And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.
All Commentaries on 2 Kings 20:11 Go To 2 Kings 20
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Dial. Hebrew also, "steps. "St. Jerome confesses that he followed Symmachus in Isaias xxxviii. 7. Whether this dial resembled one of ours, (Grotius) or was made in the form of steps, (St. Cyril, hom. 3, in Isaias) or rather of a half globe, (Calmet) after the Babylonian fashion, (Vitruvius ix. 9.) is not clear. Some have asserted that hours were not known to the Hebrews, before the captivity. (Usher, the year of the world 3291.)
But Toby, (xii. 22.) who wrote at Nineve, under the reign of Manasses, clearly speaks of them. The Egyptians pretend that they invented water hour-glasses. But the invention of dials is attributed to the Chaldeans, from whom Anaximander introduced them among the Greeks, under the reign of Cyrus. He died in the year of the world 3457.
Achaz had much to do with Theglathphalasar; (chap. xvii. 8.) and probably obtained this curiosity from the same country. In more ancient times, people measured time by the length of their shadow, and were invited to a feast at such a foot, in the same manner as we should invite for such an hour. (Palladius, Rustic. xii.) (Calmet)
Till the year of Rome 595, when Nasica dedicated the first water hour-glass, the Romans knew not how the time passed on cloudy days. (Pliny, vii. 60.) (Vitruvius ix. 9.)
Grotius supposes that the dial of Achaz was a concave semicircular gnomon, in which a globe was placed, the shadow of which fell on twenty-eight lines. (Du Hamel)
