(5) Fifteen years.--The words fix the date of the illness, taking the received chronology, as B.C. 713. The next verse shows that there was danger at the time to be apprehended from Assyria, but does not necessarily refer to Sennacherib's invasion. Sargon's attack (Isaiah 20:1) may have caused a general alarm.

Verse 5. - Thus saith the Lord,... I have heard thy prayer. According to the author of Kings, the full message sent to Hezekiah was, "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy clays fifteen years; and I will deliver time and this city out of the hand of the King of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake" (2 Kings 20:5, 6). The words in italics are additional to those here reported by Isaiah. Fifteen years. This was doubling, or rather more than doubling, the length of Hezekiah's reign, and allowing him a length of life exceeding that of the great majority of the kings of Judah, who seldom attained the age of fifty. Hezekiah lived to be fifty-four.

38:1-8 When we pray in our sickness, though God send not to us such an answer as he here sent to Hezekiah, yet, if by his Spirit he bids us be of good cheer, assures us that our sins are forgiven, and that, whether we live or die, we shall be his, we do not pray in vain. See 2Ki 20:1-11.Go and say to Hezekiah,.... Turn again, and tell him, 2 Kings 20:5,

thus saith the Lord the God of David thy father; this is said, to show that he remembered the covenant he made with David his father, concerning the kingdom, and the succession of his children in it; and that he had a regard to him, as walking in his steps:

I have heard thy prayer; and therefore was not surely a foolish one, as Luther somewhere calls it, since it was heard and answered so quickly:

I have seen thy tears; which he shed in prayer, and so studiously concealed from others, when he turned his face to the wall:

behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years; that is, to the days he had lived already, and beyond which it was not probable, according to the nature of his disease, he could live; and besides, he had the sentence of death pronounced on him, and had it within himself, nor did he pray for his life; so that these fifteen years were over and above what he could or did expect to live; and because it was unusual in such a case, and after such a declaration made, that a man should live, and especially so long a time after, it is ushered in with a "behold", as a note of admiration; it being a thing unheard of, and unprecedented, and entirely the Lord's doing, and which, no doubt, was marvellous in the eyes of the king.