The perception of time and wisdom:´The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,´ Hezekiah replied. 2 Kings 20:19

The stories of the Bible are an invaluable source of wisdom. There is a story in the Second Book of Kings in the Bible that shows how time perception and decision-making work on people. The story begins at the end of the Reign of King Hezekiah who had resisted the siege of Jerusalem by the tyrant Sennacherib; and Hezekiah had at that time a great ally and friend, the prophet Isaiah, a man gifted with wisdom and clairvoyance by God.
The King of Babylon, the story continues, was informed of Hezekiah's illness, and when he found out he sent him a letter along with some emissaries. Hezekiah treated the Babylonian emissaries with great cordiality, probably because they had the Assyrian Empire as a common enemy. The Second Book of Kings relates that Hezekiah showed the emissaries of Babylon the entire country, including the Royal Treasury, a fact that alerted Isaiah.
And so it was that Isaiah addressed a few words to Hezekiah prophesying the future:
"´Hear the word of the Lord: The time surely come when everything in your place, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.´" 2 Kings 20:16-18.
And the response of Hezekiah was very special because in a certain sense Hezekiah disparaged Isaiah's words, but without offending the prophet:
"´The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,´ Hezekiah replied. For he thought, ´Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?´" 2 Kings 20:19.
Hezekiah responded in this way to Isaiah because he valued only the present time without considering the future, because during the rest of his life, that is, the present and the immediate future, there would only be peace. On the other hand, for Isaiah, who was a wise man and prophet, the present time was as important as that distant future that he had perceived with his mind. This ability of the wise to equally value both the distant future and the present, and so make another type of evaluation of any situation, is is what gives rise, among other things, to the famous patience of the wise, and to the importance of their counsel.

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