Isaiah 38:7

And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) This shall be a sign unto thee . . .—The offer reminds us of that made to Ahaz; but it was received in a far different spirit. In 2Kings 20:8-11 the story is more fully told. Hezekiah asks for a sign, and is offered his choice. Shall the shadow go forward or backward? With something of a child-like simplicity he chooses the latter, as the more difficult of the two. The sun-dial of Ahaz, probably, like his altar (2Kings 16:10), copied from Syrian or Assyrian art [the mention of a sun-clock is ascribed by Herodotus (ii. 109) to the Chaldæans], would seem to have been of the form of an obelisk standing on steps (the literal meaning of the Hebrew word for dial), and casting its shadow so as to indicate the time, each step representing an hour or half-hour. The nature of the phenomenon seems as curiously limited as that of the darkness of the crucifixion. There was no prolongation of the day in the rest of Palestine or Jerusalem, for the backward movement was limited to the step-dial. At Babylon no such phenomenon had been observed, and one ostensible purpose of Merôdach-baladan’s embassy was to investigate its nature (2Chronicles 32:31). An inquiry into the causation of a miracle is almost a contradiction in terms, but the most probable explanation of the fact recorded is that it was the effect of a supernatural, but exceedingly circumscribed, refraction. A prolonged after glow following on the sunset; and reviving for a time the brightness of the day, might produce an effect such as is described to one who gazed upon the step-dial.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:1-8 When we pray in our sickness, though God send not to us such an answer as he here sent to Hezekiah, yet, if by his Spirit he bids us be of good cheer, assures us that our sins are forgiven, and that, whether we live or die, we shall be his, we do not pray in vain. See 2Ki 20:1-11.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And this shall be a sign unto thee - That is, a sign, or proof that God would do what he had promised, and that Hezekiah would recover and be permitted to go again to the temple of the Lord Isaiah 38:22; 2 Kings 20:8. On the meaning of the word 'sign,' see Isaiah 7:11, note; Isaiah 7:14, note; compare the note at Isaiah 37:30. The promise was, that he should be permitted to go to the temple in three days 2 Kings 20:5.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. sign—a token that God would fulfil His promise that Hezekiah should "go up into the house of the Lord the third day" (2Ki 20:5, 8); the words in italics are not in Isaiah.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord,.... And which it seems Hezekiah asked, and it was put to him which he would choose, whether the shadow on the sundial should go forward or backward ten degrees, and he chose the latter, 2 Kings 20:8, which was a token confirming and assuring

that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken; recover Hezekiah from his sickness, so that on the third day he should go up to the temple; have fifteen years added to his days; and the city of Jerusalem protected from the attempts of the Assyrian monarch.

Geneva Study Bible

And {d} this shall be a sign to thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken;

(d) For Hezekiah had asked for a sign for the confirmation of his faith, as in Isa 38:22, 2Ki 20:8, to which he was moved by the singular motion of God's spirit.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7, 8. After Isaiah 38:6, 2 Kings describes the prophet’s prescription for the malady (see on Isaiah 38:21). The account of the sign also is given in a much fuller form there. It was granted at the express request of the king (see Isaiah 38:22), who had not his father’s fear of “tempting the Lord” (ch. Isaiah 7:12). Allowed to choose between a “going forward” and a “going backward” of the shadow, he decided for the latter as not so “light” a thing (i.e. less conceivable); when, at Isaiah’s intercession, the desired thing happened.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord. It was the day of the free offering of "signs" by God to those whom his providence had placed at the head of his people. Ahaz had been offered a sign (Isaiah 7:11), but had refused the offer made him (Isaiah 7:12); the Lord had then "himself" given him a sign." Hezekiah received a sign to assure him of the complete discomfiture of Sennacherib (Isaiah 37:30); an offer was here made him of a sign of a peculiar kind, and it was offered under peculiar conditions. We learn from 2 Kings that a choice was submitted to him - he was to determine whether time, as measured by a certain timepiece or clock, which was known as "the dial of Ahaz," should make a sudden leap forward - the shadow advancing ten degrees upon the dial (2 Kings 20:9), or whether it should retire backwards, the shadow upon the same dial receding ten degrees. Hezekiah determined in favour of the latter sign, from its appearing to him the more difficult of accomplishment; and on his declaring his decision, the shadow receded to the prescribed distance. Time was rolled backward, or at any rate appeared to be rolled backward; and the king, seeing so great a miracle, accepted without hesitation the further predictions that had been made to him. The Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken. By the nexus of this verse with the preceding, it would naturally be concluded that "the thing" to be done was the defence of Jerusalem; but ver. 22, which belongs properly to this part of the narrative, shows the contrary. Hezekiah had asked for a sign" that he should go up to the house of the Lord." Isaiah 38:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On 2 Kings 20:9 - Even הלך is syntactically admissible in the sense of iveritne; see Genesis 21:7; Psalm 11:3; Job 12:9.

Isaiah 38:7The pledge desired. "(K. Then Isaiah said) and (K. om.) let this be the sign to thee on the part of Jehovah, that (אשׁר, K. כּי) Jehovah will perform this (K. the) word which He has spoken; Behold, I make the shadow retrace the steps, which it has gone down upon the sun-dial of Ahaz through the sun, ten steps backward. And the sun went back ten steps upon the dial, which it had gone down" (K. "Shall the shadow go forward [הלך, read הלך according to Job 40:2, or הילך] ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps? Then Yechizkiyahu said, It is easy for the shadow to go down ten steps; no, but the shadow shall go back ten steps. Then Isaiah the prophet cried to Jehovah, and turned back the shadow by the steps that it had gone down upon the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten steps backward"). "Steps of Ahaz" was the name given to a sun-dial erected by him. As ma‛ălâh may signify either one of a flight of steps or a degree (syn. madrigâh), we might suppose the reference to be to a dial-plate with a gnomon; but, in the first place, the expression points to an actual succession of steps, that is to say, to an obelisk upon a square or circular elevation ascended by steps, which threw the shadow of its highest point at noon upon the highest steps, and in the morning and evening upon the lowest either on the one side or the other, so that the obelisk itself served as a gnomon. It is in this sense that the Targum on 2 Kings 9:13 renders gerem hamma‛ălōth by derag shâ‛ayyâ', step (flight of steps) of the sun-dial; and the obelisk of Augustus, on the Field of Mars at Rome, was one of this kind, which served as a sun-dial. The going forward, going down, or declining of the shadow, and its going back, were regulated by the meridian line, and under certain circumstances the same might be said of a vertical dial, i.e., of a sun-dial with a vertical dial-plate; but it applies more strictly to a step-dial, i.e., to a sun-dial in which the degrees that measure definite periods of time are really gradus. The step-dial of Ahaz may have consisted of twenty steps or more, which measured the time of day by half-hours, or even quarters. If the sign was given an hour before sunset, the shadow, by going back ten steps of half-an-hour each, would return to the point at which it stood at twelve o'clock. But how was this effected? Certainly not by giving an opposite direction to the revolution of the earth upon its axis, which would have been followed by the most terrible convulsions over the entire globe; and in all probability not even by an apparently retrograde motion of the sun (in which case the miracle would be optical rather than cosmical); but as the intention was to give a sign that should serve as a pledge, and therefore had not need whatever to be supernatural, it may have been simply through a phenomenon of refraction, since all that was required was that the shadow which was down at the bottom in the afternoon should be carried upwards by a sudden and unexpected refraction. Hamma‛ălōth (the steps) in Isaiah 38:8 does not stand in a genitive relation to tsēl (the shadow), as the accents would make it appear, but is an accusative of measure, equivalent to בּמּעלות in the sum of the steps (2 Kings 20:11). To this accusative of measure there is appended the relative clause: quos (gradus) descendit (ירדה; צל being used as a feminine) in scala Ahasi per solem, i.e., through the onward motion of the sun. When it is stated that "the sun returned," this does not mean the sun in the heaven, but the sun upon the sun-dial, upon which the illuminated surface moved upwards as the shadow retreated; for when the shadow moved back, the sun moved back as well. The event is intended to be represented as a miracle; and a miracle it really was. The force of will proved itself to be a power superior to all natural law; the phenomenon followed upon the prophet's prayer as an extraordinary result of divine power, not effected through his astronomical learning, but simply through that faith which can move mountains, because it can set in motion the omnipotence of God.