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2Ki_20:12 At that time Berodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.
Ver. 12. At that time Berodach-baladan.] {a} Baladan signifieth a lordless or masterless man, saith Pagnine. This Berodach - or Merodach {Isa_39:1} - Baladan is thought to be the first Babylonian monarch, after that he had first rebelled against Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, and then afterwards slain him. Hence we read no more in Scripture of the kings of Assyria, but of Babylon.
Sent letters with a present.] A rich and royal one, no doubt, according to the state of him who sent it, but whether comparable to that of King Ferdinand, sent to Solyman the Turk, I cannot tell - viz., a wonderful globe of silver of most rare and curious device, daily expressing the hourly passing of the time and the motions of the planets, the change and full of the moon, &c., ever moving by certain wheels and weights curiously conveyed within the same, and exactly keeping due time and motion. {b} Such a present would have been most welcome to good Hezekiah, especially if he were a mathematician, as the Rabbis make him, telling us that he restored the year by the intercalation of a day every third year, in the month Adar, which answereth to our February.
{a} Baladan, sine domino.
{b} Turk. Hist., 713.