From the Pit to the Pinnacle: The Grammar of True Thanksgiving Text: Isaiah 38:9-20
Introduction: The School of Affliction
We live in an age that is allergic to suffering. Our brand of Christianity is often shallow, sentimental, and sanitized. We want a God who is a celestial butler, on call to fix our problems, but we are deeply uncomfortable with a God who is a sovereign blacksmith, who uses the hammer of affliction and the fire of trial to shape us into something useful. We want the crown without the cross, the resurrection without the grave, and the testimony without the test.
But the Bible will not have it. The Scriptures are brutally honest about the reality of pain. The Psalms are filled with raw lament, Job screams his questions into the whirlwind, and Jeremiah weeps over the ruin of his people. And here, in the middle of Isaiah, we are given a window into the soul of a good king, Hezekiah, on his deathbed. This is not a polite prayer from a hymnal. This is a desperate, gut-wrenching cry from the edge of the abyss. Hezekiah has been given a death sentence, not from a doctor, but from God's own prophet. And his response is not stoic resignation; it is a bitter, honest, and ultimately transformative wrestling with God.
This poem, written after his recovery, is a piece of inspired curriculum from God's school of affliction. It teaches us the path from the pit of despair to the pinnacle of praise. It shows us that true, robust, God-glorifying thanksgiving is rarely born in the comfort of the easy chair. It is forged in the furnace. This is a lesson in the grammar of gratitude, and the first rule of that grammar is this: God is sovereign over your suffering, and He has a glorious purpose in it.
Hezekiah's journey takes him through three distinct phases. First, the raw bitterness of his diagnosis. Second, the theological turning point where he submits to God's sovereign hand. And third, the resulting vow of lifelong, public praise. This is the path every believer must walk, in trials great and small. It is the path from seeing God as an adversary to embracing Him as a Savior, even when His hand is heavy upon us.
The Text
A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery: 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. 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. 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. 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. “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. 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! 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. 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. 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.”
(Isaiah 38:9-20 LSB)
The Bitter Diagnosis (vv. 9-14)
Hezekiah begins by recounting the unvarnished horror of facing death. Notice this is a "writing," a michtam. It is a composed, reflective piece. He has processed his pain and is now presenting it as instruction for the people of God.
"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...'" (Isaiah 38:10-11)
The first blow is the sheer untimeliness of it. "In the middle of my life." Hezekiah was about 39. He had plans. He had a kingdom to run. He felt he was being robbed, "deprived of the rest of my years." But the true horror is not just the cessation of life, but the cessation of worship as he knew it. "I will not see Yah, Yah in the land of the living." In the Old Covenant understanding, Sheol was a place of shadows, of silence, cut off from the vibrant temple worship and the manifest presence of God with His people. For a righteous king, this was the deepest cut of all. To be cut off from life was to be cut off from praising Yahweh in the assembly.
He then unleashes a torrent of metaphors to describe his condition.
"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... Like a lion, so He shatters all my bones..." (Isaiah 38:12-13)
Life is a shepherd's tent, here today and gone tomorrow, pulled up without warning. Life is a tapestry on a loom, a story being woven, and suddenly God, the weaver, cuts the thread, leaving the work unfinished. Hezekiah is brutally honest about who is doing this. It is "He" who cuts him off. This is not random chance or a rogue virus. He sees the sovereign hand of God. And that hand is violent. "Like a lion, so He shatters all my bones." Hezekiah is not afraid to say that he feels like God is mauling him. This is the robust faith of the Bible that our soft generation has lost. It is a faith that can wrestle with God, that can accuse God to His face, because it knows He is the only one to whom we can appeal.
His prayers are reduced to animal cries.
"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." (Isaiah 38:14)
His eloquent petitions have dissolved into the desperate chirps and moans of a wounded creature. All he can do is look up, his eyes failing. And in that desperation, he utters a profound, paradoxical prayer: "O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security." He asks God to be his guarantee against the very affliction that God Himself is sending. He appeals to God against God. This is the heart of faith in the midst of trial: running to the very one who is wounding you, because you know He is also the only one who can heal you.
The Theological Turn (vv. 15-17)
Right in the middle of the poem, the tone shifts dramatically. He moves from bitter complaint to humble submission.
"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." (Isaiah 38:15)
This is the turning point. He stops arguing and starts accepting. "He has spoken... He Himself has done it." This is the bedrock of sanity. God is sovereign. He is in control of the promise of healing and the reality of the sickness. There is no other explanation. But notice, the healing does not erase the memory of the pain. He will "wander about" or walk softly all his years because of the bitterness. The trial has left a permanent mark on him, a sanctified limp. He will never again take life for granted. The memory of the bitterness will produce a new humility in him for the rest of his days.
This new humility leads to a profound insight.
"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." (Isaiah 38:17)
This is astounding. He reinterprets his suffering. The "great bitterness" was "for my own well-being," for his shalom. He understands that God was not trying to destroy him but to save him. The sickness was a severe mercy, a tool God used for his ultimate good. And how did God save him? By holding him back from the pit. And why? Here is the gospel heart of the passage: "For You have cast all my sins behind Your back." Hezekiah connects his physical deliverance to his spiritual forgiveness. He knows that sickness and death are intruders in God's world, the bitter fruit of sin. To be saved from death is to be saved from the consequences of sin. God did not just give him a medical reprieve; He gave him a pardon. The healing was a sign and seal of his forgiven state.
The Vow of Praise (vv. 18-20)
Because he has been forgiven and restored, Hezekiah's life now has one central purpose: praise.
"For Sheol cannot thank You; Death cannot praise You... It is the living, the living who give thanks to You, as I do today..." (Isaiah 38:18-19)
His argument to God for life is not based on his own merit or his bucket list. It is entirely God-centered. He wants to live so that he can praise. The grave is silent. The dead cannot sing in the great assembly. Life, therefore, is the opportunity for doxology. This is the chief end of man in poetic form: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Hezekiah is saying, "Let me live, so I can do the one thing I was created to do."
And this praise is not a private, personal affair. It is covenantal and public.
"...A father makes known to his sons about Your truth. 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." (Isaiah 38:19-20)
His personal testimony must become a family legacy. He has a duty to tell the next generation about the faithfulness of God. And his personal song must become the song of the congregation. "We will play my songs... at the house of Yahweh." His deliverance is not just for him; it is for the encouragement and worship of the entire covenant community. The goal of God's salvation is always corporate, public, celebratory praise.
The Greater Hezekiah
Hezekiah's story is a magnificent display of God's grace. He was a king brought to the gates of death, who pleaded with God, and was raised up to live and praise again. But as magnificent as it is, it is a shadow. It is a signpost pointing to a greater King and a greater deliverance.
Hezekiah was brought to the brink of the pit; Jesus Christ, the greater Hezekiah, descended into the pit itself. Hezekiah lamented that death would cut him off from Yahweh; Jesus on the cross cried out that He was cut off from Yahweh. Hezekiah had his sins cast behind God's back; Jesus had our sins laid upon His back. Hezekiah was shattered like a lion's prey; Jesus was the Lamb of God, crushed for our iniquities. Hezekiah received fifteen more years of life in the land of the living; Jesus Christ conquered death forever and secured eternal life for all His people.
Hezekiah rightly said that Sheol cannot praise God. But he did not see the whole story. The greater Hezekiah went down into that silent land and blew the doors off the place. He plundered the domain of death and led a host of captives free. Because of His resurrection, our hope is infinitely greater than Hezekiah's. We know that even if this shepherd's tent is taken down, we have an eternal building from God. We know that when the weaver cuts the thread of this life, He is not finished with the tapestry.
Therefore, our song must be louder than Hezekiah's. He was saved from the pit; we have been saved through the pit in Jesus Christ. His praise was for the rest of his days in the earthly temple. Our praise is for all eternity in the New Jerusalem. Every trial, every sickness, every sorrow is an invitation from God to walk this same path: from honest lament, to humble submission, to explosive, lifelong, corporate praise, all because the greater Hezekiah has turned our bitterness into everlasting well-being.