DIAL. Dial of Ahaz.

It is well known that everything is miraculous¹ in the history of the Jews; the miracle performed in favor of King Hezekiah on the dial of Ahaz is one of the greatest that ever took place: it is evident that the whole earth must have been deranged², the course of the stars changed forever, and the periods of the eclipses of the sun and moon so altered as to confuse all the ephemerides. This was the second time the prodigy³ happened. Joshua had stopped the sun at noon on Gibeon, and the moon on Ascalon, in order to get time to kill a troop of Amorites already crushed by a shower of stones from heaven.

The sun, instead of stopping for King Hezekiah, went back, which is nearly the same thing, only differently described.

In the first place Isaiah said to Hezekiah, who was sick, “Thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not live.”

Hezekiah wept and God was softened⁴; He signified to him, through Isaiah, that he should still live fifteen years, and that in three days he should go to the temple; then Isaiah brought a plaster of figs⁵ and put it on the king’s ulcers⁶, and he was cured — “et curatus est.”

Hezekiah demanded a sign to convince him that he should be cured. Isaiah said to him, “Shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; let the shadow return backward ten degrees.” And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backwards⁷ from the point to which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz.

We should like to know what this dial of Ahaz was; whether it was the work of a dialmaker named Ahaz, or whether it was a present made to a king of that name, it is an object of curiosity. There have been many disputes on this dial; the learned have proved that the Jews never knew either clocks or dials before their captivity⁸ in Babylon — the only time, say they, in which they learned anything of the Chald?ans, or the greater part of the nation began to read or write. It is even known that in their language they had no words to express clock, dial, geometry, or astronomy; and in the Book of Kings the dial of Ahaz is called the hour of the stone.

But the grand question is to know how King Hezekiah, the possessor of this clock, or dial of the sun — this hour of stone — could tell that it was easy to advance the sun ten degrees. It is certainly as difficult to make it advance against its ordinary motion as to make it go backward.

The proposition of the prophet appears as astonishing as the discourse⁹ of the king: Shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? That would have been well said in some town of Lapland, where the longest day of the year is twenty hours; but at Jerusalem, where the longest day of the year is about fourteen hours and a half, it was absurd. The king and the prophet deceived each other grossly. We do not deny the miracle, we firmly believe it; we only remark that Hezekiah and Isaiah knew not what they said. Whatever the hour, it was a thing equally impossible to make the shadow of the dial advance or recede¹⁰ ten hours. If it were two hours after noon, the prophet could, no doubt, have very well made the shadow of the dial go back to four o’clock in the morning; but in this case he could not have advanced it ten hours, since then it would have been midnight, and at that time it is not usual to have a shadow of the sun in perfection.

It is difficult to discover when this strange history was written, but perhaps it was towards the time in which the Jews only confusedly knew that there were clocks and sun-dials. In that case it is true that they got but a very imperfect knowledge of these sciences until they went to Babylon. There is a still greater difficulty of which the commentators¹¹ have not thought; which is that the Jews did not count by hours as we do.

The same miracle happened in Greece, the day that Atreus served up the children of Thyestes for their father’s supper.

The same miracle was still more sensibly performed at the time of Jupiter’s intrigue¹² with Alcmena. It required a night double the natural length to form Hercules. These adventures are common in antiquity¹³, but very rare in our days, in which all things have degenerated¹⁴.

1 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

2 deranged   

adj.疯狂的

参考例句：

• Traffic was stopped by a deranged man shouting at the sky.一名狂叫的疯子阻塞了交通。
• A deranged man shot and killed 14 people.一个精神失常的男子开枪打死了14人。

3 prodigy   

n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆

参考例句：

• She was a child prodigy on the violin.她是神童小提琴手。
• He was always a Negro prodigy who played barbarously and wonderfully.他始终是一个黑人的奇才，这种奇才弹奏起来粗野而惊人。

4 softened   

（使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
• The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。

5 figs   

figures 数字，图形，外形

参考例句：

• The effect of ring dyeing is shown in Figs 10 and 11. 环形染色的影响如图10和图11所示。
• The results in Figs. 4 and 5 show the excellent agreement between simulation and experiment. 图4和图5的结果都表明模拟和实验是相当吻合的。

6 ulcers   

n.溃疡( ulcer的名词复数 )；腐烂物；道德败坏；腐败

参考例句：

• Detachment of the dead cells produces erosions and ulcers. 死亡细胞的脱落，产生糜烂和溃疡。 来自辞典例句
• 75% of postbulbar ulcers occur proximal to the duodenal papilla. 75％的球后溃疡发生在十二指肠乳头近侧。 来自辞典例句

7 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

8 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

9 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

10 recede   

vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进

参考例句：

• The colleges would recede in importance.大学的重要性会降低。
• He saw that the dirty water had begun to recede.他发现那污浊的水开始往下退了。

11 commentators   

n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员

参考例句：

• Sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 体育解说员翻来覆去说着同样的词语，真叫人腻烦。
• Television sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 电视体育解说员说来说去就是那么几句话，令人厌烦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 intrigue   

vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋

参考例句：

• Court officials will intrigue against the royal family.法院官员将密谋反对皇室。
• The royal palace was filled with intrigue.皇宫中充满了勾心斗角。

13 antiquity   

n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹

参考例句：

• The museum contains the remains of Chinese antiquity.博物馆藏有中国古代的遗物。
• There are many legends about the heroes of antiquity.有许多关于古代英雄的传说。

14 degenerated   

衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The march degenerated into a riot. 示威游行变成了暴动。
• The wide paved road degenerated into a narrow bumpy track. 铺好的宽阔道路渐渐变窄，成了一条崎岖不平的小径。