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Isaiah Chapter
Thirty-nine
Isaiah 39
Isaiah 39 is the same as 2 Kings 20:12-19.
Thus, please see the commentary on 2 Kings 20.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 39
The king of Babylon sends ambassadors with
letters and a present to Hezekiah, who shews them his treasures, ver, 1, 2,
Isaiah foretells the Babylonish captivity, verse 4-7. His resignation, verse 8.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
39 Chapter 39
Verses 1-8
Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, King of Babylon, sent
letters and a present to Hezekiah
Merodach-baladan
Marduk-apal-iddina, son of Yakin, is the Chaldean ruler who more
than any other vassal embittered the life of the Assyrian suzerain, because as
a rival suzerain he was always renouncing obedience to one whom he felt to be a
disgrace to the ancient renown of his country.
Lenormant, in his Anfangen der Cultur, has devoted a beautiful essay to
him under the title, “A Babylonian Patriot of the Eighth Century B.C.” The
chief matter told about him by the monuments is this: In the year 731 he did homage at Sapiya to
the Assyrian ruler Tiglath-pileser IV. In Sargon’s first year (721) he, who was
properly king of South Babylonia only, brought also North Chaldea into the
range of his rule; war ensued, but although beaten, he still maintained himself
on the throne, and from that time count the twelve years given to him by the
Ptolemaic canon as king of Babylon. In Sargon’s twelfth year (710) he shook off
the Assyrian yoke; only a year afterwards (709) Sargon succeeded in capturing
and burning to ashes the fort Dur-Yakin, into which he had thrown himself; he
himself, being required to surrender unconditionally, vanished. (F.
Delitzsch, D. D.)
Marduk-apal-iddina
The name means: Marduk
(written also Maruduk) has given a son. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The embassy to Hezekiah
The embassy to Hezekiah was in all probability one of those
undertaken by Merodach-Baladan for the purpose of providing himself with
allies. Inasmuch now as there was at this time in Judah a party straining its
utmost to combine all elements antagonistic to Assyria, there is nothing
unreasonable in supposing that some understanding was arrived at between the
ambassadors from Babylon and Judah. Upon this view of the circumstances of the
occasion, Hezekiah’s motive in displaying his treasures will have been to
satisfy the embassy that he had resources at his disposal; and Isaiah’s rebuke
gains in significance and force. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Hezekiah and the embassy from Babylon
I. AFFLICTION OF
BODY AND SORROW OF MIND ARE PRONE TO BE FORGOTTEN AND UNIMPROVED BY THOSE WHO
HAVE EXPERIENCED THEM 2 Chronicles 32:25). The historian
says of Hezekiah, that “his heart was lifted up.” The very deliverances which
God wrought for him worked upon his vanity--the special mercies he had received
elated his mind. What are we without grace?
II. HEZEKIAH AT
THIS TIME WAS ASSAILED BY PECULIAR TEMPTATIONS TO VANITY AND AMBITION (2 Chronicles 32:31)
III. HEZEKIAH
PRESENTS AN INSTANCE OF STRANGE FORGETFULNESS OF DUTY TO OTHERS BY NOT
IMPARTING TO THEM RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.
IV. HEZEKIAH WAS
CONVINCED OF HIS SIN BY THE SPECIAL MESSAGE SENT TO HIM BY GOD THROUGH THE PROPHET.
V. ALMIGHTY GOD,
IN THE MIDST OF ALL HUMAN AFFAIRS AND DESPITE THE CONDUCT OF INDIVIDUALS, IS
CARRYING OUT HIS OWN INFINITE COUNSELS OF WISDOM AND OF LOVE. (D. K.
Shoebotham.)
Verses 1-8
Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, King of Babylon, sent
letters and a present to Hezekiah
Merodach-baladan
Marduk-apal-iddina, son of Yakin, is the Chaldean ruler who more
than any other vassal embittered the life of the Assyrian suzerain, because as
a rival suzerain he was always renouncing obedience to one whom he felt to be a
disgrace to the ancient renown of his country.
Lenormant, in his Anfangen der Cultur, has devoted a beautiful essay to
him under the title, “A Babylonian Patriot of the Eighth Century B.C.” The
chief matter told about him by the monuments is this: In the year 731 he did homage at Sapiya to
the Assyrian ruler Tiglath-pileser IV. In Sargon’s first year (721) he, who was
properly king of South Babylonia only, brought also North Chaldea into the
range of his rule; war ensued, but although beaten, he still maintained himself
on the throne, and from that time count the twelve years given to him by the
Ptolemaic canon as king of Babylon. In Sargon’s twelfth year (710) he shook off
the Assyrian yoke; only a year afterwards (709) Sargon succeeded in capturing
and burning to ashes the fort Dur-Yakin, into which he had thrown himself; he
himself, being required to surrender unconditionally, vanished. (F. Delitzsch,
D. D.)
Marduk-apal-iddina
The name means: Marduk
(written also Maruduk) has given a son. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The embassy to Hezekiah
The embassy to Hezekiah was in all probability one of those
undertaken by Merodach-Baladan for the purpose of providing himself with
allies. Inasmuch now as there was at this time in Judah a party straining its
utmost to combine all elements antagonistic to Assyria, there is nothing
unreasonable in supposing that some understanding was arrived at between the
ambassadors from Babylon and Judah. Upon this view of the circumstances of the
occasion, Hezekiah’s motive in displaying his treasures will have been to
satisfy the embassy that he had resources at his disposal; and Isaiah’s rebuke
gains in significance and force. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
Hezekiah and the embassy from Babylon
I. AFFLICTION OF
BODY AND SORROW OF MIND ARE PRONE TO BE FORGOTTEN AND UNIMPROVED BY THOSE WHO
HAVE EXPERIENCED THEM 2 Chronicles 32:25). The historian
says of Hezekiah, that “his heart was lifted up.” The very deliverances which
God wrought for him worked upon his vanity--the special mercies he had received
elated his mind. What are we without grace?
II. HEZEKIAH AT THIS
TIME WAS ASSAILED BY PECULIAR TEMPTATIONS TO VANITY AND AMBITION (2 Chronicles 32:31)
III. HEZEKIAH
PRESENTS AN INSTANCE OF STRANGE FORGETFULNESS OF DUTY TO OTHERS BY NOT IMPARTING
TO THEM RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.
IV. HEZEKIAH WAS
CONVINCED OF HIS SIN BY THE SPECIAL MESSAGE SENT TO HIM BY GOD THROUGH THE
PROPHET.
V. ALMIGHTY GOD,
IN THE MIDST OF ALL HUMAN AFFAIRS AND DESPITE THE CONDUCT OF INDIVIDUALS, IS
CARRYING OUT HIS OWN INFINITE COUNSELS OF WISDOM AND OF LOVE. (D. K.
Shoebotham.)
Verse 2
And Hezekiah was glad of them
Hezekiah’s great mistake
Look at Hezekiah; as he takes the men round he says in effect,
What an ally I would make if Babylon should ever be in trouble! Or, What an
opponent I would make if ever Babylon should be insolent! Or, You see I am one
of the great powers of the world.
We want large quotation marks for “great powers”! This is the danger of all
uncontrolled and unsanctified power, or position, or possibility of dominion: much would be more,
more would be most, and most would explode because of its own dissatisfaction.
(J. Parker, D. D.)
Character superior to material good
Was this all Hezekiah had to show? There is nothing in it then.
All these things can be stolen. A half-educated thief could take away the
silver and the gold; a very young felon could take away the spices and the
precious ointment; a man with very poor resources could carry off the armour.
Hezekiah laid up his riches where thieves could break through and steal. Ah me,
how like us all this is! What should he have shown to the men from Babylon?
What we ought to show to every inquirer into our method of life--individual,
domestic, municipal, and national:
he should have shown them character, high citizenship, large education,
self-control developed to its highest point of discipline,--these are things
which no king of Babylon can take away. (J. Parker, D. D.)
A misimproved opportunity
What a missionary Hezekiah might have been! How he would have
astounded the Babylonian delegates had he said to them: I receive you with respect, courtesy, and
thankfulness, but I must tell you of this miracle; come within, and you shall
hear how it was, how it began, continued, culminated; this will be something
for you to tell when you go home again. In this way every man might create a
home missionary field for himself. “Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I
will declare what He hath done for my soul.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
A city to plunder
The Babylonian ambassadors had probably somewhat of the feeling
which led Blucher to say, as he walked through the streets of London, “Himmel!
what a city to plunder!” (E. H. Plumptre, D. D.)
Verse 3
Then came Isaiah the prophet unto King Hezekiah
The prophet higher than the king
It is well to have Isaiahs in society, for Hezekiahs could never
keep it together.
This is the tone we want. The prophet should be higher than the king. The
Christian teacher should stand upon the topmost place. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Verse 4
What have they seen in thine house?
--
The disciple at home
1. The parties of whom the prophets inquired, “What have they seen?”
were Babylonians. Foreigners, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, ignorant
of the true God, and, therefore, parties before whom it was specially important
to exhibit nothing which was calculated to bring dishonour upon God. These
strangers might have been greatly edified had they remarked a deeply chastened
and humble spirit in the king. There is nothing so greatly hinders the
propagation of the Christianity of England among foreigners as that practical
irreligion which they observe among the English.
2. The subject may suggest to us some general reflections upon the
kind of aspect which the house of a professing Christian should present to any
stranger as a man of the world. What would such a man naturally expect to see
in a Christian’s house? Clearly that which he looks for in other
houses--namely, a general style and conformity with the particular profession
orcharacter of the inmates. He would reckon upon finding there, what St. Paul
calls “the Church that is in thy house”--the pervading air of
heavenly-mindedness, and the symptoms of devotional exercises in all its
sanctified “chambers of imagery”--“the treasures” of parental piety, of filial
obedience and decorum; a well-ordered household extending its influence and
sanction, like the sacred comprehensions of the law of the Sabbath, from the
man himself, to his son and daughter, manservant and maidservant, and even
cattle and stranger. Night and morning, it would seem to him to be the natural
and consistent rule, that the offering of prayer and reading of the Word should
be there presented to “the God of all the families of the earth.” In every room
and chamber of the house, the ready Bible should suggest by its silent presence
the privilege of secret study of the Holy Scriptures; some good books, to the
use of edifying, should strew the tables, like little trophies, in incidental
evidence of the triumph of religion in that place; the peace, and cheerfulness,
and mutual harmony of Christian influence should breathe its airs from Heaven
on every happy, thankful heart; the music of habitual concord should sound,
like an AEolian psalm, in every aisle of that homely church; and family love, the
instinctive antepast of the universal love of Heaven, should spread the sweet
odour of its charity, like Aaron’s off, from the head of the house down to the
very skirts of the living garment with which his blessed heart is clothed. This
is what the worldly man should see in the house of the Christian; but, alas! is
it always to be seen there?
1. “What have they seen in thine house?” Have they seen there the
spirit of the world, in the shape of expensive apparel, or costly
furniture, or ornaments beyond your means or your station in society? A
Christian man may adorn his house or apparel his person in moderation with the
accustomed decencies of life and even the beautiful things of art, for
Christianity is no enemy of taste nor patron of vulgarity. But when a man of
the world observes in a Christian professor that inordinate affectation of
style and sumptuousness in furniture and dress, which leaves no external mark
of difference between “him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not,” then
such a professing Christian may well tremble for the stability of his
principles. The ambassadors of the spiritual Babylon are visiting him, and they
will have to report to their dark master that there is something to seize in
the household of his divided heart. The remark is equally applicable to the
humbler classes. Sin is sin, and vanity is vanity, whether it assume a vulgar
or a refined shape.
2. “What have they seen in thine house?” Have they seen the continual
eagerness to grasp and hoard up money, the absorption of every abused faculty
of the mind and every overstrained energy of the body to extend business,
increase capital, and multiply speculations, though at the expense of a
neglected soul and a forsaken God? And is this done in the face of better
convictions of duty and responsibility? Is the heart becoming hardened as the
very metal it grasps so eagerly? There is much in the proper and becoming
habits of Christian men which is calculated to aid their success in life, but
this success should not be permitted to become a snare to them.
3. “What have they seen in thine house?” Have they marked the
professing disciple of the self-denying religion of Jesus yielding to a
habitual fretfulness and irritability at every trifling trial of temper,
keeping wife, children, and servants in a perpetual ferment tending to the
ultimate exacerbation of every temper in the household? Have they seen the man
at one time discoursing in quiet tone and serious terms on the meek and lowly
one, “who, when He was reviled, reviled not again,” at another time terrifying
all around him with unrighteous ebullitions of anger? The Babylonians, the
strangers, see it, and shake their heads, saying, “Deliver me from that man’s
religion, if it cannot even curb his temper”; and thus a stumbling-block is
cast in the way, that offends some poor, “weak brother for whom Christ died.”
The children in such a house learn to despise a religion with the remembrance
of their early terrors and discomforts; and the servants, or others employed
about it, thank God that they have escaped their poor master’s supposed
hypocrisy, even at the sacrifice of his real Christianity. Whereas if, on the
other hand, the irascible spirit were to be seen only to be subdued before
them; if its occasional outbreak is timely checked, and obviously striven
against, and candidly mourned over, if they mark the man struggling against the
buffetings of his infirmity, and honestly and earnestly doing painful violence
to his besetment, there is a natural sympathy kindled in their hearts which God
may vouchsafe to deepen into the conviction that the religion must be real
which could generate such an inward contest, and must be influential, too,
which could obtain such I victory.
4. “What have they seen in thine house? Have they seen the immoderate
banqueting, excess of wine, revellings, and such like”?
5. “What have they seen in thine house?” Perhaps some of you have
been mercifully restored from a serious illness: what did those about you see as the effect
of your being spared? Did they see a thankful man, a subdued man, a man bearing
the spiritual marks of the stripes of the rod of chastisement, more in earnest
for God, less inclined to murmur at his lot, to cavil at religious obligations,
or depreciate spiritual privileges, or to lower the personal standard of
Christian life and conversation? If the world saw this in your house, you have
got good yourself and done the world good; if they saw it not, in whatever
degree it was not the visible effect upon you, in that proportion you have yourself
forfeited the grace of your personal dispensation, missed and abused an
ordinance of the Lord, and wronged your brotherhood.
6. And you, heads of families, who make no profession of religion,
who have no particular anxieties at stake either way, “what have they seen in
your houses?” Have they marked no family prayer, no godly conversation, no
effort with the means of moral and evangelical influence? Have they seen
children growing up in carelessness and irreligion, whose parental indulgence
provoked that destructive judgment which the real love and tenderness of a
timely discipline might have averted? If so, consider, you who have the solemn
responsibility of a family of immortal souls laid upon you, how Hezekiah’s
folly was visited upon his children, and tremble at the prospect of the
heartrending anguish you may be laying up in store for yourselves in the
spectacle of an ungodly and abandoned household.
7. “What have they seen in thine house?” Well, no matter what they
have seen; be resolved by the grace of God as to what shall be seen for the
time to come. (J. B. Owen, M. A.)
Verses 5-7
Hear the word of the Lord of hosts
Isaiah’s prophecy of the Babylonian captivity
Jarchi directs attention to the exact correspondence of the
punishment with the offence.
As the Babylonians had seen all, they should one day take all; as nothing had
been withheld from them now, so nothing should be withheld from them hereafter.
(J. A. Alexander.)
A costly gratification
Benjamin Franklin, when a lad, was greatly enamoured of a whistle
he saw for sale. Swept away by the desire to possess the toy, he gathered all
his money and offered it to the vendor, who at once took it and handed over the
whistle to the eager boy. For a time the sense of a craving gratified shut out
all other consideration. Then, gradually, the lad realised how he had been
fooled; and in after-days the wise man, as he observed men and their foolish
ways, would remember his own early experience, and say of this man and of that,
“He has paid too dear for his whistle.” (W. C. Bonnet.)
Verse 8
Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken.
“Good” The word “good” is here used, neither in the sense of
“gracious” nor in that of “just” exclusively, but in that of “right” as
comprehending both. (J. A. Alexander.)
Hezekiah’s acceptance of his punishment
Hezekiah’s reply expressed neither the highest magnanimity nor the
mere selfish egotism which some commentators have seen in it; but a mixture of
feelings in accordance with all that we know of his character. His appreciation
of his position and duties as a king is shown in his restoration of the
national worship, and his final resistance to Sennacherib, as well as in his
general and successful care for the prosperity of his country. But though a
religious sense of duty, or the pressure of necessity, could occasionally stir
him to master circumstances by a great effort, we may infer from the domination
of Shebna, and from his own demeanour and language when supplicating
Sennacherib’s pardon, after the receipt of Rab-shakeh’s message and
Sennacherib’s letter, in the time of his own sickness, and on the present
occasion, that his natural and habitual disposition was rather to submit to the
guidance of circumstances, with a gentle and pious confession that this
weakness of his character was beyond cure, and to accept the consequences with pious
and affectionate resignation to God’s will, and thankful acknowledgment of any
mitigation of them. He could enter into the meaning of the Psalmist’s words,
“Thou wast God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance on their
inventions.” And though he had not, like Moses or Paul, the stern courage which
could ask that the punishment might be to himself, and the forgiveness to his
people; but on the contrary was thankful to learn that there should “be peace
and truth in his days”; it must not be overlooked that it was peace and truth
to his country as well as himself, and not merely selfish security that he was
thankful for. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
A contrast: Hezekiah and St. Paul
There is certainly submission here, resignation to the Supreme
will, readiness to accept the sentence of chastisement by this will. The
sentiment thus far is that of Eli when he heard the doom of his house from the
lips of the child-prophet:
“It is the Lord:
let Him do what seemeth Him good.” But the reason given by Hezekiah in the text
itself is deeply disappointing in two ways--first, the selfishness, and,
secondly, the earthliness of the consolation. Enough for him if he is spared
the personal experience of the retribution; enough if he may live out his
fifteen added years in the peace of an outward tranquillity, and in the truth,
or, as it is otherwise given, in the continuance of an accustomed and unbroken
prosperity. “There shall be peace and truth in my days,” would have had no
meaning for St. Paul. All days were his days; days of time and days of
eternity--all were his. (Dean Vaughan.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》