Isaiah 38:15

What shall I say I want words sufficient to express my deep sense of God's dealings with me. He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it; he did foretell it by his word, and effect it by his hand. This clause and verse is either,

1. A continuance of his complaint hitherto described: God hath passed this sentence upon me, and hath also put it in execution, and to him I must submit myself. Or,

2. A transition or entrance into the thanksgiving, which is undoubtedly contained in the following verses. So the sense is, God hath sent a gracious message to me by his prophet, concerning the prolongation of my life; and he, I doubt not, will make good his word therein. And this sense seems the more probable,

1. Because here is mention of his years to come, whereas in his sickness he expected not to live to the end of a day.

2. Because the Chaldee paraphrast, and the LXX., and Syriac, and Arabic interpreters expound it so in their versions.

3. Because this suits best with the context and coherence of this verse, both with the former and with the following verse. For as he endeth the foregoing verse with a prayer to God for longer life, so in this verse he relates God's gracious answer to his prayer. And if this verse be thus understood, the next verse hath a very convenient connexion with this; whereas it seems to be very abrupt and incoherent, if the thanksgiving begin there. I shall go softly; I shall walk in the course of my life, either,

1. Humbly, with all humble thankfulness to God for conferring so great a favour upon so unworthy a person; or,

2. Easily and peaceably, with leisure, not like one affrighted, or running away from his enemy; or,

3. By slow and gentle paces, as men commonly spin out their days by degrees unto a just length, which is not unfitly opposed to his former state and time of sickness, wherein his days were swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and than a post, as Job complained upon the same occasion, Job 7:6, Job 9:25, and were cut off like a weaver's web, as he complained, Isaiah 38:12. In the bitterness of my soul; arising from the remembrance of that desperate condition from which God had delivered me; for great dangers, though past, are ofttimes very terrible to those that reflect upon them. But the words may be rendered, upon or after (as this particle is rendered, Isaiah 18:4) the bitterness of my soul; after the deliverance from this bitter and dangerous disease; which may be compared with Isaiah 38:17, where he saith, for or after peace I had great bitterness, as here he presageth and assureth himself of the contrary, that he should have peace after his great bitterness. The Chaldee paraphrast renders the words, because of my deliverance from bitterness of soul; bitterness being put for deliverance from bitterness, as five is put for lack of five, as we render it, Genesis 18:28, and fat for want of fat, Psalms 109:24, and fruits for want of fruits, Lamentations 4:9. And other such-like defects there are in the Hebrew, which is a very concise language.