2 Kings 20:11

11. The prophet cried… Lord So this sign was granted in answer to a prophet’s prayer.

He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz The Hebrew word for dial is the same as that rendered degrees, ( מעלות ,) and means properly steps, or ascents; but is here evidently used of something that marked the course of the sun, (compare parallel passage, Isaiah 38:8;) it is, perhaps, best rendered degrees, and the passage may be literally translated thus: He turned the shadow in the degrees which it went down, in Ahaz’s degrees, backward ten degrees.

Various have been the attempts to explain this dial of Ahaz, but from our lack of any certain knowledge of its size and form, all the explanations that have been offered are at best only so many more or less plausible hypotheses. 1.) Some think that the degrees were literally the ascents or steps of some stairway connected with the royal palace, and the shadow was that of some pillar, or obelisk, which fell on a greater or less number of steps, according to the advance of the sun in the heavens. 2.) The rabbies say, that the dial was a concave hemisphere, in which twenty-eight lines were marked, and that the shadow which fell on these lines or degrees was caused by a little globe set in the midst of the concave surface. 3.) Dr. A. Clarke supposed that this dial consisted of eleven steps placed parallel to the horizon, with a perpendicular gnomon fixed in the upper step, which step was placed exactly north and south, and formed the meridian line. 4.) A dial has been discovered near Delhi, in India, which seems to have been designed for an observatory as well as a dial. It is thus described by Kitto: It is a rectangled hexangle, whose hypotenuse is a staircase, apparently parallel to the axis of the earth, and bisects a zone or coping of a wall, which wall connects the two terminating towers right and left. The coping itself is circular, and accurately graduated to mark, by the shadow of the gnomon above, the sun’s progress before and after noon; for when the sun is in the zenith he shines directly on the staircase, and the shadow falls beyond the coping. A flat surface on the top of the staircase, and a gnomon, fitted the building for the purposes of an observatory. 5.) Layard supposes that the dial of Ahaz was a present to that king from Tiglath-pileser, and that in form it resembled the ancient tower of Belus, which was, perhaps, erected partly for astronomical purposes. Whatever its form, this account of its origin is probably correct. Herodotus (ii, 109) informs us that the sun-dial ( πολος ) and the gnomon were inventions of the Babylonians, and Ahaz probably introduced it into Jerusalem at the same time he did the Assyrian altar. 2 Kings 16:10, note. Hence it would very naturally be called the dial of Ahaz.

The theories put forth to explain the manner in which he brought the shadow ten degrees backwards have also been various. Some have affirmed that the miracle was wrought by turning the earth backward in its axial revolution. So stupendous a miracle, however, would in this case have seemed too much like “leaping over the house to unbar the little gate.” Others exclude any real miracle by explaining it as a case of refraction of the solar light. Romauld, prior of the cloister of Metz, observed on March 27, 1703, that a cloud in the higher regions of the atmosphere caused such refraction as to make his dial deviate an hour and a half. A writer in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (vol. xv, p. 286,) explains the turning back of the shadow as caused by an eclipse of the sun, which occurred Jan. 11, 689 B.C., and which time he accordingly assigns as the date of this event. He supposes that the dial of Ahaz was a flight of steps mounting from north to south at an angle of 34 , which is the angle of the sun’s elevation at Jerusalem at noon during the winter solstice. Thus the sun at noon would throw a shadow which would just tip the top step, and if at this moment the moon passed over the upper limb of the sun, it would have caused the shadow to go backwards on the steps. But whatever the precise nature of the phenomenon, it is clear from the Scripture that it was given as a miraculous sign. Divine power and wisdom may have used some natural media in its production, but it is by no means necessary to seek or to assume such media. Hezekiah was allowed to choose whether the shadow should go down, or return ten degrees, and surely God might have brought the shadow ten degrees backwards by a purely miraculous refraction of those rays only which fell upon the dial. It seems, perhaps, the most simple way to suppose that Divine power either threw a back shade on the dial, visible to the eye, or wrought subjectively upon the optic sense, so as to make it conceive a back shade, substituting conception for perception.