2 Kings 20 Back ten steps

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
2 Kings 20:9 Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?”

10 “It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”

11 Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.​

Yep... I'm going backwards too....

Yep... this was in yesterday's verses. I'm going back because yesterday it bugged me all afternoon. This is an amazing feat.

I asked hubby, how do you make a solar clock go backwards. He said, the only way would be to pick the clock up and move it. I told him Ahaz, Jezebel's ol' man, built a solar clock into the steps at the Temple at Jerusalem. Hubby said, in that case, it can't be done because you'd have to move the earth backwards. Well, God did it. It stays right here.... "the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz". In my humble opinion, this is a great big deal. God didn't have to give Hezekiah anything. He really didn't have to give him a sign that the salve would work on his boil.... but God did it anyway. God liked Hezekiah.

This is from enduringword.com.

This is the sign… that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken: God showed even more mercy to Hezekiah. God was under no obligation to give this sign. In fact, God would have been justified in saying, “I said it and you believe it. How dare you not take My word for true?” But in real love, God gave Hezekiah more than he needed or deserved.​


This is from studylight.org.

And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees. Hezekiah views it as a comparatively easy thing for the shadow, which is already descending the steps, to accelerate its pace and rapidly descend fifteen degrees instead of slowly traversing them; and therefore accepts Isaiah's other offer. Nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. Let it, i.e; change its direction, and having descended a certain distance, suddenly return and ascend again. This will be no "light thing," but a great marvel, which will thoroughly convince him. The thought was natural, though perhaps not strictly logical.

And he brought the shadow ten degrees backward. How this was done, we are not told, and can therefore only conjecture. The earlier commentators imagined that the revolution of the earth upon its axis was actually reversed for a time; but this idea is now generally rejected. It is clear from 2 Chronicles 32:31 that the phenomenon, whatever may have been its cause, was local, "done in the land" of Judah, and not visible elsewhere. Some moderns have suggested an earthquake affecting the gnomon; some a trick on the part of Isaiah; ethers, and the generality, a very abnormal refraction of the sun's rays. An observed instance of something similar, which took place at Metz, in Lotheringia, in the year 1703, is on record. Two scientists, Professor Seyffarth and Mr. J. W. Bosanquet, think that the phenomenon was due to an eclipse, in which the upper limb of the sun was obscured temporarily. In such a case a slight recession of the shadow would certainly take place; but it would scarcely be such as to attract attention from any one but a scientific observer

Well that makes sense.

This is from Godvine.

Ten degrees - literally, "ten steps." It is not, perhaps, altogether certain whether the "dial of Ahaz" 2 Kings 20:11 was really a dial with a gnomon in the center, and "degrees" marked round it, or a construction fur marking time by means of "steps." Sundials proper had been invented by the Babylonians before the time of Herodotus; but the instrument here was probably an instrument consisting of a set of steps, or stairs, with an obelisk at the top, the shadow of which descended or ascended the steps according as the sun rose higher in the heavens or declined.

The question as to the mode whereby the return of the shadow was produced is one on which many opinions have been held. Recently, it has been urged that the true cause of the phenomenon was a solar eclipse, in which the moon obscured the entire upper limb of the sun; and it has been clearly shown that if such an occurrence took place a little before mid-day, it would have had the effect described as having taken place - i. e., during the obscuration of the sun's upper limb shadows would be sensibly lengthened, and that of the obelisk would descend the stairs; as the obscuration passed off the reverse would take place, shadows would shorten, and that of the obelisk would once more retire up the steps. If this be the true account, the miracle would consist in Isaiah's supernatural foreknowledge of an event which the astronomy of the age was quite incapable of predicting, and in the providential guidance of Hezekiah's will, so that he chose the "sign" which in the natural course of things was about to be manifested.

He brought the shadow ten degrees backward - We cannot suppose that these ten degrees meant ten hours; there were ten divisions of time on this dial: and perhaps it would not be right to suppose that the sun went ten degrees back in the heavens, or that the earth turned back upon its axis from east to west, in a contrary direction to its natural course. But the miracle might be effected by means of refraction, for a ray of light we know can be varied or refracted from a right line by passing through a dense medium; and we know also, by means of the refracting power of the atmosphere, the sun, when near rising and setting, seems to be higher above the horizon than he really is, and, by horizontal refraction, we find that the sun appears above the horizon when he is actually below it, and literally out of sight: therefore, by using dense clouds or vapors, the rays of light in that place might be refracted from their direct course ten, or any other number of degrees; so that the miracle might have been wrought by occasioning this extraordinary refraction, rather than by disturbing the course of the earth, or any other of the celestial bodies.​

I was watching something on PBS... the scientist was showing how light is refracted in water. The scientist was showing that no matter which way he moved the light source, the light refracted and dove toward the bottom of the glass, rather than trying to travel through the side of the glass. The scientist said "it's as if the light knows where the bottom of the glass is... like it's done it before". I thought that an odd statement... "light knows where the bottom of the glass is".

refraction.png

Who better to attribute a natural miracle to than God. He created the earth with His own hands, and He knows how everything works. He can make nature work the way He wants it to.

:coffee:
 
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