SUMMARY
HezekiahJudean king noted for his reforms in time of Isaiah. prays to God for deliverance from a deathly illness and gives thanks for his recovery.
ANALYSIS
This prayer is an addition to the historical appendix (chapters 36-39) that is not found in its source (2 Kings 18:13-20:19). Hezekiah had fallen ill, and death seemed certain (IsaiahIsaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century BCE (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)--preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. 38:1), but God hears his prayer and sends Isaiah to announce the king’s recovery (38:4-6). The deliverance is both personal and communal, since the king’s new hold on life serves as a sign of the redemption of Jerusalem (38:6).
The prayer is a typical song of thanksgiving that could easily be found in the PsalterThe psalter is a volume containing the book of Psalms (see Psalm). In the early Middle Ages psalters were popular and contained - in addition to the psalms - calendars, litanies of saints, and other devotional texts.. In more detail than most similar psalms, it rehearses the pray-er’s lament in the time of illness (vv. 10-16) and then gives thanks for the recovery (vv. 17-20).
Like Hezekiah’s prayer, other psalms cry out that SheolIn the Hebrew Bible Sheol was the place where people, both good and bad, went when they died. While it was a place that might cause sorrow and anguish, it was not necessarily a cause for despair, for, as the psalmist said, God was even... and death cannot praise God (v. 18; see Psalms 6:5; 30:9; 88:10-12). Death is understood to be the end of personal existence by the people of the Old Testament. But God is the God of the living (v. 19), and this recognition of God’s total commitment to life will be one impetus pushing in the direction of a theology that comes to understand the possibility of resurrection.
