And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.”
The historian, having shown us blaspheming Sennacherib destroyed in the midst of the prospects of life, here shows us praying Hezekiah delivered in the midst of the prospects of death - the days of the former shortened, of the latter prolonged. I. Here is Hezekiah's sickness. In those days, that is, in the same year in which the king of Assyria besieged Jerusalem; for he reigning reigned?
Commenting on 2 Kings 20:1-11
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord,.... Or prayed, as the Targum; and was very earnest in prayer, that what Hezekiah had desired might be granted: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz; Ben Gersom understands it not of the sun itself, but of the shadow of it only; See Gill on Isa 38:8.
And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. (g) Let the sun go so many degrees back, that the hours may be fewer in the king's dial.