a signal (literally or figuratively) · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
do
יַעֲשֶׂ֣הya.'a.Seh
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
thing
הַדָּבָ֥רha.da.Var
H1697
a word · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
spoken
דִּבֵּֽרdi.Ber
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Judges 6:37-39 Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall…
Isaiah 37:30 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same:…
Judges 6:17-22 And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me.
2 Kings 20:8-21 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the thir…
Isaiah 7:11-14 Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.
Genesis 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Isaiah 38:22 Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 38:1-8
We may hence observe, among others, these good lessons: - 1. That neither men's greatness nor their goodness will exempt them from the arrests of sickness and death. Hezekiah, a mighty potentate on earth and a mighty favourite of Heaven, is struck with a disease, which, without a miracle, will certainly be mortal; and this in the midst of his days, his comforts, and usefulness. Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. It should seem, this sickness seized him when he was in the midst of his triumphs over the ruined army of the Assyrians, to teach us always to rejoice with trembling. 2. It concerns us to prepare when we see death approaching: "Set thy house in order, and thy heart especially…
sign--a token that God would fulfil His promise that Hezekiah should "go up into the house of the Lord the third day" (Kg2 20:5, Kg2 20:8); the words in italics are not in Isaiah.
John Gill on Isaiah 38:7
And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord,.... And which it seems Hezekiah asked, and it was put to him which he would choose, whether the shadow on the sundial should go forward or backward ten degrees, and he chose the latter, 2 Kings 20:8, which was a token confirming and assuring
that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken; recover Hezekiah from his sickness, so that on the third day he should go up to the temple; have fifteen years added to his days; and the city of Jerusalem protected from the attempts of the Assyrian monarch.
John Calvin on Isaiah 38:7
And this shall be a sign to thee. The sacred history relates in the proper order that Hezekiah asked a sign from the Lord, (2 Kings 20:8,) and that it was granted to him; which the Prophet will likewise mention at the end of this chapter. But it is no new thing for Hebrew writers to reverse the order of the narrative. God gives some signs of his own accord, without being asked; and he grants other signs to his people who ask them. Signs being generally intended to aid our weakness, God does not for the most part wait till we have prayed for them; but at first he appointed those which he knew to be profitable to his Church. If at any time, therefore, believers wished to have their faith confi…
The Church Fathers
(Verses 7-8) And this shall be a sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word that he has spoken: Behold, I will turn back the shadow of the steps by which it has gone down on the sun dial of Ahaz ten steps backwards: and the sun returned ten steps by the same steps that it had gone down. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah: What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me? To whom did the prophet respond: This will be the sign from the Lord that the Lord will do the word he has spoken: Do you want the shadow to approach by so many lines, or do you want it to go back the same number of steps? To whom Hezekiah said: It is easy for the shadow to advance ten lines, but I do not want it to happen; rather, I want it to go back ten steps. And when Isaiah invoked the power of the Lord, the sign was fulfilled. However, a sign is given that the sun turns back by ten degrees, which we turn according to Symmachus into lines and a sundial, which understood the degrees in the lines in order to make a clearer sense to those reading. Whether the steps were constructed with mechanical skill, so that as the shadow descended, it would mark the hours. This sign was a type of both the present time and the future, so that just as the sun would return to the beginning of its course, so would Hezekiah's life return to the disclosed years; and for us who live in the week and the octave, through the resurrection of Christ, the spaces of life are extended. The holy places in this province are accustomed to show within the enclosed Temple the steps of the house of Hezekiah, or of Ahaz, which the sun descended through them. But I will never believe, not to mention Ahaz, who was a wicked king; but of any righteous king, that their house was in the Temple of God: since it is said that Solomon, among other things, offended God because he built on a high place, from where he used to look down on the courtyard of the Temple while walking in the tower of the palace (3 Kings 9).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Disease · Of Hezekiah — Of Hezekiah
Hezekiah · .Sickness and restoration of — .Sickness and restoration of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The pledge desired. "(K. Then Isaiah said) and (K. om.) let this be the sign to thee on the part of Jehovah, that (אשׁר, K. כּי) Jehovah will perform this (K. the) word which He has spoken; Behold, I make the shadow retrace the steps, which it has gone down upon the sun-dial of Ahaz through the sun, ten steps backward. And the sun went back ten steps upon the dial, which it had gone down" (K. "Shall the shadow go forward [הלך, read הלך according to Job 40:2, or הילך] ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps? Then Yechizkiyahu said, It is easy for the shadow to go down ten steps; no, but the shadow shall go back ten steps. Then Isaiah the prophet cried to Jehovah, and turned back the shadow b…
I will rescue you . . . I will defend this city: This promise refers to the rescue of Jerusalem (chs 36–37); it also provides a greater context for understanding Hezekiah’s sickness and healing. Just as Hezekiah received another fifteen years, Jerusalem also received a temporary reprieve (see ch 39).
Rashi on Isaiah 38:7
And this is your sign That you shall be cured, and that your days shall be increased, as is explained below (v. 22), and in Kings (2 20:8) he asked, “What is the sign that I will go up?”
