Chapter 38 in Yeshayahu presents the "writing of Chizkiyahu", the poem written by King Chizkiyahu after he fell ill and recovered. The words Chizkiyahu speaks here are phrased in deep and poetic language, chosen to express the immense loftiness of the ideas he wished to convey. We will therefore seek to explain them primarily following the approach of the Malbim.
אֲנִי אָמַרְתִּי בִּדְמִי יָמַי אֵלֵכָה בְּשַׁעֲרֵי שְׁאוֹל פֻּקַּדְתִּי יֶתֶר שְׁנוֹתָי׃ - I said: In the stillness of my days I shall go into the gates of the netherworld; I have been deprived of the rest of my years.
Anyone reading the verse understands it in its simple sense, like the common modern Hebrew expression "he passed away in the prime of his days" (bidmi yamav), meaning that he died in his youth. But listen closely to what the Malbim explains, and to understand this, let us first introduce a fundamental principle regarding the nature of time. What actually is time? Has anyone ever encountered time, touched it, seen it, or smelled it? Is time merely an invented concept, or does it exist in nature?
The Ramban articulates a fundamental principle that took Einstein eight hundred years to discover: time exists only where matter exists. Where there is no matter, time is inapplicable. In other words, while time is an abstract concept, it is a dimension that acts upon physical entities. If a physical object exists, time applies to it, and each passing day wears it down and brings about change within it. This exemplifies the nature of time. But if there is no physical matter at all, time does not apply either.
It is based on this theory that particle accelerators are built today, and this underlies our entire understanding of the atom. Einstein posited that if a baby were placed in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light, while his twin brother remained here on Earth, then when the spaceship landed ten years later, one would find two twin brothers: one still an infant, and the other ten years old. At the speed of light, time drops to zero and stands still. This is purely theoretical, as no physical object can be accelerated to the speed of light - and according to Einstein, it is inherently impossible, since anything reaching the speed of light would convert from mass to energy, like waves of light, and cease to be physical matter. Practically speaking, however, for people traveling at high speeds - Mach 2 or aboard a spacecraft - their clock begins to slow down and does not tick at the rate our clocks tick. Thus, the concept of time is dependent on space, place, and matter. Where there is no matter, as the Ramban stated, there is no time.
Incidentally, this also provides the answer to a question many people ask: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do before creating the world? A week before, a month, a year, a million years? The question does not even begin, because the world is matter, and before there was matter, there was no time. All of time depends on the existence of matter, and when matter does not exist, time does not exist.
Now let us explain the verse. When a person is alive and moving, there is the movement of life, and we say that time moves. When a person dies, time falls silent and still, but one still cannot say that time ceases completely, because the corpse remains, and it is still matter. Only when the body has decayed and nothing remains of it can it be said that time has completely ceased. This is what Chizkiyahu was saying: I thought that "in the stillness of my days" (bidmi yamay) - from the word domem (still, silent) - I would reach a state where my days would be silent, still, and motionless; for when a person lives, his days move, and when he dies, his days become still. "I shall go into the gates of the netherworld" along with the stillness of my days, meaning before Sheol, which consumes the body, completely dissolves me, while I am still at the threshold, having just passed away. But once Sheol consumes me, I will no longer be merely at the gates of Sheol, but in a state of utter nullity; the body will decompose until nothing remains, and then time will not only halt but be nullified entirely, for time has no meaning where there is no matter. Universal time may march on, but my personal clock will have ceased completely. "I have been deprived of the rest of my years" - the remainder of my years, those years I was supposed to have lived, are now missing from my life.
אָמַרְתִּי לֹא אֶרְאֶה יָהּ יָהּ בְּאֶרֶץ הַחַיִּים לֹא אַבִּיט אָדָם עוֹד עִם יוֹשְׁבֵי חָדֶל׃ - I said: I shall not see Yah, Yah, in the land of the living; I shall gaze upon man no more with the inhabitants of the fleeting world.
Rashi explains: "I shall not see Yah" means I will no longer invoke the Name Yah in the land of the living, for only the living may invoke it, whereas the dead are not permitted to do so, as it says, "The dead do not praise Yah." It is a decree for the dead that they never mention this two-letter Name. Based on this, Sefer Chasidim writes that if a deceased person appears to someone in a dream and utters the Name Yah, the dreamer should know that this is not actually the deceased person, but a demon or the like, since a departed soul is incapable of uttering this Name. Radak, citing his father, interprets it differently: "I shall not see Yah" means I will no longer behold the dwelling of Yah, the Beit HaMikdash here below, which is the dwelling of Hashem in the land of the living.
"With the inhabitants of the fleeting world (yoshvei chadel)" - chadel is equivalent to cheled (the fleeting world), by way of inverted root letters, similar to keves and kesev (lamb), or salmah and simlah (garment). And why is this world called chadel? To signify that it is a world of cessation (chidalon), a world destined to reach an end, in contrast to spiritual reality which is eternal. "For six thousand years the world will stand, and for one it will be desolate" - the seventh millennium will be ruined, which is why it is called chadel, related to chidalon, cessation.
The Malbim explains this profoundly. The intellect's comprehension while bound to the physical body is entirely different from its comprehension when separate and detached from the body, when matter no longer constrains it. A person's apprehension of the Holy One, blessed be He, while within the body is completely distinct from his apprehension after departing the body, when his soul is purely spiritual and capable of grasping spiritual concepts. In our present state, a person has no ability to grasp this, just as if we were to try to explain the color white to someone blind from birth. If you tell him white is like milk, he will say it is wet. If you say white is like snow, he will say it is cold. Why can he not understand? Because he has no concept of color whatsoever, and without an initial frame of reference, he does not even have the beginning of understanding.
For all of our understanding depends on prior knowledge. If I wanted to explain to you what a cracker is, I would ask: Do you know what bread is? Imagine that it was dried out and made thin and crisp. Now you have the beginning of comprehension, because you know bread and you know what drying is. Our world is a world of analogies; we compare one thing to another. But an entirely different dimension that is completely unfamiliar to your consciousness cannot be explained, because there is nothing to compare it to.
Therefore, when we want to illustrate spiritual concepts, such as the sefiros, we speak of "lights." Yet are there physical lights in Heaven? Heaven forbid. Anyone who imagines this anthropomorphizes the Divine, violating "for you saw no manner of form." This is one of the primary warnings given to those who study Kabbalah: never materialize spiritual concepts, and do not think there is a hand, a foot, or physical light there. Rather, since we have no grasp of the spiritual at all, we take the most abstract and refined concept we can perceive, which is light. Every other object is tangible: earthenware, a plate, wood; one can touch it and it is clearly physical. But who has ever grasped light?
The same applies here. "I said: I shall not see Yah" - I will no longer perceive Hashem through the concepts and perception that I have today, while encased in a physical body and mired in darkness. Which aspect of Yah will I not see? "Yah in the land of the living" - Hashem as He is perceived here in this world, in a limited fashion that is completely different from true reality. Rather, I will perceive Yah of the spiritual realm, a truer perception belonging to a person after departing the body. For as explained many times, the body is a curtain, an opaque material that creates a barrier between us and Hashem. The more a person refines his body, the more he perceives Godliness without barriers and partitions; and the more physical the body is, immersed in desires, the more spiritual perception diminishes and shrinks.
"I shall gaze upon man no more among the inhabitants of the world of cessation." Disembodied souls, the separate intellects, do not perceive through the senses but through pure intellect. In this world, one needs the organ of sight to see, the organ of taste to taste, and the organ of speech to speak. A person whose vocal organs are impaired cannot speak, even though his soul lacks nothing; therefore, once his soul departs the body, he will be able to communicate with other souls. Mutism is a defect of the vessel, whereas the soul itself is whole. It emerges that as souls detached from the body, we will not perceive one another in the same manner at all, for we will exist in an entirely different essence and state of being. This is what Chizkiyahu meant: I will no longer look upon another person as does an inhabitant of this earthly realm. For example, in this world I might view you as a stranger, but as a soul I may suddenly perceive that you are a part of my soul and that your spiritual repair is bound up with mine. This is merely one example, and there may be vast, endless differences between the way a soul perceives another and the way a physical body perceives another. Thus he says: I already felt that I stood at the brink of death, and consequently I would no longer look at human beings as do the dwellers of this world, but would view everything spiritually, as one soul perceives another soul.
דּוֹרִי נִסַּע וְנִגְלָה מִנִּי כְּאֹהֶל רֹעִי קִפַּדְתִּי כָאֹרֵג חַיַּי מִדַּלָּה יְבַצְּעֵנִי מִיּוֹם עַד לַיְלָה תַּשְׁלִימֵנִי׃ - My lifespan has departed and been removed from me like a shepherd's tent; I bound up my life like a weaver; through illness He cuts me off; from day to night You make an end of me.
After such a sequence of difficult expressions, the Malbim's guidance is indispensable. "Dori" (my generation or lifespan) - the span enclosing the entire duration of a person's life is called a dor, related to kaddur (a sphere or circle), signifying a perimeter or circuit. Similarly in Arabic, dawwar means rotating, a circuit. When a person reaches the point of expiration, and even his corpse decomposes, his dor ceases; the encompassing reality that sheltered him comes to an end.
Let us illustrate this with the analogy of a tent. Imagine that humanity and human lives are like a long line stretching from Adam onward, advancing generation after generation. The years of a generation resemble a tent traveling forward: presently it shelters this generation, then more people are born, the next generation arrives, and the tent moves forward. Those who were sheltered beneath it until now have passed away, and the tent covers them no longer. This is the meaning of "My lifespan has departed and been removed from me": the tent signifying the generation has moved on and traveled forward, "and been removed from me" - for if the tent no longer covers me, I am left uncovered without a tent, meaning that my years have passed and the days of my lifespan have ended.
"I bound up my life like a weaver" - kipadti is not related to modern Hebrew hakpadah (strictness or taking offense), but denotes binding and tying. The Malbim brings proofs for this, noting that the Targum consistently translates expressions of curtailing or shortening (kitzur) with terms of k'fad. The metaphor describes a person's allotted time as a garment to which thread after thread is continually added; when the weaving ends and the garment is complete, a person's life comes to its close. The moment of birth is the very first thread, and gradually another thread and another strand are bound and woven, until the final thread completes the garment - the final stroke - and at that point the person passes away. We find similarly in Iyov, who compared life to a weaver's loom. Chizkiyahu says: Like a weaver, I bound my life together from these threads, which represent seconds and moments, each second being another thread and another knot. Yet my weaving was not yet complete; I still had a chapter of life left to live.
"Through illness He cuts me off" - yet because of the affliction (dalah, illness) in which I find myself, the sickness that has struck me, the Holy One, blessed be He, is bringing the garment to an abrupt finish. It was meant to be a long garment, and I had much left to weave, but from the severe affliction and sickness I see, it is a sign that Hashem is about to finish the garment in a single moment, signifying death. "From day to night You make an end of me" - that which was meant to take long days and years until the tapestry of my life was completed is being concluded in so brief a time, from day to night.
שִׁוִּיתִי עַד בֹּקֶר כָּאֲרִי כֵּן יְשַׁבֵּר כָּל עַצְמוֹתָי מִיּוֹם עַד לַיְלָה תַּשְׁלִימֵנִי׃ - I reckoned until morning: like a lion, so it shatters all my bones; from day to night You bring an end to me.
The Malbim explains: On the other hand, during the night I bolstered myself against that frailty and weakness. "I reckoned until morning [I would be] like a lion" - I thought I would be like a lion and prevail, but "so it shatters all my bones" - that very lion that symbolized prevailing strength to me is what shatters all my bones. The meaning is: fever, which is the heat a person experiences, was added to his illness. Sometimes this heat gives a person a sensation of strength, as the heat sustains the body, so to speak. The Gemara says that fever sustains and nourishes the body, which is why a sick person feels no appetite to eat, because the fever acts as though it feeds him, and he feels he has strength, like someone running on high heat.
Chizkiyahu said: I thought that if so, I was about to overcome the illness, but then I realized that this lion shatters all my bones. Fever is not one's own internal warmth, but a strange fire - a heat added to the body's natural warmth. For when a person approaches death, his body temperature drops and he grows cold; so when I felt the heat, I said: Here, I am prevailing like a lion! Yet it became clear that this was not natural body heat returning to me, but an external heat, a burning fever seizing me - a lion that comes not to strengthen my body, but to shatter all my bones. In that state, I thought to myself, "from day to night You bring an end to me" - I will no longer survive, and in such a short span of time the garment will be cut off, and I will reach death.
כְּסוּס עָגוּר כֵּן אֲצַפְצֵף אֶהְגֶּה כַּיּוֹנָה דַּלּוּ עֵינַי לַמָּרוֹם אֲדֹנָי עָשְׁקָה לִּי עָרְבֵנִי׃ - Like a swift or a crane, so did I chirp; I moaned like a dove; my eyes lifted up to the heights: My Lord, I am oppressed; be my guarantor!
The Malbim describes how within Chizkiyahu were two conflicting perspectives. On the one hand, he felt that this was it - he was about to leave this world, the woven cloth was about to come to an end, and he likened himself to a sus and an agur. This does not refer to a neighing horse, but rather to two species of birds, as stated elsewhere, "a swallow (sus) and a crane (agur)" - there it is spelled sis and here sus, but it is all one and the same. The distinctive trait of these two birds, as the Malbim notes, is that they belong to the family of migratory birds. After all, a horse does not chirp; who chirps? Birds! Therefore the Malbim, along with other commentators, explains that these are two types of birds.
The swift and the crane migrate in winter to warmer lands. And what do they sense when winter arrives? That death is drawing near, for they cannot survive in cold countries; when snow and freezing cold arrive, everything enters a state of frozen arrest, and death envelops them too. What do they do? They migrate, chirping as they travel toward warm lands, seeking life. Chizkiyahu says: So it was with me. When I felt my illness, I felt like the swift and the crane, like one over whom the wings of death are already spread, about to depart for the lands of life - that is, I am about to unite with the Ein Sof, blessed be He; I am about to die.
Here the Malbim applies his principle of parallel clauses ("the doors of the verse correspond"), an approach through which he explains many verses, especially in Sefer Iyov, and which is found in Sefer Yeshayahu as well. The rule is: when a verse contains four clauses, clauses 1 and 3 form a direct continuation of one another, and clauses 2 and 4 form a direct continuation of one another. Thus here: "Like a swift or a crane, so did I chirp" connects directly to "my eyes lifted up to the heights," while "I moaned like a dove" connects to "My Lord, I am oppressed; be my guarantor!" That is to say: I chirp like those birds that journey to warmer realms, and whither? "My eyes lifted up to the heights" - I feel that I am about to ascend on high, migrating from my place because death has arrived here, and I will not remain.
On the other hand, from the opposing sentiment within him: "I moaned like a dove." Just as a dove guards her nest and will not depart from it, so I feel that death is coming to rob me of my nest, and I moan and cry out like a dove: "My Lord, I am oppressed; be my guarantor!" Master of the Universe, see, they wish to rob me - be my guarantor and save me from the ruin about to befall me.
מָה אֲדַבֵּר וְאָמַר לִי וְהוּא עָשָׂה אֶדַּדֶּה כָל שְׁנוֹתַי עַל מַר נַפְשִׁי׃ - What shall I say? He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it; I will walk softly all my years upon the bitterness of my soul.
Now he describes how his thoughts oscillate between these two poles: on the one hand, he feels he is about to die, yet on the other hand, he cries out to Hashem to grant him more life. Therefore he says: "What shall I say?" Seemingly, I am praying in vain that Hashem should be my guarantor and rescue me from the death that comes to rob me, for "He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it" - Hashem already told me, "You shall die and not live." Why should I be surprised? The reality I am currently experiencing is neither a surprise nor an unnatural occurrence; rather, Hashem has fulfilled what He declared, having sent a prophet to me in advance.
"I shall tread softly all my years over the bitterness of my soul" - the word edaddeh implies skipping or stepping over, as in "I moved forward (eddaddem) to the House of God." In my mind, I had already skipped over all my years, over all the years I had left to live, as if they did not exist. And I also skipped over the bitterness of my soul. For there is a stage where a person still has hope, and then his bitterness over what he is going through is very intense; but there is another stage of resignation and despair, where even the bitterness leaves him. He resigns himself: that is it, it is over, this is the reality, and there is no point in crying over it. Chizkiyahu says: I reached a point where I stepped over even my bitterness of soul, out of resignation to my grim fate and the realization that I was about to depart this world; I had already moved past and accepted even the bitterness that previously gripped me.
אֲדֹנָי עֲלֵיהֶם יִחְיוּ וּלְכָל בָּהֶן חַיֵּי רוּחִי וְתַחֲלִימֵנִי וְהַחֲיֵנִי׃ - My Lord, concerning them they shall live, and in all of them is the life of my spirit; You have restored me to health and given me life.
Yet then Hashem decreed concerning those years that they shall live. I had indeed despaired, but the Holy One, blessed be He, had already allotted my portion in life. "And in all of them is the life of my spirit" - all the things that fill my years will be primed to give life to my spirit. "You have restored me to health and given me life" (vetachlimeni vehachayeini) - until now, everything seemed to me like a dream (chalom), and now it became clear to me that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave me life instead of death. Everything I had thought was like a bad dream: I had anticipated death, despaired, stepped past the bitterness of my soul, my garment was complete, and suddenly Hashem revived me. Thus, everything that occurred until now was merely a bad dream that passed, vanished, and is no more. This is the meaning of "vetachlimeni" - You turned everything I went through into a distant dream, and "vehachayeini" - Hashem ensured that my days would be renewed. Even though they had already run their course, and I had skipped past them, and they were considered dead and gone, when the Holy One, blessed be He, utters His word over them, they live, and I returned to life.
הִנֵּה לְשָׁלוֹם מַר לִי מָר וְאַתָּה חָשַׁקְתָּ נַפְשִׁי מִשַּׁחַת בְּלִי כִּי הִשְׁלַכְתָּ אַחֲרֵי גֵוְךָ כָּל חֲטָאָי׃ - Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but You have held back my soul from the pit of destruction, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
Rashi offers a wonderful explanation here. "Behold, for peace I had great bitterness" - even when I was told of peace, and the prophet was sent to announce peace to me, it was a bitter tidings. Why? Because on what did Hashem condition his healing? On others. For he was told, "Thus says Hashem, the God of David your father," and in Kings, "For My sake and for the sake of My servant David" I will protect you and heal you. Not on account of your own merits. It turns out that he received a gift, but with a sting: the peace the Holy One, blessed be He, gave me, by restoring me to life and rescuing me from Sancheriv, is a bitter peace, for I am being told that it is not in my own merit, but in the merit of others.
Rashi also brings another explanation: when I received the tidings from You that I would be saved from the hand of Sancheriv, on the one hand it was good news that I would be rescued, but on the other hand, at that very moment I fell ill, and it was bitter for me. On one hand good news, and on the other hand bad news that I was succumbing to illness. Two contradictory matters: on one hand peace and a promise of salvation from enemies, and on the other hand the bitterness of disease.
Radak explains differently, avoiding any contradiction between peace and bitterness: "For peace" (leshalom) means toward peace, the letter lamed functioning as "toward." I was anticipating peace, and when I was ill, I felt bitterness because I had no peace. Instead of the peace I anticipated, I received bitterness and illness.
The Malbim prefaces this with a principle: a healthy person is someone who possesses harmony (shalom), in that there is peace among all the faculties and organs of the body. How do we survive? The heart supplies blood to all, the lungs supply oxygen to the entire body, and so on. If they were to dispute among themselves and each decided to look after itself alone, the body would die. Thus, peace among the components of the body means life. Chizkiyahu says: "Behold, for peace" - I anticipated life, for there had been a threat to my life from Sancheriv, and now I am informed that I will triumph over Sancheriv; but "I had great bitterness" (mar li mar) - instead of the harmony of life I expected, I received the bitterness of my illness.
The Malbim also has another principle: when a word is repeated twice in a verse, the second time it conveys a different meaning from the first, as it cannot be that the prophet repeats the same word without the second instance carrying a different nuance. For example, if a word appears twice, it might be explained once from one root and once from another. So too here: the first "mar" is from the language of exchange and substitution (hamarah), as in "he shall not alter it nor change it" (lo yamirenu), and the second "mar" is from the language of bitterness. Instead of the peace promised to me, that I would defeat Sancheriv, it was exchanged for bitterness, for behold, I became ill. And why did the verse use the exact same word twice? This is wordplay (lashon nofel al lashon), like "heaps upon heaps" (chamor chamorotayim), for rhetorical beauty.
"And You have held back my soul from the pit of destruction" - when I saw my soul standing at the gates of the grave, ready to waste away (beli, related to wear and decay), to rot in the earth, You desired it and drew it back from this terrible decree. And out of Your great love for it, "You have cast all my sins behind Your back." There were seemingly ample reasons for me to be punished with death, but You cast all my sins behind Your back, as it is written, "love covers all transgressions." Nor was this merely turning a blind eye, for we have already explained that Chizkiyahu repented, and through this You pardoned all my iniquities and redeemed my soul from the pit that was meant to consume it.
כִּי לֹא שְׁאוֹל תּוֹדֶךָּ מָוֶת יְהַלְלֶךָּ לֹא יְשַׂבְּרוּ יוֹרְדֵי בוֹר אֶל אֲמִתֶּךָ׃ - For the netherworld cannot praise You, death cannot laud You; those who descend into the pit cannot hope for Your truth.
Giving thanks to Hashem for His goodness toward us is impossible when a person is in the grave, and for two reasons. First, the essence of thanksgiving is for life itself, and one who is in Sheol lacks this primary gift and has nothing to give thanks for. Second, he lacks the very ability to give thanks, for thanksgiving is expressed through the body and the mouth; how can a deceased person praise the Holy One, blessed be He, when he is in a state of cessation?
"Those who descend into the pit cannot hope for Your truth" - Furthermore, when a person is alive, he has hope for the future. This is the meaning of the word lesaber (to hope), as in "The eyes of all look to You with hope" (einei chol eilecha yeshabeiru), an expression of hope and anticipation for what has been promised to him. But those who descend into the pit, who are no longer among the living, can no longer look forward to Your promises; this is simply not applicable to those who descend into the pit.
חַי חַי הוּא יוֹדֶךָ כָּמוֹנִי הַיּוֹם אָב לְבָנִים יוֹדִיעַ אֶל אֲמִתֶּךָ׃ - The living, the living, he shall praise You, as I do this day; a father to his children shall make known Your truth.
Corresponding to "For the netherworld cannot praise You," he says: only one who is alive, and because he is alive, can give thanks to You. This explains the repetition in "The living, the living, he shall praise You": it is the living person who will give thanks, and for what will he give thanks? For the very life that You have granted him. And corresponding to "those who descend into the pit cannot hope for Your truth" - since only a living person can anticipate Hashem's promises - he says: "As I do this day; a father to his children shall make known Your truth." Only one who is like me today, who has been promised that he will father children, can make Your truth known, for I have something to anticipate and await. Indeed, the Holy One, blessed be He, had told Chizkiyahu that he was being punished for not fathering children; now that he repented and desires to father children, he has hope. When a person has children, he makes known to the next generation Hashem's kindness toward him and the promises He has fulfilled. But how could one who descends into the pit make Your truth known to the next generation? Only the living can pass this legacy forward and proclaim Hashem's mighty deeds to his children after him.
יְהֹוָה לְהוֹשִׁיעֵנִי וּנְגִנוֹתַי נְנַגֵּן כָּל יְמֵי חַיֵּינוּ עַל בֵּית יְהֹוָה׃ - Hashem was ready to save me; therefore we will play my music all the days of our life at the House of Hashem.
Hashem, Who has saved me now, will also save me in the future. "And we will play my music" - the songs and melodies that I used to have played for my own pleasure, as kings were accustomed to have musicians perform before them for their entertainment, from now on "we will play all the days of our life at the House of Hashem." I dedicate my music to the honor of Hashem, blessed be He. What I had played until now for myself and for my own honor will from now on be entirely for the glory of Heaven.
וַיֹּאמֶר יְשַׁעְיָהוּ יִשְׂאוּ דְּבֶלֶת תְּאֵנִים וְיִמְרְחוּ עַל הַשְּׁחִין וְיֶחִי׃ - And Yeshayahu said: Let them take a cake of pressed figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover.
Radak writes that this verse is no longer part of what came before. The preceding verses were the letter written by Chizkiyahu expressing gratitude to Hashem for all the kindness He bestowed upon him, and that letter has concluded; here the text describes his healing. Radak wonders slightly why this was recorded here rather than earlier, immediately after "And I will defend this city," where Hashem promised him healing and protection for the city. It would have been fitting to state immediately, "And Yeshayahu said, 'Let them take a cake of figs,'" and indeed that is how it appears in Sefer Melachim. Here, however, the order is different, and Radak leaves this as an open question.
"A cake of figs" (develes te'enim): plain figs are moist figs, whereas a deveilah is formed when they are pressed into a round block, becoming like a thick paste or jam. "And apply it as a plaster" (veyimrechu) - they smoothed it and pressed it onto the boil. Chazal observe: this was a miracle within a miracle. For placing a cake of figs upon healthy raw flesh causes it to fester and decay, and all the more so here, where the flesh was already diseased, it would surely cause it to rot and exacerbate the boil. A boil requires air to dry out, yet here a cake of figs was placed over it, which naturally causes deterioration. Rather, the Holy One, Blessed is He, placed something harmful into something being harmed, and nonetheless cured it, just as He sweetened the bitter waters by having something bitter cast into them. In the natural order, one sweetens bitter with sweet, but miraculously, one can treat bitter with bitter and have that itself sweeten it. Through this, Scripture reiterates that the healing here was not natural at all, for Hashem performed a miracle for him.
וַיֹּאמֶר חִזְקִיָּהוּ מָה אוֹת כִּי אֶעֱלֶה בֵּית יְהֹוָה׃ - And Chizkiyahu said, "What is the sign that I shall go up to the House of Hashem?"
The Malbim points out that in Sefer Melachim it appears Chizkiyahu said this as a question and received an answer: "What is the sign that Hashem will heal me, and that I shall go up on the third day to the House of Hashem?" To which Yeshayahu responded, "This shall be the sign for you from Hashem," and then the sun retreated ten degrees. Here, however, the chapter ends with the words, "What is the sign that I shall go up to the House of Hashem?" and it is not recorded that Yeshayahu answered him or gave him a sign.
Therefore, the Malbim explains - both here and there - that this is not a question, but an expression of wonder: what a great sign it is that I shall go up to the House of Hashem, such that I need no further signs! In other words, how wondrous is the sign itself, that I am recovering and healed within three days, already able to ascend to the House of Hashem to give thanks for all the miracles He has performed for me. Even though the plain sense of the verses might suggest otherwise, and even though Rashi in Masechet Sanhedrin notes that there was a claim against him for requesting a sign from Hashem, which is not fitting, the Malbim does not interpret it that way. In any event, note that Yeshayahu told him Hashem had prepared an even greater sign, one that would also serve as a banner for the nations so that all peoples would marvel at it. In the next chapter, we will see the purpose for which the great and extraordinary sign of the sun reversing course was performed, as will be discussed in greater detail in the Malbim's words.
In Chizkiyahu's song, we behold a man standing on the threshold of death, describing the abyss that opened before him: days rendered silent and time itself reduced to nothingness as physical matter dissolves; the perception of Hashem in the body severed from the perception of the transcendent intellect; the tent of his generation dismantled and journeying away, leaving him exposed; the garment of his life woven and about to be severed in an instant; and a fever that seemed as fierce as a lion, yet was nothing other than an alien fire crushing his bones. Between the chirping of the migrating bird journeying toward the lands of the living and the cooing of the dove pleading for its nest, between despair and submission, and prayer and outcry, the Holy One, Blessed is He, resolved: "My Lord, upon them they shall live." All that had passed became a bad dream gone by; Hashem cast all his sins behind His back; and Chizkiyahu affirms that praise and hope belong only to the living. Therefore, from now on he will dedicate all his songs to the House of Hashem and make His truth known to the children after him. Even the healing itself - the cake of figs placed upon the boil - was a miracle within a miracle, until the greatest sign of all in his eyes was the very ascent to the House of Hashem to give thanks.