Isaiah the prophet cried to the LORD; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 11. Dial. Hebrew also, “steps.” S. Jerom confesses that he followed Sym. in Isaiah 38:7. Whether this dial resembled one of ours, (Grotius) or was made in the form of steps, (Saint Cyril hom. 3, in Isaias, and so forth) or rather of a half globe, ( Calmet.) after the Babylonian fashion, (Vitruv. ix. 9.) is not clear. Some have asserted that hours were not known to the Hebrews, before the captivity. Usher, A. 3291.—But Toby, (12:22) who wrote at Nineve, under the reign of Manasses, clearly speaks of them. The Egyptians pretend that they invented water hour-glasses. But the invention of dials is attributed to the Chaldees, from whom Anaximander introduced them among the Greeks, under the reign of Cyrus. He died A. 3457.—Achaz had much to do with Theglathphalasar; (Calmet. 17:8) and probably obtained this curiosity from the same country. In more ancient times, people measured time by the length of their shadow, and were invited to a feast at such a foot, in the same manner as we should invite for such an hour. Palladius, Rustic. xii. Calmet.—Till the year of Rome 595, when Nasica dedicated the first water hour-glass, the Romans knew not how the time passed on cloudy days. Pliny vii. 60. Vitruvius ix. 9.—Grotius supposes that the dial of Achaz was a concave semicircular gnomon, in which a globe was placed, the shadow of which fell on twenty-eight lines. D.