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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 39

1 At that time Merodach Baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been ill and had recovered. 2 Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them his storehouse with its silver, gold, spices, and high-quality olive oil, as well as his whole armory and everything in his treasuries. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and in his whole kingdom.⁠ 3 Isaiah the prophet visited King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say? Where do they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They come from the distant land of Babylon.” 4 Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace?” Hezekiah replied, “They have seen everything in my palace. I showed them everything in my treasuries.” 5 Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the message of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: 6 ‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. 7 ‘Some of your very own descendants whom you father will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”⁠ 8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s message that you have announced is appropriate.” Then he thought, “For there will be peace and stability during my lifetime.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 39:7 and Daniel 1:3

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah warns Hezekiah that his royal descendants will be carried to Babylon and made eunuchs in the palace of its king. Daniel echoes this, as the young men of Judah’s royal line are taken into the Babylonian court.

Passages

Isaiah 39:7

Hebrew Bible
6 ‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. 7 ‘Some of your very own descendants whom you father will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’” 8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s message that you have announced is appropriate.” Then he thought, “For there will be peace and stability during my lifetime.”
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Daniel 1:3

Hebrew Bible
2 Now the Lord delivered King Jehoiakim of Judah into his power, along with some of the vessels of the temple of God. He brought them to the land of Shinar10 to the temple of his god and put the vessels in the treasury of his god. 3 The king commanded Ashpenaz, who was in charge of his court officials, to choose some of the Israelites who were of royal and noble descent— 4 young men in whom there was no physical defect and who were handsome, well versed in all kinds of wisdom, well educated and having keen insight, and who were capable of entering the king’s royal service—and to teach them the literature and language of the Babylonians. 5 So the king assigned them a daily ration from his royal delicacies and from the wine he himself drank. They were to be trained for the next three years. At the end of that time they were to enter the king’s service.
200–101 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Daniel

References

“... On account of their beauty and intellect, Daniel and his friends are selected to serve in the palace by Ashpenaz, the “overseer of the eunuchs” (רב סריסים Daniel 1:3; שר הסריסים Daniel 1:7–11, 18). The heroes’ apparent status as eunuchs in the foreign court amounts to the reader’s introduction to these protagonists, such that this unique status holds in the narrative a strong measure of rhetorical stress, a circumstance amenable to the detection of allusion. I propose that the text presents the deportation of the four Judean youths as fulfilment of Isaiah 39:7, which promises that the sons of Hezekiah would be “eunuchs” (סריסים) in the palace of the king of Babylon (מלך בבל; compare Daniel 1:1). And like the non-Israelite eunuch living among the people Israel (Isaiah 56:3–5), these Israelite eunuchs will be anticipated by the reader to enjoy a “name better than sons and daughters,” an “everlasting name” (Isaiah 56:5) not to be “cut off,” one contrasting with the ephemeral Babylonian names assigned them by the overseer of the eunuchs (Daniel 1:7). ...”
G. Brooke Lester, Daniel Evokes Isaiah: Allusive Characterization of Foreign Rule in the Hebrew–Aramaic Book of Daniel, LHBOTS 606 (London: T&T Clark, 2015), 123–124.

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Isaiah 39:7 and Daniel 1:3

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