Isaiah 38:5

The verse is greatly abbreviated from 2 Kings 20:5. After Hezekiahthe words "the captain of my people" are omitted; and also the sentence "I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord," which follows the word behold. It cannot be doubted that the historical book here preserves the original text.

the God of David thy father for whose sake this special mercy is vouchsafed to the king (cf. ch. Isaiah 37:35; 2 Kings 20:6).

fifteen years That the number was arrived at by calculation on the part of the historian is not to be believed. If there be calculation in the case at all, it is in the date of ch. Isaiah 36:1, which may very possibly be an inference from this prediction combined with the statement of 2 Kings 18:2. (See on ch. Isaiah 36:1) In any case the assumption that the prophecy was exactly fulfilled is a legitimate one, and the fourteenth year of Hezekiah must be accepted as the true date of this sickness. The only question is whether the writer of ch. Isaiah 36:1 may not have fallen into error by supposing that the date of Hezekiah's sickness fixed the time of Sennacherib's invasion. On that point see the Chronological Note, pp. lxxvi f. Since the king began to reign in his twenty-fifth year, it is after all not a long life that is here promised to him. His reign was to be doubled.