Isaiah 38:5
Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.
Hezekiah was sick unto death after being told he would die, and when he cried out to the Lord, God answered that He had heard his prayer and seen his tears and would add fifteen years to his life. The message reversed the sentence of death and turned his plea for life into a promise of recovery and added years. God could have healed him instantly with a single word, yet He gave the promise together with specific directions for treatment.
The healing joined divine power with the use of a practical remedy, a lump or bunch of figs laid as a plaster upon the boil or sore. Using what God has provided to aid recovery in harmony with providence and natural laws cooperates with God and is not a denial or hindrance of faith. Divine healing in this way can work through ordinary means, with God blessing a natural remedy to heal. God worked through the simple fig remedy while turning away from the physicians' preparations that were hindering the body from rallying against the disease.
The promise was accompanied by a sign in which the sun went back ten degrees and the shadow on the sundial turned back. That turning back of the shadow was the sign of the gift of added life. It prompted the Babylonian king to send ambassadors to learn about the God who had performed the wonder.
The recovery and its accompanying sign gave Hezekiah an opportunity to testify to God's power, goodness, and compassion, but instead he displayed his treasures and failed to give God the glory. As part of the account of deliverance from battle and sickness followed by the reception of the Babylonian ambassadors, the history warns that a home and its hospitality should reveal God's goodness rather than worldly possessions, vanity, and idle pursuits.