Isaiah 38:21
Now Isaiah had said, "Prepare a lump of pressed figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover."
Sermons
A Fig-Plasterbubon, charbon, F. Delitzsch, D. D.Isaiah 38:21
Christ in the Sick RoomAnon.Isaiah 38:21
The Song of HezekiahE. Johnson Isaiah 38:9-22














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. The graver question is - Are we ready to be saved? God's arm is not shortened, that he cannot save. And his love to us is the same through all the long centuries. Christ touched the real cause of distance: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."

I. THE READINESS OF GOD. "All things are now ready," said Christ; and in view of the Redeemer's great work in all the ages, God was a Saviour. God makes affirmation concerning this. "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11). This reveals the gracious disposition of God. We must ever remember that it is the beautiful nature of God that is revealed in the parables and in the passion of our Lord. Like the fountain ever ready to leap forth, he is ready to forgive.

II. THE MINSTRELSY OF THE CHURCH. Music has accompanied devotion in all ages. It awakens the slumbering sensibilities of the soul. It is not only an expression of feeling, it is a quickener of it. "Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments." These songs are the glorious heritage of the Church. They are heard every sabbath day in cathedral and church, in city, village, and hamlet. The great revelation of God is one, alike in the old and the new dispensations. In all ages God is a Saviour. Therefore there is nothing out of date in the inspired psalms. They belong to all ages of history, all eras of time. When we have passed away, our children will still lift up to God their praises and thanksgivings in the strains of the sweet singers of Israel.

III. THE PERPETUITY OF PRAISE. "All the days of our life." For that would be a strange day on which there was nothing to praise God for - no new mercy, no fresh deliverance, no special bounty. "Every day will I bless thee, and praise thy Name for ever and ever." Yes; on life's last day it may be like the venerable Dr. Guthrie, as he lay a-dying, we shall say, "Sing me a bairn's hymn." The days of our life may be few or many, but in them all we shall have occasion to realize the fatherhood of God, and the redemption which is in Jesus Christ.

IV. THE PLACE OF DEVOTION. "In the house of the Lord." This will ever be sacred to the true Christian. What memories of sacred vision and of spiritual emotion are connected with the sanctuary! What fellowship we have had there with each other and with God! The best part of our nature has been developed there - the part which, like God himself, "no man hath seen at any time, or indeed can see." For, apart from the associations of place, there is the inspiration of mutual faith, mutual hope, mutual service, and mutual love. Thus we meet and mingle in the house of the Lord, till, clothed with white robes and with palms in our hands, we join the victors who utter their hallelujahs around the throne of the Lamb, in the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." - W.M.S.

He shall recover.
I. The Holy Ghost shows us a king and ruler of men, a dweller in palaces, a possessor of all that money can obtain, a good man, a friend of God, laid low by disease like the poorest man in the kingdom.

1. This is the old story. After all there is nothing wonderful in this. The tabernacle in which our soul lives is a most frail and complicated machine. I do not wonder so much that we die as that we live so long.

2. But whence comes this liability to sickness, disease, and death? There is only one book that supplies an answer to this question. That book is the Bible, The fall of man at the beginning has brought sin into the world, and sin has brought with it the curse of sickness, suffering, and pain. Here lies one among many proofs that the Bible is given by inspiration of God. It accounts for many things which the Deist cannot explain.

II. Learn from this chapter that sickness is not an unmixed evil. Hezekiah received spiritual benefit from his illness. Sickness ought to do us good. And God sends it in order to do us good.

1. Sickness is meant to make us think, to remind us that we have an immortal soul; and that if this soul is not saved we had better never have been born.

2. Sickness is meant to teach us that there is a world beyond the grave, and that the world we now live in is only a training-place for another dwelling, where there will be no decay, no sorrow, no tears, no misery, and no sin.

3. Sickness is meant to make us look at our past lives honestly, fairly, and conscientiously.

4. Sickness is meant to make us see the emptiness of the world, and its utter inability to satisfy the highest and deepest wants of the soul.

5. Sickness is meant to send us to our Bibles.

6. Sickness is meant to make us pray.

7. Sickness is meant to make us repent and break off our sins.

8. Sickness is meant to draw us to Christ.

9. Sickness is meant to make us sympathising towards others.

(Anon.)

The application of figs leaves it uncertain whether a boil

(bubon) or a carbuncle

(charbon) is to be supposed. Figs were a popular emolliens or maturans; they were used to hasten the rising of the swelling, and therefore the mattering-process.

(F. Delitzsch, D. D.)

People
Ahaz, Amoz, David, Hezekiah, Isaiah
Places
Assyria
Topics
Apply, Boil, Bunch, Cake, Diseased, Figs, Isaiah, Lay, Lump, Plaister, Plaster, Poultice, Prepare, Recover, Ulcer
Outline
1. Hezekiah, having received a message of death, by prayer has his life lengthened
8. The sun goes ten degrees backward, for a sign of that promise
9. His song of thanksgiving.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 38:21

     4440   fig-tree
     5136   body
     5297   disease
     5298   doctors
     5405   medicine

Library
The Life of the Spirit
(First Sunday after Christmas.) Isaiah xxxviii. 16. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit. These words are the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah; and they are true words, words from God. But, if they are true words, they are true words for every one--for you and me, for every one here in this church this day: for they do not say, By these things certain men live, one man here and another man there; but all men. Whosoever is really alive, that is, has
Charles Kingsley—Town and Country Sermons

No Man Cometh to the Father but by Me.
This being added for further confirmation of what was formerly said, will point out unto us several necessary truths, as, I. That it is most necessary to be sound and clear in this fundamental point of coming to God only in and through Christ. For, 1. It is the whole marrow of the gospel. 2. It is the hinge of our salvation, Christ is "the chief corner stone," Isa. xxxviii. 16. 1 Pet. i. 5, 6; and, 3. The only ground of all our solid and true peace and comfort. 4 An error or a mistake here, is most
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Epistle ii. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch.
To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch. Gregory to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch. I have received the letters of your most sweet Blessedness, which flowed with tears for words. For I saw in them a cloud flying aloft as clouds do; but, though it carried with it a darkness of sorrow, I could not easily discover at its commencement whence it came or whither it was going, since by reason of the darkness I speak of I did not fully understand its origin. Yet it becomes you, most holy ones, ever to recall
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Sign Seekers, and the Enthusiast Reproved.
(Galilee on the Same Day as the Last Section.) ^A Matt. XII. 38-45; ^C Luke XI. 24-36. ^c 29 And when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, ^a 38 Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee. [Having been severely rebuked by Jesus, it is likely that the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign that they might appear to the multitude more fair-minded and open to conviction than Jesus had represented them to be. Jesus had just wrought
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Letter Xliv Concerning the Maccabees but to whom Written is Unknown.
Concerning the Maccabees But to Whom Written is Unknown. [69] He relies to the question why the Church has decreed a festival to the Maccabees alone of all the righteous under the ancient law. 1. Fulk, Abbot of Epernay, had already written to ask me the same question as your charity has addressed to your humble servant by Brother Hescelin. I have put off replying to him, being desirous to find, if possible, some statement in the Fathers about this which was asked, which I might send to him, rather
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners:
A BRIEF AND FAITHFUL RELATION OF THE EXCEEDING MERCY OF GOD IN CHRIST TO HIS POOR SERVANT, JOHN BUNYAN; WHEREIN IS PARTICULARLY SHOWED THE MANNER OF HIS CONVERSION, HIS SIGHT AND TROUBLE FOR SIN, HIS DREADFUL TEMPTATIONS, ALSO HOW HE DESPAIRED OF GOD'S MERCY, AND HOW THE LORD AT LENGTH THROUGH CHRIST DID DELIVER HIM FROM ALL THE GUILT AND TERROR THAT LAY UPON HIM. Whereunto is added a brief relation of his call to the work of the ministry, of his temptations therein, as also what he hath met with
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Meditations for the Sick.
Whilst thy sickness remains, use often, for thy comfort, these few meditations, taken from the ends wherefore God sendeth afflictions to his children. Those are ten. 1. That by afflictions God may not only correct our sins past, but also work in us a deeper loathing of our natural corruptions, and so prevent us from falling into many other sins, which otherwise we would commit; like a good father, who suffers his tender babe to scorch his finger in a candle, that he may the rather learn to beware
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Assurance
Q-xxxvi: WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS WHICH FLOW FROM SANCTIFICATION? A: Assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. The first benefit flowing from sanctification is assurance of God's love. 'Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.' 2 Pet 1:10. Sanctification is the seed, assurance is the flower which grows out of it: assurance is a consequent of sanctification. The saints of old had it. We know that we know
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Power of God
The next attribute is God's power. Job 9:19. If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong.' In this chapter is a magnificent description of God's power. Lo, he is strong.' The Hebrew word for strong signifies a conquering, prevailing strength. He is strong.' The superlative degree is intended here; viz., He is most strong. He is called El-shaddai, God almighty. Gen 17:7. His almightiness lies in this, that he can do whatever is feasible. Divines distinguish between authority and power. God has both.
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also-
OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY DISCOVERED, 1. WHAT PRAYER IS. 2. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT. 3. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT AND WITH THE UNDERSTANDING ALSO. WRITTEN IN PRISON, 1662. PUBLISHED, 1663. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:--the Spirit--helpeth our infirmities" (Rom 8:26). ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven. "It is
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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