Isaiah 39:2

Shewed them the house of his precious things. — This fixes the date of the embassy at a time prior to the payment to Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:15), unless we were to assume that the treasury had been replenished by the gifts that followed on the destruction of Sennacherib’s army; but this, as we have seen, is at variance with both the received and the rectified chronology. The display was obviously something more than the ostentation of a Crœsus showing his treasures to Solon (Herod. i. 3). It was practically a display of the resources of the kingdom, intended to impress the Babylonian ambassadors with a sense of his importance as an ally.

The spices, and the precious ointment... — The mention of these articles as part of the king’s treasures is characteristic of the commerce and civilisation of the time. “Spices” — probably myrrh, gumbenzoin, cinnamon — had from a very early period been among the gifts offered to princes (Genesis 43:11; 1 Kings 10:10). The “ointment,” or perfumed oil, finds its parallel in the costly unguent of the Gospel history (Matthew 26:7; John 12:3). Esar-haddon’s account of the magnificence of his palace (Records of the Past, iii., 122) supplies a contemporary instance of like ostentation.