Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 39:3

"Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon." — Isaiah 39:3 (ASV)

Then came Isaiah ... —The words that follow, like those in Isaiah 7:3, are spoken with the authority of both his age and his Divine mission, perhaps also of a master speaking to one who had been his pupil. No sooner does the arrival of the embassy from Babylon reach his ear than he goes straight to the king to ask him what it all meant. The king’s answer seems to plead that they came “from a far country” as an excuse. Could he refuse to admit those who had made such a long journey in his honor? Could relations with such a distant land bring any moral or political danger? It was not like the alliance with Egypt, to which Isaiah was so strenuously opposed.