Scripture Daily

Context No. 896 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 38:1-8: in context

1In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, “The LORD says, ‘Set your house in order, for you will die, and not live.’” 2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3and said, “Remember now, LORD, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight.” Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4Then the LORD’s word came to Isaiah, saying, 5“Go, and tell Hezekiah, ‘The LORD, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. 6I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. 7This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has spoken. 8Behold, I will cause the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down on the sundial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps.”’” So the sun returned ten steps on the sundial on which it had gone down.

King Hezekiah is sick and about to die, and Isaiah brings the kind of word no one wants to hear: set your house in order, for you will die and not live. Hezekiah turns his face to the wall and prays, reminding God how he has walked before him faithfully, and weeps bitterly. Before Isaiah is even out of the palace, God sends him back with a new word: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears, I will add fifteen years to your life and defend this city. And he gives a sign, the shadow on the sundial moving backward ten steps.

Two things are worth sitting with. First, the death sentence was real, and prayer changed it. God had said die, and Hezekiah did not simply accept it as fate; he turned to the wall and poured out his heart and his tears, and God, who had spoken, heard and answered. There is a real mystery here about how prayer works inside God's sovereignty, but scripture is not shy about it: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Your crying is not lost on him. Second, God gives a sign that runs the sun backward, undoing the ordinary forward march of time by ten steps, as a token that he can give back the years Hezekiah thought were gone. And yet the added years are numbered, fifteen of them. Even answered prayer for more life is still life on loan, a reprieve and not an escape. The extension is grace; it is not immortality.

When I am handed a hard, seemingly final word, do I turn my face to the wall and actually pray about it, or do I assume nothing can be said to God about it?

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