2 Kings 20:6, commentary and pictures

When Hezekiah lay sick with death pronounced upon him and all other hope gone, he prayed and cried with tears for life, and God heard him and promised to heal and restore him and to add fifteen years to his days. With that promise of added life came also deliverance for both Hezekiah and Jerusalem out of the hand of the king of Assyria, for God pledged to defend the city for His own sake and for His servant David's sake and promise to him. The promise was confirmed by a miraculous sign, the turning back of the shadow on the sundial as a sign of recovery, granted as a new lease of life when all other hope had fled.

The recovery was a divine miracle worked through directed human means, by applying a fig, figs, a fig plaster, or a poultice of figs to the sore or affected part. God blessed this as a simple natural remedy rather than healing without any humanly available means, though He could have healed instantly by His power alone. The treatments Hezekiah had been receiving had deprived him of power to rally and overcome the disease, while the figs placed on his sore became the means God used in restoring him.

Trusting God in prayer is thus consistent with using beneficial remedies and practical means and cooperating with natural laws, in harmony with faith, providence, and dependence on God rather than denying faith. Using the remedy did not deny faith but worked in harmony with God's providence, showing that healing can involve both divine power and a directed remedy. The added years were followed by a test of Hezekiah's heart when Babylonian ambassadors came to him. His affliction came under God's providence and hand, illustrating that God may permit affliction for purposes beyond human understanding.