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2 Kings 20:8
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6 And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and aI will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.” ’ ”  
7 Then aIsaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” So they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.  
8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, a“What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”  
9 Then Isaiah said, a“This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?”  
10 And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten1 degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”  
11 So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and aHe brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.  

The Babylonian Envoys

12 aAt that time1 Berodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick.  
13 And aHezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his treasures—the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and1 all his armory—all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.  
Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
<< 2 Kings 20:7   2 Kings 20:9 >>


2 Kings 20:8-11

THE SUN GOES TEN DEGREES BACKWARD. (II Kings 20:8-20)

Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What will be the sign that the Lord shall heal me—His recovery in the course of nature was so unlooked for, that the king asked for some token to justify his reliance on the truth of the prophet's communication; and the sign he specified was granted to him. The shadow of the sun went back upon the dial of Ahaz the ten degrees it had gone down. 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. But it is more probable that it was a proper instrument, and, from the Hebrews having no term to designate it, that it was one of the foreign novelties imported from Babylon by Ahaz. It seems to have been of such magnitude, and so placed in the court, that Isaiah could point to it, and the king see it, from his chamber. The retrogression of the sun's shadow on the dial was miraculously accomplished by the omnipotent power of God; but the phenomenon was temporary, local, confined to the notice, and intended for the satisfaction, only of Hezekiah and his court.




Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing 2 Kings 20:8:

2 Kings 20:8-11
2 Chronicles 32:24

 

<< 2 Kings 20:7   2 Kings 20:9 >>

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