Now let us rise to still higher instances. When king Hezekiah was lying on his bed and afflicted with grievous sickness, the prophet Isaiah addressed him in the person of God, and said: Thus says the Lord: set your house in order for will die and not live. And Hezekiah, it says, turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said: I beseech you, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and how I have done what was right in your sight. And Hezekiah wept much. After which it was again said to Isaiah: Go, return, and speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Thus says the Lord God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add to your life fifteen years, and I will deliver you out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will defend this city for your sake and for my servant David’s sake. What can be clearer than this proof that out of consideration for mercy and goodness the Lord would rather break his word and instead of the appointed sentence of death extend the life of him who prayed for fifteen years, rather than be found inexorable because of an unchangeable decree?

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.^[1] 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.^[2] 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 life depend. No, you are the arbiter, according to your will, of life and the duration of life. He whom the prophet’s sentence had forbidden to hope was granted fifteen further years of life, the sun turning back its course in witness thereof. Now while the sun retraced its course for Hezekiah, for Christ it was eclipsed, the distinction marking the difference between the two, I mean Hezekiah and Jesus. Now if even Hezekiah could revoke God’s decree, shall not Jesus grant the remission of sins? Turn and lament, shut your door, and beg for pardon, that God may remove from the scorching flames. For confession has the power to quench even fire; it can tame even lions.

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.

The vine, and that not in a few places, refers to the Lord himself,^[1] and the fig tree to the Holy Spirit, as the Lord makes glad the hearts of people and heals them. And therefore Hezekiah is commanded first to make a plaster with a lump of figs—that is, the fruit of the Spirit—that he may be healed—that is, according to the apostle—by love; for he says, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;^[2] which, on account of their great pleasantness the prophet calls figs. Micah also says, They shall sit everyone under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.^[3] Now it is certain that those who have taken refuge and rested under the Spirit and under the shadow of the Word shall not be alarmed or frightened by him who troubles the hearts of humankind.

And assuredly no gold or silver vessel was ever so dear to God as is the temple of a virgin’s body. The shadow went before, but now the reality has come. You indeed may speak in all simplicity, and from motives of amiability you may treat with courtesy the truest strangers, but unchaste eyes see nothing aright. They fail to appreciate the beauty of the soul and value only that of the body. Hezekiah showed God’s treasure to the Assyrians, who ought never to have seen what they were sure to covet. The consequence was that Judea was torn by continual wars and that the very first things carried away to Babylon were these vessels of the Lord. We find Belshazzar at his feast and among his concubines (vice always glories in defiling what is noble) drinking out of these sacred cups.^[1]

Surely the just Hezekiah did not rejoice that the disaster of the captivity had fallen on his children, but he could not oppose the will of the Lord, and so he received the Lord’s commands with patience like a humble servant. Thus it happens that one could judge that merit and virtue could be evident even in captivity. For Jeremiah was not less happy in captivity,^[1] nor was Daniel,^[2] nor Ezra,^[3] nor were Ananias and Azariah and Misael less happy than if they had not fallen into captivity.^[4] They entered into captivity in such a way that they brought to their people both present consolations in captivity and the hope of escaping from it.