Around 702 BC, a healing miracle by YHWH through the Prophet Isaiah is told in the book of Isaiah and 2 Kings. Hezekiah was sick to death with an ulcer, and Isaiah told him that he was dying and was not going to recover. Hezekiah became so bereft that he ‘wept with a great weeping’ and begged God to save his life.
God commanded Isaiah to tell Hezekiah that God had ‘heard his prayer and seen his tears’ and that He would add 15 years onto his life. God also said He would deliver Hezekiah and his city, Jerusalem, out of the clutches of the Assyrians, led by Sennacharib.
Then God turned time back ten steps in the steps of Ahaz, which was a type of sundial. And Isaiah instructed Hezekiah’s people to take a cake of figs and rub it on the ulcer, so that he would live.
Hezekiah was so thankful to God for saving his life, that he wrote an anthem for Him, giving Him credit for healing him and saving his life for a little bit longer:
You heal me, and make me live….You loved my soul from the pit of destruction; You have cast all my sins behind Your back….The ones going down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth. The living, the living is the one thanking You; as I do today. The father makes known Your truth to his sons. For YHWH is for my salvation! ~Isaiah 38:16-20
Surprisingly, the state of medicine was quite advanced in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the first Greek medical school was established around 700 BC. Some of this medical knowledge would have filtered through the Holy Land as it was on the route between Babylon and Egypt.
Plants contain essential oils that preserve life and are useful for man in numerous ways, from food to healing. The Hebrew nation cultivated this knowledge, treasured it, and passed it from generation to generation while giving honor and glory to God. Man left to his own devices likes to complicate things and create more complexity than necessary, hence the birth of medicine out of philosophy. Yet instead of calling pagan physicians, Hezekiah relied on God to heal him.
And Yahweh did.
~Song of Mary~ 