TEXT [Commentary]

7. Envoys from Babylon (20:12-21)

12 Soon after this, Merodach-baladan[*] son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent Hezekiah his best wishes and a gift, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been very sick. 13 Hezekiah received the Babylonian envoys and showed them everything in his treasure-houses—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the aromatic oils. He also took them to see his armory and showed them everything in his royal treasuries! There was nothing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

14 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did those men want? Where were they from?”

Hezekiah replied, “They came from the distant land of Babylon.”

15 “What did they see in your palace?” Isaiah asked.

“They saw everything,” Hezekiah replied. “I showed them everything I own—all my royal treasuries.”

16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to this message from the LORD: 17 The time is coming when everything in your palace—all the treasures stored up by your ancestors until now—will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. 18 Some of your very own sons will be taken away into exile. They will become eunuchs who will serve in the palace of Babylon’s king.”

19 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “This message you have given me from the LORD is good.” For the king was thinking, “At least there will be peace and security during my lifetime.”

20 The rest of the events in Hezekiah’s reign, including the extent of his power and how he built a pool and dug a tunnel[*] to bring water into the city, are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah. 21 Hezekiah died, and his son Manasseh became the next king.

NOTES

20:12 Soon after this. See the first note on 20:1 concerning this time indicator (lit., “at that time”), especially in light of the nonchronological arrangement of the Hezekiah stories.

Merodach-baladan. As the NLT mg indicates, the MT here reads “Berodach-baladan,” but the Isaiah parallel (Isa 39:1) attests the NLT spelling, as do some Hebrew mss as well as the Greek and Syriac versions. Merodach-baladan was a prominent chieftain of the Yakin tribe of southern Babylonia who assumed kingship over the entirety of Babylonia soon after the death of Shalmaneser V in 722 BC; he was not ousted from that position until 710 by Sargon II (concerning these Assyrian kings, see the notes on 17:3, 5). During his reign Babylon prospered to a great degree, despite Assyrian claims to the contrary (ABD 4.704-705). When deposed, Merodach-baladan was able to flee to his ancestral homeland in the southern marshes of Babylonia and Elam; and by the time of Sennacherib (cf. the second note on 18:13), Merodach-baladan was again active in Babylonian affairs, ascending the throne of that city around 703 BC after removing the usurper Marduk-zakir-shumi; in fact, Sennacherib’s self-styled “first campaign” was directed against him. At this time, Merodach-baladan’s allies included Elamites and Arabs, as well as Chaldeans and Arameans (and possibly Hezekiah of Judah as well; see the next note). Nevertheless, Sennacherib succeeded in ousting him from the city, and after a second campaign in 700, Sennacherib was able to place his own son, Asshur-nadin-shumi, on the Babylonian throne. Merodach-baladan again fled south, and eventually died in Elam around 694 BC.

his best wishes and a gift. Lit., “letters and a gift,” which probably included personal greetings from the king as well as monetary benefactions to encourage Hezekiah’s support of his military endeavors (cf. Barnes 1991:117-118 n. 128, and the references cited there). Sweeney (2007:413) suggests this represented a two-pronged attack against Sennacherib, with Hezekiah in the west and Merodach-baladan in the east putting simultaneous pressure on the Assyrian monarch. Whatever dating one may follow, it must be admitted that this hypothesis does make excellent strategic sense, with the Assyrian evidence pointing to roughly the year 701 BC for the sending of the Babylonian delegation to Jerusalem to “feel out” the willingness of Hezekiah to risk such a gambit. (Alternatively, such a visit could have taken place earlier, around 713 [which would have indeed been Hezekiah’s “14th year” if the earlier chronology is accepted], which was another time of Palestinian revolt against Assyria [cf. Barnes 1997a:573, following Cogan and Tadmor 1988:261].)

20:13 Hezekiah received the Babylonian envoys. Cogan and Tadmor (1988:259, cf. note b on p. 258) have argued strongly that the Isaianic variant verb (in Isa 39:2) should be read here in Kings as well (i.e., reading samakh [TH8055, ZH8523], “be happy, pleased,” for the MT’s shama‘ [TH8085, ZH9048], “listen to”). I however think the NLT’s translation “received” (with its variation “was delighted with” in the Isaiah text) is quite defensible.

showed them everything. The obvious fact that Hezekiah had much to show the Babylonian delegation should be duly noted (contrast his later status as impoverished due to his trying to buy off Sennacherib, as described in 18:14-16!). Here again we see further evidence for the nonchronological arrangement of these Hezekiah texts (cf. the first note on 20:1). The extensive listing of his (and his nation’s) wealth that is found here will make Isaiah’s startling prophecy in 20:17 (“All [of this] will be carried off to Babylon”) all the more chilling.

20:14 distant land of Babylon. Emphasis is placed on the land of Babylon as a “distant land”—hence unlikely under normal circumstances to have any reason or opportunity to seize Judah’s wealth. But they did that very thing in the early sixth century, as the last two chapters of 2 Kings describe in detail.

20:17 The time is coming. Isaiah announces the certitude of the Babylonian exile prophetically, and he may be doing so legally as well (cf. Barnes 1991:113 n. 123, following Peter R. Ackroyd [1974:339-341]). Ackroyd notes that the very act of formally viewing all this property may have signified some sort of legal transfer of ownership (such was usually the case for the sale of something unable physically to be handed over to the new owner, such as a house or land). As Ackroyd (1974:341) puts it, “By letting these ambassadors see everything, Hezekiah has handed over the possession of everything in Judah to the enemy and has anticipated the exile. Though the disaster itself belongs to the future . . . the essential legal take-over has already ensured that exile will take place.” Oblique support for this proposal may also be found in Cogan and Tadmor (1988:259, 262-263), who argue that the language in 20:17-19 is actually quite characteristic of Jeremiah, not of Isaiah—hence, probably to be dated to around the sixth-century exile itself.

20:19 This message you have given me from the LORD is good. As Seow (1999:272) has pointed out, this public comment stands sharply at odds with Hezekiah’s private response, “At least there will be peace and security during my lifetime.” This short-sighted response also contrasts sharply with the later view held by many Judahites that the Temple and the city remained under Yahweh’s miraculous protection, and were thus inviolable.

20:20 built a pool and dug a tunnel. As pointed out in the third note on 18:17, this is the only reference to Hezekiah’s remarkable tunnel, which brought water from the Gihon Spring down to the Pool of Siloam located inside the walls of Jerusalem (see Wiseman 1993:289 for details, including the text of the famous inscription originally located in the tunnel near the Siloam entrance and giving details of its construction; cf. ANEP, pictures 275, 744).

are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah. See “Literary Style” in the Introduction.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Alas, here “the third time is not the charm” (see previous commentary section). This time there is another crisis—personal and national—and this time there is another startling message for Hezekiah given by the prophet Isaiah. But this time there is inexplicably no prayer offered by the king to change the status quo! So this time, there will be no miracle—no national deliverance either of the city of Jerusalem or the nation of Judah. And, it will be recalled, the final chapter of 2 Kings describes the destruction of both of these geographical entities in unforgettable detail. Perhaps the only positive development one can find from these sections of Kings is the emphatic dismissal, once and for all, of any naive theology of the eternal inviolability of the Temple of Yahweh or the city of Jerusalem, a belief which seemingly held sway for the next century or so, giving the prophet Jeremiah such fits (see the end of the commentary on 18:1-12 for details). If Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, was involved prominently with the Deuteronomistic school (as I, following Friedman, have suggested; cf. “Author” in the Introduction), this would help explain the emphasis we find here in the text (cf. the note on 20:17). Hezekiah’s seemingly short-sighted neglect of the future only grows deeper in incomprehensibility in light of the horrors of the eventual exile to Babylonia. But that must have been the author’s point: Present-day acquiescence will lead to future disaster. The prophetic word is sure: Disaster will come, and it will come from Babylon (cf. 20:17).

But that cannot be our final word concerning King Hezekiah. The present text does conclude with some positive references to Hezekiah’s accomplishments, especially his famous tunnel bringing water into the city of Jerusalem (see 20:20). It’s as if the Deuteronomistic editor wanted to leave a relatively positive memory of this most noteworthy king in the mind of the audience. As is the case with King Josiah as well, a dubious ending should not obscure all the good work this Davidide had accomplished. And so, it is only appropriate that a concluding summary of “good king” Hezekiah will draw our own discussion to a close.

First of all, there are more verses in 1–2 Kings devoted to King Hezekiah (three chapters of 2 Kings; 95 verses in all) than even to “good king” Josiah (most of two chapters, 50 verses in all). Only “relatively good king” Solomon merits more space (the first 11 chapters of 1 Kings, with a total of 434 verses—but with a significant number of those describing the Temple and its furnishings). To be sure, “not-so-good king” Ahab occupies much literary territory as well (1 Kgs 16:29–22:40; a total of 209 verses), but most of those verses stem from the Elijah cycle. And the Deuteronomistic editor exempts none of these kings from criticism, whether Solomon, whose sins are listed in 1 Kings 11, or Hezekiah (here), or Josiah (2 Kgs 23:29-30). Hezekiah was a reformer par excellence, a risk-taker who nearly lost his kingdom (and certainly did lose most of its wealth) contending against the mighty empire of Assyria. He was one who also had to contend (in essence) with the prophet Isaiah several times. And in a sense, he had to contend even with Yahweh (at least in the matter of his sudden death sentence in 20:1-3). Whether there actually was a Hezekian recension of the Deuteronomistic History or not (see “Earlier Editions of Kings?” under “Date and Occasion of Writing” in the Introduction for details), this much is clear: Hezekiah proved to be a powerful role model for the later reformer king Josiah, and thus supported the major agenda of the book itself. And thus it truly was the case with King Hezekiah that “there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time” (18:5). No wonder the book of Isaiah devotes four chapters to this king (plus numerous allusions to him elsewhere in the book), and the book of 2 Chronicles four lengthy chapters as well (with three of them [2 Chr 29–31] nearly totally independent of the Kings material). Hezekiah was a great king—flawed to be sure, but nevertheless a truly great king. And that man could pray!