And Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts
Hezekiah has just shown visitors from Babylon every treasure in Jerusalem. Isaiah now stops asking questions and delivers God's verdict on a king whose best day ended in pride.
Before the verdict comes the searching. One writer describes the part Isaiah plays:
Isaiah plays a new role here, that of the Word which penetrates and searches us out. Happy are we if, like Hezekiah, we do not try to hide anything from the One we have to deal with. The godly king, taken aside, acknowledges and admits everything before the prophet... Then Isaiah announces the judgment of God. Is this not the Word's final sentence, if we let the things of this earth attract our hearts and puff them up? "And the world is passing away along with its desires." Nothing shall be left!
Two inspections were running at once, and only one of them was Hezekiah's idea:
He calls them to examine his treasures; but God is calling him to the examination of his own heart.
Chronicles explains what lay behind Isaiah's errand:
2 Chronicles 32:25-26 and 31 tells us plainly that God's kind deliverances lifted up Hezekiah's heart with pride. It also tells us that God allowed the testing by these men from Babylon, to "test him and to know all that was in his heart." The Babylonians, whether they knew it or not, set a trap, and into it he fell, displaying for his own glory all that God had permitted him to acquire. So Isaiah had to bring him the solemn message of coming judgment from Babylon on his sons and people.
Hezekiah had already survived an invading army and a deadly illness. What beat him arrived gift-wrapped:
Here another king attacks Hezekiah. Not the king of Assyria with a large army. Not death with its solemn summons to surrender. This time it is the king of Babylon, with a gift... When the king of Assyria sent letters to him, "he went up to the house of the LORD and spread them before the LORD." That is how he conquered. When summoned to prepare for death, "he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD." That is how he was raised up. But when the ambassadors from the king of Babylon approached him, "he showed them his treasure house." THAT IS HOW HE FELL. A solemn — a most solemn — warning! Hezekiah was off his guard. No prayer, no seeking the Lord, no spiritual perception to detect the hook hidden under this attractive bait.
Verses 6 and 7 send his treasures on to Babylon, home of the men who admired them. One mercy is attached to the timing:
In his vanity, David's son had spread everything before the eyes of the strangers. All of it would be swept into the city of confusion, the punisher of Jerusalem's idolatry. Only it would not fall in the days of the godly king, despite his failure.
This short message is also a turning point in the book:
This is the starting point for the last fairly continuous section of the book. It is the clearest prediction of the Babylonian captivity.
Isaiah does not use just any name for God here. One writer points out when this title tends to appear:
The Lord Jesus... is the Lord of an unseen army of heavenly beings. This name is not reserved for the Lord Jesus when His people are walking rightly and being faithful to Him... In fact, in the Old Testament it usually appears at times when His people are weak, and especially when they are spiritually weak.
The sentence fell exactly as spoken. Even so, loss was not the whole story:
The opening verses of Daniel show Isaiah's prediction fulfilled. But here is what we want to point out: in fulfilling His own word in judgment, God remembered mercy. It was out of these very descendants of Hezekiah that He raised up witnesses for Himself in the middle of Babylon's idolatrous corruptions.
- Tested. God's kindnesses lifted Hezekiah's heart with pride. So God let Babylon's visit become a trap that showed the king his own heart.
- Charmed. Assyria's threats drove him to prayer; Babylon's present did not. The world's smile beat him where its frown never could.
- Searched. Isaiah came as the word that searches. Hezekiah invited men to inspect his treasures; God inspected his heart.
- Sentenced. What he paraded he lost — swept to the very city whose envoys he had welcomed — though not in his own lifetime.
- Remembered. The word came true to the letter. Yet from those same exiled descendants God raised up witnesses for Himself inside Babylon.
Behold, days come when all that is in thy house, and that which thy fathers have laid up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah.
God had just rescued Hezekiah from Assyria and healed him of a deadly illness. Then the king showed his whole treasury to visitors from Babylon. Isaiah's reply told him where every piece of it would end up.
The visit from Babylon was not simple courtesy. Commentators point to the record in 2 Chronicles. There God steps back to see what is in the king's heart.
2 Chronicles 32:25-26 and 31 tell us plainly what happened. God's kind deliverances lifted up Hezekiah's heart with pride. And God allowed these men from Babylon to test him, so as to "try him," and to "know all that was in his heart." The Babylonians set a trap, whether they knew it or not, and he fell into it. He put on display, for his own glory, everything God had allowed him to gain. So Isaiah had to bring him a solemn message: judgment was coming from Babylon on his sons and his people.
The tragedy is what he left unsaid. He had a rescue and a healing to talk about, and he talked about silver instead.
He did not tell them about the One who dwelt between the cherubim. He did not speak of the splendid deliverance from the hand of the king of Assyria, or of the deep lessons he learned at "the gates of the grave," or of the pardoning love of God who had "cast all his sins behind his back." Instead of setting these things before them, "he showed them his treasure house — the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, and his whole armory (which could not defend him from the king of Assyria)." So it was all about himself, and nothing about God.
The punishment matches the sin with unsettling precision. The audience he courted becomes the thief.
All was to go to that very Babylon whose ambassadors had ensnared him. Everything in which his poor heart might boast before the men of this world must go to ruin. He had put his treasures on show before the world, and the world was about to carry those very treasures away. But the "peace and truth" — in other words, the treasures he had in God — "the world could neither give nor take away." That wealth was "a better and lasting possession" because it was "in heaven."
Isaiah's last clause reaches past one royal treasury. It is a verdict on anything on earth a heart leans on.
If our hearts let the things of this earth attract them and puff them up, is this not the Word's final sentence on us? "And the world is passing away along with its desires." Nothing shall be left!
Up to here, Isaiah's warnings have centred on Assyria. This verse turns the whole book toward Babylon.
This is exactly the starting point of the last, more or less continuous section of the book. It is the clearest prediction of the captivity in Babylon.
The threat did not fall on Hezekiah's own generation. It came true generations later, and it marks a turning point in world government.
Despite this message, the evil grew worse. It reached its height in the reign of Hezekiah's son, the wicked Manasseh. He led the people "to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel" (2 Kings 21:9). At length, in the reign of Jehoiakim, God's words by Isaiah were fulfilled. The government passed from the Jew to the Gentile. From then on the Jews will be under Gentile rule, until the reign of Christ begins and closes the times of the Gentiles.
The opening of Daniel records the carrying away that Isaiah announced. Commentators notice what God did with Hezekiah's own descendants there.
The opening verses of our chapter show Isaiah's prediction coming true. But here is what we want to point out: in fulfilling His own word in judgment, God remembered mercy. Out of these very descendants of Hezekiah He raised up witnesses for Himself, right in the middle of Babylon's idol worship and corruption.
Stripped of everything, the situation looks finished. But the last word belongs to God Himself.
"Death" outwardly! "Death" inwardly! "Nothing shall be left, says the LORD" prophetically! Speaking naturally, the whole situation is hopeless! But there is "THE LIVING GOD" (Isa. 37:4, 17); the God "who raises the dead"; the God who has already "raised from among the dead" "Jesus Christ of the seed of David." Is there anything too hard for Him?
- Trap — God stepped back and let the visitors from Babylon test Hezekiah's heart. Pride showed off the treasure and said nothing about God.
- Trade — He showed his treasures to the world, and the world came and took them. No one could take away what he held in God.
- Total — "Nothing shall be left" is the closing verdict on anything earthly a heart puffs itself up with.
- Turn — Here Isaiah's prophecy turns from Assyria to Babylon. Here too rule passes from the Jew to the Gentile, until Christ reigns.
- Triumph — In Babylon God raised up witnesses from Hezekiah's own line. Where nothing is left, the living God raises the dead.
And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
Hezekiah had shown off his treasures to envoys from Babylon, and Isaiah's word now reaches past the treasures to his own sons. Why should a godly king's children pay for his pride, and what future is left for the line of David?
Commentators trace the sentence back to what God's mercies did to Hezekiah's heart:
2 Chronicles 32:25-26 and 31 tell us plainly that God's kind deliverances lifted up Hezekiah's heart with pride. The same verses say that God allowed the testing by these men from Babylon to "try him," and to "know all that was in his heart." The Babylonians, whether they knew it or not, set a trap, and he fell into it, displaying for his own glory all that God had allowed him to acquire. That is why Isaiah had to bring him the solemn message of coming judgment from Babylon on his sons and people.
The word had more than one use, and the threat points to specific young men in a later generation:
One of the things prophesied against Israel was that their sons should be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 2 Kings 20:18; Isa. 39:7. Daniel and his companions are an instance of this coming true, for they came under the care of "the master of the eunuchs." The word saris means "eunuch," but translators often render it "chamberlain" and "officer," because eunuchs held such positions of trust.
The words move from the treasure chests to the family line. One writer notes how closely the loss matches the sin:
Here, I say, Hezekiah was led to see the end of his kingdom, of his house and of himself. All was to go to that very Babylon whose ambassadors had ensnared him. Everything his poor heart might boast of before the men of this world had to go to ruin. He had put his treasures on show before the world, and the world was about to carry those very treasures away. But the "peace and truth" — that is, the treasures he had in God — the world could neither give nor take away.
He does not argue with the sentence. One writer weighs both what he lost and what he gained:
Hezekiah, having hidden nothing from the Lord, accepts his sentence in all humility... With a contrite heart he accepts the consequences of his deed. The testimony God had entrusted to him does not come through his hands unharmed; on the contrary, it is hopelessly ruined... His testimony could not hold up, and it slipped into ruin. Yet through discipline his soul recovered its fellowship with the Lord, and that humble confidence in Him which it had abandoned for a moment.
One writer points to the opening of Daniel's book as the moment this word came true. The change went far beyond one family:
The book of Daniel has to do with the time during which Israel, the people of God, are under the rule of the Gentiles. At its opening we find the threat made to Hezekiah carried out; Isaiah 39:6-7. The throne of God has been taken from Jerusalem. The power and the kingdom have passed to the Gentiles. Israel, in its present state, is no longer His people by the judgment of God, and it is held in captivity. But God does not abandon them.
The same descendants named in the threat became the ones God used in Babylon:
The opening verses of our chapter reveal the fulfilment of Isaiah's prediction. But here is what we want to point out: in fulfilling His own word in judgment, God remembered mercy. It is out of these very descendants of Hezekiah that He raised up witnesses for Himself, while Babylon's idolatrous corruptions were all around.
Because the royal seed itself was swept into Babylon, this chapter raises a problem that only God can answer:
Isaiah 39 gives us the prophetic situation "at that time." The treasures, all the precious things, the silver and the gold, all the wealthy store of the house of David, together with the royal seed, should "be carried to Babylon" (v. 6). They should be found among the Gentiles. How, then, should the seed of David and his riches be restored?
His sons go to Babylon, and David's royal line goes with them. One writer sets that loss against who God is:
"Death" outwardly! "Death" inwardly! "Nothing shall be left, says the Lord" prophetically! Speaking naturally, the whole situation is hopeless! But there is "the living God" (Isa. 37:4, 17); the God "who raises the dead"; the God who has already "raised from among the dead" "Jesus Christ of the seed of David." Is there anything too hard for Him?
- Pride — God's deliverances left Hezekiah's heart lifted up. The visit from Babylon was the test that brought it into the open.
- Precision — the sentence matches the sin. What he showed the world, the world would carry away, down to his own sons.
- Positions — the word for "eunuch" also named trusted palace officials. Daniel and his companions, put under the master of the eunuchs, are the fulfilment.
- Providence — power passed from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. Yet out of these same descendants God raised up witnesses for Himself in Babylon.
- Promise — the royal seed goes into captivity. But the living God raises the dead, and He has already raised Jesus Christ of David's line.