Isaiah 39:5-7

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.)