40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 37:33-38:21 (Episode 478)

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

The Son of David strikes down 185,000 Assyrians. Hezekiah becomes sick and is told he will not recover. And God responds with mercy to a bad prayer, but good tears. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, of course, check out everything else that 1517 is doing, all those academies and articles and videos and events, all that stuff. While you're checking it all out, of course, you can go over to the right-hand corner, hit that Donate link, and become a contributor to 1517 to keep all that stuff free.

That's how that works. And so if you are able to do that, we'd appreciate it. If you already do that, we very much appreciate it. You do make all of what we do possible. we are in isaiah chapter 37 uh we got through most of it and uh i you know hezekiah is uh heard some bad news he's got some like some guys breathing some threats they're telling him some some bad things they're trying to scare his people and uh isaiah has some words for hezekiah which is basically like yeah i know he's talked a big game and everything uh how about you don't

worry about it because uh i got a message from the lord that says that none of that's going to come to pass in fact uh i'm going to put uh you know a little little ring in his nose you know grab him by the that by that ring and just lead him around where i want which is of course just a way of saying men make kings but uh god basically determines uh how all of this stuff shake out and uh and this is this is where where we ended by uh by god telling hezekiah through through isaiah that i'm gonna i'm gonna do some deliverance for you yeah so we pick it up in 33 uh just continuing with the same thought we're gonna hear what god has to say about any military plans that uh the king might have for for the city of jerusalem

and then we'll wrap it up with uh hearing about the fate of his army as well as his own personal fate that's kind of the way the the chapter ends so we just heard in verse 33 that out of jerusalem shall go forth a remnant out of mount zion abandoned survivors that zeal from god is going to accomplish this and then he continues in verse 33 saying therefore thus says the lord concerning the king of assyria he shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it all these traditional ways of course that cities were attacked instead by the way that he came by the same he shall return and he shall not come into this city declares the lord so maybe you're saying oh why is why is all this going to

happen is it because you know hezekiah is such a great king or is it because the people inside jerusalem have you know really been righteous what's why is god going to do this well he says in verse 35 for i will defend this city to save it for my own sake and you might think that would be the period but it's not for my own sake and for the sake of my servant david now we've heard this language elsewhere the same language is used in fact in the the parallel narrative to this in second kings i think we've heard it one other place too so what does this mean well the first part is obvious i mean god does things for his own name's sake or for his own sake all the time right he's doing this on the basis of who he is his own righteousness his own holiness his own

name all that is familiar terminology to us but we also have this latter part and for the sake of my servant david now this is not in reference to david's piety or david's righteousness it's not because david was such a great king on the basis of that i'm going to save the city of jerusalem What he's talking about is all the promises that he made to David, all the promises God made to David, that he would preserve his dynasty. Remember all the way back when David wanted to build a house for God? What did God say? Thanks, but no thanks. I've got a better idea.

I'm going to build a house for you, this dynastic house. So this is basically, you could say this differently. You could say it, for my own sake and for the sake of the Messiah. That's another way of saying this. So when he says, for the sake of my servant David, that's biblical shorthand for the sake of all the promises that I made to David, all of which are centered around the preservation and the building of a kingdom for him, upon whose throne will sit the son of David, the Messiah himself. So this is another way of saying, basically, for my own sake as the father, and for the sake of my son, I will save the city of Jerusalem. Yeah, if I was going to add on to the Bible, which of course I'm not, don't worry. But if I was going to do like a little side note here, like I was going to do the paraphrase.

So when God says, hey, I'm going to do something for my own sake and then for the sake of David, which is my promises. So this is the sort of same thing. When God does something for his own sake, he does it for the sake of who he is. He's a God that can't lie and stuff. So I might add, I will defend this city and save it for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David, but I repeat myself. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, a distinction without a difference, right? Yes.

And then, I hadn't really thought about this until, it's one of the beauties of having a Bible study with someone else. As you're talking your way through, all of a sudden things will leap out at you you didn't see before. So this is just perfect. Perfect segue into what's coming next, because the very next verse mentions the very guy, Savior, that we've been talking about. Because the next line says, and the messenger of the Lord. Well, we know who that is. I mean, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time whatsoever, especially if you've been with us, if you've been one of those stalwart listeners through the whole decade, right?

You've heard plenty about who the messenger of the Lord is. We meet this messenger in Genesis 16, hear much more about him in the book of Exodus. This is, in fact, the very unique messenger who is, in fact, not just sent by God, but is God. It's the son of the Father. So we just heard about, for the sake of my servant David, meaning the Messiah. Well, here we have this same figure, the messenger of the Lord, the son of the Father. What does he do? Well, he goes out to battle.

This is kind of a, this is the same picture we have in Revelation, right? Jesus as the warrior, he's riding astride his war horse, he's got his two-edged sword sticking out of his mouth, he goes out to destroy the enemy of the people of God, and so that's the same thing he's doing here. Jesus has a long military pedigree of destroying the forces of evil. So here, the messenger of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. and when people arose early in the morning behold these were all dead bodies

so quite a slaughter one messenger, one sword goes out, wipes out all the Assyrians so Sennacherib who is the Assyrian king he left, he departed and returned home

and lived at Nineveh and this is a flash forward here we're just reading this verse by verse sentence by sentence So, you know, we can be excused for thinking this happens immediately. Actually, it's not going to happen for another 20 years. But what will happen down the road is that he's worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, and two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sherezer, struck him down with the sword.

And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, then Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his place. so much for all the boasting of the king of Assyria. He ends up being defeated by the messenger of God. He goes home, and of all things, he falls by a sword, a sword that's in the hand of none other, not his enemies per se, but his own two sons. And so goes the glory of earthly kings. God defended his city for his own sake, for the sake of his servant David.

Yeah, I mean, there is something kind of awesome. So you can kind of read this as, so God's saying he's going to defend the city. He's going to save it. It's not just that he's going to defend it. He's going to save it, too, because that's also what he does. He's a God who works salvation. Do that for his own sake, and then says, and for the sake of my servant David. And then you could read this.

So right after saying, hey, I'm going to do that for the sake of my servant David. and then the son of David went down and struck down 185,000 people. Right. Yeah, once you get this Old Testament Christology, it's just all, it fits together. You can see these smooth transitions from one to the other.

Yeah, the son of David just goes out and wipes them out like nobody's business. And it's so fitting, too, where he dies. He's in, this guy has, you know, he's boasted about himself basically doing divine things he thinks he's a god incarnate here he is in the house of his god and uh that's where he dies he dies in the very house of of idolatry so in the end his gods and he himself as god is an utter disappointment and yeah meets the fate you like we have often

said quoting uh what's his name uh it'll come to me in a minute but you you resemble what you revere gk veal you resemble what you revere so you worship that which is dead guess what you become dead you worship that which is empty guess what you become empty so that's what happened here to the assyrian king all right well that we look at us finishing a chapter that was that was only uh five or six verses but still we finished a chapter success now We've got another one coming up We've got 38 coming up Just to kind of give you a bit of a preview here

So this is You've got to read these next two chapters In tandem I don't know if we'll get to all of it in one episode Probably not But they're intended to be read in tandem Because you've got really two different perspectives going on here You've got chapter 38

Which is going to talk about Hezekiah getting sick And Isaiah first of all says Well you know get ready because you're going to die and then hezekiah prays god answers his prayer hezekiah has this basically this song or psalm in which he first of all laments and then rejoices over god giving him the healing god gives him 50 more years of life so this is we see a a good side of hezekiah here because when he's afflicted what does he do when he's facing death what does he do well he turns to the lord and as a result of that god is gracious compassionate to him

heals him gives him a good word and he recovers all right so that's 38 now the dark side the flip and dark side of that is what's going to happen in chapter 39 because here you have the the not so good side of hezekiah showing because what's going to happen is you have representatives ambassadors from babylon you know that that city that we we hear so much about in the scriptures babylon show up and not only do they have presence for hezekiah but they have letters which we'll talk about when we get there no doubt letters basically wanting hezekiah to join them in a coalition against the assyrians hezekiah welcomes him in fact he kind of feels uh you know like he's him an important guy because all these all the way from babylon came to see me and he shows all

the treasures that he has and as a result of this then isaiah has a word for him and that word is not good basically he says guess what's going to happen down the road the babylonians will take everything that jerusalem has so it's a bit of a preview isaiah 38 and 39 that are presenting two different ways. You got the good way, chapter 38, when tragedy strikes, when threats come, what do you do? Well, you do what the scriptures always tell us to do. You turn to God. And then you have the flip side of that, chapter 39, where you have pride, you have not turning to the Lord happening, and as a result of this, you have an impending threat of destruction. So that's kind of a previews where we're going with this one thing to keep in mind is that as as happens

with some frequency in the scriptures things are out of chronological sequence so you would think read along that okay this happens so god saves the city of jerusalem from the assyrians uh goes home he dies later on and then what happens next well what happens next is what's going to record it in 38 and 39 but we know that's not the case how do we know that's not the case because chapter 39 has hezekiah showing off all these treasures to the babylonians those are the treasures that he loses to the assyrians he has to pay them off uh and they still come and try and capture jerusalem so chapter 38 and chapter 39 are not in chronological sequence from what preceded them this probably happens well before this attempted siege by the assyrians so isaiah

has purposely brought this out of sequence to kind of contrast to two different approaches to dealing with suffering, tragedy, and threat, the good way and the bad way. So that's a bit of an introduction to this, but I want you to kind of keep that in mind as we're talking our way through it. So in those days, so this is prior to everything we've been covering. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said to him, thus says the Lord, set your house in order, really just literally command your house, so make appropriate commands so that everything is ready, because you shall die, you shall not recover. So what does Hezekiah do?

Hezekiah does the right thing. I mean, very often we have this in the scriptures. I think of the Syrophoenician woman with the daughter who's demon-possessed. Very often, God will say something, wanting his people to protest. You know, so, this is what's going to happen, or this is the, I'm going to give you a no, but that no from God is actually his way of stimulating you to pray, to cry out, to press, to do all the things that people do in the scriptures. So God says through Isaiah, you're going to die.

What does Hezekiah do? He doesn't roll over and basically say, oh, woe is me, I guess this is it. No, he turns his face to the wall, and he prays to the Lord, and here's what he says. This prayer always makes me laugh. It's not a great prayer, but here's what he says. Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight. and then he wept bitterly okay just because of prayer i just just because of prayers in the

bible just because somebody says a prayer and it's recorded in the bible doesn't mean it's a good prayer that's psalms are good prayers yeah but just because an individual somewhere in a narrative says a prayer doesn't mean that is a model prayer so please you know don't tonight get down on your knees and say oh god you've seen what a what a great person i am i've served you i've been such a such an awesome christian and therefore on the basis of that i'm asking that you fulfill some petition that i'm asking you that's basically what hezekiah is doing here well i think i think too you see uh in god's response um so i mean i guess we can we can get there but it it says that you know this is the word of the lord came to isaiah go to hezekiah

and say, thus says the Lord God of David, your father, what does he say? I heard your prayer. I've seen your tears. Behold, I will add 15 years to your life. Now, nowhere in that response does it say, you know, you're right. Based on how good you've been and all of this faithfulness, no, he just says, heard it, saw it,

i'm gonna add 15 years to your life uh the god nowhere acknowledges that like anything that hezekiah is saying is like the reason for it or you're right you reminded me of like the kind of transactional relationship we've had in the past so let me continue that that is not at all he just he just says yeah i hear you i hear what you're saying and i see what you're doing and i'm gonna go ahead and give it to you um but it would seem that this is all uh an act of grace and mercy on the part of god that's exactly what's going on yeah god god gives us good answers to bad prayers right just there's a there's a lot of bad prayers or not so great prayers that we pray and uh god because he's he's he's good and gracious well he he answers those prayers

according to his own goodness and according to his own faithfulness not not our own yeah so this is one of these cases where god says no hezekiah says please say yes and for all the wrong reasons and god does say yes yeah which which just goes to show you know he's he's not rewarding us simply because we pray he's certainly not rewarding us because we're such good people he's answering prayers on the basis of his own heart his own promises because of because of who he is so he's going to add 15 years to uh to hezekiah's life and i i think it's important too he says thus says the lord the god of david your father you know the guy i made the promises to i don't think that's superfluous yeah i'm the god of david your father i'm the god who made

these promises so i'm the one who heard that prayer and i've seen your tears tears are liquid prayers i mean i think that's a safe thing to say you know we pray in lots of different ways we can pray with our words. We can pray with our tears. We can simply pray with a sigh. Sometimes a sigh is a much more eloquent prayer than the words which come out of our mouths. This is the kind of language Romans 8, right? Even the spirit is groaning within us. So God's going to add 15 years to his life. He's got another decade and a half. And he concludes it, verse 6, by saying, I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of assyria and will defend the city now that's important because that's going to be a helpful contrast to what is going to happen in the next

chapter so remember this is this is prior to all those events we talked about beforehand god is making a clear crystal clear promise hey i've got this i will deliver the king of syria i will defend the city you have nothing to worry about you don't need to be making deals with babylonians you don't need me making deals with egyptians i will defend my city all right so that's takes us through verse six verse seven this shall be the sign to you from the lord that the lord will do this thing that he's promised behold i will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of ahaz some kind of sundial that was named after ahaz this is i think the only information we have about it this and then in second kings but sundials were used all over the ancient world so

makes sense it would have been one in jerusalem as well i will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of ahaz turn back 10 steps so it was no big deal for it to go forward this was the natural progression as the sun sets so god is going to reverse that and so the sun turned back on the dial the 10 steps by which it had declined all right by the way kind of a uh a nice contrast here with hezekiah and ahaz ahaz is the king who refused to ask a sign from god this is isaiah himself was the was the the prophet at that time he says hey ask from the lord you know he'll move heaven and earth just ask for a sign and ahaz acts like he's so pious oh i you know far be it for me to ask god for a sign well to hezekiah god does give this sign and so that we're through

verse 8 at this point now one thing we we have in isaiah that we don't have in the parallel from kings is what's going to come next this is it's called a a writing of hezekiah king of judah so you know maybe this was something he some kind of personal thing that he wrote maybe it was for for public consumption maybe isaiah found it when he in the annals of the kings wherever it was hezekiah wrote this and uh this is after he'd been sick and recover from his sickness so he's going to reflect in this combination of lament and prayer of thanks the situation he was in while he was sick and then what god did for him so it's very much like one of one of the psalms and it covers verses 10 through through 20. you know what it almost seems like when you read this

because it's funny because you have this prayer which is spelled out for you it's very short um and you just have this little prayer and you're like okay and that prayer is like imperfect and but then you have this great thing which is which is of course true that uh god answers imperfect prayers and that's a very good thing because that's all our prayers i mean unless you're praying the lord's prayer you're probably doing your problem your prayer is probably uh falling short um and so uh but that's that's not a concern to god god answers in perfect prayers and then hezekiah has this thing where he says all right i'm gonna tell you all the things i said right so i could you know it starts with i said in the middle of my days like and so you're going

on this stuff and you're like man that sounds way different than this this prayer bro it's like way longer it's like way more poetic uh and and like this is way better uh wordy like just as far as your eloquence is concerned um and i think that kind of uh maybe this is a stretch but when you said that um you know like the tears are liquid prayers which i agree with it almost seems that on the back end of that he's like let me tell you what these tears were saying right maybe you have like the groaning but then later on you're like and in that groaning here's what I was really I couldn't say it at the time I couldn't communicate but let me tell let me interpret it for you yeah yeah that's that's a good way to put it I and I think a lot of David's psalms

are like this you know you'll read an introduction one of David's psalms you know a prayer that David prayed when yeah he was being chased by absalom or he's being betrayed by so-and-so well don't get the impression that like david is running away he's got a little scroll in his hand and he's you know jotting down some poetry as he's as he's running away now this these are things he wrote after the fact of course when he has time to to sit down to compose the psalms uh and they're yeah they're reflecting back on some of the things going through his mind but it's much more of course rhetorically polished now in the after everything is over so uh same thing is happening here with with hezekiah but imagine if somebody like you're going through something like you're

like really distressed and someone says like hey how do you feel and you might just blurt out some like oh it's terrible and i don't know what i'm gonna do and like i'm stressed out and stuff like And then later on, when you're through it, you say, let me tell you what I was feeling during that time. And you're able to actually communicate it in a way that you could not communicate it in the midst of it. Yeah, yeah, that's true to real life. It's true to the scriptures. I mean, I think you've preached on lamentations, Dan. and well you don't don't think that you know while the city is under siege and all these

horrific things are happening that jeremiah who's the traditional author of lamentations is sitting around you know he's observing all the violence and the shrieks and the horrible things and he's composing these you know this rough but also rhetorically beautiful language no he's not out there just saying before uh before light the darkness you know like you're not like other saying this no no yeah in the midst of suffering uh our rhetoric is not great it it's after the fact and that's what has guys doing here so in the middle of my days that this one possible translation could be in the quiet of my days but however you want to take this in the middle in the quiet in my days i must depart i'm consigned to the gates of shul for the rest of my

years i said i shall not see the lord that's yah in hebrew not yahweh it's the shortened form i shall not see yah yah in the land of the living i shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world so you're getting the the flow of this you know this is the this is very traditional psalm-like language where death is pictured as a descent into sheol you're leaving the land of the living you're limiting the fact that you're sinking down down down you know you're just you're teetering on the edge of the grave is the way we might put it in in our own language that's where he's at and then he goes on to say my dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd's tent paul reflects the same kind of imagery of the body being like a tent in second

corinthians 5 where he talks about our earthly home our tent being destroyed so here my dwelling is plucked up removed like some kind of temporary shelter you know whatever whatever a shepherd's tent look like uh just something easily packed up for for the next night and then he switches images to a uh a weave like a weaver i have rolled up my life he cuts me off from the loom So it's like this image of the last thread being cut. He, of course, being God. From day to night, you bring me to an end. I calmed myself until morning.

Like a lion, he breaks all my bones. And then we have the same phrase again. From day to night, you bring me to an end. It's amazing how many times in the scriptures where I was just seeing this. Where was it? Oh, it's in Lamentations. where God is compared to a lion that attacks people. You know, that must have been a pretty common occurrence in Israel

because that metaphor is all over the place. I mean, in Israel today there are no, I think they were called Asiatic lions. There are no lions in Israel today. But all over the Old Testament you've got lions. You know, they're like an actual threat to people. They like to hide out in the thickets of the Jordan and other places. I mean, there was a real issue back in the day. And, of course, that becomes a metaphor for this attack by God where he's a lion that is breaking all of someone's bones or tearing away.

I think that's image in Lamentations where he's clawing at people. God is often used, animals are often used as images or similes or metaphors for God basically breaking someone down. And that's what Hezekiah is describing here as he's slowly, not just descending into the grave, but descending in such a way that he's also being attacked at the same time. Yeah, I mean, this is the thing that happens when you're sort of facing down the end. And all this language, what it really communicates is that, like, I don't have any power here, right? And if you're a king, you've had quite a bit of control over a lot of things. probably for a long time until you're staring down death

and then you realize, actually, at the end of the day, I don't really have any control over the thing that ultimately matters. Yeah. I listen a lot to lectures on the great courses and like to listen to Greek and Roman history.

And that comes in my thoughts a lot where you have these great kings, like Alexander the Great. They'll accomplish these just incredible acts. but death takes them all you know sometimes when they're young like alexander you know it doesn't matter what power you have or what position you have or anything like that in the end you're just one more mortal who is teetering teetering on the brink of the grave so verse 14 what's he going to do he says he's kind of like a swallow or a crane he's like a

bird. He chirps. He moans like a dove. Kind of this image of almost inaudible noises that he's making as he's crying out to God. My eyes are weary with looking upward, staring up into the heavens. Oh Lord, I'm oppressed, he says. Be my pledge of safety. I think you could probably render that more idiomatically as bail me out. So yeah, be my pledge of safety. Come to my aid, bail me out. Be the one who stands by me when I don't have any more resources. So I'm oppressed. I'm in jail, so I need you to bail me out here. And then we switch in verse 15 and 16 to where things begin to improve. There's no need to get into it. The Hebrew is a bit difficult here. So let's kind of go with the way the ESV has rendered it. He says, what shall I say? For he has spoken

to me and he himself has done it. I think he's probably referencing back to what Isaiah said to him and then what God did. So he spoke, it was done. I walk slowly. Sometimes this rendered humbly but i walk slowly or humbly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul oh lord by these things men live and in all these is the life of my spirit oh restore me to health and make me live a bit of ambiguity here i don't really know honestly what to make of of all of these uh these verses uh in english or or in hebrew but what he seems to be saying is that god spoke he did it uh the result is going to be that he walks slowly or humbly the rest of his years which is actually an unusual expression in the bible typically what we'll hear about is all

my days so when it's referring to the future it will say all my days all my years is probably used here because of the explicit promise god made through isaiah that he would have 15 more years of his life so this is going to be his response and then he ends up with asking god to restore him to health make him live well now we get in verse 17 we get to certainly where god has done that this is the transition the clear transition point in the poem or the psalm where he talks about god answering his prayers he says in verse 17 behold it was for my welfare that i had great bitterness so this is that the welfare is shalom in hebrew this is for my my wholeness my peace my my welfare my shalom it was for that that i had this great bitterness

and we often see this in the scriptures psalm 119 talks about this that uh you know it was for my good that i suffered these things because god made it for my good god used my bitterness god used my sufferings to bring about this peace that i would not have experienced had i not gone through what i have been going through so he experienced a great bitterness but what did god do verse 17 says in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction for you have cast all my sins behind your back one of my one of my favorite expressions yeah this sound this sounds very different than this prayer that i heard earlier um which is not talking about your sins but rather your righteousness your righteousness yes uh but here he seems like he's like yeah now he's had

some time to think about it. He's like, actually, this is actually what went on here. And I love this. I love this part because this is one of the hardest things. I mean, if you've ever gone through anything, you'd know this. But also when you're trying to help somebody who's like really going through it, you can sort of see it clearly, more clearly than even when you're going through it um and what they and if they're a believer like they they want they're like crying out to god and stuff and what they want god to do is what they want him to do but yeah even if we say thy will be done we mean my will be done right yeah you're like listen man i'm surrendering everything to god i'm just like i'm just crying out for him and like it's like

yeah but like you have a very specific thing that you want him to do and he's gonna do what's best for you and you're probably not gonna like it initially um and and it is only later that you could be like man it was actually really for my good that i that that went this way uh because what you want god is just like hey could you just fix it like i can't do this anymore like just can you just fix it real quick that's right and he got and god's answer that is almost always no um because he's got something better than that um and i and that you know you you come out different and uh and so uh suffering and even your own sin like becomes like tools in the hand of god to to shape you and uh it's only later that you can be like okay it was actually that

was actually for my welfare that i that i did all that and and and that actually you not saying yes to the thing i wanted uh the way i wanted it was actually an act of love because of course god could easily do that but he won't and instead god means for you to like come to like this one big understanding through whatever it is uh is that he's cast all your sins behind your back this is the main thing he needs you to understand yeah yeah if i could just get this through my head I would spare myself a lot of grief that when I'm going through suffering, whatever that might look like, I have to remind myself, okay, just talking to myself now, picture yourself as a four-year-old and you're complaining to your parent about whatever it is and you

have ideas as to how this should be fixed. Well, chances are your mom or dad knows much better how this should end because they're the adult, right? Well, in that sort of way, we're the four-year-old crying out to God. I want you to fix this problem. I want you to do this. I want you to do that. And God nods as he's listening, but in the end,

he's going to do what, as the quote-unquote adult, as God, what is best for us. And it's extremely, extremely minor occasions where what we want to happen is the same thing that God wants to happen. Yeah. I mean, when that happens, oh, great. But don't expect it. It's going to be rare indeed when our will and God's will aligns when it comes to times of suffering. Yeah.

I mean, because you might ask the question, like, why does God need to have Isaiah go tell him, hey, you're going to die. You're not going to get better. But then, of course, God is going to make him better. What is that? And then, like, you know, then he's got to freak out and, like, be weeping and stuff. Why? I don't know. Maybe he needs him to walk humbly those 15 years because that's what's best for him.

And you're not going to get that unless God's like, well, first I'm going to give you this bad word, and then you're going to cry out, pray a bad prayer, I'm going to see your tears, and then I'm going to give you this good word, and that's going to shape you for like the final 15 years into the person that is better for you to be and the person I need you to be. Yeah, yeah, well put. I think we can finish out the chapter. We've got a couple minutes left. 18 says she old does not thank you death does not praise you those who down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness this is typical psalm language uh he says the living the living he thanks you as i do this day the father makes known to the children your faithfulness here's how he wraps it up verse 20 the lord will save me and we will play my music on stringed instruments

all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord. So it's not going to be Sheol that gets him. Instead, God is making him to be one who lives 50 more years. And he's not going to just live. He's going to rejoice over the gift that God has given him. And he rightly ends it by focusing on God being the one who saves him. Probably we should translate that not as will save me, but is saving me. This particular Hebrew construction is indicative of what God is now doing.

So God is saving me. And as a result, we're going to rejoice with music all the days of our lives in God's house. And then we wrap up with verse 21 and 22. By the way, this 21 and 22 is super weird. and uh i do believe that it's only in here just so you know that uh god is not going to give hezekiah 15 more years apart from means and those things are going to be just whatever he feels like them being yeah so isaiah had said let them take a cake of figs uh you know not ibuprofen or or whatever it might be, a cake of figs, and apply it to the boil.

So now we're told exactly what was going on here. A boil was causing the sickness. Apply it to the boil that he may recover. Yeah, this is beautiful means theology, right? God could certainly just have healed Hezekiah without anything, just like he can heal any of us without any means, but whatever he uses, surgery, a cake of figs, ibuprofen, mud and saliva, right whatever it is he uses that but then you might ask the question you know uh do fig cakes

heal boils and the answer is no no they don't uh medically speaking i feel confident in saying no that is not that is not what happens uh but you know one one might ask can water save you the answer is no uh but combined with the word of god yes it can and combined with the word of god Hey, a fig cake, just what that boil needed. Yeah, the word of God is doing its work. And then it wraps up with Hezekiah saying, what is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? Which is actually a great way to end,

because it focuses upon God's presence, where Hezekiah will be rejoicing over God answering his prayer. So that's 38. Next time we'll pick up with the not-so-great response from Hezekiah in chapter 39. Awesome. All right, Chad, well, we did it. Not only did we get through the chapter that we had just finished,

but we got through another one, so good on us. Make sure you join us next time for Chapter 39. I'll see you then. See you then. I'll see you next time.