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
1In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Set your house in order, for you will die, and not live.’”
2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to Yahweh, 3and said, “Remember now, Yahweh, 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 Yahweh’s word came to Isaiah, saying, 5“Go, and tell Hezekiah, ‘Yahweh, 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 Yahweh, that Yahweh 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.
9The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered of his sickness:
10I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol.#38:10 Sheol is the place of the dead.
I am deprived of the residue of my years.”
11I said, “I won’t see Yah,
Yah in the land of the living.
I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
12My dwelling is removed,
and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent.
I have rolled up my life like a weaver.
He will cut me off from the loom.
From day even to night you will make an end of me.
13I waited patiently until morning.
He breaks all my bones like a lion.
From day even to night you will make an end of me.
14I chattered like a swallow or a crane.
I moaned like a dove.
My eyes weaken looking upward.
Lord, I am oppressed.
Be my security.”
15What will I say?
He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it.
I will walk carefully all my years because of the anguish of my soul.
16Lord, men live by these things;
and my spirit finds life in all of them.
You restore me, and cause me to live.
17Behold, for peace I had great anguish,
but you have in love for my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption;
for you have cast all my sins behind your back.
18For Sheol#38:18 Sheol is the place of the dead. can’t praise you.
Death can’t celebrate you.
Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth.
19The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do today.
The father shall make known your truth to the children.
20Yahweh will save me.
Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments all the days of our life in Yahweh’s house.
21Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs, and lay it for a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.” 22Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I will go up to Yahweh’s house?”
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