I'm working my way through the prophecy of Isaias and have just arrived at the point where the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, had left off the siege of Jerusalem and returned to his doom at Nineve. Shortly afterwards, King Ezechias (aka. Hezekiah) of Juda fell into a mortal illness - some type of stomach ulcer - until he made humble prayer to the eternal God, and the prophet Isaias arrived to cure him. The king lived another fifteen years. This is his narration/prayer, made after the miraculous cure, and it is very much a part of the Roman liturgy, in the Divine Office of prayer, where it is included in the Morning Prayer for Tuesdays of Week II. There, although, it's a cut-and-paste job, as so much of our new lectionary and readings are. Here is the whole:
"These are the words Ezechias king of Juda wrote, upon falling sick and recovering of his illness: 'It seemed as if I must go down to the gates of the world beneath, in the noontide of my years; the remnant of life that I hoped for, hoped for in vain. No more (thought I) to lift up my eyes to the Lord God in this land of the living, to see men’s faces, and quiet homes, no more! This familiar world taken away from me, folded up like a shepherd’s tent, my life cut short like the weaver’s thread! And He had cut me off while the web was still in the making; before the day reached its evening, He would make an end of me. All night long I lay still, as if He had been a lion that had broken all my bones; before the day reached its evening He would make an end of me. My voice was as feeble as the voice of a nestling swallow or murmuring dove; my eyes wearied out with ever straining upwards. Lord, I am in hard straits; win my release for me! And yet, what words can I use, what answer can I expect, when it is He Himself that has brought this upon me? With bitter heart I pass all my years in review. Lord, so frail a thing is life; on so little does my mortal breath depend! Thou canst chastise me, thou canst make me live. Bitter, bitter the discipline that brings me peace! And now Thou hast saved the life that was in peril, thrusting away all my sins out of Thy sight. Thou hast no praise in the world beneath, death cannot honour Thee; those who go down into the grave have no promise of Thine to hope for; it is living men, as I am a living man to-day, that give Thee thanks, pass on from father to son the story of Thy faithfulness. Lord, be my Saviour still; so, all day long, the Lord’s house shall ring with the music of our psalms.'" - Isaias, 38: 9-20
The highlighted lines were removed from use in the Divine Office books, so let's have a quick look at them. God Himself, these lines say, brings calamity upon us, and He usually does it for a reason. As the king notes later on, it's a father's discipline - the Father's discipline. 'Bitterly do I recount the course of my life,' says the king, 'life is so frail, hanging upon the Will of God. This short set of verses is something of a summary of the whole book of Job, which tells of a good and just man suffering great loss and remaining faithful to God in the midst of it all; and he recovers his fortunes again at the end, just as King Ezechias did.
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