Isaiah 38
38
Time Spent in Death’s Waiting Room
1At that time, Hezekiah got sick. He was about to die. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and said, “God says, ‘Prepare your affairs and your family. This is it: You’re going to die. You’re not going to get well.’”
2-3Hezekiah turned away from Isaiah and, facing the wall, prayed to God: “God, please, I beg you: Remember how I’ve lived my life. I’ve lived faithfully in your presence, lived out of a heart that was totally yours. You’ve seen how I’ve lived, the good that I have done.” And Hezekiah wept as he prayed—painful tears.
4-6Then God told Isaiah, “Go and speak with Hezekiah. Give him this Message from me, God, the God of your ancestor David: ‘I’ve heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll add fifteen years to your life. And I’ll save both you and this city from the king of Assyria. I have my hand on this city.
7-8“‘And this is your confirming sign, confirming that I, God, will do exactly what I have promised. Watch for this: As the sun goes down and the shadow lengthens on the sundial of Ahaz, I’m going to reverse the shadow ten notches on the dial.’” And that’s what happened: The declining sun’s shadow reversed ten notches on the dial.
* * *
9-15This is what Hezekiah king of Judah wrote after he’d been sick and then recovered from his sickness:
In the very prime of life
I have to leave.
Whatever time I have left
is spent in death’s waiting room.
No more glimpses of God
in the land of the living,
No more meetings with my neighbors,
no more rubbing shoulders with friends.
This body I inhabit is taken down
and packed away like a camper’s tent.
Like a weaver, I’ve rolled up the carpet of my life
as God cuts me free of the loom
And at day’s end sweeps up the scraps and pieces.
I cry for help until morning.
Like a lion, God pummels and pounds me,
relentlessly finishing me off.
I squawk like a doomed hen,
moan like a dove.
My eyes ache from looking up for help:
“Master, I’m in trouble! Get me out of this!”
But what’s the use? God himself gave me the word.
He’s done it to me.
I can’t sleep—
I’m that upset, that troubled.
16-19O Master, these are the conditions in which people live,
and yes, in these very conditions my spirit is still alive—
fully recovered with a fresh infusion of life!
It seems it was good for me
to go through all those troubles.
Throughout them all you held tight to my lifeline.
You never let me tumble over the edge into nothing.
But my sins you let go of,
threw them over your shoulder—good riddance!
The dead don’t thank you,
and choirs don’t sing praises from the morgue.
Those buried six feet under
don’t witness to your faithful ways.
It’s the living—live men, live women—who thank you,
just as I’m doing right now.
Parents give their children
full reports on your faithful ways.
* * *
20 God saves and will save me.
As fiddles and mandolins strike up the tunes,
We’ll sing, oh we’ll sing, sing,
for the rest of our lives in the Sanctuary of God.
21-22Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and put it on the boil so he may recover.”
Hezekiah had said, “What is my cue that it’s all right to enter again the Sanctuary of God?”
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Isaiah 38: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Isaiah 38
38
XXXVIII
1In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came unto him, and said unto him Thus saith Jehovah: Give charge concerning thine house: for thou shalt die and not live. 2Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, mad prayed unto Jehovah. 3And he said, Remember now, O Jehovah, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight And Hezekiah wept sore. 4Then came the word of Jehovah to Isaiah, saying: 5Go, and say unto Hezekiah, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: Behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. 6And I will deliver thee, and this city, out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. 7And this shall be a sign unto thee from Jehovah, that Jehovah will do this thing which he hath spoken. 8Behold, I will cause the shadow of degrees, which hath gone down, by the sun, on the dial of Ahaz, to go back ten degrees. And the sun returned back ten degrees, by the degrees by which it had gone down.
9THE WRITING OF HEZEKIAH KING OF JUDAH, WHEN HE HAD BEEN SICK, AND WAS RECOVERED FROM HIS SICKNESS.
10I said: In the noontide of my days I shall go to the gates of the grave;
I am deprived of the residue of my years.
11I said: I shall no more see Jehovah,
Jehovah in the land of the living;
I shall not behold man any more,
Being numbered among the inhabitants of the land of stillness.
12My habitation is taken down, and removed from me, like a shepherd's tent.
My life is cut off, as by a weaver; He cutteth me off from the woof;
Even from day to night wilt thou make an end of me.
13I resembled a roaring lion till the morning,
So did He break all my bones;
Even from day to night wilt thou make an end of me.
14Like a swallow, or a crane, so did I twitter;
I moaned like the dove:
Mine eyes foil with looking upward;
O Jehovah, I am oppressed; be thou surety for me.
15What shall I say?
He hath both spoken unto me, and He hath himself performed it:
I will walk humbly all my years on account of the bitterness of my soul.
16O Lord, by these things do men live;
And from all these things cometh the life of my spirit;
For thou hast restored my strength, and preserved my life.
17Behold, my bitter anguish is changed into health:
Thou hast also in love to me rescued my soul from the pit of destruction;
Yea, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
18For the grave cannot praise thee,
Death cannot celebrate thee:
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
19The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day;
The father to the children shall make known thy truth.
20 Jehovah was at hand to save me:
Therefore my stringed instruments will we strike,
All the days of our life, in the house of Jehovah.
21Now, Isaiah had said: Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall
22recover. Hezekiah also had said: What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Jehovah?
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.