Isaiah 38

Chap. XXXVIII. Ver. 1—22. Hezekiah’s thanksgiving for his recovery.— These verses contain (says Dr. J. Smith) a tender and beautiful song of thanksgiving, in which this pious king breathed out the sentiments of a grateful heart, when his life was, as it were, restored. This ode may be adapted to other cases, and will always afford profit and pleasure. The document of Hezekiah’s piety is omitted in the book of Kings, and to be found only here; but the reader may compare with it our remarks on Hezekiah’s sickness. (2 Kings, ch. xx.)

Notes on the verses

Chap. XXXVIII. Ver. 1. In those days, &c.—The first eight verses of this chapter are an abridgment of (2 Kings 20)ver. 1 to 11, to which, therefore, we refer our readers. Ver. 8. Sun dial.—{Or, as the Hebrew might be rendered, ‘the steps of Ahaz.’’ The researches of curious travellers, in Hindostan, observes Bishop Stock, have lately discovered in that country, three observatories of similar form, the most remarkable of which is to be seen within four miles of Delhi, the ancient capital of the Mogul empire. A rectangled triangle, whose hypothenuse is a staircase, (apparently parallel to the axis of the earth,) bisects a zone, or coping of a wall, which wall connects the two terminating towers at right and left.

The coping itself is of a circular form, and accurately graduated, to mark, by the gnomon above, the sun’s progress before and after noon. According to the known law of refraction, a cloud, or body of air, of different density to the common atmosphere, interposed between the gnomon and the coping, or dial plate below, would, if denser, cause the shadow to ascend the steps on the coping by which it had gone down, and if rarer, a contrary event would take place. |— Bagster. Ver. 10. I said in the cutting off, &c.—Lowth, “I said when my days were going to be cut off;” see verse 12. Gates of the grave—or of Hades; the unseen world. Ver.12 Mine age—Hebrew, “‘generation,”’—is departed. The word signifies a circle; the circle of human life; the circle of a family, including posterity; and the meaning seems to be that his house, his family, and his name, would all become extinct, as Hezekiah, at this time, appears to have had no heir, which to a man, among the Jews,

was considered as great an evil as barrenness among their women. See Parkhurst and Gesenius.—As shepherd’s tent—which is often and easily removed.—I have cut off.—Lowth, “My life is cut off, as by the weaver.” So Syriac, Chaldee, and Vulgate.— From day to night.—Lowth, “In the course of the day thou wilt finish me.” So Boothroyd. Ver. 13, I reckoned till morning.—That is, all night I thought.—By the axe he will break all my bones like a lion.—This intimates pain in all his limbs. Ver. 15. He hath both spoken, &c.—Lowth, “He hath given me a promise, and he hath performed it.” ——I shall go softly all my days.—Gesenius seems to give the true sense here. ‘I will go in procession (so the Hebrew implies) all my years, (or every year,) on account of the sufferings of my soul;”

namely, those from which God had delivered him, and which he promises never to forget. Ver. 16. By these things—namely, God’s promises and their fulfilment, as in the preceding verse. Ver. 21. For Isaiah had said.—{Lowth, after Houbigant, inserts these two concluding verses after ver. 6. But it is probable, as bishop Stock supposes, that they were added by Isaiah as an after-explanation of the preceding story. Considered as necessary to complete the narrative, they were inserted in their proper place by the historian of the kings, who copied from the prophet. J—