Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 38:10

"I said, In the noontide of my days I shall go into the gates of Sheol: I am deprived of the residue of my years." — Isaiah 38:10 (ASV)

I said in the cutting off of my days ... — These words have been interpreted in very different ways:

1. One interpretation is “in the quietness,” and thus in the even tenor of a healthy life. As a matter of fact, however, the complaint did not, and could not, come in the “quiet” of his life, but only after it had passed away.

2. Another interpretation is “in the dividing point,” that is, the “half-way house of life.” Hezekiah was thirty-nine, but the word might rightly be used for the years between thirty-five and forty. These years were the halves of the seventy and eighty years mentioned by the psalmist (Psalms 90:10). We are reminded of Dante’s “Nel mezza del cammin di nostra vita” (Inferno 1.1).

The gates of the grave. — This image is what we would call Dantesque. Sheol, the Hades of the Hebrews, is a great city, similar to its depiction in Assyrian representations of the unseen world and in the Inferno of Dante (Inferno 3.11, 7.2, 10.22). Therefore, it has its gates, which in turn become, as with other cities, the symbol of its power. Thus, we find the phrase “gates of death” in Job 38:17; Psalms 9:18; Psalms 107:18.

The residue ... — These words assume a normal lifespan, for instance, seventy years, which the sufferer—who, as he thought, had done nothing to deserve punishment—might have legitimately counted on.