2 Kings 20:4-11

20:4 Isaiah was still in the middle courtyard when the Lord told him, ¹  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 ²  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.”’” ³  20:7 Isaiah ordered, “Get a fig cake.” So they did as he ordered ⁴  and placed it on the ulcerated sore, and he recovered. ⁵ 

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?” ⁶  20:10 Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps, but not for it ⁷  to go back ten steps.” 20:11 Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and the Lord ⁸  made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz. ⁹ 

Isaiah 38:4-8

38:4 The Lord told Isaiah, ¹⁰  38:5 “Go and tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor ¹¹  David says: “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will add fifteen years to your life, 38:6 and rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will shield this city.”’” 38:7 Isaiah replied, ¹²  “This is your sign from the Lord confirming that the Lord will do what he has said: 38:8 Look, I will make the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz.” ¹³  And then the shadow went back ten steps. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 38:21-22

38:21 ¹⁵  Isaiah ordered, “Let them take a fig cake and apply it to the ulcerated sore and he will get well.” 38:22 Hezekiah said, “What is the confirming sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple?”

[20:4]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “on the third day.”

[20:6]  ³ tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”

[20:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “and they got [a fig cake].”

[20:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he lived.”

[20:9]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “the shadow.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“it”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[20:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “on the steps which [the sun] had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz, back ten steps.”

[38:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying.”

[38:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “father” (so KJV, NAB, NIV).

[38:7]  ¹² tn The words “Isaiah replied” are supplied in the translation for clarification. In the present form of the Hebrew text v. 7 is joined directly to v. 6, but vv. 21-22, if original to Isaiah 38, must be inserted here. See 2 Kgs 20:7-8.

[38:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “the shadow on the steps which [the sun] had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz, with the sun, back ten steps.”

[38:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the sun returned ten steps on the steps which it had gone down.”

[38:21]  ¹⁵ tc If original to Isaiah 38, vv. 21-22 have obviously been misplaced in the course of the text’s transmission, and would most naturally be placed here, between Isa 38:6 and 38:7. See 2 Kgs 20:7-8, where these verses are placed at this point in the narrative, not at the end. Another possibility is that these verses were not in the original account, and a scribe, familiar with the 2 Kgs version of the story, appended vv. 21-22 to the end of the account in Isaiah 38.