Eucharistic meditation, Fifth Sunday of Easter

2 Kings 20:7: The Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

Hezekiah is on his deathbed, and it’s something of a surprise that he is suffering from nothing more serious than a boil. And then we’re surprised again when the treatment is to lay a cake of figs on the boil so that he recovers. What is going on here? I’ll leave the medical side of this to the experts; whatever the explanation of the medical condition and cure, the healing of a boil with a cake of figs is full of typological and symbolic import.

An Israelite with a boil had a form of leprosy and was excluded from the presence of God. Further, boils were among the plagues of Egypt and one of the diseases of Egypt that the Lord promises would not afflict Israel if they were faithful to the covenant. A king of Judah suffering from the boil signifies the kingdom itself, unfaithful to covenant and plagued like Egypt. Hezekiah himself does right, but the sinfulness of the kingdom he rules registers on his body, for he rules a people that has for centuries been seeking a return to Egypt.

Figs, on the other hand, are associated with the promised land. When the 12 spies explored the land, they brought back grapes, pomegranates, and figs. In the days of Solomon, each citizen of Israel had his own vine and fig tree, and Jesus cursed a fruitless fig tree that represented fruitless Israel.

This method of healing overshadows the threat of exile that comes at the end of 2 Kings 20. Judah will soon find herself again dispersed among Gentiles, but she disperses from the land in faith that she will one day be restored to the land of fig trees. A king with an Egyptian boil who is healed by a cake of figs figures an Israel afflicted with Egyptian plagues restored to a land of milk and honey, a land flowing with honey, a land of vines and fig trees.

In Jesus, the greater Hezekiah, we have been healed of our Egyptian plagues, raised up from our deathbeds, and given the fruit of a land of promise.