:
1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live. 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, 3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. 4 Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying, 5 Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. 6 And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city. 7 And this shall be a sign unto thee from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he hath spoken; 8 Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. 9 The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: 10 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. 11 I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. 12 Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. 13 I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. 14 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me. 15 What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. 16 O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. 17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. 18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. 19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth. 20 The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD. 21 For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover. 22 Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?
[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:1-3
(Chapter 38, Verses 1 onwards) In those days, Hezekiah fell sick even unto death. And Isaiah, the son of Amos the prophet, came to him, and said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live. And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying: 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 in thy sight: and Hezekiah wept with great weeping. Whom the Lord loves, He corrects and disciplines every son whom He receives (Prov. III). In order that Ezechias' heart would not be lifted up after incredible triumphs, and victory over the midst of captivity, he is visited with infirmity of his body, and hears that he will die, so that, being converted, he may turn to the Lord's judgment. Indeed, we read about this in the prophet Jonah, and in the threats that are said to be future against David, which did not happen, not because God changed His judgment, but because He incited the human race to the knowledge of Himself. For the Lord is remorseful over evils. And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, because he could not go to the Temple. To the wall of the Temple, next to which Solomon had built a palace. Or rather, next to Jeremiah, to his heart; who calls the heart a wall, so that with his whole mind he might pray to the Lord. And he said: I beseech you, Lord, remember, please, how I have walked before you in truth, and with a perfect heart, and that I have done what is good in your eyes. And knowing that he is about to die, he does not pray for a long life and many years, but instead asks what he should offer in God's judgement. For he knew that Solomon pleased God because he did not ask for a longer life; but going to the Lord, he recounts his works, how he walked before Him in truth and with a perfect heart. Happy is the conscience that remembers good deeds during times of affliction: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). And when elsewhere it is written: Who shall glory in having a pure heart (Prov. XX, 9)? This is solved as follows: the perfection of the heart is now said to consist in the fact that it has destroyed idols, perverted the vessels of the temple of Baal, broken the brazen serpent, and done other things that Scripture mentions. However, he wept with great weeping because of the Lord's promise to David, which he saw would perish in his death. For at that time Hezekiah had no sons; for after his death, Manasseh, when he was twelve years old, began to reign in Judah. From which it is clear that three years after his life was granted, Manasseh was born. Therefore, all this weeping is because he despaired of Christ being born from his own seed. Others assert that even holy men are afraid of death due to uncertainty of judgement and ignorance of God's sentence, of which seat they will inhabit. And at the same time, the question of fate is resolved, and the bonds of necessity and causes, in that the day of death is by no means appointed to each individual, but rather someone may live or die by the will of God and unknown mortal causes, especially since the appointed necessity of death is now delayed, and we have read of many who were resurrected after death.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:1
[Daniel 4:27] "'Wherefore, O king, let my counsel meet with thy favor, and make up for thy sins by deeds of charity, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps God will forgive thy transgressions.'" Since he had previously pronounced the sentence of God, which of course cannot be altered, how could he exhort the king to deeds of charity and acts of mercy towards the poor? This difficulty is easily solved by reference to the example of King Hezekiah, who Isaiah had said was going to die (Isaiah 38:1); and again, to the example of the Ninevites, to whom it was said: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed" (Jonah 3:4). And yet the sentence of God was changed in response to the prayers of Hezekiah and the city of Nineveh, not by any means because of the ineffectualness of the judgment itself but because of the conversion of those who merited pardon. Morever in Jeremiah God states that He threatens evil for the nation (Jeremiah 18:7-8), but if it does that which is good, He will alter His threats to bestow mercy. Again, He affirms that He directs His promises to the man who does good; and if the same man thereafter works evil, He says that He changes His decision, not with regard to the men themselves, but with regard to their works which have thus changed in character. For after all, God is not angered at men but at their sins; and when no sins inhere in a man, God by no means inflicts a punishment which has been commuted. In other words, let us say that Nebuchadnezzar performed deeds of mercy toward the poor in accordance with Daniel's advice, and for that reason the sentence against him was delayed of execution for twelve months. But because he afterwards while walking about in his palace at Babylon said boastingly: "Is this not the great Babylon which I myself have built up as a home for the king by the might of my power and the glory of my name?" therefore he lost the virtue of his charitableness by reason of the wickedness of his pride.

"It may be that God will forgive thy sins." In view of the fact that the blessed Daniel, foreknowing the future as he did, had doubts concerning God's decision, it is very rash on the part of those who boldly promise pardon to sinners. And yet it should be recognized that indulgence was promised to Nebuchadnezzar in return, as long as he wrought good works. Much more, then, is it promised to other men who have committed less grievous sins than he. We read in Jeremiah also of God's direction to the people of the Jews, that they should pray for the Babylonians, inasmuch as the peace of the captives was bound up with the peace of the captors themselves (Jeremiah 29:7).

[AD 386] Cyril of Jerusalem on Isaiah 38:3
Do you want to know the power of repentance? Do you want to understand this strong weapon of salvation and the might of confession? By confession Hezekiah routed 185, of the enemy. That was important, but it was small compared with what else happened. The same king’s repentance won the repeal the sentence God had passed on him. When he was sick, Isaiah had said, “Give direction for your household, for you will surely die, and not live.” What expectation was left? What hope of recovery was there? The prophet had said, “You will surely die.” But Hezekiah remembered what was written: “In the hour that you turn and lament, you will be saved.” He turned his face to the wall, and from his bed of pain his mind soared up to heaven (for no wall is so thick as to stifle fervent prayer). He said, “Lord, remember me.” … He whom the prophet’s sentence had forbidden to hope was granted fifteen further years of life, the sun turning back its course as a witness.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:3
Hearing that he was about to die, Hezekiah prayed not that he be granted several more years of life but that he be permitted to stand before the judgment of God, as he wished. For he knew that Solomon pleased God by not asking for a longer life. Preparing to journey to the Lord, therefore, Hezekiah chronicled his works, how he had walked before the Lord in truth and in perfection of heart. Happy is the conscience that remembers good works at a time of affliction: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” or as it is written elsewhere, “Who will glory in the purity of his heart?” This is the explanation: perfection of heart can now be attributed to him because he destroyed idols, overturned the vessels of Baal in the temple, shattered the bronze serpent8 and did other things that Scripture commemorates.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:4-8
(Vers. 4 seqq.) And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying: Go and tell Hezekiah: Thus says the Lord God of David, your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your days, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will protect it. And this shall be a sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this word that he has spoken: Behold, I will turn back the shadow of the steps by which it has gone down on the sun dial of Ahaz ten steps backwards: and the sun returned ten steps by the same steps that it had gone down. The history, which is read consecutively in the volume of Kings, is referred to in a seemingly backwards order, as if it were a prophetic account. While Hezekiah was weeping with great sorrow, before Isaiah had left the middle part of the courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: Return and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah: What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me? To whom did the prophet respond: This will be the sign from the Lord that the Lord will do the word he has spoken: Do you want the shadow to approach by so many lines, or do you want it to go back the same number of steps? To whom Hezekiah said: It is easy for the shadow to advance ten lines, but I do not want it to happen; rather, I want it to go back ten steps. And when Isaiah invoked the power of the Lord, the sign was fulfilled. Isaiah was commanded to have a lump of fresh figs brought, which they did, and they placed it on the wound, and he was healed. But the Prophet of the Lord returns to the king by the command, in order to heal the one who had struck him; and he is called Hezekiah, the leader of his people, and the son of David, whose works he followed, for he did what was right in all things as David his father had done; and his prayer is heard, and tears are seen, for he walked before the Lord in truth and with a perfect heart, and he wept with great weeping; and he did what was pleasing in his eyes. Fifteen years are added to his life, which he did not ask for, and moreover, while he is still alive, the security of the kingdom is promised to him. But if, as some think, to live in the body is a condemnation, and according to what is said: Return, my soul, into your rest (Ps. 114:7). And in another place: Bring my soul out of prison (Ps. 141:8), death is to be desired so that we may be freed from prison: how then does the Lord now grant as a favor that he who was to be set free should still live for fifteen years in prison? However, a sign is given that the sun turns back by ten degrees, which we turn according to Symmachus into lines and a sundial, which understood the degrees in the lines in order to make a clearer sense to those reading. Whether the steps were constructed with mechanical skill, so that as the shadow descended, it would mark the hours. This sign was a type of both the present time and the future, so that just as the sun would return to the beginning of its course, so would Hezekiah's life return to the disclosed years; and for us who live in the week and the octave, through the resurrection of Christ, the spaces of life are extended. The holy places in this province are accustomed to show within the enclosed Temple the steps of the house of Hezekiah, or of Ahaz, which the sun descended through them. But I will never believe, not to mention Ahaz, who was a wicked king; but of any righteous king, that their house was in the Temple of God: since it is said that Solomon, among other things, offended God because he built on a high place, from where he used to look down on the courtyard of the Temple while walking in the tower of the palace (3 Kings 9).

[AD 235] Hippolytus of Rome on Isaiah 38:5
When Hezekiah, king of Judah, was still sick and weeping, there came an angel, and said to him: "I have seen thy tears, and I have heard thy voice. Behold, I add unto thy time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to thee from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house of thy father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which the shadow has gone down," so that day be a day of thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again. And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites, when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape on the descent of night, cried out, saying, "Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon; and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon," until I vanquish this people. And the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law. And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with amazement at that time-for he studied the science of astrology, and measured the courses of these bodies carefully-on learning the cause, sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east did to Christ.

[AD 585] Cassiodorus on Isaiah 38:5
The number seven, as has often been said, denotes the week occasioned by the sabbath of the Old Testament. The number eight signifies the Lord’s day, on which he clearly rose again, and this is relevant to the New [Testament]. When joined together, they are seen to make up the number fifteen.… Some commentators think that the fifteen additional years accorded to King Hezekiah are related to this parallel, so that the number fifteen is shown to have signified the course of his perfect life.

[AD 649] Sahdona the Syrian on Isaiah 38:5
Prayer sometimes brings the dead back to life, but sometimes it may slay the living, as happened with the godly Peter. He brought Tabitha back to life by prayer, but he effected the death of Ananias and Sapphira. … The case of Hezekiah was also astonishing. Through prayer he added to the days of his life as king. He routed the mighty Assyrian army through the agency of a spiritual being.

[AD 235] Hippolytus of Rome on Isaiah 38:8
We find in the commentaries, written by our predecessors, that day had thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course, and reached the tenth hour, and the shadow had gone down by the ten degrees in the house of the temple, the sun turned back again by the ten degrees, according to the word of the Lord, and there were thus twenty hours. And again, the sun accomplished its own proper course, according to the common law, and reached its setting. And thus there were thirty-two hours.

[AD 386] Cyril of Jerusalem on Isaiah 38:8
For Hezekiah’s sake the sun turned back, but for Christ the sun was eclipsed. The sun did not simply retrace its path for Christ but was completely eclipsed. This shows the difference between Hezekiah and Jesus. The former’s prayer resulted in the canceling of God’s decree. But does not Jesus forgive sins? Repent, shut your door, and pray to be forgiven. Pray that Christ may remove you from the burning flames, for confession has power even to quench fire, power even to tame lions.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:9
(Verse 9) The Scripture of King Hezekiah of Judah when he became ill and recovered from his illness. LXX. The Prayer of King Hezekiah of Judah when he was sick and rose from his sickness. I wonder why only the Seventy have included this prayer in the scripture, since the prayer is called Thephellath (), not Machthar (). which is written in the current place; otherwise the prayer would be said subsequently, if it were about the present time and not the past. For it is evident that, after he had regained his health, he wrote this, as a testimony not of speech, but of thanksgiving for the favor he had received.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:10
“Thus, in desperation I said, ‘I will go to the gates of the netherworld,’ ” referring either to death by the common law of nature or to those gates from which the psalmist was liberated and therefore sings, “You who raise me from the gates of death, that I might declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion.” I believe that these are the same gates of the netherworld that did not prevail against Peter, who fell asleep in the fullness of his days. The saints complete their days, like Abraham, who “died full of years at an old age.” Sinners and the impious, however, die in the midst of their days, about which the psalmist also speaks: “Men of blood and deception will not complete half of their days.” For they neither perform works of virtue nor strive to amend their faults through penance. Hence, they will be led to the netherworld with their lives half finished and in the darkness of error.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:10-14
(Verse 10 onwards) I said in the middle of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I have sought the remainder of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest. My generation has ceased: it has been taken away and rolled up from me like a shepherd's tent. My life has been cut off as by a weaver: while I was still beginning, it cut me off: from morning until evening you will make an end of me. I hoped until morning; like a lion, it has crushed all my bones. From morning until evening you will finish me. LXX I said in the height of my days, I will go to the gates of hell: I will leave the remaining years: I said, I will no longer see the salvation of God in the land of the living, nor will I see any more with those who dwell: I am cut off from my kin. He has gone out and departed from me, like a tent that is loosened from its moorings; like the thread, my spirit has departed, when it is cut from the weaver. On that day I was delivered until morning: like a lion, so has it broken all my bones. From day to night I was delivered. He narrates what he silently thought during the time of pressing distress and imminent weakness; I said, he says, in my heart, in the midst of my days, or as Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion have interpreted, in the weakness and silence of my days, for which the LXX have interpreted it as 'exalted' due to the similarity of the letters, reading 'Rame' instead of 'Dame': although some have turned it into 'Dame', so that the sense is 'In the blood of my days', when my blood, my destruction, was eagerly awaited. Therefore, in despair, I said: I will go to the gates of hell, either by the common law of nature, or those gates about which the Psalmist sings that he has been freed: 'You raised me up from the gates of death, that I may proclaim all your praises at the gates of the daughter of Zion' (Psalm 9:15). I believe these are the gates of hell, which do not prevail against Peter (Matthew 16), for he slept in the fullness of his days. The saints fulfill their days, as was the case with Abraham, who died full of days in old age (Genesis 25). But the sinners and the wicked die in the midst of their days, of whom the Psalmist also speaks: Men of blood and deceit will not live out half their days (Ps. 54:25). For they do not fulfill the works of virtue, nor do they strive to repent and amend their sins. Therefore, in the middle of the course of life, and in the darkness of errors, they will be led to Tartarus. I sought, he says, the remaining years of my life, not thinking that I would live any longer. I said, I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. For in Hebrew, the name 'Jah' is placed twice, which in the final syllable sounds 'Alleluia', for which the Seventy translated: 'I will not see the salvation of God in the land of the living' (Ps. CXIV, 9). It is also written in another place: 'I will please the Lord in the land of the living' (Ps. CXIV, 9). And again: 'I will please the Lord in the light of the living' (Ps. LV, 9). Therefore, the very region of the Saints is called the light of the living. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. XXII). But this is everything that he fears: not to deserve to behold the salvation of God led to the underworld. It follows: I will not look upon man anymore, and the inhabitant of quietness. This we once connected with the following verse due to the ambiguity of the word; for the Hebrew word Holed, if read or written as Eled, means rest; if read or written as Edel, it means the West. Therefore, he fears that he does not dwell in quietness with the saints and men of God, that he does not see the Lord in the land of the living, that his generation will not dwell in an unshaken tabernacle, that it will not be cut off from the likeness of the web at the beginning of light, and that Christ will not arise from his seed. But as for our body being called a tabernacle, the Apostle instructs, saying: We who are in this tabernacle groan, burdened (2 Cor. V, 4). In the morning, he says, you will finish me until evening: I hoped until morning: which Job also says he endured in his distress and bodily torments (Job IV), when in daylight he awaited night, and in darkness awaited light, thinking that the punishments could be changed by the shifting of seasons. He knows this to be true who is burning with great fevers, whose internal fire, like that of a lion, consumes all his bones, and who does not think he will survive beyond the magnitude of his pain.

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:15
(Verse 15.) Like the chick of a swallow, so will I cry out: I will meditate as a dove: My eyes are weakened looking towards the height. Lord, I suffer violence; answer for me: what shall I say or what shall he answer me when he himself has done? LXX: Like a swallow, thus will I cry out; like a dove, thus will I meditate. For my eyes have failed from looking towards the height of heaven to the Lord: who delivers me, took away the pain of my soul, and he himself did it. Death was imminent, and the pain of illness weighing upon me, like a lion, was breaking all the bones of my body; but I, like a swallow and a dove, joined together day and night with weeping and moaning; and from God alone, who was able to help, I waited for assistance, with my eyes lifted up to the heights. And I said to him: I suffer more than my merits require; but even if I have gone astray, I will turn to the better; you answer for me: For it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy (Rom. 9:16). And it turns back again into itself: What can I say, or with what can I argue against my Creator? Or what will he answer to me, he who did himself what he wanted? Therefore, whatever he decides must be endured. The word for swallow, or swallow, as translated by the LXX, is written in Hebrew, Sus Agor (), which Aquila interpreted as horse Agor: Theodotius, Sis Agur (); for the middle vocal letter vau, if placed between two Samechs, is read as pig, and is called horse; if yod, it is read as swallow. However, Symmachus translated it as follows: As a swallow enclosed, so will I sing. This word is also found in Jeremiah, where it is written: The kite in the sky knew its time: the turtle-dove, and the swallow, and the stork kept their times (Jeremiah VIII, 7).

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:16-20
(Verse 16 onwards) I will consider all my years in the bitterness of my soul. Lord, if this is how one lives, and in such a life of my spirit, you will correct me and give me life. Behold, in peace is my bitterest bitterness. But you have saved my soul from perishing: you have cast all my sins behind your back. For neither the underworld will confess to you, nor death praise you: those who descend into the pit will not await your truth. Living, the living himself will confess to you, as I do today. The father will make your truth known to the children. Lord, save me, and we will sing our songs all the days of our life in the house of the Lord. LXX. Lord, it was announced to you about her: and you have revived my spirit and comforted me. Behold, in peace is my bitterness: for you have saved my soul from perishing, and you have cast behind me all my sins. For neither will they praise you in hell, nor will the dead bless you. Nor will those who are in the underworld hope for your mercy: the living will bless you, just as I do. For from today I will make children who will proclaim your righteousness, O Lord of my salvation, and I will not rest, blessing you with the Psalter, all the days of my life in the presence of the house of God. Nothing of the long things of mortals lasts, and all the happiness of the world, while it is held, is lost. For when the time of tribulation comes, everything that is past does not help the one who endures. Hence, the foolish sentiment of Epicurus is, who claims that the remembrance of past good things mitigates present misfortunes. Therefore, Hezekiah says that he considers all the years of his reign, and of his past, as happiness believed to be bitter in the present. And because he is now secure, and does not suffer what is recounted, he philosophizes about the human condition, and says: Lord, if this is how we live, and this is the condition in which we are born, You have chastised me, but You have also given me life, and You have bestowed peace by driving away the Assyrian; but my peace has been more bitter to me than all bitterness, because with tranquility restored to the people, and the city secure, I alone have entered the threshold of death. But you have delivered my soul, so that it would not perish, either in this present life or in the future. You have cast all my sins behind me, so that I may not behold them in sadness, but rather contemplate your mercy. For hell and death will not confess or praise you, according to what is written: For in death there is no remembrance of you (Psalm 6:5). And here confession is understood not for repentance, but for glory and praise, as we also read in the Gospel, I confess to you, O Lord, Father of heaven and earth (Matthew 11:25). Those who descend into the pit will not expect your truth, he says, but rather your mercy, better than in the Septuagint. For he who is in hell does not expect the truth of judgment, but the mercy of God, especially when the Savior descended into hell to free the captives from the depths. They transferred the dead to the same place more clearly. The living, the living themselves will confess to you, just as I do today. And this confession is set forth for praise. For he does not confess his own crimes, but gives thanks to God; and there is no beautiful praise on the mouth of a sinner (Sirach 15). And when Hell and death do not confess or praise God, on the contrary, life and the living glorify the Lord. And what follows: The Father will make your truth known to your children, this signifies what is said in Deuteronomy: Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will inform you (Deuteronomy 32, 7), so that God's mercy may be proclaimed to posterity through successions and individual generations. For this reason the LXX translate it: 'From today I will beget sons who will announce your righteousness.' And the causal conjunction connects the following with what came before: that indeed, living beings and he himself, who will beget sons from this day, might bless God, because it was certainly not within their power. For those children were not promised through the prophet, but rather through the present life. Especially since Manasseh, the most impious son, was born, who filled Jerusalem with blood from gate to gate, and did not bless but cursed God, persecuting his saints. Therefore we can say according to the Septuagint that he said, 'I will make children' instead of 'sons': but by 'children' we understand either little ones, or young boys, or infants and later generations, so that all future posterity, knowing this, may praise his incredible mercy which he has obtained. Therefore save me, O Lord; and all who believe in you and are delivered by your help, may we sing to you in the Temple all the days of our life.

[AD 373] Athanasius of Alexandria on Isaiah 38:18-19
[Those who live in a godly manner] and participate in such goodness are the only ones able to give glory to God, and that is what really constitutes a feast and a holy day. For the feast is not indulging in a lot of food or dressing up in lovely clothes. It is not enjoying days of leisure. It is acknowledging God and offering thanksgiving and songs of praise to him. But this belongs to the saints alone, who live in Christ.… That is the way it was with Hezekiah, who was delivered from death and therefore praised God, saying, “Those who are in hell cannot praise you; the dead cannot bless you; but the living shall bless you, as I do today.”

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:18-19
For the netherworld and death will neither confess nor praise you, according to what is written: “In the netherworld, who will confess you?” Confession in this instance, moreover, is received not as an act of penance but as an offering of glory and praise, as we read in the Gospel: “I praise you Lord, Father of heaven and earth.” He also says: “They who descend to the pit will not hope for your truth,” which is better than the Septuagint’s “will not hope for your mercy.” For he who is in the grave hopes not for the truth of judgment but for the mercy of God, ultimately when the Savior will descend to the netherworld to liberate the captives from it.

[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Isaiah 38:18-19
“For from this day I shall beget children who will announce your righteousness.” Some say that he promises to institute a choir [chorostasia] and to appoint chanters of psalms with good voices in the temple. Others, who pay attention to more esoteric things, say that Hezekiah, since he thought on a high plane, was of the opinion that he would have a kingdom without end and unceasing life. For he was persuaded that the writings concerning the son of David destined to be the Christ were said about himself. Hence they say, although he was in the fifteenth year of his reign he does not seem to have procreated children. Accordingly, on learning that his end was near, he pays attention to the question of his successors and adds with reference to his children that they will announce the righteousness of the Lord. However, this statement was not verified since. Manasseh was wicked and impious.

[AD 373] Athanasius of Alexandria on Isaiah 38:20
At no time should one freely praise God more than when one has passed through afflictions. Nor again should one at any time give thanks more than when he finds rest from toil and temptations. As Hezekiah, when the Assyrians perished, praised the Lord and gave thanks, saying, “The Lord is my salvation, and I will not cease to bless you with harp all the days of my life, before the house of the Lord.”

[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 38:21-22
(Verses 21, 22.) And Isaiah commanded them to take a lump of figs and apply it to the boil, and he would be healed. And Hezekiah said that the sign would be that he would go up to the house of the Lord. This should be read before Hezekiah's prayer, or Scripture, which we have just interpreted: for the poultice was applied to the wound first, and the sign of future healing was requested from him before he thanked the Lord for healing him. The Hebrews say that the word Siin (), which the LXX omitted, means ulcer and not wound. For both Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion have interpreted it as sore, by which they want to understand a royal disease, which they think is contrary to, whether it is taken in food, or whatever sweet things are applied to the body. Therefore, in order to demonstrate the power of God, health is restored through harmful and adverse things. Others suspect Siin to be not an ulcer, but an abscess: when the body swells and becomes putrid, it is filled with pus. According to the art of doctors, all pus is drawn to the surface of the skin by applying dried and crushed figs: and therefore medicine should not be despised, which is based on use and experience: because God made this also. Therefore, the speech and expression of thanks have been written up to this point. But as for the sign that was given, the previous order of the story has narrated it.