2 Kings 20:5 - Exposition

Turn again —or, turn back— "retrace thy steps, and enter once more into the bedchamber of the king"— and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people. An unusual title for the Jewish monarch, but one applied in 1 Samuel 9:16 and 1 Samuel 10:1 to Saul, and in 1 Samuel 13:14 and 2 Samuel 5:2 to David. The proper meaning of נָגִיד is "leader"—"one who goes in front." Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father— Hezekiah obtains mercy, both as David's son and as David's imitator (see 2 Kings 18:3 )— I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears (comp. Exodus 2:24 ; Exodus 3:7 ; Psalms 56:8 ). There is not a cry, not a groan, not a tear, not a sigh of his faithful ones, to which the heart of God is not open, which does not touch him, move him, draw forth his sympathy. If he does not always grant our prayers, it is because we "ask amiss"—without faith, or without fervor, or things not good for us. Hezekiah's earnest, faithful, and not unwise prayer was, as such prayers always are, effectual. Behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord ; i.e. thou shalt be so completely recovered as to be able to quit thy palace and pay thy vows in the courts of the Lord's house. God knows that to do this will be Hezekiah's first wish, as soon as his sickness is past (comp. Isaiah 38:20 ).