Note: See the whole story told as told in 2 Kings 20. God’s gracious gift of extending King Hezekiah’s life for fifteen years (signalled by the shadow moving backward) yielded some dark consequences. Would it have been better if he had been content to die when his time was up?
FIFTEEN
sometimes
it is best to let
the grave shadows be.
let them rest there
on the evening stair.
beware
of wanting more
light and life before
you are ready to bear
whatever they may bring.
three years into Hezekiah’s
encore of fifteen,
he sired a future renegade king,
Mannasseh.
averting the first made
way for a second, and worse,
disaster.