Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 38:16
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.
16. The thought expressed by E.V. is somewhat as follows: “By such Divine words and deeds ( Isa 38:15) men are preserved in life; and by such things my spirit is revived.” No one will say that this is either good Hebrew or a natural sense; and the text is almost certainly corrupt. The verb “live” closely resembles an Aramaic verb ( ivvh occurring several times in the O.T.) meaning “to declare”; and this was evidently read by LXX.: . Starting with this, Duhm makes the verse read:
“Lord, of this doth my heart make mention to Thee,
Give rest to my spirit and recover me, &c.”
His emendations however are somewhat sweeping.
so wilt thou live ] The first verb is impf. (fut.), the second imperat. recover me is literally “give me health.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
O Lord, by these things men live – The design of this and the following verses is evidently to set forth the goodness of God, and to celebrate his praise for what he had done. The phrase these things, refers evidently to the promises of God and their fulfillment; and the idea is, that people are sustained in the land of the living only by such gracious interpositions as he had experienced. It was not because people had any power of preserving their own lives, but because God interposed in time of trouble, and restored to health when there was no human prospect that they could recover.
And in all these things – In these promises, and in the divine interposition.
Is the life of my spirit – I am alive in virtue only of these things.
So wilt thou recover me – Or so hast thou recovered me; that is, thou hast restored me to health.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 38:16
O Lord, by these things men live
Affliction as related to life
The conception and quality of life as affected by the discipline of any form of trial–that is the topic.
I. Take THE CONCEPTION OF LIFE AS A WHOLE, and see how that is modified or altered by experiences like those through which Hezekiah passed. They who have had no such critical experience in any form have never fully awakened to the difference which there is between mere existence and life. In sleep there is as real existence as when we are awake; but what a paltry thing life would be if it were to be a constant sleep! Yet there are those among us in whom, though their time may be busily occupied, and though their intellects may be keen and vigilant, the spirit slumbers. They are like the landowner on whose estate there is an undiscovered silver mine, who is no richer for his hidden wealth, and who cannot be said even to possess it. Nothing has come to reveal them to themselves, or to give them any vivid sense of the existence of God and their relationship to Him. Nothing has opened their eyes to the possibilities of life that are yet undeveloped in them. One day has been to them like another; and the unbroken monotony of their experience has fostered in them the expectation that things will always continue with them as they have always been. Thus they verify the psalmists words, Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. But when something like that which came to Hezekiah comes to them, then there is a thorough, if also a rude, awakening, and they discover that they have yet to begin to live. One may easily see this exemplified in the votary of pleasure. Or take the case of him whose object in existence has been the accumulation of wealth.
II. Passing to THE QUALITY OF THE LIFE, we may see how that also is affected by such experiences of affliction. Here many features of character are evoked or developed by trial.
1. There is the element of strength, whether in its passive exercise as patient endurance, or in its active manifestation as persevering energy. The poet has caught the truth when he bids his readers learn to suffer and be strong. He who has known no affliction is easily worn out. The old sailor, who has been all but shipwrecked, is not dismayed by a summer squall. It is the same with life as a whole. You will find the strongest characters always among those who have been most sorely afflicted. We ought, then, to be reconciled to the afflictions by which alone it can be developed.
2. We can see that experiences like this of Hezekiah have a great influence in producing unselfishness in a man. When a man has been in the grip of the last enemy, and has recovered; or has been within a little of losing all he had, and has escaped, you can understand how such an experience sends him out of himself. It intensifies for him the idea of life as a stewardship for God, and he sees the folly of making all the streams of his effort run into himself. Howards life of benevolence was the outcome of a critical illness; and of multitudes more than of him it can be said that they sloughed off their selfishness in the crucible of trial.
3. But it is only a broadening out of this remark when I affirm that sympathy is born out of such experiences as those of Hezekiah. He who would be a helper must first be a sufferer. He who would be a saviour must somewhere and somehow have been upon a cross.
4. Experiences like Hezekiahs have much to do with the usefulness of a mans life. Usefulness is not a thing which one can command at will. It is, in most cases, the result of a discipline; and is possessed by those who, in a large degree, are unconscious that they are exercising it. It depends fully more on what a man is than on what he does, or, if it is due to what he does or says, that again is owing very much to what he is, and what he is now has been determined by the history through which he has been brought. You see that in the case of a physician. His experience goes far more to the making of him than his college training has done. It is so, also, in spiritual things. The helpfulness of another to us in the prosecution of the Christian life is determined more by his personal experience than by his intellectual pre-eminence. Here is the secret of the difference between one man and another in the matter of pulpit power. I must add one word of caution. It is not every affliction that works out such results; and whether any trial will do so or not depends entirely on the spirit in which it is borne. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Luthers life enriched by trial
Luther was wont to say that his three great teachers were prayer, study, and trial; and any reader of his life can perceive that if he had been required in the early part of his career to face some of the dangers which menaced him at a later date he would have faltered in his course. But through the minor experience he gained strength for the severer ordeal; and so it came about that what would have appalled him at the outset made almost as little impression on him at the last as the whistling of the idle wind that he regarded not. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Sympathy engendered by trouble
Those of us who have lost little children feel a prompting within us to speak a word of comfort to every parent who is passing through a similar experience. Indeed, it was in connection with an affliction of that sort that my attention was first drawn to this text. I had just a few weeks before buried a beloved daughter, the light of the household, and had gone to attend a meeting of Synod where an honoured minister, who had been through the same trial oftener than once before, came up to me and took me by the hand, and said to me, with a reference to my sorrow, By these things men live. That was all, but each successive year since then has given a new verification of his words, for oh! how often in the interval have I been enabled to comfort others with the comfort with which I have been comforted of God, and the efficacy of the consolation lay largely in the fact that it was offered by one who had proved its value for himself. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The life of the spirit
Whosoever is really alive, that is, has life in his spirit, the life of man and not a beast, the only life which is worthy to be called life, then that life is kept up in him in the same way that it was kept up in Hezekiah. Let us see, then, what things they were which gave Hezekiahs spirit life.
1. Great joy, great honour, great success, wealth, health, prosperity, and pleasure? Not so!
2. Trouble upon trouble came on Hezekiah.
3. Death looked to him an ugly and an evil thing–as it is; the Lords last enemy. He conquered death by rising from the dead: but nevertheless we die. Hezekiah lived before the Lord Jesus came to bring life and immortality to light by rising from the dead; and, therefore, he dreaded it, because he knew not what would come after death. He prayed hard not to die.
4. What was the use of his sickness and his terror if, after all, his prayer was heard, and after the Lord had told him, Thou shalt die, and not live–that did not come to pass; but the very contrary happened? Of this use,at least; it taught him that the Lord God would hear the prayers of mortal men. Is not that worth going through any misery to learn? Hezekiah did not pray rightly. He thought himself a better man than he was. But he did pray. And then he found that the Lord was ready to save him; that what the Lord wished was not to kill him but to make him live more really and fully and wisely and manfully.
5. What Hezekiah saw but dimly we ought to see clearly. For the Gospel tells us that the same Lord who chastened and taught and then saved Hezekiah, was made flesh, that He might in His own person bear all our sickness and carry our infirmities; that He might understand all our temptations and be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He who made, He who lightens every man who comes into the world, He who gave you every right thought and wholesome feeling that you ever had in your lives–He counts your tears; He knows your sorrows; He is able and willing to save you to the uttermost. Therefore do not be afraid of your own afflictions. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
Spoil from the fight with death
Hope and joy returned with restored health, and we see (Isa 38:16-20) what Hezekiah brought back with him from his fight with death
1. A new peace.
2. Forgiveness.
3. A new sense of the dignity of life, and of the encompassing eternal realities.
4. A joyful sense of Gods personal love for him. (E. W.Shalders, B. A.)
Physical benefit may accrue from sickness
Strange as it may appear, it is no less true that life is often lengthened and health invigorated by a sharp illness. Like a ship put in dock for repairs, an illness or an accident lays a man aside for a time out of the reach of work and worry, and the rest of mind and body restores the balance of his exhausted energies. Typhus fever successfully treated often clarifies the whole system, just as a chimney is cleansed by setting it on fire; and a severe illness often acts as a solemn warning, leading men to consider their ways and their work, and to diminish the strain which is overtaxing the system, or to give up some vicious habit of self-indulgence which is laying the axe to the root of the tree. (W. Johnston, D. D.)
The uses of affliction
The allusion of our text is not to the life of the body, but to that which is far more important, the life of the soul. In what manner does severe sickness or affliction of any kind conduce, by the blessing of God, to the creation and development of our spiritual life?
I. AFFLICTION TEACHES US OUR ENTIRE DEPENDENCE UPON GOD.
II. AFFLICTION DISROBES US OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. Hezekiah yielded to the insidious promptings of self-righteousness and self-glorification. Affliction was the disrobing process through which he was called upon to pass, the school in which he must learn his unworthiness as well as his weakness. And in this disrobing of all self-righteousness there was the life of his spirit.
III. AFFLICTION BRINGS US TO REALISE AND ENJOY THE FULNESS OF CHRIST. When Hezekiah was awakened to a sense of his want of righteousness before God, he expected to go softly in the bitterness of his soul all the years of his life. But the self-righteous idea of innocence and excellence is no longer the broken spear on which to lean and pierce his hand. The Sun of Righteousness has arisen with healing in His wings; bitterness and disquietude pass away together, and Hezekiah is made to see what he had never seen so clearly before–that in love to his soul, the Lord, his God in covenant, had afflicted his body, had thus delivered his soul from the pit of corruption, and had cast all his sins behind His back.
IV. SANCTIFIED AFFLICTION STIMULATES US IN CHRISTIAN WORK. Hezekiah learned on the bed of sickness that there are but twelve hours in the day, that the night cometh when no man can work, and that the brief period of life must be diligently and devoutly improved. And it is when laid upon the bed of severe sickness, with time in the past and eternity in the near future, that we shall realise in all its solemnity the importance and responsibility of life, and resolve, if spared like Hezekiah yet a little longer to recover strength before we go hence to be no more, that our chief end shall be to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. (W. Johnston, D. D.)
The life of the spirit
Hezekiah was a rich and prosperous king. Surrounded by the dignities of rank, the refinements of elegance, and the gratifications of voluptuousness, he, doubtless, viewed these as the very end and delight of his being, and wished for nothing, knew of nothing better or beyond them. No; very different was his character; very different were the things of which he spake. These words were not uttered in the house of his armour, but in the chamber of his sickness; not at the festive table of his royal banquets, but upon the couch of lassitude and pain. Let us endeavour, by a few examples, to verify his pensive contemplation; and this, that we may learn so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
1. Take the case of a professed scoffer at religion. He is arrested, we will suppose, by the arm of Omnipotence, in his profligate course; he is thrown by a stronger hand than his own upon the couch of pain and dejection; he learns for the first time to tremble; we will suppose him humbled, converted. Sanctified affliction was the first step. This softened the stony ground: this prepared the heart for holy impressions. Will not such a one be ready to exclaim with Hezekiah, By these things men live, and by these is the life of the spirit?
2. Imagine a man careless and indifferent to religion, though not a hardened scoffer. He is too busy with the world to spend a thought upon his eternal safety. But God brings him low. In the silence and solitude of affliction he is forced to think. What cause will such a one have for ever to bless Him who wounds that He may heal, who kills that He may make alive!
3. Let us imagine an inconsistent backsliding Christian brought into deep affliction. He returns to Him whom he had forsaken.
4. Look at the Pharisee. God brings him within sight of death and eternity. He is unmasked to himself, and begins to exclaim, What must I do to be saved? What a blessing has affliction been to such a character!
5. The dejected Christian. How often has such a one had reason to exclaim of afflictions, that by these things men live! The season of weakness and distress is often that which God selects for the brightest manifestations of His love and tenderness. (Family Sermons.)
The restoration of belief
In the especial ease of Hezekiah, belief was restored by a great shock, which brought him into contact with reality. God appeared to him–not as to Adam, in the cool of the day, but as He came to Job, in the whirlwind and the eclipse–and Hezekiah knew that he had been living in a vain show. The answer of his soul was quick and sad: By these things men live, O Lord.
I. THE BLOW WHICH SOBERED HEZEKIAH WAS A COMMON ONE. It did nothing more than bring him face to face with death. The process whereby his dependence on God was restored was uncomplicated. But there are far worse shocks than this, and recovery from them into a Godlike life is long and dreadful. There are things which at first seem to annihilate belief, and change an indifferent or a happy nature into earnest, even savage bitterness. One of these is the advent of irrecoverable disease, protracted weakness, or protracted pain. God forgives our human anger then, but we speak roughly to Him at first. It is a dark anger, and may grow in intensity till faith and love are lost for this life; but it will not reach that point if we have some greatness of soul, if we are open to the touch of human love. One day the Gospel story in all its sweet simplicity attracts and softens the sufferers heart. He reads that Christs suffering in self-sacrifice brought redemption unto man. Surely, he seems to dream this is no isolated fact. I too, in my apparent uselessness, am at one with the Great Labourer: I bear with Christ my cross for men. This is not only the restoration of belief, it is the victory of life.
II. BUT THERE ARE MORE DREADFUL THINGS THAN LONG DISEASE. There is that shipwreck which comes of dishonoured love. Many things are terrible, but none is worse than this. In some there is no remedy but death, and far beyond the immanent tenderness of God. But there are many who recover, whom God leads oat of the desert into the still garden of an evening life of peace and usefulness and even joy. Lapse of time does part of the work. In the quietude of middle life we look back upon our early misery, and only remember the love we felt. Faith is restored, hope is renewed, when, like Christ, you can turn and say, Father, forgive him, forgive her, for they knew not what they did.
III. There have been and are many of us who are conscious that, as we have passed into the later period of life and mingled with the world, OUR EARLY FAITH HAS ALSO PASSED AWAY. We have lost belief because our past religion was borrowed too much from others. If we wish for perfection, and are not content to die and love no more, the restoration of belief may be attained by the personal labour of the soul. It is worth trying what one personal effort to bring ourselves into the relation of a child to a father, in all the naturalness and simplicity of that relation, will do towards restoring faith and renewing life with tenderness. (S. A. Brooke, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. By these things men live – “For this cause shall it be declared”] , , Sept. They read in their copies not very different from the present text, from which all the ancient Versions vary. They entirely omit two words, ulecol bahen; as to which there is some variation in the MSS. One MS. has ubechol, and in all; two others vechol, and all, and ten MSS. have bahem, in them, in the masculine gender.
Taking this as in the common Version, we may observe, it is not an unfrequent case, that afflictions, and especially such as tend to a speedy death, become the means, not only of saving the soul, but also of lengthening the life.
Make me to live – “Hast prolonged my life.”] A MSS. and the Babylonish Talmud read vetachayeni, and so the ancient Versions. It must necessarily be in the second person.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
By these things; by virtue of thy gracious word or promise, and powerful work; by thy promises, and thy performances of them, mentioned in the foregoing verse. This place may be explained by comparing it with Deu 8:3, Man doth not live by bread, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. The sense is, Not I only, but all men, do receive and recover, and hold their lives by thy favour, and the word of thy power; and therefore it is not strange that one word of God hath brought me back from the very jaws of death.
In all these things is the life of my spirit; and as it is with other men, so hath it been with me in a special manner; for in these above all other things is the life of my spirit or soul, i.e. either the comfort (which is sometimes called life) of my spirit; or rather, that life which is in my body, from my spirit or soul united to it.
So wilt thou recover me, and make me to live; or, and or for thou hast recovered me, &c., to wit, by these things.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. by thesenamely, byGod’s benefits, which are implied in the context (Isa38:15, “He hath Himself done it” “unto me”).All “men live by these” benefits (Ps104:27-30), “and in all these is the life of my spirit,”that is, I also live by them (De8:3).
and (wilt) make me toliveThe Hebrew is imperative, “make me tolive.” In this view he adds a prayer to the confidenthope founded on his comparative convalescence, which he expressed,”Thou wilt recover me” [MAURER].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
O Lord, by these things men live,…. Not by bread only, but by the word of God: by the promise of God, and by his power performing it; and by his favour and goodness continually bestowed; it is in him, and by his power and providence, that they live and move, and have their being, and the continuance of it; and it is his lovingkindness manifested to them that makes them live comfortably and go on cheerfully:
and in all these things is the life of my spirit; what kept his soul in life were the same things, the promise, power, and providence of God; what revived his spirit, and made him comfortable and cheerful, was the wonderful love and great goodness of God unto him, in appearing to him, and for him, and delivering him out of his sore troubles. Ben Melech renders and gives the sense of the words thus; “to all will I declare and say, that in these”, in the years of addition (the fifteen years added to his days) “are the life of my spirit”; so Kimchi. The Targum interprets it of the resurrection of the dead,
“O Lord, concerning all the dead, thou hast said, that thou wilt quicken them; and before them all thou hast quickened my spirit:”
so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live; or rather, “and” or “for thou hast recovered t me, and made me to live”; for the Lord had not only promised it, but he had done it, Isa 38:15, and so the Targum,
“and hast quickened me, and sustained me.”
t So Gataker.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16. O Lord, even to all who shall live after them. The concise style of the Prophet has given rise to various interpretations. The interpretation most commonly received is “O Lord, they shall live beyond those years, (90) ” that is, “they shall lengthen their life.” This is equivalent to saying, “When thou shalt have lengthened my life, thou wilt grant that others also shall enjoy the same favor.” But that meaning does not agree with the text, and I look upon it as forced. I rather think that Hezekiah’s meaning was this ” O Lord, whosoever shall live beyond those years, to them also will the life of my spirit be known.” We must therefore supply the relative אשר, (asher,) who, as the Hebrew writers frequently do, and there will be nothing forced in this interpretation; for there can be no doubt, and nobody denies it, that he speaks of the years which the Lord had lengthened out to him. Thus he means that, this favor will be acknowledged not only by the men of that age, but also by posterity.
And didst cause me to sleep, and didst make me alive. In this way he magnifies the greatness of the favor, because it will also be well known to a future age, and will continue to be engraven on the remembrance of all, even when Hezekiah himself is dead, and not only so, but will be reckoned to be a kind of resurrection. By the word sleep he means death, as the Scriptures frequently do. (1Co 11:30; 1Th 4:14; 2Pe 3:4.) Thus he compares this mortal disease to death; for he was so near death that he utterly despaired of life.
(90) Outre ces ans-ci.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) By these things . . .i.e., by the word of God and the performance which fulfils it. For in all these things, read wholly through them. The words remind us of Deu. 8:3, Man doth not live by bread alone . . .
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. By these men live God’s virtual promise in the preceding verse is referred to. In consequence of this, “men live,” and in them shall my life be. Thou hast ordained to recover me, and cause me still to live.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 38:16. O Lord, by these things men live The meaning is, that the promises of grace, attained by humble prayer, and their quick and ready application, give life to the soul; or, that divine grace, and the promises of divine grace, are the life of the soul, are the food and nourishment of true life.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 38:16 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.
Ver. 16. O Lord, by these things men live. ] By thy promises so performed “the just do live by faith,” and live long in a little while; for life consisteth in action, and some live more in a day than others do in a year. An elephant liveth two hundred years, saith Aristotle; three hundred and fifty, saith Philostratus; and yet man, though of much shorter a continuance, is not inferior to an elephant. For this is not the best thing in nature, saith Scaliger, to live longest, but to live to best purpose. Now, man’s life is a way to life eternal. Other creatures have what they live for: not so man, while here.
And in all these things is the life of my spirit.
So wilt thou recover me.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
by these, &c. = upon these [Thy doings (Isa 38:15) men] revive (Psa 104:29, Psa 104:30), and the reviving of my spirit [is] altogether in them.
spirit. Hebrew. ruach.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 64:5, Deu 8:3, Job 33:19-28, Psa 71:20, Mat 4:4, 1Co 11:32, 2Co 4:17, Heb 12:10, Heb 12:11
Reciprocal: Psa 118:17 – die Pro 3:22 – life Joh 11:25 – the life
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 38:16. By these things men live By virtue of thy gracious word, or promise, and powerful work; or, by thy promises, and thy performance of them: and therefore it is not strange that one word of God hath brought me back from the jaws of death. And in all these things is the life of my spirit As all mens lives are thy gift, so I shall always acknowledge the preservation of mine to be owing to thy goodness in promising, and thy faithfulness in fulfilling thy promise. So wilt thou recover me, &c. Or, for thou hast recovered me. Thou hast restored my health and prolonged my life. Bishop Lowth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
38:16 O Lord, {q} by these [things men] live, and in all these [things is] the life of my spirit: so wilt thou {r} restore me, and make me to live.
(q) They who will outlive the men that are now alive, and all they who are in these years will acknowledge this blessing.
(r) That after that you had condemned me to death you restored me to life.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
He prayed that others would learn from his experiences, as he himself would, and that the Lord would indeed restore his health and his life. Another interpretation of the last line of this verse sees the king rejoicing that the Lord would restore him.