behold, I will heal thee : on tJie third day thou shalt go % up unto the
house of the Lord} These words are not found in Isaiah. But there



vv. 7, 8.] II. KINGS, XX. 211



will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee
and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I
will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant
David's sake. And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And 7
they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. And 8
Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the
Lord will hear me, and that I shall go up into the house of

is given there the thanksgiving of Hezekiah which expresses the feelings
with which the king would go up to the temple to acknowledge the
goodness which had spared his life. It is called 'the writing of
Hezekiah when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness '
(Is. xxxvii* 9), and is a sort of psalm of thanksgiving.
Though the promise of God 'thou shalt go up unto the house of
the Lord ' is omitted in Isaiah we yet see from the concluding words
of Is. xxxviii. that the thought of it was in the writer's mind, for he
tells us ' Hezekiah had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the
house of the Lord?'

0. fifteen years] See above on verse 1.
