2 Kings 20:1-11

Meditating on the Word of God is not the transcendental endeavour which most people associate with the term ‘meditation’.  Joshua 1:8 states, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Meditation is something we ought to do moment by moment; connecting with heaven’s throne wherever we are, whenever we can. The Hebrew word for meditate is ‘Hagah’ which means ‘to utter, to muse, and to mutter’. Bible verses are to be mused over and repeated thoroughly and in prayer, to ourselves, over every situation, until they become a part of our lives. 

Hezekiah’s life extended

20 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death.

And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.’ ”

² Then he turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, ³ “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁵ “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. 

⁶ And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.” ’ ”

⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” So they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

⁸ And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”

⁹ Then Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?” ¹⁰ And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”

¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.