Isaiah 39
For thirty-eight chapters Isaiah has thundered warnings, and the storm has just broken in Hezekiah's favor: the Assyrian army that surrounded Jerusalem has been struck down, and the king himself has been raised up from a deathbed with fifteen years added to his life. It is the high-water mark of his reign. And it is exactly here, in the safety after the storm, that the real danger comes - not on the battlefield but at the front door. Envoys arrive from far-off Babylon, a kingdom still rising in the east, bearing letters and a present to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery (v. 1). Pleased and flattered, the king throws open everything he owns: the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures. The text presses the point with a single devastating clause - there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not (v. 2).3
Then the prophet comes, and his questions are quiet but pointed: What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? … What have they seen in thine house? (vv. 3-4). Hezekiah answers plainly, even proudly - they came from Babylon, and there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. Upon that admission Isaiah lays a word that turns the whole glittering scene to ash: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house … shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD (v. 6). And not the treasure only - thy sons … shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (v. 7). The very city Hezekiah was so eager to impress is the city that will one day carry it all away. Self-display has invited the loss it never saw coming.
What follows is the most uncomfortable line in the chapter, and it is meant to be. Hezekiah does not fall on his face. He does not plead, as he had pleaded on his sickbed, that the LORD would relent. He says only, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken, and then reveals what is really in his heart: For there shall be peace and truth in my days (v. 8). His relief is that the blow will fall after he is gone. It is a small answer from a man who had once prayed with tears - and the chapter sets it down honestly, without softening it. Yet this is the very threshold of the book's great turn. Isaiah 39 names Babylon and the exile, and the next chapter answers it with the most tender words the prophet ever speaks: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. The judgment ends here so that the comfort can begin.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 39:1-4There Was Nothing He Shewed Them Not
1At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 2And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, 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 shewed them not. 3Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. 4Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them.
The chapter opens on a note of triumph that quietly carries its own undoing: At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered (v. 1). The little phrase at that time ties this scene to what came just before - the king's deathbed healing and the breaking of the Assyrian siege. Hezekiah is at the summit of his life: spared from death, delivered from his enemies, his treasuries full. And into that moment of glad security come visitors from a great distance, bearing gifts and flattering attention. On the surface it is a friendly embassy - congratulations on a recovery. Beneath the surface, far-off Babylon is taking the measure of a kingdom, and a king who has just survived Assyria is a natural ally against the same empire. The envoys' courtesy is real, and so is their interest. What undoes Hezekiah is not the visit but what he does with it. Flattered by the notice of so distant and impressive a power, he cannot resist showing them everything he has.
The inventory rolls out with a kind of breathless pride: he … shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures (v. 2). It is a complete accounting - wealth, luxury, and weapons, the whole basis of a kingdom's strength laid open to foreign eyes. And then the verse drives the point home with one unsparing clause: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. Nothing held back. No vault left locked, no reserve kept private. The repetition is deliberate and damning - the narrator wants the reader to feel the totality of the disclosure. This is the portrait of a heart that needs to be seen as impressive. Notice what is missing from the scene: there is no mention of God. On his sickbed Hezekiah had wept and prayed and leaned wholly on the LORD; here, in his strength, he leans on the spectacle of his own possessions. The treasures had been gifts, signs of God's favor on his reign - and he displays them as though they were the measure of himself.3
Now the prophet comes, and his approach is striking: he does not begin with accusation but with questions. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? (v. 3). And again, What have they seen in thine house? (v. 4). Isaiah already knows the answers; the questions are a mirror held up to the king, inviting him to hear his own words. And Hezekiah's replies betray no unease at all. They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon - he names the distance almost with satisfaction, as though the prestige of so remote a visitor reflects on him. And to the second question he answers with the same unguarded openness: All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. He repeats his own thoroughness as if it were a credit to him. There is no flicker of self-suspicion, no thought that he might have done anything but receive an honor. The prophet's gentle questioning has surfaced the whole problem: a man so pleased to be admired that he cannot see what his admiration has cost.
Isaiah 39:5-8Carried to Babylon · Nothing Shall Be Left
5Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: 6Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. 7And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. 8Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.
Isaiah answers the proud inventory with a counter-inventory of loss, and he prefaces it with the full weight of God's name: Hear the word of the LORD of hosts (v. 5). Then the sentence falls: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD (v. 6). The judgment fits the offense with terrible precision. Hezekiah showed all his treasures; all of them will be taken. He held nothing back from Babylon's eyes; nothing shall be left when Babylon's hands are done. The very city he was so eager to impress is named as the city that will carry it away - and not even in his own day, but as the accumulated wealth of generations, that which thy fathers have laid up in store, swept out in a single stroke. Then the word reaches past the treasure to the throne itself: of thy sons that shall issue from thee … shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (v. 7). His own line, his royal descendants, will serve as captive attendants in the court of a foreign king. The display of a kingdom's glory has invited the unmaking of a kingdom's future.
Now comes the chapter's most troubling moment, and the text records it without flinching: Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days (v. 8). On its face the first half sounds like humble submission - good is the word of the LORD - and there is real submission in it; Hezekiah does not rage or rebel against the sentence. But the second half exposes what is really in his heart. The thing that makes the word good to him is that the disaster is deferred: it will not fall while he is alive. Peace and truth in my days - that is the whole of his comfort. Set this beside the man we met one chapter earlier, who turned his face to the wall and wept and pleaded that the LORD would relent. There, facing his own death, he prayed with tears. Here, facing the ruin of his children and his nation, he is quietly relieved that the blow will land after he is gone. It is a small answer from a great king, and the chapter lets it stand as a warning. Prosperity and self-display had shrunk his vision until he could see no further than his own lifetime and his own ease. This is what trusting in treasures does to a soul: it narrows the heart down to my days.3
Step back and see where this chapter sits in the book. For thirty-nine chapters Isaiah has been a prophet of warning - against Judah, against the nations, against every false security - and here at the close of that long section he names the instrument of the coming judgment: Babylon. The word lands like a door shutting. Everything the prophet has feared now has a name and an address. And yet the very next words in the book of Isaiah are not more thunder but the gentlest sentence he ever speaks: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned (Isa. 40:1-2). The exile is named in chapter 39 precisely so that the comfort can begin in chapter 40. Isaiah does not leave his people staring into Babylon; he turns immediately to a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD (Isa. 40:3), to a Servant who will bear the sins of many (Isa. 53), and to a new road home through the desert (Isa. 43:19). The end of judgment is the threshold of hope. What looks in this chapter like the last word - nothing shall be left - is answered by a promise that nothing God loves will finally be lost.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 39 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for otsar (vv. 2, 4, 6, the “treasures” Hezekiah displays and that will be carried off) and for the chapter's repeated babel (Babylon), the city named here that the exile will fulfill.
- Isaiah 39 ↔ 2 Kings 20 · Isaiah 40 · Matthew 6Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 39 to the rest of Scripture - the same scene retold in 2 Kings 20:12-19, the carrying-to-Babylon foretold here (vv. 6-7) and fulfilled in 2 Kings 24-25, and the chapter's hinge into Comfort ye, comfort ye my people (Isa. 40:1) read beside the treasure that cannot be carried away (Matt. 6:19-21).
- Isaiah 39 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 39 - the envoys of Merodach-baladan and the politics behind their visit (v. 1), the sweeping inventory of what Hezekiah displayed (v. 2), the force of nothing shall be left (v. 6), and the much-discussed self-interest of the king's reply (v. 8).
Where this echoes in Scripture
There Was Nothing He Shewed Them Not
- 2 Kings 20:12-15Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and shewed them all the house of his precious things... there was nothing... that Hezekiah shewed them not.The same scene told in Kings - the parallel account of the Babylonian envoys and Hezekiah’s full display (vv. 1-4).
- 2 Chronicles 32:25-26But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up.The Chronicler’s verdict on the same season - the lifting up of heart that lies behind the proud display of verse 2.
- Deuteronomy 8:17-18And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God.The temptation of prosperity that Hezekiah falls into - forgetting the Giver behind the treasures of verse 2.
- Matthew 6:19-21Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.The treasure that cannot be carried off - set against the treasures Hezekiah displays in verse 2 and loses in verse 6.
- Proverbs 16:18Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.The pattern of the chapter in a single line - the proud display of verse 2 inviting the fall of verses 6-7.
Carried to Babylon · Nothing Shall Be Left
- 2 Kings 24:13And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD... as the LORD had said.The fulfillment of verse 6 - the treasures of Jerusalem actually carried to Babylon, exactly as Isaiah foretold.
- Daniel 1:3-6children... of the king’s seed... whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.The fulfillment of verse 7 - royal sons of Judah serving in the palace of the king of Babylon.
- Isaiah 40:1-2Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God... that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.The very next words of the book - the comfort that answers the exile named in verses 6-7.
- Isaiah 52:11-12Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence... for the LORD will go before you.The carrying-home that answers the carrying-away of verse 6 - a new exodus out of Babylon.
- Luke 4:18he hath sent me... to preach deliverance to the captives... to set at liberty them that are bruised.The Servant of Isaiah taking up the work of bringing the captive home - the hope beyond the exile of verses 6-7.