Isaiah 39

Isaiah 36–39 is a narrative section covering the reign of King Hezekiah. Chapter 39 is the final chapter of this section and follows directly on Hezekiah's illness and recovery in Isaiah 38. The same event is also recorded in 2 Kings 20:12–19.

Outline

• Verses 1–2: Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, hears that Hezekiah has been sick and has recovered, and he sends letters and a present. Hezekiah is glad and shows the envoys the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious ointment, and everything in his armory and treasuries, leaving nothing out.
• Verses 3–4: The prophet Isaiah comes and asks where the envoys came from and what they have seen. Hezekiah answers that they came from a far country, Babylon, and that he has shown them all his treasures.
• Verses 5–7: Isaiah delivers the word of the LORD. Everything in the palace, together with what Hezekiah's fathers had stored up, will be carried to Babylon, and some of Hezekiah's descendants will be taken captive and become eunuchs (castrated officials serving at court) in the palace of the king of Babylon.
• Verse 8: Hezekiah says that the word is good and adds that there will be peace and security in his own lifetime.

Key Verses

• Isaiah 39:2 "There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not." Hezekiah's display of the nation's entire wealth becomes the occasion for the prophecy that follows.
• Isaiah 39:6 "All that is in thine house... shall be carried to Babylon." This is the first clear prediction of the Babylonian captivity in the book.
• Isaiah 39:8 "For there shall be peace and truth in my days." Hezekiah's final response is a passage on which interpreters differ.

People and Places

• Hezekiah: King of Judah, who receives the Babylonian envoys after recovering from his illness.
• Isaiah the prophet: Goes to the king and delivers the word of judgment.
• Merodach-baladan: King of Babylon and son of Baladan. He is known as a Chaldean ruler who resisted Assyria at the time.
• Babylon: The "far country" from which the envoys came, and the place to which, according to the prophecy, Judah's wealth and descendants would be carried.

Points for Reflection

• The text states only that the envoys came because of the king's illness. Some interpreters see the visit as a diplomatic mission seeking an alliance against Assyria. 2 Chronicles 32:31 explains the episode as God's testing of what was in Hezekiah's heart.
• Readers understand Hezekiah's response in verse 8 in different ways. Some see it as complacency that considered only his own time; others take it as humble acceptance of God's postponement of judgment.
• The prophecy of verse 7 is often read in connection with Daniel 1, where youths of Judah's royal family and nobility are taken to the Babylonian court, though the text itself does not explicitly link the two.
• Chapter 39 stands at the threshold of the message of comfort and restoration that begins in Isaiah 40. The traditional view, which holds that Isaiah alone wrote the entire book, reads this chapter as a bridge joining what comes before and after. Within critical scholarship, some attribute chapters 40 onward to an author of a later period.
• The New Testament does not quote this chapter directly. However, the genealogy in Matthew 1 uses the Babylonian exile, foretold in this chapter, as a marker dividing its periods.