ContradictionsReading order 543Bible context 2 min read
Why did God turn the sundial back ten degrees?
Kings presents Hezekiah choosing the sign, while Isaiah presents God announcing it with promises of extended life and protection. Their stated purposes overlap rather than exclude each other.
- Textual conflict
- Weak contradiction
- The supplied passages do not establish incompatible claims. Different events, meanings, or conditions may account for the difference.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
A requested healing sign can also confirm extended life and protection, and omission of the request does not deny it.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Hezekiah requests the backward shadow as a sign of healing
And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. 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? And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
2 Kings 20:7-11
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Kings 20
God gives the backward shadow to confirm life and deliverance
Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, 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,