Isaiah Chapter 39

This chapter, it would seem, owes its place here chiefly as a basis for the very weighty place which Babylon (whither Judah was going into captivity) holds in the controversy which Jehovah had with His people. Hezekiah had not walked softly, when the ambassadors of Merodach-baladan came to congratulate him, but had sunk to their level. Wherefore Jehovah sent the threat of sure judgement. 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.

"At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent a letter and a present to Hezekiah; for he heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious oil, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? And from whence came they to thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country to me, from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that [is] in my house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts. Behold, days come, when all that [is] in thy house, and [that] which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah. 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. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good [is] the word of Jehovah which thou hast spoken. And he said, For there shall be peace and truth in my days" (vv. 1-8).

The chapter is of special interest as the first plain indication in later times of a power destined to overthrow the mighty kingdom of Assyria, to be then set up by the God of heaven, after the conquest of Jerusalem, in the imperial seat of the world as thenceforward an unrivalled king of kings. It was as yet the struggle of a province to be independent. This very man, whose name has been recognised in the Assyrian inscriptions, as well as in a fragment of Polyhistor (Euseb. Chron. Can. i. v. 1), and in Ptolemy's Canon, "sustained two contests with the power of Assyria, was twice defeated, and twice compelled to fly his country. His sons, supported by the king of Elam or Susiana, continued the struggle, and are found among the adversaries of Esar-Haddon, Sennacherib's son and successor. His grandsons contend against Asshurbani-pal, the son of Esar-Haddon. It is not till the fourth generation that the family seems to become extinct; and the Babylonians, having no champion to maintain their cause, contentedly acquiesce in the yoke of the stranger" (Canon Rawlinson in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 332).

This outline by a competent hand may serve to show what an enormous gap of circumstances yet more than of time severed the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar from him who sent his envoys to Hezekiah, still more from that Babylon whose downfall from the haughtiest seat on earth was announced long before by Isaiah in two of his most remarkable "burdens" (Isa. 13 - 14 and Isa. 21). But all was proved the more to be before God, Who deigned to disclose the end from the beginning. On every ground Hezekiah should have known better; whereas he forgot even the lessons of his sickness, as well as of God's dealing with Sennacherib's hosts, indulged in the things of men, and sunk to the level of a worldly politician. But at least the solemn rebuke of Jehovah through Isaiah recalled him humbly to accept the divine word with his wonted piety and thanksgiving, of which rationalism has no experience, and so with evil eye sees nothing but despicable egotism in a soul that judged self and bowed to God.

Reviewing the parenthetic history of Isa. 36-39 the believer can but acknowledge the divine wisdom of their place between the first great division of the prophecy and the last. None could be so suited to the work of introducing them at this point than the inspired waiter of the entire book. Although strictly historical, they are very much more, for they are instinct with prophecy, and, on the judicial check given to Assyria, prepare for the prominence given ere long to Babylon, little as this was then expected, as the agent for sweeping Judah and the house of David into captivity. But they adumbrate also the Son of David and David's Lord, Who, instead of being sick and healed would go down, for God's glory and in His grace beyond all thought of man, Into death most real as an offering for sin, yet rise again and make good an everlasting covenant for the blessing of Israel and all the earth, when kings shall stop their mouths at Him, once marred more than any, then exalted and high exceedingly Striking it is to read in Isaiah 35:4, "Behold, your God! vengeance cometh" (which in no way characterises the gospel but the future kingdom fully), "the recompense of God. He will come himself and save you"; and in Isaiah 40:9-10, "Behold your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come with might, and his arm shall rule for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him." The same Spirit, the same hand wrote both passages.