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1–11. Hezekiah's illness, his prayer and miraculous healing with the miraculous return of the shadow on the sundial. 12–21. The embassy of the Babylonian king, the vanity of Hezekiah; the formidable prediction of the prophet Isaiah about the captivity of Babylon and the humility of Hezekiah. 2 Kings 20:1. In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill, and Isaiah the son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said to him: Thus says the Lord: Make a testament for your house, for you will die and not recover. Hezekiah's illness is usually attributed to the time of Sennacherib's invasion, precisely before his defeat and removal, since, according to verse 6, Hezekiah, still ill, is only promised the removal of the Assyrian king from Jerusalem. However, there is no need to assume that the biblical story in its triple review (2 Kings 20; Is. 39 and 2 Chronicles 32:24, etc.) deviated from the historical sequence of events, placing the later event (the removal of Sennacherib) before the one that preceded it in time (Hezekiah’s illness). Josephus (Ant. 10:2, 1) directly says that the disease befell Hezekiah a little after (μετ᾿ οὐ Πολύ) the invasion of Sennacherib; After this event, there was an embassy from the Babylonian king (vv. 12–13) to Hezekiah with the purpose (among other things) to congratulate him on his recovery and inquire about the heavenly sign that accompanied this recovery (Isa. 39; 2 Chron. 32:31). The promise of verse 6 is about the salvation of Hezekiah and his kingdom and Jerusalem from the hand of the Assyrian king (cf. 2 Kings 19:34) had full meaning and full force even after Sennacherib’s campaign, which is described in chapters (2 Kings 18) and (2 Kings 19), since the power of Assyria continued to be a force threatening the integrity of Judea, and the Assyrian king could always undertake a new campaign against Judea (as, according to Assyro-Babylonian data, Sennacherib did around this time undertook a campaign against Babylon, which had broken away from him). In view of his impending death, Hezekiah had to make the necessary orders about his home and family - a kind of “testament” known to us (cf. 2 Samuel 17:23). 2 Kings 20:2. And [Hezekiah] turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying: 2 Kings 20:3. “Oh, Lord! Remember that I walked before You faithfully and with a heart devoted to You, and did what was right in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept greatly. Captivated by an ardent feeling of prayer, Hezekiah turns his face away from those around him (not out of despondency, like Ahab, 1 Kings 21:4) to the wall, perhaps towards the church, in order to pray more unhindered. Seeing his illness as a consequence of his sin and Divine punishment, Hezekiah humbly asks God to look upon his good deeds as loyalty to his theocratic ideal, of course, not in the sense of unconditional moral purity (which Hezekiah could not attribute to himself), but in the sense of Hezekiah’s zeal for the improvement of worship and the eradication of all types of idolatry. Josephus adds: “to (Hezekiah’s) illness was added the king’s terrible mental disorder (ἀθυμία), which was caused by his thought about his childlessness and the fact that he would have to die without leaving offspring and without giving the throne a legitimate heir. Suffering especially gravely and cruelly from this thought, the king turned to the Almighty with a prayer to grant him a little more time to live, so that he could wait for his offspring, and allow him to part with life no earlier than he becomes” (Jude. Ancient. 10:2, 1). As proof of this understanding, shared by Blessed. Jerome and some previous interpreters pointed out that Manasseh, the son and successor of Hezekiah, had only 12 years of age when he assumed the kingdom (2 Kings 21:1), therefore, he was born only 3 years after Hezekiah’s illness. But there is no need to consider Manasseh the first and only son of Hezekiah: he could have had other sons (Is. 38:19), either who died during his father’s lifetime, or who were removed from the throne by him at his discretion. The true reason for Hezekiah's burning sorrow and intense weeping is depicted in his hymn of thanksgiving upon his recovery (Isa. 38:10–20). 2 Kings 20:4. Isaiah had not yet left the city when the word of the Lord came to him: 2 Kings 20:5. return and say to Hezekiah, the ruler of my people: Thus says the Lord God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you; on the third day you will go to the house of the Lord; 2 Kings 20:6. And I will add fifteen years to your days, and I will save you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for Myself and for the sake of David My servant. 2 Kings 20:7. And Isaiah said, Take a layer of figs. And they took it and applied it to the boil; and he recovered. Having announced to Hezekiah (cf. v. 1) the decree of God about the death of Hezekiah, the prophet Isaiah left. But the fervent prayer of the pious king (vv. 2-3) was already heard by God, and He was pleased to reverse the previous decision before the prophet had time to leave the middle or inner courtyard adjacent to the royal palace (v. 4; cf. 1 Kings 7:8): the current Hebrew text in Ketib has in v. 4: “from the middle city” ( gair gattikhona, Russian synod.: “from the city”), but in the codex 93; 180 according to Kennicott and in Keri codes 70, 112, 115, 149, 150, 153, 174, 225, 240, 252, 253, etc. it reads: “from the middle court” (“hatzer” instead of “gair”), and in favor of the latter reading, in addition to its greater naturalness, the authority of ancient translations speaks: LXX: ἐν τῆ αὐλῆ τῆ μέσῆ, Vulg.: mediam partem atrii, slav.: “(by Isaiah still) in the middle of the courtyard” (from Prof. Gulyaev: “from the inner courtyard”). The prophet receives a new command to announce to Hezekiah as a theocratic king (“the ruler of my people,” v. 5) about his imminent healing, given by God himself, and about the extension of his life for another 15 years (vv. 5–6). About what is mentioned in Art. 6 liberation from the Assyrian yoke, see note. to Art. 1 (cf. 2 Kings 19:34; Isaiah 37:35). What kind of disease is shekhin (v. 7), LXX: ἕλκος, Vulg.: utcus, slav.: “harm”, Russian. “abscess”, for the treatment of which the prophet advised to apply dvelet-teenim, LXX: παλαθην σύκων, Vulg.: masa ficorum, Slav.: “the fig tree has become overbearing”, Russian. “layer of figs”, i.e. pressed mass of figs - a kind of plaster? They usually see Hezekiah’s abscess as a plague bubo, while admitting the possibility of Hezekiah’s infection from the plague that struck the Assyrian army (Knobel, Wiener, etc.). Of course, the last assumption is completely arbitrary: the Bible does not speak about any plague epidemic or infection at this time; Moreover, with the plague, not one abscess appears, but many abscesses on different parts of the body; finally, the remedy indicated by the prophet, although it was sometimes used, for example, by Arab doctors for plague growths (prophecy p. 364), cannot be considered specific against the plague. More likely is the opinion (Bennett, Brunton, Pyasetsky, etc.) that it was a carbuncle (anthrax) and inflammation of the tonsils, with which the symptoms of the disease indicated by Hezekiah in prayer (Isa. 38:13–14) seem to be consistent (ache in the bones, general organic weakness, difficult, cooing and nasal voice, compression of the respiratory tract); insignificant duration and nature of treatment (See A. Pyasetsky, “Medicine according to the Bible and Talmud.” St. Petersburg, 1902, p. 68; cf. T. Popova, “Biblical data on various diseases,” 1904, p. 115. Cf. Smith, A dictionary of the Bible, vol. II, p. 302. Hastings. A dictionary of the Bible, vol. II, p. 324). But the exact definition of Hezekiah’s disease, due to the very vagueness of the term shekhin (in (Ex.9:9) the word means “purulent boils”, and in (Job.2:7) - “leprosy”) has not been established. 2 Kings 20:8. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I will go on the third day to the house of the Lord? Not yet freed from the feeling of fear of death, the sick Hezekiah asks for some external sign to strengthen his faith in the truth of the prophetic word about his healing; in view of the difficulty of the promised miracle, such a desire is quite natural (Is. 7:11,14; 2 Kings 19:29), which is why the prophet Isaiah himself once suggested that Ahaz ask for some miracle to confirm the truth of the prophetic word. 2 Kings 20:9. And Isaiah said: This is a sign from the Lord for you, that the Lord will fulfill the word that He has spoken: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or turn back ten steps? 2 Kings 20:10. And Hezekiah said, It is easy for a shadow to move forward ten steps; no, let the shadow go back ten steps. 2 Kings 20:11. And Isaiah the prophet cried to the Lord, and brought the shadow back on the steps, where it went down the steps of Ahaz, ten steps. Wed. (Isa.38:8). Such a reassuring sign of Hezekiah’s upcoming healing was a miracle similar to the miraculous solstice under Joshua (Joshua 10:12–14), namely, the return of the sun’s shadow “along the steps of Ahaz,” (Heb.: ma’alot Ahaz, LXX: αναβοθμοί Αχαζ, Vulg.: horologium Achaz), “on ten steps” (v. 11). For interpreters here, there have long been two difficulties or two questions, differently solved: 1) how did this miracle happen, what did this miracle consist of? 2) what type and structure was the mechanism of the “steps of Ahaz”? The solution to the first question in the sense of the actual rotation of the sun is favored by parallel biblical passages from the books of the prophet Isaiah and 2 Chronicles. Filaret notes: “Is there only one shadow, or has the sun also returned? The latter is stated in Isaiah (Isaiah 38:8), and also consists of the questioning of the Babylonian ambassadors about the miracle that happened on earth (2 Chronicles 32:31). In the affirmative sense, the question of the turning of the sun itself was decided by the blessed one. Theodoret, when he writes (question 52): “the miracle that happened to the sun swept across the entire universe. For everyone knew that the sun had returned. Why did the king of Babylon, hearing about the death, and learning about what had miraculously happened to the sun, send envoys and gifts to the king of Judah? How this rotation of the sun, or more precisely, of the earth in its movement around the sun, occurred, nothing definite can be said (cf., however, note to (Joshua 10:12–14)). Regarding the second question, i.e. the device of Ahaz's sundial, the movement of the shadow along the steps (Vulg. lineae) of which made it possible to determine the time of day, we have already noticed in approx. to (2 Kings 16:10) and further, that this mechanism could undoubtedly have been borrowed by Ahaz from Assyro-Babylonia, the birthplace of astronomy and time reckoning. And the Greeks, whose sundial mechanism first appeared under Anaximander, who traveled through Chaldea, attributed the invention of the primitive sundial (σκάφη) to the Babylonians. Although the design of Ahaz's clock cannot be determined with precision, and we must inevitably revolve here in a circle of various assumptions, the following seems the most probable of the latter. The mechanism may have been a column or obelisk on a certain pedestal, placed in a completely open place, so that its shadow was visible on all the steps surrounding it: the latter appeared in the form of divisions along the shadow side of the obelisk, and by the number of steps captured by the shadow they could determine the time of day, and quite accurately, since the position of the ecliptic was known to the Assyro-Babylonians for a long time 18. Various forms of sundials in antiquity are depicted in Philippson, D. Israelitische Bibel II, s. 679). The miraculous return of the solar shadow to the solar zenith was the most expressive symbol of the fact that the evening of life with his shadow was not yet near for Hezekiah (Ps. 101:12; Eccl. 12:2; Jer. 6:4). There could be no talk of dividing the day into hours here, since it appeared among the Jews only later. 2 Kings 20:12. At that time Berodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah was sick. 2 Kings 20:13. Hezekiah, having listened to the messengers, showed them his storehouses, silver and gold, and spices, and expensive ointments, and his entire armory and everything that was in his treasuries; There was not a single thing left that Hezekiah would not show them in his house and in all his possession. The story about the embassy of the Babylonian king to Hezekiah according to all three parallel narratives (4 Book of Kings, Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 2 Book of Chronicles) has a direct connection with Hezekiah’s illness, his miraculous recovery and the astronomical miracle that took place at the same time. Of course, these goals - congratulating Hezekiah on his recovery (Isa. 39:1) and information about the astronomical miracle (2 Chronicles 32:31) served only as a plausible cover for the true purpose of the embassy - the desire of the Babylonian king to draw Judah into a coalition with Babylonia and other states against Assyria. The spelling of the name of the Babylonian king in the 4th book of Kings - “Berodach” (Heb. Brodach) probably occurred as a result of confusion between Hebrew. letters mem and bet: in (Is. 39) this name is read as Merodach, so it stands in different readings of (2 Kings 20:12) (codes 93, 115, 145, 154, 172, 174, 240, 418, 476, 531 in Kennicott, 701 in Rossi). The name Berodakh cannot be explained either etymologically or historically. Meanwhile, Merodach or Marduk was a famous god of the ancient Babylonians (Jer. 50:2, according to LXX - 27:2), especially revered by Nebuchadnezzar (For Merodach, see M. Palmova, Idolatry among the ancient Jews, p. 362–364), but, of course, also by other kings. In the Bible there are the names of two Babylonian kings with the name Merodach as part of these names: 1) Merodach-Balodan (Is. 39:1) - according to the inscriptions Mardukhabal-Iddina (“Merodach gave a son”) and 2) Evilmerodach in the inscriptions Avil Marduk (“the man of Merodach”). According to the explanation of the Orientalists, the word Merodach, by its root meaning, meant a destructive, warlike deity, corresponding to the Roman Mars (Prof. Gulyaev, p. 366). According to Assyro-Babylonian monuments, Merodach-Baladan, “son of Yakin,” a Chaldean commander, captured Babylon under Sargon in 720 and reigned until 710, when he was again expelled by Sargon, and then again, already under Sennacherib in 702, he occupied Babylon, but lasted only 9 months. "Son of Yakin" is probably the name of the dynasty to which Merodach-Baladan belonged. His embassy to Hezekiah is usually attributed to the first period of his reign in Babylon (720–710), which would be consistent with the Bible (713–712: 15 years before the death of Hezekiah), only according to the Bible, as we know, at that time the king of Assyria was Sennacherib, and according to Assyrian monuments Sargon. This difficulty, apparently, is eliminated with the assumption that Merodach-Baladan sent this embassy to Hezekiah already during his second, short-term reign in Babylon, under Sennacherib (c. 703); but then this event will be postponed by 10 years from the time of Hezekiah’s illness, which contradicts those three reviews of the biblical story about Hezekiah (cf. Schrader in Riehm, Handwörtwrbuch des biblischen Alterthums, Bd. II, s. 995–996. Cf. Bishop Plato, “The Ancient East in the Light of Divine Revelation,” p. 236–237). The embassy of the Babylonian king made Hezekiah extremely happy (instead of verse 13 (2 Kings 20:13) in the accepted Hebrew text, “heard” - Heb. shama, (Is.39:2) has “rejoiced” – samah; the latter reading is also found in variants (2 Kings 20:13), codes 195, 530, 541, 587, 201, 451, etc.), flattered his pride; Wanting, probably, to show himself a worthy ally of the Babylonian king, he hastened with unreasonable frankness and courtesy to show the ambassadors all his personal and state treasures (v. 13; Hebrew reluctant - “fragrances”, cf. (1 Kings 10:10), LXX is left without translation: νεχωθα; Chaldean, Syriac and Arabic: “house of treasures”), as well as “his armory house,” i.e., probably the famous “house of the forest of Lebanon” (cf. (1 Kings 7:2) and note). In this case, “Hezekiah did not repay (God) for the benefits shown to him, for his heart was proud. And the wrath (of God) was upon him, and upon Judah, and upon Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 32:25). By blessed Theodoret (question 53), “Hezekiah had to make the power of God and the care that he himself used known to the ambassadors, but he showed wealth in which there is nothing lasting.” 2 Kings 20:14. And Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him: What did these people say, and where did they come to you from? And Hezekiah said, They came from a distant land, from Babylon. 2 Kings 20:15. And Isaiah said, What did they see in your house? And Hezekiah said, They have seen everything that is in my house; there is not one thing left that I have not shown them in my treasures. 2 Kings 20:16. And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord: 2 Kings 20:17. Behold, the days will come, and everything that is in your house, and that your fathers have gathered up until this day, will be taken to Babylon; nothing will remain, says the Lord. 2 Kings 20:18. Of your sons who will come from you, whom you will bear, they will be taken and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. The prophet Isaiah, who clearly foresaw the present and future state of affairs in Judea and surrounding countries and therefore had a negative attitude towards all attempts by the kingdom of Judah to enter into an alliance with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon (Is. 30–31), was not slow to open the eyes of the seduced Hezekiah and made him a completely clear, menacing prediction that the real alliance of the king of Judah with the Babylonian one serves as a harbinger the captivity of the kingdom of Judah and the people to Babylon, when all the royal and state treasures from Judah will be taken to Babylon, and the royal descendants of Hezekiah will serve as eunuchs at the court of the king of Babylon. 2 Kings 20:19. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. And he continued: may there be peace and prosperity in my days! Pious Hezekiah immediately recognized the sin, “humbled in his pride, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 32:26). The terrible word of the prophet Hezekiah, in his unconditional devotion to the will of God (as once the high priest Eli, (1 Samuel 3:10)) even calls good 19; completely submitting to the determination of God’s judgment on the people and kingdom of Judah, he prays to Jehovah only that future disasters befall his kingdom not under him. Many interpreters, following the example of the rabbis, saw in Hezekiah’s last words an expression of a selfish thirst for personal well-being and indifference to the fate of his people. But, perhaps, it was precisely the love for this people that prompted Hezekiah to desire - not to survive their prosperity, not to see their fall and captivity; Hezekiah spoke these words with sorrow (according to I. Flavius ​​λυπηθείς). However, Hezekiah, as the son of the Old Testament, could not show true courage of faith here, although for his righteousness he is blessed in (Sir.49:5) along with David and Josiah. 2 Kings 20:20. The rest about Hezekiah and all his exploits, and that he made a pond and a water supply and brought water to the city, is written in the chronicle of the kings of Judah. 2 Kings 20:21. And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead. In the final remarks of the sacred writer about the reign of Hezekiah, in addition to the usual, stereotypical formula, Hezekiah, like few other kings, for example, Asa (1 Kings 15:23), is credited with military and political “exploits” (Hebrew geburah), but especially important in biblical and archaeological terms is the evidence that Hezekiah “made a pond and a water supply system and brought water to the city” (v. 20). King Hezekiah speaks more clearly about this important undertaking (2 Chronicles 32:30): “And Hezekiah shut up the upper channel of the waters of Geon and brought them down to the western side of the city of David.” Sirach also speaks of the same significant national importance, adding a new feature: “Hezekiah strengthened his city and brought water inside it, pierced the rock with iron and built reservoirs for water” (Sir.48:19). From the collection of all this evidence, biblical science makes a fair conclusion that under Hezekiah, precisely around the time of Sennacherib’s invasion, the so-called Siloam tunnel or canal was dug in Jerusalem. Purpose of the channel connecting the source of St. Virgins with the Pond of Siloam, to preserve water in the city in case of a siege, which Hezekiah was so concerned about before the invasion of Sennacherib (2 Chronicles 32:3-4): instead of filled-up underground springs, Hezekiah took care of digging an underground tunnel to constantly supply the city with water, for which purpose the mentioned water reservoirs were connected (cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 367; Stade Geschicste Jsr. 1, 593, Anm). For the position of Gion or Gihon, see the comments to (1 Kings 1:39). In this Siloam Canal in 1880, the oldest inscription in Hebrew was found - the so-called. “The Siloam Inscription”, consisting of 6 lines (190 letters, of which only 170 were read) and telling about the method of digging the Siloam tunnel (see Prof. I.G. Troitsky, “The Siloam Inscription”, Christian Reading, 1887, II). According to the message (2 Chronicles 32:33), Hezekiah was buried “over the tombs of the sons of David,” bemaale kibre bene-David, ῾εν ἀναβασετ τῶν τάφων, glav.: “at the rising of the tombs of the sons of David,” from which we can conclude that The family crypt of the kings of the Davidic dynasty consisted of several floors or tiers. Cp. Kamphauscn Riehm. Handworkerbuch d. bibl. Alterthums, Bd. ll. s. 1724. The number of steps on the clock of Ahaz, judging by (2 Kings 20:9–11), could not have been less than 20, but there were probably many more The cleric notes to Art. 19: bonum vocatur id, in quo acquiescere par est, quippe ab eo profectum, qui ninil facit, quod non tantum justissimum, sed quod summa bonitate non sit lemperatum, etiam cum poenas sumit You might be interested in: