10 steps

2 Kings 20:1-11 - In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.' "

Then Isaiah said, "Prepare a poultice of figs." They did so and applied it to the boil, and he recovered.

Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, "What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the LORD on the third day from now?"

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?"

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

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

Hezekiah's illness was the result of a boil. Or maybe the boil was a symptom of something else. Perhaps he also contracted an infection related to it. I wonder what the doctors had done to try to heal him. Was a fig poultice a treatment they had never heard of before? In any case, it certainly reversed Hezekiah's condition quickly. I wonder if the doctors were amazed at his recovery just as they sometimes are today when prayer is offered on behalf of an ill person and they miraculously recover.

Prayer is powerful. Apparently Isaiah's announcement of impending death was intended as a test of Hezekiah's faith. A test he passed.

I wonder (not to the point of wanting to experience it) what it's like to know for certain that you're going to die very soon -- and the certainty comes not from fallible physicians but from a prophet who is the mouthpiece of God. I wonder what it was like for Hezekiah to know that 15 years later he would die for sure. Did he (would you in his place) do anything different, especially in that final year?

There probably has been a lot of conjecture about the shadow moving back 10 steps. I know very little of it, so this really is all my own.

I think there would be two ways for the shadow to move back 10 steps.

1) The rotation of the earth completely reversed.
2) The earth's orbit drastically changed.

If God used some "natural" phenomenon to accomplish the effect, I think it would involve a large object pulling on the earth via gravity. But something else plays in here too. The shadow moved back 10 steps, but apparently everything was back to normal immediately thereafter -- as far as we know. How long did that take? Did the 10 steps back take the same amount of time as the 10 steps forward? Perhaps a few hours? If another heavenly body was involved, it seems to me that its effects would have been felt for a longer period of time. (Then again, maybe not. I'm not a scientist.) So maybe there was no other asteroid or whatever involved. I wonder if God "simply" gave the earth a reverse twist with his "hand."

Were there any other effects on the planet besides all the shadows changing? And did anyone else notice? Did anyone not notice? Has anyone found other writings from this time that record this event? How did it affect the winds? The "jetstream"? The weather that day? Did any effects continue to have consequences over the next week? Month? Year?

I wonder if the Stairway of Ahaz (Hezekiah's father) was a type of timepiece like a sundial.

I wonder if anyone besides Hezekiah and Isaiah were told to expect this. I wonder if any "scientists" or wise men (magi) attempted to measure how long the phenomenon took once they noticed it had started. Or did anyone try to discover its cause?