10 Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten steps.
He said, You have asked a hard thing: [nevertheless], if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so to you; but if not, it shall not be so.
This is but a light thing in the sight of Yahweh: he will also deliver the Moabites into your hand.
When he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we cast it out?" He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting."
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Kings 20
Commentary on 2 Kings 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
In this chapter we have,
2Ki 20:1-11
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.
2Ki 20:12-21
Here is,
Lastly, Here is the conclusion of Hezekiah's life and story, v. 20, 21. In 2 Chr. ch. 29-32 much more is recorded of Hezekiah's work of reformation than in this book of Kings; and it seems that in the civil chronicles, not now extant, there were many things recorded of his might and the good offices he did for Jerusalem, particularly his bringing water by pipes into the city. To have water in plenty, without striving for it and without being terrified with the noise of archers in the drawing of it, to have it at hand and convenient for us, is to be reckoned a great mercy; for the want of water would be a great calamity. But here this historian leaves him asleep with his fathers, and a son in his throne that proved very untoward; for parents cannot give grace to their children. Wicked Ahaz was the son of a godly father and the father of a godly son; holy Hezekiah was the son of a wicked father and the father of a wicked son. When the land was not reformed, as it should have been, by a good reign, it was plagued and ripened for ruin by a bad one; yet then tried again with a good one, that it might appear how loth God was to cut off his people.