peace I had great bitterness "My anguish is changed into ease" - מר לי מר mar li mar, "mutata mthi est amaritudo." Paronomasia; a figure which the prophet frequently admits. I do not always note it, because it cannot ever be preserved in the translation, and the sense seldom depends upon it. But here it perfectly clears up the great obscurity of the passage. See Lowth on the place. Thou hast rescued - חשכת chashachta, with כ caph, instead of ק koph; so the Septuagint and Vulgate; Houbigant. See Chappelow on Job 33:18. From perdition - משחת בלי mishshachath beli, ἱνα μη αποληται, Sept. ut non periret, "that it may not perish." Vulg. Perhaps inverting the order of the words. See Houbigant. Thou hast in love to my soul - חשקת chashakta, "thou hast lovingly embraced" or kissed "my soul out of the pit of corruption."

HEZEKIAH'S SICKNESS; PERHAPS CONNECTED WITH THE PLAGUE OR BLAST WHEREBY THE ASSYRIAN ARMY HAD BEEN DESTROYED. (Isa. 38:1-22) Set . . . house in order--Make arrangement as to the succession to the throne; for he had then no son; and as to thy other concerns. thou shall die--speaking according to the ordinary course of the disease. His being spared fifteen years was not a change in God's mind, but an illustration of God's dealings being unchangeably regulated by the state of man in relation to Him.

for peace--instead of the prosperity which I had previously. great bitterness--literally, "bitterness to me, bitterness"; expressing intense emotion. in love--literally, "attachment," such as joins one to another tenderly; "Thou hast been lovingly attached to me from the pit"; pregnant phrase for, Thy love has gone down to the pit, and drawn me out from it. The "pit" is here simply death, in Hezekiah's sense; realized in its fulness only in reference to the soul's redemption from hell by Jesus Christ (Isa 61:1), who went down to the pit for that purpose Himself (Psa 88:4-6; Zac 9:11-12; Heb 13:20). "Sin" and sickness are connected (Psa 103:3; compare Isa 53:4, with Mat 8:17; Mat 9:5-6), especially under the Old Testament dispensation of temporal sanctions; but even now, sickness, though not invariably arising from sin in individuals, is connected with it in the general moral view. cast . . . behind back--consigned my sins to oblivion. The same phrase occurs (Kg1 14:9; Neh 9:26; Psa 50:17). Contrast Psa 90:8, "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance."

There is nothing to surprise us in the fact that we are carried back to the time when Jerusalem was still threatened by the Assyrian, since the closing vv. of chapter 37 merely contain an anticipatory announcement, introduced for the purpose of completing the picture of the last Assyrian troubles, by adding the fulfilment of Isaiah's prediction of their termination. It is within this period, and indeed in the year of the Assyrian invasion (Isa 36:1), since Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years, and fifteen of these are promised here, that the event described by Isaiah falls - an event not merely of private interest, but one of importance in connection with the history of the nation also. "In those days Hizkiyahu became dangerously ill. And Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him, and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah, Set thine house in order: for thou wilt die, and not recover. Then Hizkiyahu turned (K. om.) his face to the wall, and prayed to Jehovah, and said (K. saying), O Jehovah, remember this, I pray, that I have walked before thee in truth, and with the whole heart, and have done what was good in Thine eyes! And Hizkiyahu wept with loud weeping." "Give command to thy house" (ל, cf., אל, Sa2 17:23) is equivalent to, "Make known thy last will to thy family" (compare the rabbinical tsavvâ'âh, the last will and testament); for though tsivvâh is generally construed with the accusative of the person, it is also construed with Lamed (e.g., Exo 1:22; cf., אל, Exo 16:34). חיה in such a connection as this signifies to revive or recover. The announcement of his death is unconditional and absolute. As Vitringa observes, "the condition was not expressed, because God would draw it from him as a voluntary act." The sick man turned his face towards the wall (פּניו הסב, hence the usual fut. cons. ויּסּב as in Kg1 21:4, Kg1 21:8, Kg1 21:14), to retire into himself and to God. The supplicatory אנּה (here, as in Psa 116:4, Psa 116:16, and in all six times, with ה) always has the principal tone upon the last syllable before יהוה = אדני (Neh 1:11). The metheg has sometimes passed into a conjunctive accent (e.g., Gen 50:17; Exo 32:31). אשׁר את does not signify that which, but this, that, as in Deu 9:7; Kg2 8:12, etc. "In truth," i.e., without wavering or hypocrisy. שׁלם בלב, with a complete or whole heart, as in Kg1 8:61, etc. He wept aloud, because it was a dreadful thing to him to have to die without an heir to the throne, in the full strength of his manhood (in the thirty-ninth year of his age), and with the nation in so unsettled a state.