Isaiah — Chapter 38
Synopsis Capitis
Synopsis: Hezekiah's illness, the fifteen-year extension of his life, and his canticle of thanksgiving. The sign of the sundial — the shadow going back ten degrees (v.8) — is a great miracle that Lapide treats at length. The canticle (v.10-20) is a model of trust in God through mortal illness and a foreshadowing of Christ's suffering and deliverance. 'The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day' (v.19) = the principle that only the living can give thanks — applied to Purgatory (souls there can still merit and give thanks) and the resurrection.
Verse 1
In those days Ezechias was sick unto death, and Isaias the prophet, the son of Amos, came to him, and said: Thus saith the Lord: Give charge concerning thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live. God's initial decree of death for Ezechias, then reversed by prayer. Lapide: God's 'conditional decrees' (like those through prophets) are not absolute but can be modified by repentance and prayer — as God told Niniveh through Jonah. The reversal demonstrates both God's justice and His mercy.
Verse 2
And Ezechias turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good before thee. Ezechias's prayer of petition based on past virtue — a legitimate form of prayer. Lapide: one may remind God of one's past service, not as a demand but as a motive for his mercy. The tears (v.3) moved God to grant 15 more years.
Verse 7
And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word which he hath spoken: Behold I will bring back the shadow of the lines, by which it is now gone down in the sun dial of Achaz, ten lines backward. The sun-dial miracle: 10 degrees of the sundial's shadow reversed. Lapide discusses this at length: the astronomical question (Was this a local phenomenon or global?), the scientific implications (Josephus, Strabo, Greek historians), and the theological interpretation (God's power over natural laws to confirm His word). The reversal of time symbolizes the reversal of Ezechias's death-sentence.
Verse 8
Ecce ego revertam umbram linearum per quas descenderat in horologio Achaz
I will bring back the shadow of the sun-dial of Ahaz ten steps backward. The miraculous reversal of the sundial: Lapide defends the literal reality of this miracle (against rationalist minimizations) and discusses the physical question of whether the earth's rotation was actually reversed or only the shadow. He follows the majority of Fathers (Jerome, Chrysostom) who hold that the miracle was local and optical rather than cosmic (thus not disturbing the entire universe). Applied: God can reverse the course of nature when He wills; the sun's backward shadow prefigures the sun's darkening at Christ's Passion — both cosmic signs accompanying decisive moments of salvation history.
Verse 9
The writing of Ezechias king of Juda, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness. Ezechias's canticle: a model of thanksgiving for recovered health. The 'writing' preserved and publicly displayed = Lapide applies this to the practice of writing ex-voto tablets as testimonies of miraculous healing (a Catholic tradition attested from antiquity).