EXPOSITION
This chapter is parallel with 2 Kings 20:12-19, and scarcely differs from it at all. Verse I has the additional words, "and was recovered;" 2 Kings 20:2, the phrase, "was glad of them," for "hearkened unto them;" 2 Kings 20:5, "Lord of hosts," for "Lord" simply; and 2 Kings 20:8 makes Hezekiah's last utterance an observation instead of a question. Otherwise the two accounts are almost word for word the same. Both relate the novel and important fact of ambassadors being sent to Hezekiah by the King of Babylon, shortly after his illness, and tell of the reception which he gave them, of the message which Isaiah was commissioned to deliver to him from God in consequence, and of Hezekiah's acquiescence in the terms of the message when it was conveyed to him. The Isaianic authorship of the chapter is much disputed, but solely from reluctance to admit that a prophet could predict the subjugation of Judaea by Babylon more than a century before the event.