2 Kings 20:2-5

Context
20:2 He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 20:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you¹ faithfully and with wholehearted devotion,² and how I have carried out your will.”³ Then Hezekiah wept bitterly.⁴

20:4 Isaiah was still in the middle courtyard when the Lord told him,⁵ 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 tomorrow⁶ you will go up to the Lord’s temple.

[20:3] ¹tn 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] ²tn Heb “and with a complete heart.”

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

[20:3] ⁴tn Heb “wept with great weeping.”

[20:4] ⁵tc 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] ⁶tn Heb “on the third day.”