2 Kings 20:7

“And Isaiah said, take a lump of figs, etc.] Not moist figs, but a cake of dried figs, as the word used signifies, and so the less likely to have any effect in curing the boil: and they took, and laid it on the boil, and he recovered; made a plaster of it, and laid it on the ulcer, and it was healed. Physicians observe f240, that as such like inflammations consist in a painful extension of the fibres by the hinderance of the circulation of the blood, through the extreme little arteries, which may be mitigated, or dissipated, or ripened, by such things as are emollient and loosening, so consequently by figs; and, in a time of pestilence, figs beaten together with butter and treacle have been…”

“A lump of figs - The usual remedy in the East, even at the present day, for ordinary boils. But such a remedy would not naturally cure the dangerous tumor or carbuncle from which Hezekiah suffered. Thus the means used in this miracle were means having a tendency toward the result performed by them, but insufficient of themselves to produce that result (compare 2 Kings 4:34 note). return to 'Top of Page'”

“Take a lump: Kg2 2:20-22, Kg2 4:41; Isa 38:21 the boil: The word shechin, from the Arabic sachana, to be hot, signifies an inflammatory tumour, or burning boil; and some think that Hezekiah's malady was a pleurisy; others, that it was the plague; and others, the elephantiasis, a species of leprosy, as one of the Hexapla versions renders in Job 2:7. A poultice of figs might be very proper to maturate a boil, or dismiss any obstinate inflammatory swelling; but we need not discuss its propriety in this case, because it was as much the means which God chose to bless for his recovery, as the clay which Christ moistened to anoint the eyes of the blind man; for in both cases, without Divine…”