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2 Kings 20 · a question people ask

If the LORD said, "I will heal you", why did Isaiah tell them to take a cake of figs?

In the text

The chapter tells both and doesn't say how they go together. The LORD says, "Behold, I will heal you" (20:5). Then "Isaiah said, “Take a cake of figs.” They took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered" (20:7). Hezekiah still asks for a sign "that the LORD will heal me" (20:8), and Isaiah calls the sign "the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has spoken" (20:9). So the chapter gives the healing to the LORD, tells of the figs laid on the boil, and says no more about what the figs did.

The verses

““Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, ‘The LORD, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you will go up to the LORD’s house.”
2 Kings 20:5 · World English Bible
“Isaiah said, “Take a cake of figs.” They took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I will go up to the LORD’s house the third day?” Isaiah said, “This will be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has spoken: should the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?””
2 Kings 20:7-9 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 20

2 Kings 20: I have heard your prayer

Hezekiah's prayer never asks to live; it asks the LORD to remember (20:3). The answer came before Isaiah had gone out into the middle part of the city: "I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears" (20:5). And the son who reigned after him is named in Jesus' line: "Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh" (Matthew 1:10).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions