Do you want to know the power of repentance? Do you want to 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 small compared with what else happened. The same king’s repentance won the repeal the sentence God had passed on him. When he was sick, Isaiah had said, Give direction for your household, for you will surely die, and not live.^[2] What expectation was left? What hope of recovery was there? The prophet had said, You will surely die. But Hezekiah remembered what was written: In the hour that you turn and lament, you will be saved.^[3] 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 fervent prayer). He said, Lord, remember me. . . . He whom the prophet’s sentence had forbidden to hope was granted fifteen further years of life, the sun turning back its course as a witness.

Hearing that he was about to die, Hezekiah prayed not that he be granted several more years of life but that he be permitted to stand before the judgment of God, as he wished. For he knew that Solomon pleased God by not asking for a longer life. Preparing to journey to the Lord, therefore, Hezekiah chronicled his works, how he had walked before the Lord in truth and in perfection of heart. Happy is the conscience that remembers good works at a time of affliction: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,^[1] or as it is written elsewhere, Who will glory in the purity of his heart?^[2] This is the explanation: perfection of heart can now be attributed to him because he destroyed idols, overturned the vessels of Baal in the temple,^[3] shattered the bronze serpent^[4] and did other things that Scripture commemorates.

Prayer sometimes brings the dead back to life, but sometimes it may slay the living, as happened with the godly Peter. He brought Tabitha back to life by prayer,^[1] but he effected the death of Ananias and Sapphira.^[2] . . . The case of Hezekiah was also astonishing. Through prayer he added to the days of his life as king. He routed the mighty Assyrian army through the agency of a spiritual being.^[3]

The number seven, as has often been said, denotes the week occasioned by the sabbath of the Old Testament. The number eight signifies the Lord’s day, on which he clearly rose again, and this is relevant to the New [Testament]. When joined together, they are seen to make up the number fifteen. . . . Some commentators think that the fifteen additional years accorded to King Hezekiah are related to this parallel, so that the number fifteen is shown to have signified the course of his perfect life.

For Hezekiah’s sake the sun turned back, but for Christ the sun was eclipsed. The sun did not simply retrace its path for Christ but was completely eclipsed. This shows the difference between Hezekiah and Jesus. The former’s prayer resulted in the canceling of God’s decree. But does not Jesus forgive sins? Repent, shut your door, and pray to be forgiven. Pray that Christ may remove you from the burning flames, for confession has power even to quench fire, power even to tame lions.

Thus, in desperation I said, ‘I will go to the gates of the netherworld,’ referring either to death by the common law of nature or to those gates from which the psalmist was liberated and therefore sings, You who raise me from the gates of death, that I might declare all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion.^[1] I believe that these are the same gates of the netherworld that did not prevail against Peter,^[2] who fell asleep in the fullness of his days. The saints complete their days, like Abraham, who died full of years at an old age.^[3] Sinners and the impious, however, die in the midst of their days, about which the psalmist also speaks: Men of blood and deception will not complete half of their days.^[4] For they neither perform works of virtue nor strive to amend their faults through penance. Hence, they will be led to the netherworld with their lives half finished and in the darkness of error.

For the netherworld and death will neither confess nor praise you, according to what is written: In the netherworld, who will confess you?^[1] Confession in this instance, moreover, is received not as an act of penance but as an offering of glory and praise, as we read in the Gospel: I praise you Lord, Father of heaven and earth.^[2] He also says: They who descend to the pit will not hope for your truth, which is better than the Septuagint’s will not hope for your mercy. For he who is in the grave hopes not for the truth of judgment but for the mercy of God, ultimately when the Savior will descend to the netherworld to liberate the captives from it.

[Those who live in a godly manner] and participate in such goodness are the only ones able to give glory to God, and that is what really constitutes a feast and a holy day. For the feast is not indulging in a lot of food or dressing up in lovely clothes. It is not enjoying days of leisure. It is acknowledging God and offering thanksgiving and songs of praise to him. But this belongs to the saints alone, who live in Christ. . . . That is the way it was with Hezekiah, who was delivered from death and therefore praised God, saying, Those who are in hell cannot praise you; the dead cannot bless you; but the living shall bless you, as I do today.

For from this day I shall beget children who will announce your righteousness. Some say that he promises to institute a choir [chorostasia] and to appoint chanters of psalms with good voices in the temple. Others, who pay attention to more esoteric things, say that Hezekiah, since he thought on a high plane, was of the opinion that he would have a kingdom without end and unceasing life. For he was persuaded that the writings concerning the son of David destined to be the Christ were said about himself. Hence they say, although he was in the fifteenth year of his reign he does not seem to have procreated children. Accordingly, on learning that his end was near, he pays attention to the question of his successors and adds with reference to his children that they will announce the righteousness of the Lord. However, this statement was not verified since. Manasseh was wicked and impious.

At no time should one freely praise God more than when one has passed through afflictions. Nor again should one at any time give thanks more than when he finds rest from toil and temptations. As Hezekiah, when the Assyrians perished, praised the Lord and gave thanks, saying, The Lord is my salvation, and I will not cease to bless you with harp all the days of my life, before the house of the Lord.