\\INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 38\\

This chapter gives an account of Hezekiah's sickness, recovery, and
thanksgiving on that account. His sickness, and the nature of it, and
his preparation for it, as directed to by the prophet, \\#Isa 38:1\\, his
prayer to God upon it, \\#Isa 38:2,3\\ the answer returned unto it, by which
he is assured of living fifteen years more, and of the deliverance and
protection of the city of Jerusalem from the Assyrians, \\#Isa 38:4-6\\, the
token of his recovery, the sun going back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz,
\\#Isa 38:7,8\\, a writing of Hezekiah's upon his recovery, in commemoration
of it, \\#Isa 38:9\\, in which he represents the deplorable condition he had
been in, the terrible apprehensions he had of things, especially of the
wrath and fury of the Almighty, and his sorrowful and mournful complaints,
\\#Isa 38:10-14\\, he observes his deliverance according to the word of God;
expresses his faith in it; promises to retain a cheerful sense of it;
owning that it was by the promises of God that he had lived as other
saints did; and ascribes his preservation from the grave to the love of
God to him, of which the forgiveness of his sins was an evidence,
\\#Isa 38:15-17\\, the end of which salvation was, that he might praise the
Lord, which he determined to do, on stringed instruments, \\#Isa 38:18-20\\,
and the chapter is closed with observing the means of curing him of his
boil; and that it was at his request that the sign of his recovery was
given him, \\#Isa 38:21,22\\.