And the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city.” ’
(Isaiah 38:4-6) NKJV
The sign of the sundial was a precursor to a main event: during the the night 185,000 soldiers of the Assyrian army became dead corpses. The Assyrian king fled to Damascus where he was killed by his own children.
This event made Hezekiah a household name all around the world. The sun going backwards is not something of local significance. Anyone who could see the sun at the time would have noticed it.
The Babylonians noticed it and heard about the circumstances: Hezekiah was sick nigh unto death and the Assyrians were about to overrun Jerusalem. Then the sun went backwards. The Assyrian army was wiped out and Hezekiah recovered! Apparently (word of mouth can distort things) Hezekiah had commanded the sun to go backwards.
Emissaries were sent from Babylon to Jerusalem to congratulate Hezekiah on his remarkable deliverance. This was when Hezekiah’s pride overcame his good sense. He showed off everything he had to the Babylonians, who evidently were taking inventory. The prophet Isaiah later told Hezekiah that the time would come when the Babylonians would be back with an army to take all of his wealth away. Hezekiah wasn’t particularly worried at the time, he was just glad to have survived.
Matty (Headwind) 