C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on 2 Kings 20:7-8

2Ki 20:7-8

Isaiah ordered a lump of figs to be laid upon the boil, and Hezekiah recovered (ויּחי: he revived again). It is of course assumed as self-evident, that Isaiah returned to the king in consequence of a divine revelation, and communicated to him the word of the Lord which he had received.The account is still more abridged in the text of Isaiah. In 2Ki 20:4 the precise time of the prayer is omitted; in 2Ki 20:5 the words, “behold, I will cure thee, on the third day thou shalt go into the house of the Lord;” and in 2Ki 20:6 the words, “for mine own sake and my servant David’s sake.” The four 2Ki 20:8-11, which treat of the miraculous signs, are also very much contracted in Isaiah (Isa 38:7 and Isa 38:8); and 2Ki 20:7 and 2Ki 20:8 of our text are only given at the close of Hezekiah’s psalm of praise in that of Isaiah (Isa 38:21 and Isa 38:22). תּאנים דּבלת is a mass consisting of compressed figs, which the ancients were in the habit of applying, according to many testimonies (see Celsii Hierob. ii. p. 373), in the case of plague-boils and abscesses of other kinds, because the fig διαφορεῖ σκληρίας (Dioscor.) and ulcera aperit (Plin.), and which is still used for softening ulcers. שׁחין, an abscess, is never used in connection with plague or plague-boils, but only to denote the abscesses caused by leprosy (Job 2:7-8), and other abscesses of an inflammatory kind (Exo 9:9.). In the case of Hezekiah it is probably a carbuncle that is intended.

After the allusion to the cure and recovery of Hezekiah, we have an account in 2Ki 20:8. of the sign by which Isaiah confirmed the promise given to the king of the prolongation of his life. In the order of time the contents of 2Ki 20:7 follow 2Ki 20:11, since the prophet in all probability first of all disclosed the divine promise to the king, and then gave him the sign, and after that appointed the remedy and had it applied. At the same time, it is also quite possible that he first of all directed the lump of figs to be laid upon the boil, and then made known to him the divine promise, and guaranteed it by the sign. In this case ויּחי merely anticipates the order of events. The sign which Isaiah gave to the king, at his request, consisted in the miraculous movement of the shadow backward upon the sundial of Ahaz.