Verse 7
"And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
This is good news and bad news combined. The good news is that Hezekiah would not die childless as he had feared; but the bad news was the prophetic fate of his sons. The prospect of their being eunuchs in the place of the king of Babylon was indeed a terrible destination. Furthermore, Manasseh who would succeed him in the throne was indeed an evil son of the devil until near the very end of his life.
In the Book of Daniel, we read that, "Among the princes of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaraiah; and the prince of the eunuchs gave names unto them (Daniel 1:6,7). It was usually true in that era that "eunuchs" were men who had been emasculated; and although it was also true that sometimes "eunuchs" were "officers of the king." This was by no means true of the princes of Judah in Babylon. They were not officers of the king, but captives; and here, they even endured the humiliation of having their names changed. We not only agree with Culver that, "There is a great possibility that Daniel and his friends were emasculated,"[14] but we, through the influence of Isaiah's prophecy here, believe that that is the only proper understanding of the fate of those princes of the royal household of Judah. Many agree with this interpretation. "The descendants of Hezekiah, rather than his actual sons, seem to be intended here; and the fulfillment of this prophecy is to be found in Daniel 1:3, where certain of `the king's seed' are mentioned among the Israelites who served as eunuchs in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar."[15]
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