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Selected Verse: Isaiah 38:21 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Isa 38:21	King James	For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.

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Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
For Isaiah had said - In the parallel place in Kings the statement in these two verses is introduced before the account of the miracle on the sun-dial, and before the account of his recovery Kg2 20:7-8. The order in which it is introduced, however, is not material. Let them take a lump of figs - The word used here (דבלה debēlâh) denotes "a round cake" of dried figs pressed together in a mass Sa1 25:18. Figs were thus pressed together for preservation, and for convenience of conveyance. And lay it for a plaster - The word used here (מרח mârach) denotes properly to rub, bruise, crush by rubbing; then to rub, in, to anoint, to soften. Here it means they were to take dried figs and lay them softened on the ulcer. Upon the boil - (משׁחין mashechı̂yn). This word means a burning sore or an inflamed ulcer Exo 9:9, Exo 9:11; Lev 13:18-20. The verb in Arabic means to be hot, inflamed; to ulcerate. The noun is used to denote a species of black leprosy in Egypt, called elephantiasis, distinguished by the black scales with which the skin is covered, and by the swelling of the legs. Here it probably denotes a pestilential boil; an eruption, or inflamed ulceration produced by the plague, that threatened immediate death. Jerome says that the plaster of figs was medicinal, and adapted to reduce the inflammation and restore health. There is no improbability in the supposition; nor does anything in the narrative prohibit us from supposing that natural means might have been used to restore him. The miracle consisted in the arrest of the shade on the sun-dial, and in the announcement of Isaiah that he would recover. That figs, when dried, were used in the Materia Medica of the ancients, is asserted by both Pliny and Celsus (see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiii. 7; Celsus, v. 2, quoted by Lowth.)

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

For Isaiah had said - In the parallel place in Kings the statement in these two verses is introduced before the account of the miracle on the sun-dial, and before the account of his recovery Kg2 20:7-8. The order in which it is introduced, however, is not material.

Let them take a lump of figs - The word used here (דבלה debēlâh) denotes "a round cake" of dried figs pressed together in a mass Sa1 25:18. Figs were thus pressed together for preservation, and for convenience of conveyance.

And lay it for a plaster - The word used here (מרח mârach) denotes properly to rub, bruise, crush by rubbing; then to rub, in, to anoint, to soften. Here it means they were to take dried figs and lay them softened on the ulcer.

Upon the boil - (משׁחין mashechı̂yn). This word means a burning sore or an inflamed ulcer Exo 9:9, Exo 9:11; Lev 13:18-20. The verb in Arabic means to be hot, inflamed; to ulcerate. The noun is used to denote a species of black leprosy in Egypt, called elephantiasis, distinguished by the black scales with which the skin is covered, and by the swelling of the legs. Here it probably denotes a pestilential boil; an eruption, or inflamed ulceration produced by the plague, that threatened immediate death. Jerome says that the plaster of figs was medicinal, and adapted to reduce the inflammation and restore health. There is no improbability in the supposition; nor does anything in the narrative prohibit us from supposing that natural means might have been used to restore him. The miracle consisted in the arrest of the shade on the sun-dial, and in the announcement of Isaiah that he would recover. That figs, when dried, were used in the Materia Medica of the ancients, is asserted by both Pliny and Celsus (see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiii. 7; Celsus, v. 2, quoted by Lowth.)

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
On Isa 38:21, Isa 38:22, see the notes at the close of Isa 38:4-6, where these two vv. belong.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Let them take a lump of figs, etc. - God, in effecting this miraculous cure, was pleased to order the use of means not improper for that end. "Folia, et, quae non maturuere, fici, strumis illinuntur omnibusque quae emollienda sunt discutiendave." - Plin. Nat. Hist. 23:7. "Ad discutienda ea, quae in corporis parte aliqua coierunt, maxime possunt-ficus arida," etc. - Celsus, 5:11. See the note on Kg2 20:7 (note). Philemon Holland translates the passage as a medical man: "The milke or white juice that the figge tree yieldeth is of the same nature that vinegre: and therefore it will cruddle milke as well as rennet, or rendles. The right season of gathering this milkie substance is before that the figs be ripe upon the tree; and then it must be dried in the shadow: thus prepared, it is good to break impostumes, and keepe ulcer open."

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¹⁸ The flesh also, in which, even in the skin thereof, was a boil, and is healed,
¹⁹ And in the place of the boil there be a white rising, or a bright spot, white, and somewhat reddish, and it be shewed to the priest;
²⁰ And if, when the priest seeth it, behold, it be in sight lower than the skin, and the hair thereof be turned white; the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a plague of leprosy broken out of the boil.

¹¹ And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boil was upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians.

⁹ And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.

⁷ And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.
⁸ And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the LORD the third day?

¹ In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;

¹ And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

²⁴ And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

¹⁸ The flesh also, in which, even in the skin thereof, was a boil, and is healed,

⁹ And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

⁴ Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,
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.
⁶ And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.

²² Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?

²¹ For Isaiah had said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaister upon the boil, and he shall recover.

⁷ And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.