“And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?”
My Notes
What Does 2 Kings 20:8 Mean?
"What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?" Hezekiah, told he will recover from his illness (verse 5), asks for a confirming sign — and specifically frames the healing in terms of Temple attendance: the sign should confirm that he'll go to the Temple on the third day. His first concern after hearing he'll live isn't returning to the palace. It's returning to worship.
The "third day" connects to resurrection patterns throughout Scripture: Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:4), Jonah's whale (Jonah 1:17), and ultimately Christ's resurrection. The third day is consistently the day of restoration, reversal, and life-after-death-threat in biblical narrative.
The sign God provides (verse 11) is spectacular: the shadow on the sundial moves backward ten degrees. Time itself reverses. The sign for the healing of the king is the reversal of the natural order. The shadow that should only move forward goes backward — just as Hezekiah's life, which should have ended, moves backward from death to continued life.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What's your metric for spiritual health — and does it include worship?
- 2.How does the third-day pattern (Abraham, Jonah, Jesus, Hezekiah) shape your expectation of restoration?
- 3.What does the shadow reversing teach about God overriding natural processes for healing?
- 4.What 'Temple attendance' — return to worship — are you hoping your healing produces?
Devotional
What's the sign I'll be healed — and that I'll worship again on the third day? Hezekiah's question reveals his deepest desire: not just survival but worship. Not just more years but more time in God's house. The healing serves the worshipping.
The third-day framing connects Hezekiah's recovery to the Bible's deepest pattern: the third day is when things come back to life. Abraham received Isaac back 'as from the dead' on the third day. Jonah emerged from the whale on the third day. Jesus rose on the third day. Hezekiah expects his healing to follow the same pattern — third-day restoration.
The sign — the shadow reversing on the sundial — matches the nature of the miracle: Hezekiah's life is moving backward from death to life. The shadow that should only advance in one direction reverses. Time doesn't work this way naturally. The sign says: the natural order is being overridden for you. What should only go forward is going backward. What should only progress toward death is retreating toward life.
The Temple-attendance concern — 'that I shall go up into the house of the LORD' — is Hezekiah's version of the question we saw earlier (38:22): will I worship again? The king's measure of healing isn't physical comfort. It's congregational participation. Am I well enough to go to church? That's the metric.
What's your metric for health — physical function or worship attendance? Hezekiah measures recovery by whether he can go to the Temple. What do you measure it by?
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And Isaiah said, this sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken,.... Cure…
And Hezekiah said - Previous to the actual recovery, Hezekiah, who at first may have felt himself no better, asked for a…
What shall be the sign - He wished to be fully convinced that his cure was to be entirely supernatural; and, in order to…
The historian, having shown us blaspheming Sennacherib destroyed in the midst of the prospects of life, here shows us…
Whatshall be the sign The king would have some token at once that the promise made to him should come to pass, and…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture