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.
And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.
Hezekiah has just shown the envoys from Babylon every treasure in his house, and Isaiah has told him that all of it, with his own sons, will be carried off to that city. The king accepts the sentence, then adds a line about his own lifetime — and readers still argue over whether that is humble faith or quiet self-interest. (The quotes below use older translations: "Jehovah" for "the LORD," and "peace and truth" where the ESV has "peace and security.")
The envoys came with a stated reason and a hidden one. One writer shows how the king used God's gifts to show himself off.
God had blessed him richly for his faithfulness during the first fourteen years of his reign: he had "very much riches and honour." Just then the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon arrived, sent to ask about the wonder that had happened in the land. That was their stated purpose. The hidden purpose of the king who sent them was to flatter Hezekiah's pride. On this occasion "God left him, to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart." Left to himself, "his heart was lifted up." He showed off the riches God had given him so that he could boast in front of these strangers. He did not glorify before these idolaters the God who had saved him by a miracle when he was under sentence of death.
Hezekiah does not argue or bargain. Another account of his reign settles how to read his answer.
If we only had these two books, we might doubt what this reply means, since Hezekiah added "there shall be peace and truth in my days". But the book of Chronicles says plainly: "Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (2 Chr. 32:26). That shows us the character of his statement, "Good is the Word of Jehovah which you have spoken". God's discipline brought that lifted-up heart down and bowed it low. It is no small thing to call the word of judgment against us "good"!
Two things are true at once. The public work of his reign is ruined, but the man himself gains.
With a broken heart he accepts the consequences of what he did. The testimony God had entrusted to him does not leave his hands unharmed. It is ruined beyond repair. This revival began in the freshness of divine power, and it ends through the fault of the very man God had used to start it. Yet Hezekiah himself gained: these experiences did his heart and conscience good.
Commentators differ here. Some hear a man whose concern shrinks to his own lifetime.
He plainly cared much more for his own success and comfort than for the good of his descendants or his nation. God had favoured him, but he leaves the story too wrapped up in his own blessings and too little concerned for the others who would face the judgment.
Others hear a man who has just seen what was hidden in his own heart, and who thanks God for the delay.
He learned, to his shame and sorrow, that there was a vast amount of ego in his heart. It was good to know it, so that he could judge it and put it away before it led him into deeper and more serious sin… One writer says of these last words: "Not the language of mere selfishness, but of a man who felt that the national corruption must at last lead to the threatened judgment, and who thanked God that the blow was put off for a time."
Hezekiah's humbling spread to the city, and his wish came true.
"And Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem," Chronicles tells us (2 Chr. 32:26). What a blessed result of his own humbling — it produced the same humbling in others… Discipline had borne its fruit, so Hezekiah's wish, "if only there shall be peace and truth in my days!", came true: "The wrath of Jehovah did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah."
A delay is not a cancellation. The threat fell on a later generation.
About one hundred years later, this startling prophecy came true word for word. The opening verses of the book of Daniel introduce us to this. The Babylonian king came and besieged the city of Jerusalem and conquered it. Among those carried away were Daniel and his companions.
This last verse also turns the book. Assyria has been dealt with; from here on the shadow is Babylon.
All that David's son in his vanity had spread before the eyes of the strangers should be swept into the city of confusion, the chastiser of Jerusalem's idolatry; only it should not fall in the days of the pious king, notwithstanding his failure.
- Prosperity probes. God left Hezekiah alone to show him his own heart. The treasures he paraded became the evidence against him.
- Confession answers. He hides nothing and calls the word of judgment against himself good. That is the mark of a bowed heart.
- Discipline restores. The work of his reign was wrecked beyond repair. The man himself came out of it with a better heart and conscience.
- Humility postpones. King and city humbled themselves together, so wrath did not fall in his days. Commentators differ on whether his "in my days" was selfish or thankful.
- The word stands. A century later Babylon carried off the treasures and the sons. The book of Daniel opens where Isaiah 39 closes.