Objection: God Told Hezekiah to Use Medicine (a Poultice of Figs)

If figs could have cured Hezekiah of his terminal illness, it figures that he would have tried using figs sooner.  If figs could heal fatal diseases, there would be great worldwide demand for figs from hospitals, and fig-producing countries would have organized a cartel by now to boost fig prices on international fig futures exchanges.  Stores would have popped up everywhere to sell Fig Oil at huge markups.

No one today puts lumps of figs on boils to cure fatal illnesses!  If it were common knowledge that figs cure terminal illnesses, Hezekiah would not have been left to die in the first place.  Someone in the palace would have applied the figs then, not after God decided to extend Hezekiah’s life by 15 years.  The figs were applied in obedience to the Lord only after He heard Hezekiah’s prayer.

We can debate whether the figs may have helped the boil, but they surely did not save Hezekiah’s life by medicinal means.  Hezekiah himself said that the Lord was going to heal him (2 Kings 20:8), not the figs.  That is plain enough; there is nothing figurative.  Anything else is a figment of someone’s imagination.