Isaiah 39:4

‘Then he said, “What have they seen in your house?”

It must have been with great apprehension that Isaiah asked this question, for he knew how much depended on it. He must have had high hopes after God's great signs and deliverance that Hezekiah would trust totally in God and not look to alliances, and now he realised that the whole of the future depended on Hezekiah's answer. But we get the impression that he already knew in his heart what the answer would be.

‘And Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.” '

Hezekiah replied promptly and openly. He had shown them everything. He was fully committed to an alliance. He had committed all that he had. It is as though he did not know what he had done.Isaiah knew instinctively what the only consequence of this could be. If you show off your treasures to a great and proud king of a powerful nation one day he will come and collect them from you. What other end could there possibly be for a small kingdom like Judah when it got mixed up with such giants? Especially when it showed them how rich it was. And on top of this Hezekiah had earned his own Protector's anger by putting his trust in Babylon. What hope then could there be for him?

So Hezekiah had aligned himself with Babylon of hosts? What about his commitment to Yahweh of hosts? Did Hezekiah not realise that he had betrayed Him, and thus His protective hand would be on him no longer? Yahweh of hosts Himself would now allow him to be robbed of all that he possessed. Nothing would be left. His protective shield was gone. As a result his descendants, the seed of the Davidic house, would become slaves in the palace of the king of Babylon. He had forfeited all that God had intended for him. He was now Babylon's plaything, and there was nothing worse than that.

If the word ‘eunuchs' is to be taken literally, although the word is not necessarily always so specific and can mean high-level servants, this spelled the end of Hezekiah's dynastic hopes. This might explain why his descendants are brought into the equation. In fact in the future both his son Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:11), and his descendants Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:12) and Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:7) would be taken captive to Babylon. And none would have gone alone.

We note, however, that there is no mention of a general captivity. This is not strictly forecasting the exile. King's sons were often taken as hostages even when no general exile took place. The point being made is that he will lose his treasures and his ‘sons'. His dynasty will cease. And Judah will be made tributary to Babylon.