Application.—1. In the way of warning. (1.) Not to depend on ourselves for salvation. (2.) Not to neglect the means of grace. 2. In the way of encouragement. (1.) Jesus Christ is surety for all who believe in Him. (2.) All who are oppressed in body or soul may and should, by God’s grace believe in Jesus as their surety.—T. Oliver: The Study and the Pulpit, New Series, 1876, pp. 419–421.
Hezekiah’s Resolution.
(A New-Year Motto.)
xxxviii. 15–20. I shall go softly all my years, &c.
This resolution grows out of that singular experience of sickness and recovery recorded in the preceding verses. It furnishes an excellent motto for the year. Our translation is somewhat defective, but if we substitute “on” for “in,” the correct sense will be clear. The meaning is that the recovered king would walk through the fifteen years that were added to his life in salutary remembrance of his dangerous illness, and of the goodness of God in prolonging his days on earth. The memory of that trouble and of the mercy that rescued him would put a staff in his hand to make his walk more devoted, circumspect, and consistent. Understood thus, the words are applicable to all. Some of you may be able to trace a close resemblance between your experience and that of Hezekiah. Like him, you may have escaped from a well-nigh fatal illness. But all of us can look back on similar periods—on mercies received and dangers averted—and in recollection of them we may say, “I shall go softly all my years on the bitterness of my soul.”
I do not know any better commentary on these words than the opening stanza of Tennyson’s In Memoriam:—
“Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.”
A good New Year’s motto, which harmonises so sweetly with it. Our past experiences, our dead selves, may be made stepping-stones on which we may climb to a clearer vision and a loftier devotion. What, then, was the nature of that pathway of life which this good king engaged to pursue? What was the prospect which opened up before him?
1. A walk of humble dependence on God. This element in the resolution is distinctly expressed. In vers. 15, 16, God’s Word and acts are viewed as the real supports of life. Looking above all secondary causes and natural agencies, the king acknowledges God as the Source and Giver of life. This is a great lesson, and one which an experience like that of Hezekiah can teach. It seems to us a natural thing to live on; we count on continued health and long life till some sickness lays us low, and we are brought to feel as we never felt before that our times are in God’s hand. But whether we have passed through a dangerous illness or not, the resolution befits us all. Let us remember that God sustains and orders our lives.
It was, indeed, a singular position in which Hezekiah was placed. He knew precisely how long he would live. The duration of our pilgrimage is just as fixed as his was, only we do not know it (P. D. 2252). The thread of our life is in God’s hand. Thus was Hezekiah taught to “go softly.” His soul had passed through “great bitterness,” and he shall bear it in mind, and his rescue from it deepen his dependence on God.