{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ISA","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Isaiah","commonName":"Isaiah","introduction":"ISAIAH, son of Amoz (not Amos); contemporary of Jonah, Amos, Hosea, in Israel, but younger than they; and of Micah, in Judah. His call to a higher degree of the prophetic office (Isa 6:1-13) is assigned to the last year of Uzziah, that is, 754 B.C. The first through fifth chapters belong to the closing years of that reign; not, as some think, to Jotham's reign: in the reign of the latter he seems to have exercised his office only orally, and not to have left any record of his prophecies because they were not intended for all ages. The first through fifth and sixth chapters are all that was designed for the Church universal of the prophecies of the first twenty years of his office. New historical epochs, such as occurred in the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah, when the affairs of Israel became interwoven with those of the Asiatic empires, are marked by prophetic writings. The prophets had now to interpret the judgments of the Lord, so as to make the people conscious of His punitive justice, as also of His mercy. Isa. 7:1-10:4 belong to the reign of Ahaz. The thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters are historical, reaching to the fifteenth year of Hezekiah; probably the tenth through twelfth chapters and all from the thirteenth through twenty-sixth chapters, inclusive, belong to the same reign; the historical section being appended to facilitate the right understanding of these prophecies; thus we have Isaiah's office extending from about 760 to 713 B.C., forty-seven years. Tradition (Talmud) represents him as having been sawn asunder by Manasseh with a wooden saw, for having said that he had seen Jehovah (Exo 33:20; Kg2 21:16; Heb 11:37). Ch2 32:32 seems to imply that Isaiah survived Hezekiah; but \"first and last\" is not added, as in Ch2 26:22, which makes it possible that his history of Hezekiah was only carried up to a certain point. The second part, the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, containing complaints of gross idolatry, needs not to be restricted to Manasseh's reign, but is applicable to previous reigns. At the accession of Manasseh, Isaiah would be eighty-four; and if he prophesied for eight years afterwards, he must have endured martyrdom at ninety-two; so Hosea prophesied for sixty years. And Eastern tradition reports that he lived to one hundred and twenty. The conclusive argument against the tradition is that, according to the inscription, all Isaiah's prophecies are included in the time from Uzziah to Hezekiah; and the internal evidence accords with this.\n\nHis WIFE is called the prophetess [Isa 8:3], that is, endowed, as Miriam, with a prophetic gift.\n\nHis CHILDREN were considered by him as not belonging merely to himself; in their names, Shearjashub, \"the remnant shall return\" [Isa 7:3, Margin], and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, \"speeding to the spoil, he hasteth to the prey\" [Isa 8:1, Margin], the two chief points of his prophecies are intimated to the people, the judgments of the Lord on the people and the world, and yet His mercy to the elect.\n\nHis GARMENT of sackcloth (Isa 20:2), too, was a silent preaching by fact; he appears as the embodiment of that repentance which he taught.\n\nHis HISTORICAL WORKS.--History, as written by the prophets, is retroverted prophecy. As the past and future alike proceed from the essence of God, an inspired insight into the past implies an insight into the future, and vice versa. Hence most of the Old Testament histories are written by prophets and are classed with their writings; the Chronicles being not so classed, cannot have been written by them, but are taken from historical monographs of theirs; for example, Isaiah's life of Uzziah, Ch2 26:22; also of Hezekiah, Ch2 32:32; of these latter all that was important for all ages has been preserved to us, while the rest, which was local and temporary, has been lost.\n\nThe INSCRIPTION (Isa 1:1) applies to the whole book and implies that Isaiah is the author of the second part (the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters), as well as of the first. Nor do the words, \"concerning Judah and Jerusalem\" [Isa 1:1], oppose the idea that the inscription applies to the whole; for whatever he says against other nations, he says on account of their relation to Judah. So the inscription of Amos, \"concerning Israel\" [Amo 1:1], though several prophecies follow against foreign nations. EWALD maintains that the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, though spurious, were subjoined to the previous portion, in order to preserve the former. But it is untrue that the first portion is unconnected with those chapters. The former ends with the Babylonian exile (Isa 39:6), the latter begins with the coming redemption from it. The portion, the fortieth through forty-sixth chapters, has no heading of its own, a proof that it is closely connected with what precedes, and falls under the general heading in Isa 1:1. JOSEPHUS (The Antiquities of the Jews, 11. 1, sec. 1, 2) says that Cyrus was induced by the prophecies of Isaiah (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1, Isa 45:13) to aid the Jews in returning and rebuilding the temple Ezr 1:1-11 confirms this; Cyrus in his edict there plainly refers to the prophecies in the second portion, which assign the kingdoms to him from Jehovah, and the duty of rebuilding the temple. Probably he took from them his historical name Cyrus (Coresh). Moreover, subsequent prophets imitate this second portion, which EWALD assigns to later times; for example, compare Jer. 50:1-51:64 with Isaiah's predictions against Babylon [Isa. 13:1-14:23]. \"The Holy One of Israel,\" occurring but three times elsewhere in the Old Testament [Kg2 19:22; Psa 78:41; Psa 89:18; Jer 50:29; Jer 51:5], is a favorite expression in the second, as in the first portion of Isaiah: it expresses God's covenant faithfulness in fulfilling the promises therein: Jeremiah borrows the expression from him. Also Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25 (\"comforted\"), quotes Isa 40:1 as Isaiah's. Luk 4:17 quotes Isa 61:1-2 as Isaiah's, and as read as such by Jesus Christ in the synagogue.\n\nThe DEFINITENESS of the prophecies is striking: As in the second portion of isaiah, so in Mic 4:8-10, the Babylonian exile, and the deliverance from it, are foretold a hundred fifty years before any hostilities had arisen between Babylon and Judah. On the other hand, all the prophets who foretell the Assyrian invasion coincide in stating, that Judah should be delivered from it, not by Egyptian aid, but directly by the Lord. Again Jeremiah, in the height of the Chaldean prosperity, foretold its conquest by the Medes, who should enter Babylon through the dry bed of the Euphrates on a night of general revelry. No human calculation could have discovered these facts. EICHORN terms these prophecies \"veiled historical descriptions,\" recognizing in spite of himself that they are more than general poetical fancies. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was certainly written ages before the Messiah, yet it minutely portrays His sufferings: these cannot be Jewish inventions, for the Jews looked for a reigning, not a suffering, Messiah.\n\nRationalists are so far right that THE PROPHECIES ARE ON A GENERAL BASIS whereby they are distinguished from soothsaying. They rest on the essential idea of God. The prophets, penetrated by this inner knowledge of His character, became conscious of the eternal laws by which the world is governed: that sin is man's ruin, and must be followed by judgment, but that God's covenant mercy to His elect is unchangeable. Without prophetism, the elect remnant would have decreased, and even God's judgments would have missed their end, by not being recognized as such: they would have been unmeaning, isolated facts. Babylon was in Isaiah's days under Assyria; it had tried a revolt unsuccessfully: but the elements of its subsequent success and greatness were then existing. The Holy Ghost enlightened his natural powers to discern this its rise; and his spiritual faculties, to foresee its fall, the sure consequence, in God's eternal law, of the pride which pagan success generates--and also Judah's restoration, as the covenant-people, with whom God, according to His essential character, would not be wroth for ever. True conversion is the prophet's grand remedy against all evils: in this alone consists his politics. Rebuke, threatening, and promise, regularly succeed one another. The idea at the basis of all is in Isa 26:7-9; Lev 10:3; Amo 3:2.\n\nThe USE OF THE PRESENT AND PRETERITE in prophecy is no proof that the author is later than Isaiah. For seers view the future as present, and indicate what is ideally past, not really past; seeing things in the light of God, who \"calls the things that are not as though they were.\" Moreover, as in looking from a height on a landscape, hills seem close together which are really wide apart, so, in events foretold, the order, succession, and grouping are presented, but the intervals of time are overlooked. The time, however, is sometimes marked (Jer 25:12; Dan 9:26). Thus the deliverance from Babylon, and that effected by Messiah, are in rapid transition grouped together by THE LAW OF PROPHETIC SUGGESTION; yet no prophet so confounds the two as to make Messiah the leader of Israel from Babylon. To the prophet there was probably no double sense; but to his spiritual eye the two events, though distinct, lay so near, and were so analogous, that he could not separate them in description without unfaithfulness to the picture presented before him. The more remote and antitypical event, however, namely, Messiah's coming, is that to which he always hastens, and which he describes with far more minuteness than he does the nearer type; for example, Cyrus (compare Isa 45:1 with Isa 53:1-12). In some cases he takes his stand in the midst of events between, for example, the humiliation of Jesus Christ, which he views as past, and His glorification, as yet to come, using the future tense as to the latter (compare Isa 53:4-9 with Isa 53:10-12). Marks of the time of events are given sparingly in the prophets: yet, as to Messiah, definitely enough to create the general expectation of Him at the time that He was in fact born.\n\nThe CHALDÆISMS alleged against the genuineness of the second portion of Isaiah, are found more in the first and undoubted portion. They occur in all the Old Testament, especially in the poetical parts, which prefer unusual expressions, and are due to the fact that the patriarchs were surrounded by Chaldee-speaking people; and in Isaiah's time a few Chaldee words had crept in from abroad.\n\nHis SYMBOLS are few and simple, and his poetical images correct; in the prophets, during and after the exile, the reverse holds good; Haggai and Malachi are not exceptions; for, though void of bold images, their style, unlike Isaiah's, rises little above prose: a clear proof that our Isaiah was long before the exile.\n\nOf VISIONS, strictly so called, he has but one, that in the sixth chapter; even it is more simple than those in later prophets. But he often gives SIGNS, that is, a present fact as pledge of the more distant future; God condescending to the feebleness of man (Isa 7:14; Isa 37:30; Isa 38:7).\n\nThe VARIETIES IN HIS STYLE do not prove spuriousness, but that he varied his style with his subject. The second portion is not so much addressed to his contemporaries, as to the future people of the Lord, the elect remnant, purified by the previous judgments. Hence its tenderness of style, and frequent repetitions (Isa 40:1): for comforting exhortation uses many words; so also the many epithets added to the name of God, intended as stays whereon faith may rest for comfort, so as not to despair. In both portions alike there are peculiarities characteristic of Isaiah; for example, \"to be called\" equivalent to to be: the repetition of the same words, instead of synonyms, in the parallel members of verses; the interspersing of his prophecies with hymns: \"the remnant of olive trees,\" &c., for the remnant of people who have escaped God's judgments. Also compare Isa 65:25 with Isa 11:6.\n\nThe CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT favors the opinion that Isaiah himself collected his prophecies into the volume; not Hezekiah's men, as the Talmud guesses from Pro 25:1. All the portions, the dates of which can be ascertained, stand in the right place, except a few instances, where prophecies of similar contents are placed together: with the termination of the Assyrian invasion (the thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters) terminated the public life of Isaiah. The second part is his prophetic legacy to the small band of the faithful, analogous to the last speeches of Moses and of Jesus Christ to His chosen disciples.\n\nThe EXPECTATION OF MESSIAH is so strong in Isaiah, that JEROME To Paulinus calls his book not a prophecy, but the gospel: \"He is not so much a prophet as an evangelist.\" Messiah was already shadowed forth in Gen 49:10, as the Shiloh, or tranquillizer; also in Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110. Isaiah brings it out more definitely; and, whereas they dwelt on His kingly office, Isaiah develops most His priestly and prophetic office; the hundred tenth Psalm also had set forth His priesthood, but His kingly rather than, as Isaiah, His suffering, priesthood. The latter is especially dwelt on in the second part, addressed to the faithful elect; whereas the first part, addressed to the whole people, dwells on Messiah's glory, the antidote to the fears which then filled the people, and the assurance that the kingdom of God, then represented by Judah, would not be overwhelmed by the surrounding nations.\n\nHis STYLE (HENGSTENBERG, Christology of the Old Testament,) is simple and sublime; in imagery, intermediate between the poverty of Jeremiah and the exuberance of Ezekiel. He shows his command of it in varying it to suit his subject.\n\nThe FORM is mostly that of Hebrew poetical parallelism, with, however, a freedom unshackled by undue restrictions.\n\nJUDAH, the less apostate people, rather than Israel, was the subject of his prophecies: his residence was mostly at Jerusalem. On his praises, see Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25. Christ and the apostles quote no prophet so frequently. \n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 1\n\n","order":23,"numberOfChapters":66,"sha256":"05afbc35163ce25bd06467062226b36d66e6285d8ca85b4815540db57d9466be","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":66,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/66.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":66},"totalNumberOfVerses":1200},"chapter":{"number":38,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["The couches in the East run along the walls of houses. He turned away from the spectators to hide his emotion and collect his thoughts for prayer.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["He mentions his past religious consistency, not as a boast or a ground for justification; but according to the Old Testament dispensation, wherein temporal rewards (as long life, &c., Exo 20:12) followed legal obedience, he makes his religious conduct a plea for asking the prolongation of his life. \n\nwalked--Life is a journey; the pious \"walk with God\" (Gen 5:24; Kg1 9:4). \n\nperfect--sincere; not absolutely perfect, but aiming towards it (Mat 5:45); single-minded in walking as in the presence of God (Gen 17:1). The letter of the Old Testament legal righteousness was, however, a standard very much below the spirit of the law as unfolded by Christ (Mat. 5:20-48; Co2 3:6, Co2 3:14, Co2 3:17). \n\nwept sore--JOSEPHUS says, the reason why he wept so sorely was that being childless, he was leaving the kingdom without a successor. How often our wishes, when gratified, prove curses! Hezekiah lived to have a son; that son was the idolater Manasseh, the chief cause of God's wrath against Judah, and of the overthrow of the kingdom (Kg2 23:26-27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["In Kg2 20:4, the quickness of God's answer to the prayer is marked, \"afore Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him\"; that is, before he had left Hezekiah, or at least when he had just left him, and Hezekiah was in the act of praying after having heard God's message by Isaiah (compare Isa 65:24; Psa 32:5; Dan 9:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["God of David thy father--God remembers the covenant with the father to the children (Exo 20:5; Psa 89:28-29). \n\ntears-- (Psa 56:8). \n\ndays . . . years--Man's years, however many, are but as so many days (Gen 5:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["In Kg2 20:8, after this verse comes the statement which is put at the end, in order not to interrupt God's message (Isa 38:21-22) by Isaiah (Isa 38:5-8). \n\nwill deliver--The city was already delivered, but here assurance is given, that Hezekiah shall have no more to fear from the Assyrians.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["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.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["bring again--cause to return (Jos 10:12-14). In Kg2 20:9, Kg2 20:11, the choice is stated to have been given to Hezekiah, whether the shadow should go forward, or go back, ten degrees. Hezekiah replied, \"It is a light thing (a less decisive miracle) for the shadow to go down (its usual direction) ten degrees: nay, but let it return backward ten degrees\"; so Isaiah cried to Jehovah that it should be so, and it was so (compare Jos 10:12, Jos 10:14). \n\nsundial of Ahaz--HERODOTUS (2.109) states that the sundial and the division of the day into twelve hours, were invented by the Babylonians; from them Ahaz borrowed the invention. He was one, from his connection with Tiglath-pileser, likely to have done so (Kg2 16:7, Kg2 16:10). \"Shadow of the degrees\" means the shadow made on the degrees. JOSEPHUS thinks these degrees were steps ascending to the palace of Ahaz; the time of day was indicated by the number of steps reached by the shadow. But probably a sundial, strictly so called, is meant; it was of such a size, and so placed, that Hezekiah, when convalescent, could witness the miracle from his chamber. Compare Isa 38:21-22 with Kg2 20:9, where translate, shall this shadow go forward, &c.; the dial was no doubt in sight, probably \"in the middle court\" (Kg2 20:4), the point where Isaiah turned back to announce God's gracious answers to Hezekiah. Hence this particular sign was given. The retrogression of the shadow may have been effected by refraction; a cloud denser than the air interposing between the gnomon and dial would cause the phenomenon, which does not take from the miracle, for God gave him the choice whether the shadow should go forward or back, and regulated the time and place. BOSANQUET makes the fourteenth year of Hezekiah to be 689 B.C., the known year of a solar eclipse, to which he ascribes the recession of the shadow. At all events, there is no need for supposing any revolution of the relative positions of the sun and earth, but merely an effect produced on the shadow (Kg2 20:9-11); that effect was only local, and designed for the satisfaction of Hezekiah, for the Babylonian astronomers and king \"sent to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land\" (Ch2 32:31), implying that it had not extended to their country. No mention of any instrument for marking time occurs before this dial of Ahaz, 700 B.C. The first mention of the \"hour\" is made by Daniel at Babylon (Dan 3:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["The prayer and thanksgiving song of Hezekiah is only given here, not in the parallel passages of Second Kings and Second Chronicles. Isa 38:9 is the heading or inscription.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["cutting off--ROSENMULLER translates, \"the meridian\"; when the sun stands in the zenith: so \"the perfect day\" (Pro 4:18). Rather, \"in the tranquillity of my days,\" that is, that period of life when I might now look forward to a tranquil reign [MAURER]. The Hebrew is so translated (Isa 62:6-7). \n\ngo to--rather, \"go into,\" as in Isa 46:2 [MAURER]. \n\nresidue of my years--those which I had calculated on. God sends sickness to teach man not to calculate on the morrow, but to live more wholly to God, as if each day were the last.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Lord . . . Lord--The repetition, as in Isa 38:19, expresses the excited feeling of the king's mind. \n\nSee the Lord (Jehovah)--figuratively for \"to enjoy His good gifts.\" So, in a similar connection (Psa 27:13). \"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living\"; (Psa 34:12), \"What man is he that desireth life that he may see good?\" \n\nworld--rather, translate: \"among the inhabitants of the land of stillness,\" that is, Hades [MAURER], in parallel antithesis to \"the land of the living\" in the first clause. The Hebrew comes from a root, to \"rest\" or \"cease\" (Job 14:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["age--rather, as the parallel \"shepherd's tent\" requires habitation, so the Arabic [GESENIUS]. \n\ndeparted--is broken up, or shifted, as a tent to a different locality. The same image occurs (Co2 5:1; Pe2 1:12-13). He plainly expects to exist, and not cease to be in another state; as the shepherd still lives, after he has struck his tent and removed elsewhere. \n\nI have cut off--He attributes to himself that which is God's will with respect to him; because he declares that will. So Jeremiah is said to \"root out\" kingdoms, because he declares God's purpose of doing so (Jer 1:10). The weaver cuts off his web from the loom when completed. Job 7:6 has a like image. The Greeks represented the Fates as spinning and cutting off the threads of each man's life. \n\nhe--God. \n\nwith pining sickness--rather, \"from the thrum,\" or thread, which tied the loom to the weaver's beam. \n\nfrom day . . . to night--that is, in the space of a single day between morning and night (Job 4:20).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["I reckoned . . . that--rather, I composed (my mind, during the night, expecting relief in the \"morning,\" so Job 7:4): for (\"that\" is not, as in the English Version, to be supplied) as a lion He was breaking all my bones [VITRINGA] (Job 10:16; Lam 3:10-11). The Hebrew, in Psa 131:2, is rendered, \"I quieted.\" Or else, \"I made myself like a lion (namely, in roaring, through pain), He was so breaking my bones!\" Poets often compare great groaning to a lion's roaring, so, Isa 38:14, he compares his groans to the sounds of other animals (Psa 22:1) [MAURER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Rather, \"Like a swallow, or a crane\" (from a root; \"to disturb the water,\" a bird frequenting the water) [MAURER], (Jer 8:7). \n\nchatter--twitter: broken sounds expressive of pain. \n\ndove--called by the Arabs the daughter of mourning, from its plaintive note (Isa 59:11). \n\nlooking upward--to God for relief. \n\nundertake for--literally, \"be surety for\" me; assure me that I shall be restored (Psa 119:122).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["The second part of the song passes from prayer to thanksgiving at the prayer being heard. \n\nWhat shall I say?--the language of one at a loss for words to express his sense of the unexpected deliverance. \n\nboth spoken . . . and . . . done it-- (Num 23:19). Both promised and performed (Th1 5:24; Heb 10:23). \n\nhimself--No one else could have done it (Psa 98:1). \n\ngo softly . . . in the bitterness--rather, \"on account of the bitterness\"; I will behave myself humbly in remembrance of my past sorrow and sickness from which I have been delivered by God's mercy (see Kg1 21:27, Kg1 21:29). In Psa 42:4, the same Hebrew verb expresses the slow and solemn gait of one going up to the house of God; it is found nowhere else, hence ROSENMULLER explains it, \"I will reverently attend the sacred festivals in the temple\"; but this ellipsis would be harsh; rather metaphorically the word is transferred to a calm, solemn, and submissive walk of life.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["by these--namely, by God's benefits, which are implied in the context (Isa 38:15, \"He hath Himself done it\" \"unto me\"). All \"men live by these\" benefits (Psa 104:27-30), \"and in all these is the life of my spirit,\" that is, I also live by them (Deu 8:3). \n\nand (wilt) make me to live--The Hebrew is imperative, \"make me to live.\" In this view he adds a prayer to the confident hope founded on his comparative convalescence, which he expressed, \"Thou wilt recover me\" [MAURER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["for peace--instead of the prosperity which I had previously. \n\ngreat bitterness--literally, \"bitterness to me, bitterness\"; expressing intense emotion. \n\nin love--literally, \"attachment,\" such as joins one to another tenderly; \"Thou hast been lovingly attached to me from the pit\"; pregnant phrase for, Thy love has gone down to the pit, and drawn me out from it. The \"pit\" is here simply death, in Hezekiah's sense; realized in its fulness only in reference to the soul's redemption from hell by Jesus Christ (Isa 61:1), who went down to the pit for that purpose Himself (Psa 88:4-6; Zac 9:11-12; Heb 13:20). \"Sin\" and sickness are connected (Psa 103:3; compare Isa 53:4, with Mat 8:17; Mat 9:5-6), especially under the Old Testament dispensation of temporal sanctions; but even now, sickness, though not invariably arising from sin in individuals, is connected with it in the general moral view. \n\ncast . . . behind back--consigned my sins to oblivion. The same phrase occurs (Kg1 14:9; Neh 9:26; Psa 50:17). Contrast Psa 90:8, \"Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["death--that is, the dead; Hades and its inhabitants (Job 28:22; see on Isa 38:11). Plainly Hezekiah believed in a world of disembodied spirits; his language does not imply what skepticism has drawn from it, but simply that he regarded the disembodied state as one incapable of declaring the praises of God before men, for it is, as regards this world, an unseen land of stillness; \"the living\" alone can praise God on earth, in reference to which only he is speaking; Isa 57:1-2 shows that at this time the true view of the blessedness of the righteous dead was held, though not with the full clearness of the Gospel, which \"has brought life and immortality to light\" (Ti2 1:10). \n\nhope for thy truth-- (Psa 104:27). 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 (Rom 8:24-25); the ungodly have \"no hope\" (Th1 4:13). Hope in God's truth is one of the grounds of praise to God (Psa 71:14; Psa 119:49). Others translate, \"cannot celebrate.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["living . . . living--emphatic repetition, as in Isa 38:11, Isa 38:17; his heart is so full of the main object of his prayer that, for want of adequate words, he repeats the same word. \n\nfather to the children--one generation of the living to another. He probably, also, hints at his own desire to live until he should have a child, the successor to his throne, to whom he might make known and so perpetuate the memory of God's truth. \n\ntruth--faithfulness to His promises; especially in Hezekiah's case, His promise of hearing prayer.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["was ready--not in the Hebrew; \"Jehovah was for my salvation,\" that is, saved me (compare Isa 12:2). \n\nwe--I and my people. \n\nin the house of the Lord--This song was designed, as many of the other Psalms, as a form to be used in public worship at stated times, perhaps on every anniversary of his recovery; hence \"all the days of our life.\" \n\nlump of figs--a round cake of figs pressed into a mass (Sa1 25:18). God works by means; the meanest of which He can make effectual. \n\nboil--inflamed ulcer, produced by the plague.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["house of the Lord--Hence he makes the praises to be sung there prominent in his song (Isa 38:20; Psa 116:12-14, Psa 116:17-19).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 39\n\n"]}],"introduction":"HEZEKIAH'S SICKNESS; PERHAPS CONNECTED WITH THE PLAGUE OR BLAST WHEREBY THE ASSYRIAN ARMY HAD BEEN DESTROYED. (Isa. 38:1-22)\n\nSet . . . house in order--Make arrangement as to the succession to the throne; for he had then no son; and as to thy other concerns. \n\nthou shall die--speaking according to the ordinary course of the disease. His being spared fifteen years was not a change in God's mind, but an illustration of God's dealings being unchangeably regulated by the state of man in relation to Him.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/38.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":38},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/39.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":39},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/37.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":37},"numberOfVerses":20}