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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Isaiah 38:17 - 38:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
for peace - instead of the prosperity which I had previously.
great bitterness - literally, “bitterness to me, bitterness”; expressing intense emotion.
in love - literally, “attachment,” such as joins one to another tenderly; “Thou hast been lovingly attached to me from the pit”; pregnant phrase for, Thy love has gone down to the pit, and drawn me out from it. The “pit” is here simply death, in Hezekiah’s sense; realized in its fullness only in reference to the soul’s redemption from hell by Jesus Christ (Isa 61:1), who went down to the pit for that purpose Himself (Psa 88:4-6; Zec 9:11, Zec 9:12; Heb 13:20). “Sin” and sickness are connected (Psa 103:3; compare Isa 53:4, with Mat 8:17; Mat 9:5, Mat 9:6), especially under the Old Testament dispensation of temporal sanctions; but even now, sickness, though not invariably arising from sin in individuals, is connected with it in the general moral view.
cast ... behind back - consigned my sins to oblivion. The same phrase occurs (1Ki 14:9; Neh 9:26; Psa 50:17). Contrast Psa 90:8, “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.”