After Hezekiah's punishment, and his confession and submission to Sennacherib, as related in last week's lesson, (See Article 40 in this section, Signs of the Times, November 12, 1885, "Hezekiah's Good Reign") he fell sick of the malady which forms the subject of this lesson. "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amos came to him, and said unto him, Thus says the Lord. Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live." (2 Kings 20:1; also Isaiah 38:1)
This message is somewhat different from that which would be given in the majority of cases nowadays to as good a man as Hezekiah. Now, the word of comfort would be, in most instances, in substance about this:
"You are now to leave this world and go to Heaven. We speak of it as death, but in reality there is no death. 'Death is but the gate to endless joy,' and you will soon be happy in Heaven; and by this you will know what true life is; it is then you will really begin to live, etc., etc."
But such is not the message of God to any dying person. "You shall die, and not live," is the word of God. And therefore when a person dies, and he does not live. A person cannot be dead and alive at the same time. If he is dead, he is dead, and not alive; and he will not be alive until the resurrection:
• if righteous, till the resurrection of the just;
• if unrighteous, till the resurrection of the unjust.
And so Hezekiah understood it. He seems to have had no idea that he was going to Heaven when he died; if he had, he certainly showed very little appreciation of the blessedness of it, by weeping, as he did, "with a great weeping." (2 Kings 20:3,margin)
But we have his own word on this subject: "The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living. ... Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove. ... For the grave cannot praise You, death cannot celebrate You: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for your truth. The living, the living, he shall praise You, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known your truth." (Isaiah 38:9-11,14,18-19)
Thus spoke Hezekiah. And it was because, if he should die, he would go to the grave--to a place and condition in which he could neither see nor praise the Lord,--it was because of this that he "wept sore." It was because of this that he desired not yet to die. Then came the word of the Lord to him by Isaiah: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; ... And I will add unto your days fifteen years. ... And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." (2 Kings 20:5-7)
It is right to pray for the sick, indeed the Lord has given specific directions to do so; but He has not directed us to disregard appliances. On the contrary, in this place He gives just as specific directions to use appliances as He does in the other place to pray for the sick.
Notice, too, that it was after His distinct promise to heal Hezekiah and to add unto his days fifteen years, that He ordered them to take a bunch of figs and lay on the boil; but it was not till after they had applied the figs that he recovered. Prayer and faith and works, or, in other words, common sense, go together in the intelligent service of the Lord; while that kind of faith-cure, that is now becoming too prevalent, that proposes to cure all manner of diseases without either appliances or common sense, is nothing but spiritual quackery, and is strikingly akin to presumption. It certainly is not intelligent faith. "And Isaiah said, This sign shall you have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." (2 Kings 20:9-11)
It is hard to understand how Hezekiah should think it any more of "a light thing" for the shadow to go down than for it to go back. To us it would seem to be just as easy to do the one as to do the other; for certainly no power but that of God could do either, and it is just as easy for Almighty power to do one thing as it is to do another. Whatever Hezekiah may have thought about this, we can find excuse for him; but we can find literally no excuse for those modern would-be wise "divines" who attempt to tell just how this thing was done. They attempt to explain by natural causes, not only this miracle, but other such recorded events, especially in the Old Testament. If these were the result of what we know as natural causes; if these things were in accordance with what is termed and known as natural law, then there was no miracle about them.
And to talk, as some do, of these things as being too "violent interferences with the order of nature," (PP Editor's note: This phrase is found in George Bernard Shaw's, Back to Methuselah, Preface (1921). However, it predates him. I found it in at least one periodical from 1872, so it may have been a more common phrase among skeptics of the late 1800's) is simply to talk nonsense. What is the order of nature? Who established the order of nature? Is not God above nature? Is not the order of nature simply the ordinances which God established? Assuredly so. Then is He bound, as we are, to act strictly according to these laws? If so, then there is no such thing as a miracle. And every attempt to explain by natural causes any of the miracles recorded in the Bible, is just so much of an effort to reduce them to the level of the natural, and to rob them of their sublime dignity as miracles, and is therefore simply unbelief, however much faith may be professed.
Shortly after Hezekiah's recovery, Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon, sent messengers with letters and a present unto Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and had recovered; and he also sent these messengers "to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land." (2 Chronicles 32:31)
Merodach-Baladan was at first king of a small country at the head of the Persian Gulf; but he spread his authority northward, and took Babylon and began to reign there about 721 BC--the same year in which Sargon became king of Assyria. Sargon went down to recover Babylon. He did so; and took Merodach-Baladan prisoner, and carried him into Assyria; but he escaped from prison, returned to Babylon, re-established his authority there, and maintained it a few years, until Sennacherib once more recovered Babylon to Assyria. Merodach-Baladan then fled to an island in the Persian Gulf, where he died; and Sennacherib, to prevent further revolt of the rebellious city, determined, as he says himself, "to overthrow it even more than was done by the deluge," and so left it a heap of ruins, with the Euphrates running over it.
It was during Merodach-Baladan's second reign in Babylon, and between Sennacherib's first and second invasions of Judea, that this embassy came from Babylon to Hezekiah. We saw in last week's lesson how Hezekiah, by receiving the king of Ekron, had brought Sennacherib upon him; and how that, by his submission and the payment of a large tribute, Sennacherib had turned back. The matter of the second invasion appears to be about as follows:
Ambassadors were sent, either by Hezekiah or by an influential faction, to solicit the alliance of Egypt against Assyria. (Isaiah 30:1-7; 31:1-5) Sennacherib learned of it, (2 Kings 18:19-21) and came out to Lachish, and so placed himself between Hezekiah and his forces, and the king of Egypt and his forces. From Lachish he sent Rab-shakeh and Rabsaria and Tartan up to Jerusalem to demand the submission of Hezekiah, upon the condition that he should remain in his own land until Sennacherib got ready to come and carry all away captive. (2 Kings 18:31-35) Hezekiah refused to hear him, and forbade any of the people to answer him, and sent a company to Isaiah to ask whether the Lord would not hear the words of Rab-shakeh. (2 Kings 18:36-37; 19:1-5) Then Rab-shakeh returned to Sennacherib at Libnah, "for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish." (2 Kings 19:8)
Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Ethiopia had come out to fight against him. Then he sent messengers with a letter to Hezekiah. Hezekiah took this letter up into the temple and spread it before the Lord, and prayed him to see and hear all the words of Sennacherib. (2 Kings 19:6-16) "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand." (2 Kings 19:35)
So it is a mistake to suppose that Sennacherib's army was encamped against Jerusalem when it was smitten by the angel. And this is exactly what Isaiah had said: "Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it." (2 Kings 19:32)
Accordingly, we find that the whole narrative goes to show that Sennacherib was away below Libnah, going to fight with Tirhakah, when his army was smitten. And Sennacherib "returned with shame of face to his own land." (2 Chronicles 32:21)
Thus once more Jehovah showed himself to His people and to the heathen as above all gods; and showed himself ready and willing to deliver His people from the oppressor, when they put their trust implicitly in Him. He is the same mighty God, the same tender Father, to His people today as He was of old. "With Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17)
But men's sins have separated between them and Him, and when they shall return, as He in mercy is now calling upon them to do, to faithful obedience to all His law, once more He will show himself valiant "in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him." (2 Chronicles 16:9) "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound." (Psalm 89:15) "Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord." (Psalm 144:15)--Signs of the Times, November 19, 1885--Notes on the International Lesson, November 29--2 Kings 20:1-17; Isaiah 38:9-19
A.T. Jones