Isaiah 38:8
Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
The verse belongs to the account of Hezekiah's deadly illness, his prayer for life after death was pronounced upon him, God's hearing of that prayer, his recovery, and the promise of fifteen more years of life. It records the miraculous sign confirming God's word and promise of a new lease of life, that the shadow on Ahaz's sundial, the sun's shadow, moved backward ten degrees. That healing also involved a simple natural remedy, a fig or a bunch of figs placed on his sore, which God blessed to restore him. By this God turned those caring for Hezekiah away from elaborate treatments and toward a remedy that allowed the body to recover.
The account is at times set forth to highlight that recovery and the fig remedy without explaining the backward movement or drawing any lesson from the sign of the shadow. The deliverance surrounding the sign includes both sickness and danger in battle, presenting it as God's gracious deliverance. The wonder astonished Babylonian astronomers and observers and led their king to send ambassadors to Hezekiah to learn about the God who had performed it. The sign thus accompanied his recovery from deadly illness and later astonished the Babylonians.
Hezekiah's later reception of those Babylonian ambassadors teaches that visitors to a believer's home should see God's goodness rather than worldly possessions and vanity.