2 Kings 20:1-11

Hezekiah is Healed

20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ¹  The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” ²  20:2 He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 20:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ³  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ⁴  and how I have carried out your will.” ⁵  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁶ 

20:4 Isaiah was still in the middle courtyard when the Lord told him, ⁷  20:5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. The day after tomorrow ⁸  you will go up to the Lord’s temple. 20:6 I will add fifteen years to your life and rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will shield this city for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.”’” ⁹  20:7 Isaiah ordered, “Get a fig cake.” So they did as he ordered ¹⁰  and placed it on the ulcerated sore, and he recovered. ¹¹ 

20:8 Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?” 20:9 Isaiah replied, “This is your sign from the Lord confirming that the Lord will do what he has said. Do you want the shadow to move ahead ten steps or to go back ten steps?” ¹²  20:10 Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps, but not for it ¹³  to go back ten steps.” 20:11 Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and the Lord ¹⁴  made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz. ¹⁵ 

2 Kings 20:2

20:2 He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,

2 Kings 1:1

Elijah Confronts the King and His Commanders

1:1 After Ahab died, Moab rebelled against Israel. ¹⁶ 

John 11:1-5

The Death of Lazarus

11:1 Now a certain man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived. ¹⁷  11:2 (Now it was Mary who anointed the Lord with perfumed oil ¹⁸  and wiped his feet dry with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) ¹⁹  11:3 So the sisters sent a message ²⁰  to Jesus, ²¹  “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.” 11:4 When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not lead to death, ²²  but to God’s glory, ²³  so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ²⁴  11:5 (Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.) ²⁵ 

Acts 9:37

9:37 At that time ²⁶  she became sick ²⁷  and died. When they had washed ²⁸  her body, ²⁹  they placed it in an upstairs room.

Philippians 2:27-30

2:27 In fact he became so ill that he nearly died. ³⁰  But God showed mercy to him – and not to him only, but also to me – so that I would not have grief on top of grief. 2:28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, ³¹  so that when you see him again you can rejoice ³²  and I can be free from anxiety. 2:29 So welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, 2:30 since it was because of the work of Christ that he almost died. He risked his life so that he could make up for your inability to serve me. ³³ 

[20:1]  ¹ tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”

[20:1]  ² tn Heb “will not live.”

[20:3]  ³ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

[20:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and with a complete heart.”

[20:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[20:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “wept with great weeping.”

[20:4]  ⁷ tc Heb “and Isaiah had not gone out of the middle courtyard, and the word of the Lord came to him, saying.” Instead of “courtyard” (חָצֵר, khatser), the marginal reading, (Qere), the Hebrew consonantal text (Kethib) has הָעִיר (ha’ir), “the city.”

[20:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “on the third day.”

[20:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”

[20:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and they got [a fig cake].”

[20:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he lived.”

[20:9]  ¹² tn The Hebrew הָלַךְ (halakh, a perfect), “it has moved ahead,” should be emended to הֲיֵלֵךְ (hayelekh, an imperfect with interrogative he [ה] prefixed), “shall it move ahead.”

[20:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “the shadow.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“it”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[20:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “on the steps which [the sun] had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz, back ten steps.”

[1:1]  ¹⁶ sn This statement may fit better with the final paragraph of 1 Kgs 22.

[11:1]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.”

[11:2]  ¹⁸ tn Or “perfume,” “ointment.”

[11:2]  ¹⁹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. It is a bit surprising that the author here identifies Mary as the one who anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and wiped his feet dry with her hair, since this event is not mentioned until later, in 12:3. Many see this “proleptic” reference as an indication that the author expected his readers to be familiar with the story already, and go on to assume that in general the author in writing the Fourth Gospel assumed his readers were familiar with the other three gospels. Whether the author assumed actual familiarity with the synoptic gospels or not, it is probable that he did assume some familiarity with Mary’s anointing activity.

[11:3]  ²⁰ tn The phrase “a message” is not in the Greek text but is implied. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from context.

[11:3]  ²¹ tn Grk “to him, saying”; the referent (Jesus) is specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:4]  ²² tn Grk “This sickness is not to death.”

[11:4]  ²³ tn Or “to God’s praise.”

[11:4]  ²⁴ sn So that the Son of God may be glorified through it. These statements are highly ironic: For Lazarus, the sickness did not end in his death, because he was restored to life. But for Jesus himself, the miraculous sign he performed led to his own death, because it confirmed the authorities in their plan to kill Jesus (11:47-53). In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ death is consistently portrayed as his ‘glorification’ through which he accomplishes his return to the Father.

[11:5]  ²⁵ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. It was necessary for the author to reaffirm Jesus’ love for Martha and her sister and Lazarus here because Jesus’ actions in the following verse appear to be contradictory.

[9:37]  ²⁶ tn Grk “It happened that in those days.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[9:37]  ²⁷ tn Grk “becoming sick, she died.” The participle ἀσθενήσασαν (asqenhsasan) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[9:37]  ²⁸ tn The participle λούσαντες (lousante") is taken temporally.

[9:37]  ²⁹ tn Grk “washed her,” but the reference is to her corpse.

[2:27]  ³⁰ tn Grk “For he became ill to the point of death.”

[2:28]  ³¹ tn Grk “I have sent him to you with earnestness.” But the epistolary aorist needs to be translated as a present tense with this adverb due to English stylistic considerations.

[2:28]  ³² tn Or “when you see him you can rejoice again.”

[2:30]  ³³ tn Grk “make up for your lack of service to me.”