Commentary - Isaiah 38:9-20

Bird's-eye view

This passage is a psalm, a song written by King Hezekiah after God rescued him from the very brink of death. It is a raw and honest look into the heart of a man facing his own mortality, and it is a glorious testimony to the God who delivers. The song moves through three distinct phases. First, there is the lament of a man who believes he is being cut off from life, from community, and most terrifyingly, from the worship of Yahweh in the land of the living. Second, there is a turning point where Hezekiah recognizes the sovereign hand of God in his affliction and acknowledges that true life is found only in God's gracious dealings. The climax of this section is the glorious realization that God has not only saved his life from the pit, but has also cast all his sins behind His back. Finally, the psalm concludes with a vow of lifelong, public, joyful praise, recognizing that the very purpose of being alive is to thank God and to teach the next generation of His faithfulness.

This is more than just a historical account of a king's illness; it is a profound meditation on death, life, sin, and salvation. Hezekiah, living before the resurrection of Christ was made plain, views the grave as a place of silence and separation. His desperation for life is a desperation for continued fellowship with and worship of God. In this, he provides us with a magnificent Old Testament portrait of the gospel. Deliverance from death is inextricably linked to the forgiveness of sins, and the only proper response to such a great salvation is a life given over to praise.

Outline

Context In Isaiah

This intensely personal psalm of Hezekiah is set like a jewel between two great acts of God's deliverance. In the preceding chapters (Isaiah 36-37), God saves the entire nation of Judah from the Assyrian superpower, Sennacherib, in a stunning display of sovereign power. Immediately following this psalm, in chapter 39, we see Hezekiah's foolish pride on display before the Babylonian envoys, an act that precipitates the prophecy of the Babylonian exile. This song, therefore, stands at a crucial pivot point. It follows a national deliverance with a personal one, showing that the God who saves armies also attends to the sickbed of one man. It provides the spiritual and theological heart of the narrative. Hezekiah's brush with death and his subsequent praise is a microcosm of the nation's own experience: sentence of death, a cry of desperation, and a miraculous deliverance from the Lord, which ought to result in humble praise.

Key Issues

The Gospel According to Hezekiah

Before we walk through this psalm, we have to get our bearings. We are reading the words of a man who lived under the old covenant. The full blaze of resurrection morning had not yet dawned. For the Old Testament saint, death was a shadowy reality. Sheol, the grave, was a place of silence, a place where the praises of God ceased. This is why Hezekiah's desperation is so palpable. He is not simply afraid of dying; he is afraid of being cut off from the land of the living, which was the place of worship, the place where he could see "Yah." His fight for life is a fight for praise.

And in this fight, he stumbles upon the very heart of the gospel. He comes to see that his physical healing is bound up with a deeper, spiritual reality: the forgiveness of his sins. God did not just keep his body from the grave; He took his sins and threw them over His shoulder, out of sight forever. This is the good news in embryonic form. Hezekiah's experience is a foretaste of the great exchange that would be fully realized at the cross, where the Great Physician heals our mortal disease of sin by taking it upon Himself.

Verse by Verse Commentary

9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:

The introduction tells us this is not a spontaneous, off-the-cuff remark. This is a considered, composed piece of writing. Hezekiah has thought through his experience and has crafted this testimony to be preserved and, as we see at the end, to be sung. It is a formal declaration for the public record of what God has done.

10-11 I said, “In the middle of my life I am to enter the gates of Sheol; I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.” I said, “I will not see Yah, Yah in the land of the living; I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

Here is the raw pain. "In the middle of my life," or at the "noon-tide" of his days. He was in his prime, and the sentence of death felt like a robbery. He was being deprived of the remainder of his years. But the deepest cut was not the loss of life, but the loss of God's manifest presence. "I will not see Yah." For the Israelite, fellowship with God was tied to the covenant community, the temple, and the land. To be sent to Sheol was to be exiled from the place of active worship. This is the heart of his despair.

12 Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me; As a weaver I rolled up my life. He cuts me off from the loom; From day until night You make an end of me.

Hezekiah uses two powerful metaphors for the fragility and abrupt end of his life. First, his life is like a shepherd's tent, a temporary structure that can be dismantled and moved in a moment. There is no permanence. Second, his life is a tapestry on a loom. He has been weaving it, but now the master weaver, God Himself, has come and cut the cloth from the loom, unfinished. He recognizes God's sovereignty in this. It is God who "cuts me off," and it is God who makes "an end of me."

13 I soothed my soul until morning. Like a lion, so He shatters all my bones; From day until night You make an end of me.

The experience was violent. He tried to quiet himself, to endure the night, but the affliction was like a lion breaking his bones. This is not a peaceful fading away. Sickness is a brutal enemy, a reminder of the curse of the fall. And again, Hezekiah sees God's hand in it. The repetition of "From day until night You make an end of me" emphasizes the relentless, sovereign pressure he felt from God Himself.

14 Like a swallow, like a crane, so I chirped; I moan like a dove; My eyes look wistfully to the heights; O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security.

His prayers were not eloquent prose. They were the desperate, inarticulate cries of a trapped animal. He chirped and moaned. This is the prayer of utter desperation, when all you can do is look up ("to the heights") and cry out. The plea, "O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security," is a profound theological statement. He asks God to be his surety, to stand as his guarantee. It is a cry for a mediator, a plea for God to intervene on his behalf against the righteous sentence that God Himself was executing.

15 “What shall I say? Indeed, He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it; I will wander about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

Here is the turn. God has answered. He has spoken, and He has acted. Hezekiah is left speechless. His response is a life of humble gratitude. The phrase "I will wander about" or "go softly" suggests a new humility. He will not forget the "bitterness of my soul." The memory of his desperation will serve as a guard against pride for the rest of his life. This is what sanctified suffering does; it leaves a mark, a holy limp.

16 O Lord, by these things men live, And in all these is the life of my spirit; O restore me to health and let me live!

He draws a universal lesson from his particular experience. "By these things men live." By what things? By God's sovereign dealings, by His words, His promises, His afflictions, and His deliverances. True life is not found in avoiding trouble, but in encountering God within it. The life of his spirit was found in this bitter engagement with the living God.

17 Behold, for my own well-being I had great bitterness; But it is You who has held back my soul from the pit of nothingness, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

This is the heart of the psalm and the core of the gospel. The great bitterness was ultimately for his well-being, for his shalom. God's purpose was restorative. And how did God restore him? Not just by healing his body, but by dealing with the root issue. God held his soul back from the pit because He had dealt with his sin. The image is beautiful: God has taken all his sins and thrown them behind His back, where He will never look at them again. Hezekiah understands that his ultimate problem was not his illness, but his sin. The healing of his body was a sign and a seal of the forgiveness of his soul.

18-19 For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot keep watch for Your truth. It is the living, the living who give thanks to You, as I do today; A father makes known to his sons about Your truth.

Now he gives the reason for his praise. The dead are silent. Sheol is not a place of worship. Therefore, the purpose of life, the reason God has extended his days, is for praise. "The living, the living who give thanks to You." This is the chief end of man. And this praise is not a private affair. It is a covenantal duty. A father's job is to tell his sons about God's truth, His faithfulness, His reliability. The testimony of God's deliverance is meant to be passed down through the generations.

20 Yahweh is here to save me; So we will play my songs on stringed instruments All the days of our life at the house of Yahweh.”

The psalm ends with a confident declaration and a corporate resolution. "Yahweh is here to save me" is a statement of settled faith. And the result is not quiet, individual reflection. The result is loud, joyful, communal worship. "So we will play my songs." His personal testimony becomes the church's song. And this will happen with "stringed instruments," in the "house of Yahweh," for "all the days of our life." This is a commitment to lifelong, public, exuberant worship as the only fitting response to God's great salvation.

Application

Hezekiah's song is our song, but with the volume turned up. We who live on this side of the cross have an even greater reason to sing. Hezekiah feared the silence of Sheol, but we know that for the believer, death has lost its sting. Christ has gone into the pit for us and has come out the other side, guaranteeing that our praises will not cease at death but will be perfected in the presence of God.

This psalm teaches us how to face our own mortality and our own suffering. We should be honest in our lament. God is not offended by our chirping and moaning when we are in distress. But our lament must always be directed upward, to the God who is sovereign over our affliction. We must learn to see, as Hezekiah did, that God's bitter providences are for our ultimate well-being, designed to humble us and draw us closer to Him.

Most importantly, we must see that all of God's deliverance, whether from sickness, or financial ruin, or any other trial, is a picture of His ultimate deliverance of us from our sin. He has taken all our sins and cast them behind His back because He cast them onto the back of His Son at Calvary. And because He has saved us, our lives have one central purpose: to give thanks. Our salvation should result in lifelong, joyful, public praise, and a relentless commitment to telling the next generation about the faithfulness of our God.