Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
was ready—not in the Hebrew; "Jehovah was for my salvation," that is, saved me (compare Isaiah 12:2).
we—I and my people.
in 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."
lump of figs—a round cake of figs pressed into a mass (I Samuel 25:18). God works by means; the meanest of which He can make effectual.
boil—inflamed ulcer, produced by the plague.
The second part of the song passes from prayer to thanksgiving at the prayer being heard.
What shall I say?—the language of one at a loss for words to express his sense of the unexpected deliverance.
both spoken . . . and . . . done it— (Numbers 23:19). Both promised and performed (I Thessalonians 5:24; Hebrews 10:23).
himself—No one else could have done it (Psalms 98:1).
go 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 I Kings 21:27, I Kings 21:29). In Psalms 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.
The prayer and thanksgiving song of Hezekiah is only given here, not in the parallel passages of Second Kings and Second Chronicles. Isaiah 38:9 is the heading or inscription.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Isaiah 38:20:
Isaiah 4:5
Isaiah 35:10
Isaiah 38:22
Habakkuk 3:19
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