2 Kings 20:17

2Ki 20:17 Behold, the days come, that all that [is] in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD.

Ver. 17. That all that is in thine house.] So that thou hast made a fair hand of all, forfeited all by thine ostentation, ambition, and creature confidence.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ki 20:17. Behold, the days come, &c. — So small was the power of the Babylonians at this time, in respect of their mighty neighbour, the king of Assyria, whom the Jews stood in perpetual fear of, that nothing could seem more improbable than that the Babylonians should carry away the inhabitants of Jerusalem captive. But the divine providence ruleth over all, and sees from the beginning to the end; and, accordingly, in about a hundred and twenty-five years after, the event proved that the word of the Lord stands fast for ever, and that what he speaks shall surely come to pass. Thus short-sighted is human policy! Thus does our ruin often arise from that in which we most place our confidence!

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20:17 everything . . . will be carried off to Babylon: The Lord’s message through Isaiah predicted the taking of the palace . . . treasures in Jerusalem to Babylon, an event that took place in 597–586 BC (24:10-17; 25:1-21).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 17. Behold, the days come] This was fulfilled in the days of the latter Jewish kings, when the Babylonians had led the people away into captivity, and stripped the land, the temple, &c., of all their riches. See Da 1:1-3.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(17) Behold, the days come . . .—Comp. 2Ch_32:25-26; 2Ch_32:31. It is there said that Divine wrath fell upon Hezekiah, because his heart was lifted up; and that the Babylonian embassy was an occasion in which God made proof of his inward tendencies. Self-confidence and vanity would be awakened in Hezekiah’s heart as he displayed all his resources to the envoys, and heard their politic, and perhaps hyperbolical, expressions of wonder and delight, and himself, it may be, realised for the first time the full extent of his prosperity. But it was not only the king’s vanity which displeased a prophet who had always consistently denounced foreign alliances as betokening deviation from absolute trust in Jehovah; and a more terrible irony than that which animates the oracle before us can hardly be conceived. Thy friends, he cries, will prove robbers, thine allies will become thy conquerors. That Isaiah should have foreseen that Assyria, then in the heyday of its power, would one day be dethroned from the sovereignty of the world by that very Babylon which, at the time he spoke, was menaced with ruin by the Assyrian arms, can only be accepted as true by those who accept the reality of supernatural prediction. Thenius remarks: “An Isaiah might well perceive i what fate threatened the little kingdom of Judah, in case of a revolution of affairs brought about by the Babylonians.” But the tone of the prophecy is not hypothetical, but entirely positive. Besides, Isaiah evidently did not suppose that Merodach-baladan’s revolt would succeed. (Comp. Isa_14:29, seq., 21:9.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. nothing shall be left] Though some few Jews remained behind among the ruins of the desolated city, nothing worth taking as booty was left behind. For a description of the overthrow and the plunder, see below 2Ki_25:9-17.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Babylon, under the last kings of Juda. It cannot be explained of Sennacherib, chap. xviii. 15.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This judgment is denounced against him for his pride, which God exceedingly abhors; and for his ingratitude, whereby he took that honour to himself which he should have given entirely to God, and abused God’s gifts and favours to the gratification of his own lusts; of both which see 2Ch 32:25,26; and for his carnal confidence in that league which he had now made with the king of Babylon, by which, it is probable, he thought his mountain to be so strong, that it could not be removed.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. Shall be carried unto Babylon — This seems to have been the first explicit prophecy of this great woe of Judah, though Micah’s (iv, 10) prediction of the same event must have been nearly contemporary. The prophecy is especially remarkable, since Babylon was at this time an inferior power, little more than a dependency of Assyria, whose leading men had risen in rebellion; and there was far more probability that Judah would be carried into exile either by the king of Assyria or by the king of Egypt, which two at the time seemed to divide the empire of the world between them.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon. These treasures of thy royal house, whereof thou art so proud, and which thou hast of thine own accord made known to the Babylonians, to obtain their alliance, will in fact excite their cupidity, and the time will come when they, or what remains of them and represents them, will be carried off as plunder to Babylon by a conquering monarch, who will strip thy palace of its valuables, and drag thy descendants into captivity, and degrade them to the condition of slaves or servants, and make them discharge menial offices about his court. The revelation was now, it would seem, for the first time made that Babylon, and not Assyria, was the true enemy which Judaea had to fear, the destined foe who would accomplish all the threats of the prophets from Moses downwards, who would destroy the holy city and the glorious temple of Solomon, and carry away the ark of the covenant, and tear the people from their homes, and bring the kingdom of David to an end, and give Jerusalem over as a prey to desolation for seventy years. Henceforth it was Babylon and not Assyria which was feared, Babylon and not Assyria whereto the prophetic gaze of Isaiah himself was directed, and which became in his later prophecies (40-66.) the main object of his denunciations. Considering the circumstancesof the time, the prophecy is a most extraordinary one. Babylonia was at the time merely one of several kingdoms bordering on Assyria which the Assyrians threatened with destruction. From the time of Tiglath-pileser she had been continually diminishing, while Assyria had been continually increasing, in power. Tiglath-pileser had overrun the country and established himself as king there. Shalmaneser"s authority had been uncontested. If just at present a native prince held the throne, it was by a very uncertain tenure, and a few years later Assyria regained complete mastery. No human foresight could possibly have anticipated such a complete reversal of the relative positions of the two countries as was involved in Isaiah"s prophecy a reversal which was only accomplished by the appearance on the scene of a new power, Media, which hitherto had been regarded as of the very slightest account. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. (comp. 2Ki_25:13-17 and Jer_52:12-23)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Behold - This judgment is denounced against him for his pride; for his ingratitude, whereby he took that honour to himself which he should have given entirely to God; and for his carnal confidence in that league which he had now made with the king of Babylon, by which, it is probable, he thought his mountain to be so strong, that it could not be removed.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Nothing will remain. You shall be paid measure for measure, [as stated above,] “There was nothing.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.