And I will add unto your days fifteen years; and I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
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Cyril of Jerusalem
AD 386
Would you know the power of repentance? Would you understand this strong weapon of salvation and the might of confession? By confession Hezekiah routed 185,000 of the enemy. That was important, but it was little compared with what shall be told. The same king’s repentance won the repeal of the sentence God had passed on him. For when he was sick, Isaiah said to him, “Give charge concerning your house, for you shall die and not live.” What expectation was left? What hope of recovery was there, when the prophet said, “For you shall die”? But Hezekiah did not cease from penitence, for he remembered what was written: “In the hour that you turn and lament, you shall be saved.” He turned his face to the wall, and from his bed of pain his mind soared up to heaven—for no wall is so thick as to stifle reverent prayer—“Lord,” he said, “remember me. You are not subject to circumstance, but are yourself the legislator of life. For not on birth and conjunction of stars, as some vainly say, does our...
Assyrians. It is commonly supposed that this alludes to Sennacherib. But it might refer to his son, who was sending an army, Isaias xx. 1. We ought not to alter the scriptural order of the transactions, without cogent reasons.
Now let us rise to still more sublime examples. Speaking in the person of God, the prophet Isaiah addressed King Hezekiah as he was lying in bed and laboring under a grave illness: “The Lord says this: Set your house in order, because you shall die, and you shall not live. And Hezekiah,” it says, “turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, I beseech you, Lord, remember, I pray, how I walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart and did what was good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept with much weeping.” After this it was said to him again: “Turn back and speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, and say, The Lord, the God of David your father, says this: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears, and behold, I will add fifteen years to your days, and I will free you from the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” What is clearer than this text, according to which the Lord, with a view t...
For which of the things in our present life seems to you pleasant? A sumptuous table, and health of body, and glory and wealth? No, these delights, if you set them by that pleasure, will prove the bitterest of all things, compared with what is to come. For nothing is more pleasurable than a sound conscience and a good hope. And if you would learn this, let us inquire of him who is on the point of departing hence or of him that is grown old; and when we have reminded him of sumptuous banqueting that he had enjoyed, and of glory and honor and of good works that he had some time practiced and wrought, let us ask in which he exults the more; and we shall see him for the other ashamed and covering his face but for these soaring and leaping with joy. So Hezekiah, too, when he was sick, called not to mind sumptuous feasting or glory or royalty but righteousness. For “remember,” he said, “how I walked before you in an upright way.” - "Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 53.6–7"
