Isaiah 38:2-3 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD,… Hezekiah had tried to serve God faithfully, and had been taught to expect length of days as his reward. The very consciousness of his integrity, and of his desire to honour the Lord in the presence of his people, must have added to his distress. What had been the fatal flaw in his service that had brought upon him this unexpected doom? Life and immortality had not been brought to fight. Death, for him, seemed banishment from the presence of the Lord. In the grave he could not praise Him; dead, he could not celebrate His glory (vers. 11, 18). Twice he says, "Thou wilt make an end of me." We seldom realise how much we owe to that resurrection which lifted the veil that was spread over all nations. But Hezekiah teaches us how much strength, consolation, and joy may be found in communion with God in this life. His earthly experience, which he thought was to come to an end, was, after all, part of the life eternal. The Hebrew's vivid sense of God's presence with him in this life, were it more generally ours, would make our fear more reverent, our obedience and submission more complete, and would put an end to much of that practical atheism which prevails in the world of to-day. Let us not miss the consolation of the message Isaiah brought to his king, "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears." Our prayers may be ignorant and shortsighted, we may not know what to pray for as we ought, but our tears are not overlooked. When our sadness is speechless, the scalding tears that tell our heart's woe, move the Divine pity, and plead for us more eloquently than any words we can put into frame. "In all our afflictions, He is afflicted" — to believe this is to be consoled. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,WEB: Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh, |
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