2 Kings 20 & Isaiah 38 · An Iconic Story
Hezekiah's Sundial
A dying king prays, is given fifteen more years, and asks for a sign — so the shadow goes ten steps backward. Then the visitors arrive who came because they heard about it, and the same chapter tells you what that cost.
The engraver has moved the scene into a palace of his own century — columns, a canopied bed, courtiers waiting at the arcade — and the caption printed along the bottom is Dutch: Hizkia, kranck zijnde, verkrijgd een Teecken, “Hezekiah, being sick, obtains a sign.” What makes the sheet worth looking at is what it leaves out. Isaiah stands over the bed with his arm thrown out toward the daylight, and the sign itself is off the page. You never see the steps. A print about a miracle that consists entirely of a man pointing at something the viewer cannot see is, by accident, very faithful to a text that reports a sign and never explains it.
Set Your House in Order
2 Kings 20:1–19, told plainly
Hezekiah is sick, and it is going to kill him. Isaiah comes with a message that leaves no room: set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. The prophet turns to go. And Hezekiah turns his face to the wall and prays — he reminds God how he has walked before Him — and weeps hard. Isaiah has not even crossed the middle court before the word comes back: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears, fifteen years are added, and this city is defended. They put a lump of figs on the boil, and he recovers.
In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”No conditions, no delay, no room to negotiate — which is what makes what happens next so startling.
“Go back and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. I will surely heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the house of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”The prophet is turned around before he can leave the courtyard.
But before the recovery, Hezekiah asks for a sign — and Isaiah hands him the choice. Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or back ten steps? And Hezekiah says the shrewdest thing in the chapter: it is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten steps — no, let it go backward. He picks the option that cannot be mistaken for the sun doing what the sun already does. And the shadow goes back ten steps on the steps of Ahaz.
So Isaiah the prophet called out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow back the ten steps it had descended on the stairway of Ahaz.The whole miracle, in one sentence, with no explanation attached to it.
Then comes the part almost nobody tells. Envoys arrive from the king of Babylon with letters and a gift, and Hezekiah shows them everything — the silver, the gold, the spices, the armoury, all of it, nothing in his house or his kingdom that he did not show them. Isaiah asks what they saw. All, says Hezekiah. And Isaiah says: the days are coming when all of it will be carried to Babylon, and your own sons with it. And Hezekiah answers, good is the word of the LORD which you have spoken — and thinks: at least there will be peace in my days.
The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.Everything the envoys were shown is itemised again — as an inventory of what will be taken.
But Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Will there not at least be peace and security in my lifetime?”The last thing this king says in the chapter. Scripture writes it down and does not comment.
Six Places the Retellings Drift
what the text actually says, against what the story has become
“THE SUN WENT BACKWARDS”
2 Kings 20:11 and Isaiah 38:8 both say the shadow went back on the steps. Isaiah mentions the sun in passing; 2 Kings never mentions it at all. The text asserts a sign and states no mechanism — and this page will not supply one either.
In the history of this miracle in the book of Kings, (2Ki 20:9-11), there is no mention at all made of the sun, but only of the going backward of the shadow: which might be effected by a supernatural refraction.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Isaiah 38:8
“IT WAS A SUNDIAL”
The Hebrew word is ma'alot — steps. English translations reached for “degrees,” and the picture-book reached for a garden sundial. What the text describes is a staircase with a shadow on it, built by Hezekiah's father.
Ten degrees - literally, ten steps. … Sundials proper had been invented by the Babylonians before the time of Herodotus; but the instrument here was probably an instrument consisting of a set of steps, or stairs, with an obelisk at the top, the shadow of which descended or ascended the steps according as the sun rose higher in the heavens or declined.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:9
“HE ASKED FOR THE EASY SIGN”
He asked for the hard one on purpose, and verse 10 gives his reasoning out loud. The shadow was already lengthening; letting it jump further down the stairs would prove nothing. He designed a test nature could not counterfeit.
It is a light thing - It seemed to Hezekiah comparatively easy that the shadow, which had already begun to lengthen, should merely make a sudden jump in the same direction; but, wholly contrary to all experience that it should change its direction, advancing up the steps again when it had once begun to descend them.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:10
“ASKING FOR A SIGN WAS FAITHLESS”
Scripture treats the same request two entirely different ways depending on who is asking and why. Gideon asked and was not blamed. Hezekiah asked and was not blamed. The crowd that demanded a sign from Jesus did not actually want one.
Asking for a sign is a pious or a wicked act according to the spirit in which it is done. No blame is attached to the requests of Gideon … or to this of Hezekiah, because they were real wishes of the heart expressed humbly. The evil generation that sought for a sign in our Lord's days did not really want one, but made the demand captiously, neither expecting nor wishing that it should be granted.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:8
“THE BABYLONIANS CAME TO WISH HIM WELL”
2 Chronicles 32:31 says exactly why they came: to enquire about the wonder that was done in the land. The sign brought the envoys, and the envoys brought the sentence. That is the spine of the story, and it is only visible if you read to the end of the chapter.
The embassy was not merely one of congratulation. Its chief object was to inquire with respect to the going back of the shadow, an astronomical marvel in which the Chaldaeans of Babylon would feel a keen interest 2Ch 32:31. A political purpose is moreover implied in the next verse. Merodach-baladan was probably desirous of strengthening himself against Assyria by an alliance with Judaea and with Egypt.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:12
“THE STORY ENDS WITH THE HEALING”
It ends at verse 19, and the last line is the hardest sentence in Hezekiah's life: is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days? The chapter that opens with a man begging for more years closes with him relieved that the disaster falls after them.
Various conjectures have been formed as to this dial. The word in the original is "degrees," or "steps," and hence many commentators have supposed that it was a stair, so artfully contrived, that the shadows on the steps indicated the hours and course of the sun.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871), on 2 Kings 20:8–11
When It Happened, and Who Was Listening
the date, the poultice, the father's staircase, and the man who sent the letters
Start with the date, because it changes how the chapter reads. 2 Kings tells the story afterthe Assyrian siege, but the arithmetic of the reign lengths puts the illness roughly fifteen years before Hezekiah's death — that is, before Sennacherib ever marched. The book has arranged its material by theme rather than by calendar. That is worth saying plainly; it costs the story nothing and it is simply true.
Hezekiah seems to have died 697 B.C.; and his illness must belong to 713 or 714 B.C. (compare 2Ki 20:6), a date which falls early in the reign of Sargon. The true chronological place of this narrative is therefore prior to all the other facts related of Hezekiah except his religious reforms.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:1
Then the figs. A poultice of pressed figs on a boil was ordinary medicine in the ancient Near East, and it goes on after the promise, not instead of it. What the illness actually was, nobody can say.
The disease cannot be ascertained … although Arab physicians apply a cataplasm of figs to plague-boils, they also do so in other cases, as figs are considered useful in ripening and soothing inflammatory ulcers.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871), on 2 Kings 20:7
And then the staircase, which is quietly the sharpest detail in the chapter. It belonged to Ahaz — Hezekiah's father, the king who shut the temple doors and had a copy of a Damascus altar built for Jerusalem, and who was once offered a sign by this same prophet and refused to ask for one. The sign his son receives is given on his architecture. In both accounts Ahaz's name survives in this chapter only as the name of some stairs.
Finally, the letters. Merodach-baladan held Babylon twice and lost it twice, both times to Assyria, and he spent his whole career looking for allies against the same enemy Hezekiah had. So the embassy is two things at once, and the commentators say so without fuss: a scientific enquiry about an astronomical marvel, and a diplomatic approach.
If the king of Babylon was now mediating a revolt from the king of Assyria, it was policy to get Hezekiah into his interest.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 2 Kings 20:12
And so when ambassadors of the rulers of Babylon were sent to him to inquire about the wonder that had happened in the land, God left him alone to test him, that He might know all that was in Hezekiah’s heart.Chronicles supplies the motive Kings leaves out: they came about the sign.
What Isaiah 38 adds that 2 Kings does not
Isaiah 38:9–20 is Hezekiah's own writing — a psalm composed after the recovery, and the only surviving composition by a king of Judah outside the book of Psalms. It is the inside of the illness in his own words: the weaver cutting him off from the loom, the swallow's chattering, the long sleepless reckoning with the pit. No other story on this shelf has anything like it, and it is a short read.
The Silence at the Centre of the Story
four things the text does not say — and the first one is the miracle itself
Scripture reports the sign in a single sentence and then moves on. It does not say what moved, or how, or how far the effect reached, or who else saw it. People have been filling that space for two thousand years. This page leaves it empty, on purpose.
How the shadow moved
Astronomical explanations, refractive explanations, and purely local-miracle explanations have all been argued for centuries. Scripture argues for none of them. You can watch a careful commentator feel the pull of the question — Adam Clarke rules out the two biggest options in one breath and then, on the Isaiah account, reaches for a third:
He brought the shadow ten degrees backward - We cannot suppose that these ten degrees meant ten hours; there were ten divisions of time on this dial: and perhaps it would not be right to suppose that the sun went ten degrees back in the heavens, or that the earth turned back upon its axis from east to west, in a contrary direction to its natural course.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on 2 Kings 20:11
In the history of this miracle in the book of Kings, (2Ki 20:9-11), there is no mention at all made of the sun, but only of the going backward of the shadow: which might be effected by a supernatural refraction.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Isaiah 38:8
“Might be” is Clarke's own word, and it is the right one. His guess is a guess, and he says so. The verse says the shadow went back ten steps, and stops.
I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.The parallel account — the one place the sun is mentioned at all, and still no mechanism.
What the disease was
A boil, a poultice, and a sentence of death. Every diagnosis since is a reconstruction from three words, and the oldest commentaries in this tradition already said the honest thing: it cannot be determined.
Whether the fifteen years were a mercy or a complication
Two things are true inside those fifteen years. 2 Chronicles 32:25 says Hezekiah's heart was lifted up and wrath came. And Manasseh — the worst king Judah ever had — was born in them, since he was twelve when he took the throne. The text places these facts next to each other and draws no line between them. Neither does this page. It is worth noticing, and it is not worth turning into a lesson Scripture declined to teach.
But because his heart was proud, Hezekiah did not repay the favor shown to him. Therefore wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.Chronicles' own summary of what came after the healing.
What Hezekiah meant at verse 19
“Good is the word of the LORD which you have spoken” — and then, in the same breath, is it not good, if there be peace and truth in my days? Readers have heard humble submission there, and readers have heard a man who has just been told his grandchildren go into captivity and is quietly glad it is not this year. Scripture writes the sentence down and refuses to grade it.
A Godly King's View of Death — and Ours
the New Testament never quotes this episode; what Scripture itself supplies is better
Neither 2 Kings 20 nor Isaiah 38 is quoted anywhere in the New Testament. No apostle makes the shadow stand for anything, and this page will not make it stand for anything either. What Isaiah 38 does give is a window nothing else in the Old Testament quite gives: a godly man saying, in his own words, what he thought was on the other side of dying.
For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You. Those who descend to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.This is the hope of a saint before the resurrection was clear: the living praise God, and the dead are silent.
And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel,And this is the difference Christ made to that sentence. Not a better argument — an empty tomb.
Their probation is at an end. They can no longer exercise faith and hope in regard to Thy faithfulness to Thy promises, which are limited to the present state. For "hope" ceases (even in the case of the godly) when sight begins (Ro 8:24, 25); the ungodly have "no hope" (1Th 4:13).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871), on Isaiah 38:18
Read it slowly and the distance is the whole gospel. Hezekiah begged for fifteen years because fifteen years was all there was to beg for. He was not weak in faith; he was standing where the light stopped. The reader of this page stands on the other side of a morning outside Jerusalem, and asks for years differently.
And there is one line in the psalm that leans forward hard on its own. Verse 17 says that God has cast all his sins behind His back — which is not a claim about a sundial, and needs no allegory to reach the cross.
Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.The king's own account of what the healing was really about.
God's love is sufficient to bring a soul from the pit of corruption. This is applicable to our redemption by Christ; it was in love to our souls, our poor perishing souls, that he delivered them from the bottomless pit, snatched them as brands out of everlasting burnings.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Isaiah 38:17
Matthew Henry is applying the verse, and says so himself — “this is applicable to our redemption by Christ.” That is a preacher drawing a line from a verse that genuinely says what it says, and it is offered here as exactly that.
THE ARTWORK
A hand-coloured woodcut from a European printed Bible, and a small lesson in how every age draws this story with the instruments it owns. On the left the king lies in a wheeled bed with attendants around him. On the right the artist has put the sign: not a staircase, but a great astronomical clock face mounted on a church tower, with the sun blazing above it and two men in Renaissance dress sitting outside watching the dial. The Hebrew text names no dial and no clock — only steps, and a shadow on them.
Unknown, King Hezekiah on His Sickbed (undated) — Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Commentators on the Sign
what the old expositors were willing to say, and where they stopped
The men who worked hardest on this chapter agreed about something that is easy to miss: the sign was aimed. In a world where the sun was the most respectable god on offer, a shadow that walks backwards up a staircase is not a party trick. It is a statement about who is in charge of the sun.
The most plausible idolatry of the heathen was theirs that worshipped the sun; yet that was hereby convicted of the most egregious folly and absurdity, for by this it appeared that their god was under the check of the God of Israel.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 2 Kings 20:11
And they were equally clear about the king's own part in it. Hezekiah was not handed a sign; he was handed a choice, and he chose the harder one deliberately, for a stated reason. Barnes puts the distinction Scripture itself draws between a request made in faith and a demand made to score a point.
Asking for a sign is a pious or a wicked act according to the spirit in which it is done. No blame is attached to the requests of Gideon … or to this of Hezekiah, because they were real wishes of the heart expressed humbly. The evil generation that sought for a sign in our Lord's days did not really want one, but made the demand captiously, neither expecting nor wishing that it should be granted.
Albert Barnes· Notes on the Old and New Testaments (1832–1869), on 2 Kings 20:8
A note on how this page was built
Most pages on this shelf carry teachers from across the whole roster the site works from. This one carries four old commentators and stops. The reason is that the serious writing on these two chapters is theirs, and the modern material that gets attached to the story is mostly about prayer for healing — which would quietly turn a chapter whose second half is about the cost of an answered prayer into a chapter about getting one. The page keeps both halves.
Read the Great Books
the works that have carried this teaching — go further than this page
Notes on the Old and New Testaments
Albert Barnes · 1832–1869
The best single guide to this chapter: the date of the illness, what the steps of Ahaz actually were, why Hezekiah chose the harder sign, and the real business of the Babylonian embassy.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentary on the Bible
Adam Clarke · 1832
Clarke sets the two accounts side by side and notices that 2 Kings never mentions the sun — then shows you exactly how hard it is for a careful man not to guess at a mechanism.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentary on the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry · 1710
Henry hears the sign as an argument against sun-worship, and reads Hezekiah's psalm toward the gospel — telling you, as he does it, that he is applying rather than expounding.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown · 1871
Short, plain and unafraid of a blank: the disease cannot be determined, the dial is a matter of conjecture, and hope ends where sight begins — which is the sharpest sentence written about Isaiah 38.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Peace in My Days
And Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil, as well as his armory—all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.Nothing in his house or in all his dominion that he did not show them — and every item on that list is named again at verse 17.
The chapter gives a dying man his prayer, and then follows the answer forward to see where it goes. The sign travels to Babylon before the treasure does; the men who come to ask about a shadow are shown a treasury; and a hundred years later the treasury goes east on carts. None of that makes the prayer wrong, and Scripture never says it was. What Scripture does is refuse to stop the story at the good part — and then it writes down the last thing Hezekiah said, without a word of comment, and leaves the reader holding it.
GO ON FROM HERE
Built from MannaFest's research brief on 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 38 and the gate-verified quote pool for the Kings stories — public-domain commentary quoted word for word (Albert Barnes, Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown). Hebrew word data verified against the site's own word-level text of 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 38. Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible, fetched live from the site's text. Artwork: a Rijksmuseum engraving (CC0) and a hand-coloured woodcut from the Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0), both license-verified at Wikimedia Commons.