2 Kings 20:7-8

In Isaiah these two verses are given at the end of the narrative; a position in which they are obviously out of place. Probably some copyist, after accidentally omitting them where they properly belonged, added them there, “with marks for insertion in their proper places, which marks were afterwards neglected by transcribers” (Lowth, cited by Cheyne), perhaps because they had become obliterated.

Take a lump of figs. — Figs pressed into a cake (1 Samuel 25:18). “Many commentators suppose the figs to be mentioned as a remedy current at the time. But surely so simple and unscientific a medicine would have been thought of, without applying to the prophet by those about Hezekiah. The plaster of figs is rather a sign or symbol of the cure, like the water of the Jordan in the narrative of Naaman (2 Kings 5:10)” (Cheyne). That in antiquity figs were a usual remedy for boils of various kinds appears from the testimony of Dioscorides and Pliny.

Laid it on the boil. — It is not to be supposed that Hezekiah was suffering from the plague and, in fact, the very plague which destroyed the army of Sennacherib. (See Note on 2 Kings 20:1). The word “boil” (shĕhîn) denotes leprous and other similar ulcers (Exodus 9:9; Job 2:7), but not plague, which moreover, would not have attacked Hezekiah alone, and would have produced not one swelling, but many.

And he recovered. — Heb., lived. The result is mentioned here by natural anticipation.