The Book Of Isaiah. Day 167, Hezekiah's Illness, Part Three

The Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer and healed him of his deadly illness, promising him fifteen more years on earth. He provides a sign to him that not only will he recover but that the Lord will prevent the Assyrians from attacking Jerusalem.

Isaiah says, "'This is the Lord's sign to you that the Lord will do what He has promised: I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.' So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down." (Isaiah 38:7-8) When we did our study of the kings we learned that the Lord allowed Hezekiah to choose his sign: the sun could either move forward on the steps or backward on the steps. Hezekiah chose backward because he felt that was harder to do. It was the natural progression of the sun to move forward across the steps (which may have been a sundial he could see from his bedroom window) but it was not at all natural for it to go backwards.

We don't know how the Lord accomplished this. We know that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa so did the Lord actually turn the earth a little bit backwards? Or did He create a refraction of light in such a way that the shadow moved backwards ten degrees (ten steps)? Symbolically speaking, to make the shadow go backwards represents giving more time---more time in the day and more time in Hezekiah's life.

I am not sure I would want to know the approximate amount of time I would be granted. Hezekiah is given a reprieve of fifteen years and while he does not know the exact date of his death, he knows the year in which it will occur, unless of course he hopes for another reprieve at that time. 

We don't know how this knowledge affected Hezekiah mentally and emotionally but we know how his deadly illness affected him mentally and emotionally because he wrote about it. This writing may have been used as a song as well as an essay about his experience.

"A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery: I said, 'In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years?' I said, 'I will not again see the Lord Himself in the land of the living; no longer will I look on my fellow man, or be with those who now dwell in this world.'" (Isaiah 38:9-11) 

As most anyone would do, Hezekiah mourned the idea of leaving this world and leaving his loved ones. He didn't want to be parted from them and that's a very understandable feeling to all of us. Even though he would be going to be with the Lord, in Old Testament times the people's idea of the afterlife was somewhat hazy. They didn't use the saying we use as Christians: "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:8) I think they believed they would be with Him in some capacity or perhaps they believed they would exist in a spiritual "sleep state" until the end of days and the resurrection---for they did believe in the resurrection, with the exception of the sect of the Sadducees who believed in the eternal life of the soul but not the resurrection of the body. 

Time does not permit us to study Hezekiah's writing today, for it is quite lengthy, so we will continue our look at it in our next study session. But for now we close while thinking about Hezekiah's very human and very common reaction to the thought of death. Even though he is a believer, he is reluctant to leave this world and to leave his loved ones. I believe we can all relate to that. Even though we are believers and know that in death we go to be with the Lord, the idea of parting from our loved ones and from the only life we know is a very anxiety-ridden concept.