- 124-
** So the Massoretic text. The Qeri has: "court" for "city" -which looks like an
emendation to heighten the miraculous.
*** This addition, so far from interrupting the message of Isaiah, forms, on the view of
the matter which we are about to present, an important integral part of it.
Thus far all had been as might have been looked for in the course of this history. But
what followed suggests questions of the deepest importance. Isaiah had not only
promised Divine healing, but that within the briefest period* Hezekiah should once more
go up to the Temple - no doubt to return thanks.
- Whether or not, the expression: "on the third day" be taken literally, manifestly it was
intended to convey, not only the briefest period, but one within which such a result could
not have been reached had the healing been in the ordinary course.
Yet he conjoined with this miraculous help the application of a common remedy, when
he directed that a lump of figs should be laid on the boil. And as if still further to point
the contrast, Hezekiah asked for "a sign" of the promise, and the prophet not only gave it,
but allowed him a choice in that which from any point of view implied direct Divine
interposition. For evidently Hezekiah asked for such "a sign" as would be a pledge to him
of God's direct intervention on his behalf, while, on the other hand, the alternative
proposed to him, that the shadow on the steps of the sun-clock of Ahaz,* might either
move forwards or backwards, forbids any natural explanation of it, such as that of a solar
eclipse which Isaiah had either naturally or supernaturally foreknown.** Hezekiah chose
what to him seemed the more difficult, or rather the more inconceivable alternative - that
of the shadow receding ten steps. And in answer to Isaiah's prayer, the "sign" desired was
actually given.
- It is interesting to learn that Ahaz had - probably on his visit to Damascus (2 Kings
16:10) - seen and brought to Jerusalem some of the scientific appliances of the great
empire of the East. It is impossible to determine whether this mode of measuring the
progress of time (not strictly hours) was by a sun-dial, the invention of which Herodotus
ascribes to the Babylonians (2. 109). According to Ideler (Handb. d. Chronol. 1. p. 485) it
was a gnomon, or index, surrounded by concentric circles, by which the time of the day
was marked by the lengthening shadow. But the term "steps" seems rather to indicate an
obelisk surrounded by steps, the shadow on which marked the hours, so that the shadow
falling in the morning westwards first on the lowest step, gradually ascended to the plane
on the top, and after midday again descended the steps eastwards. As the text seems to
imply that there were twenty such "steps," they must have marked the quarters of an
hour, and in that case the event have happened about half-past two o'clock p.m. (comp.
Kamphausen in Riehm's Worterb).
(^)