Today Pastor Whitaker's sermon was on patience until the Second Coming. He read from several places in Isaiah, and I was struck by how similar Hezekiah's prayer in Isaiah 38 is to Jonah's in Jonah 2. Here they are, for comparison. Jonah 2:1-9 says
I called by reason of mine
affliction unto Jehovah,
For thou didst cast me into the depth,
And I said, I am cast out from before thine
eyes;
The
waters
compassed me about, even to the soul;
Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit,
O Jehovah my God.
They that regard lying vanities
forsake
their
own mercy.
Salvation
is of Jehovah.
Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the
fish's belly. And he said,
and Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:9-20 says
And he answered me;
Out of the belly of Sheol cried I,
Thou heardest my voice.
in the heart of the seas,
And the
flood was round about me;
All thy waves and thy billows passed
over me.
Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The deep was round about
me;
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down
to
the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with its bars
upon me for ever:
When my soul fainted within me, I
remembered Jehovah;
And my prayer came in unto thee, into thy
holy temple.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the
voice
of thanksgiving;
I will pay that which I have vowed.
I said,
I said,
My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me as
a
shepherd's tent:
I quieted until morning; as a lion,
so he
breaketh all my bones:
Like a swallow, a crane, so did I chatter;
What shall I say?
O Lord, by these things men live;
Behold, for peace I had great
bitterness:
For Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate
thee:
The living, the living, he shall praise thee,
as I do
this day:
Jehovah is to save me:
The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had
been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.
Both of these are salvation psalms, beginning with a lament on the psalmist's peril and
ending with thanks to God for salvation, a progression from despair to exultation, as
the psalmist realizes that God is with him. Both acknowledge that the peril is from God,
and is a going down from comfort to something like death.
In the noontide of my days I shall go into the
gates of Sheol:
I am deprived of the residue of my years.
I shall not see Jehovah, Jehovah in the
land of the living:
I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life;
he will cut me off
from the loom:
From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
I did moan as a dove;
Mine eyes fail upward:
O Lord, I am oppressed, be thou my surety.
he hath both spoken unto me, and
himself hath done it:
I shall go softly all my years because of the bitterness of my
soul.
And wholly therein is the life of my spirit:
Wherefore recover thou me, and make me to live.
But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of
corruption;
For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
The father to the children shall make known thy truth.
Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments
All the days of our life in the house of Jehovah.
For references, I've put the same passages below with verse numbers and [added] words from the translation, which is the 1901 American Standard Version. Note, too, that the line breaks are mine; the original, of course, does not even have punctuation or capitalization, much less verse numbers and line breaks.
Jonah 2:1-9 is
I called by reason of mine
affliction unto Jehovah,
3For thou didst cast me into the depth,
4And I said, I am cast out from before thine
eyes;
5The
waters
compassed me about, even to the soul;
Yet hast thou brought up my life from the pit,
O Jehovah my God.
8They that regard lying vanities
Forsake
their
own mercy.
Salvation
is of Jehovah.
1Then Jonah prayed unto Jehovah his God out of the
fish's belly. 2And he said,
and Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:9-20.
And he answered me;
Out of the belly of Sheol cried I,
[And] thou heardest my voice.
in the heart of the seas,
And the
flood was round about me;
All thy waves and thy billows passed
over me.
Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
The deep was round about
me;
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
6I went down
to
the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with its bars [closed]
upon me for ever:
7When my soul fainted within me, I
remembered Jehovah;
And my prayer came in unto thee, into thy
holy temple.
9But I will sacrifice unto thee with the
voice
of thanksgiving;
I will pay that which I have vowed.
10I said,
11I said,
12My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me as
a
shepherd's tent:
13I quieted [myself] until morning; as a lion, so he
breaketh all my bones:
14Like a swallow [or] a crane, so did I chatter;
15What shall I say?
16O Lord, by these things men live;
17Behold, [it was] for [my] peace [that] I had great
bitterness:
18For Sheol cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate
thee:
19The living, the living, he shall praise thee,
as I do
this day:
20Jehovah is [ready] to save me:
9The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had
been sick, and was recovered of his sickness.
[permalink,
http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.11.30a.htm ]
In the noontide of my days I shall go into the
gates of Sheol:
I am deprived of the residue of my years.
I shall not see Jehovah, [even] Jehovah in the
land of the living:
I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life;
he will cut me off
from the loom:
From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
I did moan as a dove;
mine eyes fail [with looking] upward:
O Lord, I am oppressed, be thou my surety.
he hath both spoken unto me, and
himself hath done it:
I shall go softly all my years because of the bitterness of my
soul.
And wholly therein is the life of my spirit:
Wherefore recover thou me, and make me to live.
But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of
corruption;
For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
The father to the children shall make known thy truth.
Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments
All the days of our life in the house of Jehovah.
To return to Eric Rasmusen's weblog, click http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/0.rasmusen.htm.