2“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”
3The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.
2 “Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”
3 The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.
KJVKing James Version
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.
2 Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim unto her, that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off; that she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.
3 Hark! one calleth: 'Clear ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, make plain in the desert a highway for our God.
Malachi 3:1(v3)“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the…
Mark 1:2-5(v3)As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you: the voice of one…
John 1:23(v3)He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Matthew 3:1-3(v3)In those days, John the Baptizer came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” For…
Luke 1:16-17(v3)He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the…
Show all 72 cross-references
Luke 1:76-77(v3)And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give…
Malachi 4:5-6(v3)Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Yahweh comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the…
Isaiah 57:14(v3)He will say, “Build up, build up, prepare the way! Remove the stumbling-block out of the way of my people.”
Isaiah 43:19(v3)Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 62:10-11(v3)Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way of the people! Build up, build up the highway! Gather out the stones! Lift up a banner…
Isaiah 35:8(v3)A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called “The Holy Way”. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who…
Luke 3:2-6(v3)in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. He came into all the…
Isaiah 49:11(v3)I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be exalted.
2 Corinthians 1:4(v1)who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we…
Isaiah 51:12(v1)“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?
Isaiah 51:3(v1)For Yahweh has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden…
Isaiah 11:15-16(v3)Yahweh will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his scorching wind he will wave his hand over the River, and will…
Psalms 68:4(v3)Sing to God! Sing praises to his name! Extol him who rides on the clouds: to Yah, his name! Rejoice before him!
Zephaniah 3:14-17(v1)Sing, daughter of Zion! Shout, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem. Yahweh has taken away your…
Zechariah 9:12(v2)Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope! Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.
Isaiah 61:7(v2)Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will…
Jeremiah 31:10-14(v1)“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a…
Zechariah 1:13(v1)Yahweh answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting words.
Isaiah 49:13-16(v1)Sing, heavens, and be joyful, earth! Break out into singing, mountains, for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on…
Hosea 2:14(v2)“Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
Isaiah 66:10-14(v1)“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her; that you may…
Isaiah 12:1(vv1–2)In that day you will say, “I will give thanks to you, Yahweh; for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you comfort…
Isaiah 60:1–61:3(v1)“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you. For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness…
Jeremiah 33:8-9(v2)I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have…
Zechariah 9:9(v1)Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation;…
Isaiah 52:9(v1)Break out into joy! Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for Yahweh has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem.
Revelation 18:6(v2)Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her…
Isaiah 41:10-14(v1)Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will…
Isaiah 43:25(v2)I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.
Isaiah 44:22(v2)I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
Isaiah 62:11-12(v1)Behold, Yahweh has proclaimed to the end of the earth, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes! Behold, his reward is…
Jeremiah 16:18(v2)First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable…
Song of Solomon 2:11-13(v2)For behold, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing has come, and the voice…
Isaiah 3:10(v1)Tell the righteous “Good!” For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Isaiah 35:3-4(v1)Strengthen the weak hands, and make the feeble knees firm. Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong! Don’t be afraid! Behold, your…
Isaiah 41:27(v1)I am the first to say to Zion, ‘Behold, look at them;’ and I will give one who brings good news to Jerusalem.
Psalms 85:8(v1)I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.
Isaiah 35:4(v2)Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong! Don’t be afraid! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will…
Isaiah 50:10(v1)Who among you fears Yahweh and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name,…
Isaiah 65:13-14(v1)Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be…
Jeremiah 29:11(v2)For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.
Habakkuk 2:3(v2)For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it;…
Nehemiah 8:10(v1)Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is holy…
Psalms 102:13-28(v2)You will arise and have mercy on Zion; for it is time to have pity on her. Yes, the set time has come. For your servants take pleasure in…
Isaiah 57:15-19(v1)For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a…
Daniel 11:35(v2)Some of those who are wise will fall, to refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even to the time of the end; because it is yet…
Job 42:10-12(v2)Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came there to him…
Psalms 32:1(v2)Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Isaiah 33:24(v2)The inhabitant won’t say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity.
Isaiah 41:11-13(v2)Behold, all those who are incensed against you will be disappointed and confounded. Those who strive with you will be like nothing, and…
Isaiah 49:25(v2)But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce, for I will contend with…
Jeremiah 31:33-34(v2)“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward…
Hebrews 6:17-18(v1)In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an…
Revelation 11:15-18(v2)The seventh angel sounded, and great voices in heaven followed, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and…
Genesis 34:3(v2)His soul joined to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young lady, and spoke kindly to the young lady.
2 Chronicles 30:22(v2)Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who had good understanding in the service of Yahweh. So they ate throughout the feast for…
Jeremiah 17:18(v2)Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed. Let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed. Bring on…
Daniel 9:2(v2)in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the…
Daniel 9:12(v2)He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the…
Daniel 9:24-27(v2)“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make…
Daniel 12:4(v2)But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many will run back and forth, and knowledge will be…
Daniel 12:9(v2)He said, “Go your way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.
Zechariah 1:15(v2)I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity.”
Acts 1:7(v2)He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.
Galatians 4:4(v2)But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law,
1 Corinthians 6:9-11(v2)Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor…
72 distinct cross-references across this passage (73 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (26 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv1–3This is a consolation for the Church, assuring them,…
This is a consolation for the Church, assuring them, that they shall be never destitute of Prophets whereby he exhorteth the true ministers of God that then were, and those also that should come after him, to comfort the poor afflicted, and to assure them of their deliverance both of body and soul.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Isa 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith…
Isa 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Ver. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.] Hitherto hath been the comminatory part of this prophecy: followeth now the consolatory. Here beginneth the gospel of the prophet Isaiah, and holds on to the end of the book. The good people of his time had been forewarned by the foregoing chapter of the Babylonian captivity, Those in later times, not only during the captivity, but under Antiochus and other tyrants, were ready to think themselves utterly cast off, because heavily afflicted. See Isa 40:27 of this chapter, with Lam 5:22. Here, therefore, command is given for their comfort, and that gospel be preached to the penitent; the word here used signifieth, first to repent, then to comfort. {1Sa 15:35 1Sa 12:24} This our prophet had been a Boanerges, a thundering preacher, all the fore part of his life. See one instance for all, {Isa 24:1-23} where, Pericles-like, fulgurat, intonat, totam terram permiscet, &c. Now toward his latter end, and when he had one foot in the grave, the other in heaven, he grew more mellow and melleous, as did likewise Mr Lever, Mr Perkins, Mr Whately, and some other eminent and earnest preachers that might be named, setting himself wholly in a manner to comfort the abject and feeble minded; which also he doth with singular dexterity and efficacy. This redoubled "Comfort ye," is not without its emphasis; but that which followeth {Isa 40:2} is a very hive of heavenly honey. {a}
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{a} Sunt autem omnia plena magnis adfectibus. - Hyp.
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.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv2–3Cry unto her; proclaim it in my name.
Cry unto her; proclaim it in my name.
Her warfare; the time of her servitude, and captivity, and misery.
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Her iniquity is pardoned; I am reconciled to her; I will not impute sin to her, to punish her any longer for it.
Double for all her sins; not twice as much as her sins deserved, for she herself confessed the contrary, Ezr 9:13; Lam 3:22; but abundantly enough to answer God’s design in this chastisement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example. Double is oft put for abundantly, as Isa 61:7; Jer 16:18; 17:18. God here speaks of himself after the manner of men, and compareth himself to a tender-hearted father, who when he hath corrected his child for his misdemeanour, relenteth and repenteth of his severity, and casteth his rod away.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3We have here the commission and instructions given, not…
We have here the commission and instructions given, not to this prophet only, but, with him, to all the Lord's prophets, nay, and to all Christ's ministers, to proclaim comfort to God's people. 1. This did not only warrant, but enjoin, this prophet himself to encourage the good people who lived in his own time, who could not but have very melancholy apprehensions of things when they saw Judah and Jerusalem by their daring impieties ripening apace for ruin, and God in his providence hastening ruin upon them. Let them be sure that, notwithstanding all this, God had mercy in store for them. 2. It was especially a direction to the prophets that should live in the time of captivity, when Jerusalem was in ruins; they must encourage the captives to hope for enlargement in due time. 3. Gospel ministers, being employed by the blessed Spirit as comforters, and as helpers of the joy of Christians, are here put in mind of their business. Here we have,
I. Comfortable words directed to God's people in general, Isa 40:1. The prophets have instructions from their God (for he is the Lord God of the holy prophets, Rev 22:6) to comfort the people of God; and the charge is doubled, Comfort you, comfort you - not because the prophets are unwilling to do it (no, it is the most pleasant part of their work), but because sometimes the souls of God's people refuse to be comforted, and their comforters must repeat things again and again, ere they can fasten any thing upon them. Observe here, 1. There are a people in the world that are God's people. 2. It is the will of God that his people should be a comforted people, even in the worst of times. 3. It is the work and business of ministers to do what they can for the comfort of God's people. 4. Words of conviction, such as we had in the former part of this book, must be followed with words of comfort, such as we have here; for he that has torn will heal us.
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II. Comfortable words directed to Jerusalem in particular: "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem (Isa 40:2); speak that which will revive her heart, and be a cordial to her and to all that belong to her and wish her well. Do not whisper it, but cry unto her: cry aloud, to show saints their comforts as well as to show sinners their transgressions; make her hear it:" 1. "That the days of her trouble are numbered and finished: Her warfare is accomplished, the set time of her servitude; the campaign is now at an end, and she shall retire into quarters of refreshment." Human life is a warfare (Job 7:1); the Christian life much more. But the struggle will not last always; the warfare will be accomplished, and then the good soldiers shall not only enter into rest, but be sure of their pay. 2. "That the cause of her trouble is removed, and, when that is taken away, the effect will cease. Tell her that her iniquity is pardoned, God is reconciled to her, and she shall no longer be treated as one guilty before him." Nothing can be spoken more comfortably than this, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. Troubles are then removed in love when sin is pardoned. 3. "That the end of her trouble is answered: She has received of the Lord double for the cure of all her sins, sufficient, and more than sufficient, to separate between her and her idols," the worship of which was the great sin for which God had a controversy with them, and from which he designed to reclaim them by their captivity in Babylon: and it had that effect upon them; it begat in them a rooted antipathy to idolatry, and was physic doubly strong for the purging out of that iniquity. Or it may be taken as the language of the divine compassion: His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel (Jdg 10:16), and, like a tender father, since he spoke against them he earnestly remembered them (Jer 31:20), and was ready to say that he had given them too much correction. They, being very penitent, acknowledged that God has punished them less than their iniquities deserved; but he, being very pitiful, owned, in a manner, that he had punished them more than they deserved. True penitents have indeed, in Christ and his sufferings, received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins; for the satisfaction Christ made by his death was of such an infinite value that it was more than double to the demerits of sin; for God spared not his own Son.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.…
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. The Babylonish captivity being predicted in the preceding chapter, for the comfort of God's people a deliverance is promised, expressed in such terms, as in the clearest and strongest manner to set forth the redemption and salvation by Jesus Christ, of which it was typical. Here begins the more evangelical and spiritual part of this prophecy, which reaches to and includes the whole Gospel dispensation, from the coming of John the Baptist to the second coming of Christ. It begins with comforts, and holds on and ends with them; which consolations, Kimchi observes, are what should be in the times of the Messiah; and the word "comfort" is repeated, he says, to confirm the thing. It is God that here speaks, who is the God of all comfort; the persons whom he would have comforted are his "people", whom he has chosen, with whom be has made a covenant in Christ, whom he has given to him, and he has redeemed by his blood, and whom he effectually calls by his grace; these are sometimes disconsolate, by reason of the corruptions of their nature, the temptations of Satan, the hidings of God's face, and the various afflictions they meet with; and it is the will of God they should be comforted, as appears by sending his Son to be the comforter of them, by giving his Spirit as another comforter, by appointing ordinances as breasts of consolation to them, by the promises he has made to them, and the confirmation of them by an oath, for their strong consolation; and particularly by the word of the Gospel, and the ministers of it, who are Barnabases, sons of consolation, who are sent with a comfortable message, and are encouraged in their work from the consideration of God being their God, who will be with them, assist them, and make their ministrations successful; and to these are these words addressed; which are repeated, not to suggest any backwardness in Gospel ministers, who are ready to go on such an errand, however reluctant they may be to carry bad tidings; but rather to signify the people's refusal to be comforted, and therefore must be spoken to again and again; and also to show the vehement and hearty desire of the Lord to have them comforted. The Targum is,
"O ye prophets, prophesy comforts concerning my people.''
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And the Septuagint and Arabic versions insert, "O ye priests", as if the words were directed to them. The preachers of the Gospel are meant, and are called unto; what the Lord would have said for the comfort of his people by them is expressed in the following verse.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1–3The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap.…
The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap. xxxix, 6, 7, does here arm his people against it by the consideration of their certain deliverance out of it, and their blessed condition after it, as in other things so especially in the coming of the Messiah, and the great and glorious privileges conferred upon God's church and people in his days. The preaching of the gospel by John the baptist and the apostles, ver. 1-11. The power and wisdom of God in governing the world, ver. 12-17. The folly of idolatry, ver. 18-26. God knows the state of his people, and both can and will protect them, ver. 27-31.
Ye - Ye prophets and ministers.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1–3In this chapter the prophet opens the subject respecting…
CHAPTER XL
In this chapter the prophet opens the subject respecting the
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restoration of the Church with great force and elegance;
declaring God's command to his messengers the prophets to
comfort his people in their captivity, and to impart to them
the glad tidings that the time of favour and deliverance was
at hand, 1, 2.
Immediately a harbinger is introduced giving orders, as usual
in the march of eastern monarchs, to remove every obstacle, and
to prepare the way for their return to their own land, 3-5.
The same words, however, the New Testament Scriptures authorize
us to refer to the opening of the Gospel dispensation.
Accordingly, this subject, coming once in view, is principally
attended to in the sequel. Of this the prophet gives us
sufficient notice by introducing a voice commanding another
proclamation, which calls of our attention from all temporary,
fading things to the spiritual and eternal things of the
Gospel, 6-11.
And to remove every obstacle in the way of the prophecy in
either sense, or perhaps to give a farther display of the
character of the Redeemer, he enlarges on the power and wisdom
of God, as the Creator and Disposer of all things. It is
impossible to read this description of God, the most sublime
that ever was penned, without being struck with inexpressible
reverence and self-abasement. The contrast between the great
Jehovah and every thing reputed great in this world, how
admirably imagined, how exquisitely finished! What atoms and
inanities are they all before HIM who sitteth on the circle of
the immense heavens, and views the potentates of the earth in
the light of grasshoppers, - those poor insects that wander over
the barren heath for sustenance, spend the day in continual
chirpings, and take up their humble lodging at night on a blade
of grass! 12-26.
The prophet concludes with a most comfortable application of
the whole, by showing that all this infinite power and
unsearchable wisdom is unweariedly and everlastingly engaged in
strengthening, comforting, and saving his people, 27-31.
The course of prophecies which follow, from hence to the end of the book, and which taken together constitute the most elegant part of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, interspersed also with many passages of the highest sublimity, was probably delivered in the latter part of the reign of Hezekiah. The prophet in the foregoing chapter had delivered a very explicit declaration of the impending dissolution of the kingdom, and of the captivity of the royal house of David, and of the people, under the kings of Babylon. As the subject of his subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise of the restoration of the kingdom, and the return of the people from that captivity, by the merciful interposition of God in their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to this event. As the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe of Judah, which would otherwise have soon become undistinguished, and have been irrecoverably lost, was necessary, in the design and order of Providence, for the fulfilling of God's promises of establishing a more glorious and an everlasting kingdom, under the Messiah to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, the prophet connects these two events together, and hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intimations of the latter; and sometimes is so fully possessed with the glories of the future and more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the question.
Indeed this evangelical sense of the prophecy is so apparent, and stands forth in so strong a light, that some interpreters cannot see that it has any other; and will not allow the prophecy to have any relation at all to the return from the captivity of Babylon. It may therefore be useful to examine more attentively the train of the prophet's ideas, and to consider carefully the images under which he displays his subject. He hears a crier giving orders, by solemn proclamation, to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; to remove all obstructions before JEHOVAH marching through the desert; through the wild, uninhabited, impassable country. The deliverance of God's people from the Babylonish captivity is considered by him as parallel to the former deliverance of them from the Egyptian bondage. God was then represented as their king leading them in person through the vast deserts which lay in their way to the promised land of Canaan. It is not merely for JEHOVAH himself that in both cases the way was to be prepared, and all obstructions to be removed; but for JEHOVAH marching in person at the head of his people. Let us first see how this idea is pursued by the sacred poets who treat of the exodus, which is a favourite subject with them, and affords great choice of examples: -
"When Israel came out of Egypt,
The house of Jacob from the barbarous people;
Judah was his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion."
Ps 114:1-2.
"JEHOVAH his God is with him;
And the shout of a king is among them:
God brought them out of Egypt"___
Nu 23:21-22.
"Make a highway for him that rideth through the deserts:
O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people.
When thou marchedst through the wilderness,
The heavens dropped"___
Ps 68:4; Ps 68:7.
Let us now see how Isaiah treats the subject of the return of the people from Babylon. They were to march through the wilderness with JEHOVAH at their head, who was to lead them, to smooth the way before them, and to supply them with water in the thirsty desert; with perpetual allusion to the exodus: -
"Come ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the land of the
Chaldeans with the voice of joy: Publish ye this, and make it heard; utter it forth even to the
end of the earth; Say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob: They thirsted not in the deserts, through which he made them go; Waters from the rock he caused to flow for them; Yea, he clave the rock, and forth gushed the waters."
Isa 48:20-21.
"Remember not the former things;
And the things of ancient times regard not:"
(That is, the deliverance from Egypt:)
"Behold, I make a new thing;
Even now shall it spring forth; will ye not regard it?
Yea, I will make in the wilderness a way;
In the desert streams of water."
Isa 43:18-19.
"But he that trusteth in me shall inherit the land,
And shall possess my holy mountain.
Then will I say: Cast up, cast up the causeway; make
clear the way;
Remove every obstruction from the road of my people."
Isa 57:13-14.
"How beautiful appear on the mountains
The feet of the joyful messenger, of him that announceth
peace;
Of the joyful messenger of good tidings, of him that
announceth salvation;
Of him that saith to Sion, Thy God reigneth!
All thy watchmen lift up their voice, they shout together;
For face to face shall they see, when JEHOVAH returneth to
Sion.
Verily not in haste shall ye go forth,
And not by flight shall ye march along:
For JEHOVAH shall march in your front;
And the God of Israel shall bring up your rear."
Isa 52:7-8; Isa 52:12.
Babylon was separated from Judea by an immense tract of country which was one continued desert; that large part of Arabia called very properly Deserta. It is mentioned in history as a remarkable occurrence, that Nebuchadnezzar, having received the news of the death of his father, in order to make the utmost expedition in his journey to Babylon from Egypt and Phoenicia, set out with a few attendants, and passed through this desert. Berosus apud Joseph., Antiq. x. 11. This was the nearest way homewards for the Jews; and whether they actually returned by this way or not, the first thing that would occur on the proposal or thought of their return would be the difficulty of this almost impracticable passage. Accordingly the proclamation for the preparation of the way is the most natural idea, and the most obvious circumstance, by which the prophet could have opened his subject.
These things considered, I have not the least doubt that the return at the Jews from the captivity of Babylon is the first, though not the principal, thing in the prophet's view. The redemption from Babylon is clearly foretold and at the same time is employed as an image to shadow out a redemption of an infinitely higher and more important nature. I should not have thought it necessary to employ so many words in endeavouring to establish what is called the literal sense of this prophecy, which I think cannot be rightly understood without it, had I not observed that many interpreters of the first authority, in particular the very learned Vitringa, have excluded it entirely.
Yet obvious and plain as I think this literal sense is, we have nevertheless the irrefragable authority of John the Baptist, and of our blessed Saviour himself, as recorded by all the Evangelists, for explaining this exordium of the prophecy of the opening of the Gospel by the preaching of John, and of the introduction of the kingdom of Messiah; who was to effect a much greater deliverance of the people of God, Gentiles as well as Jews, from the captivity of sin and the dominion of death. And this we shall find to be the case in many subsequent parts also of this prophecy, where passages manifestly relating to the deliverance of the Jewish nation, effected by Cyrus, are, with good reason, and upon undoubted authority, to be understood of the redemption wrought for mankind by Christ.
If the literal sense of this prophecy, as above explained, cannot be questioned, much less surely can the spiritual; which, I think, is allowed on all hands, even by Grotius himself. If both are to be admitted, here is a plain example of the mystical allegory, or double sense, as it is commonly called, of prophecy; which the sacred writers of the New Testament clearly suppose, and according to which they frequently frame their interpretation of passages from the Old Testament. Of the foundation and properties of this sort of allegory, see De S. Poes. Hebr. Praelect. xi.
NOTES ON CHAP. XL
Verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye] "The whole of this prophecy," says Kimchi, "belongs to the days of the Messiah."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3Isa 40:1-2. Comfort ye, &c. — “The prophet, in…
Isa 40:1-2. Comfort ye, &c. — “The prophet, in the foregoing chapter, had delivered a very explicit declaration of the impending dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and of the captivity of the royal house of David, and of the people, under the king of Babylon. As the subject of his subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise of the restoration of the kingdom, and the return of the people from that captivity, by the merciful interposition of God in their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to this event; as the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe of Judah, was necessary, in the design and order of Providence, for the fulfilling of God’s promises of establishing a more glorious and everlasting kingdom, under the Messiah, to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David; the prophet connects these two events together, and hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intimation of the latter, and sometimes is so fully possessed with the glories of the future more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the question.” — Bishop Lowth.
Comfort ye my people — Ye prophets and ministers of the Lord, which now are, or hereafter shall be; the LXX. say, ιερεις, ye priests; deliver the following comfortable message from me to my people, that they may not sink under their burdens. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem — Hebrew, על לב, to the heart of Jerusalem. So the LXX., λαλησατε εις την καρδιαν. And cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished — Proclaim in my name, that the time of her servitude, captivity, and misery, is finished. The LXX. render it, Comfort her, οτι επλησθη η ταπεινωσις αυτης, because her humiliation, that is, the time of her humiliation, is fulfilled. Her iniquity is pardoned — I am reconciled to her; I will not impute sin to her, so as to punish her any longer for it. She hath received at the Lord’s hand double, &c. — Not twice as much as her sins deserved, for she herself confesses the contrary, Lam 3:22; Ezr 9:13; but abundantly enough to answer God’s design in this chastisement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example; double being often put for abundantly. Or, “double in proportion to God’s usual severity in punishing men’s sins.” See Jer 16:18; Jer 17:18; Rev 18:6. God always punishes men less than their iniquities deserve; yet he showed greater severity against the sins of the Jews than toward those of other nations, Dan 9:12; Amo 3:2. For as they had received more peculiar favours from God, and a clearer knowledge of his will, than the rest of mankind, their sins were the more aggravated, and required a severer chastisement. Vitringa, however, and Bishop Lowth, not to mention some other learned interpreters, understand the clause in a different light. The meaning, according to the former, is, “that though God might, with great justice, punish the sins of his people more severely, yet, at this time of grace, he would cease from his severity, would forgive their sins, and crown them with a double portion of his blessings.” And the bishop, comparing the passage with Isa 61:7; Job 42:10; and Zec 9:12, (which see,) translates the verse, “Speak ye animating words to Jerusalem, and declare unto her that her warfare is fulfilled; that the expiation of her iniquity is accepted; that she shall receive, at the hands of Jehovah, blessings double to the punishment of all her sins.”
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Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Comfort ye, comfort ye my people - This is…
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people - This is the exordium, or the general subject of this and the following chapters. The commencement is abrupt, as often happens in Isaiah and the other prophets. The scene where this vision is laid is in Babylon; the time near the close of the captivity. The topic, or main subject of the consolation, is stated in the following verse - that that captivity was about to end, and that brighter and happier days were to succeed their calamities and their exile. The exhortation to ‘comfort’ the people is to be understood as a command of God to those in Babylon whose office or duty it would be to address them - that is, to the ministers of religion, or to the prophets. The Targum of Jonathan thus renders it: ‘Ye prophets, prophesy consolations concerning my people.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith God. O priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem; comfort her.’ The design of Isaiah is doubtless to furnish that which should be to them a source of consolation when amidst the deep distress of their long captivity; to furnish an assurance that the captivity was about to end, and that brighter and happier times were to ensue.
The exhortation or command is repeated, to give intensity or emphasis to it, in the usual manner in Hebrew, where emphasis is denoted by the repetition of a word. The word rendered ‘comfort’ (from נחם nâcham) means properly to draw the breath forcibly, to sigh, pant, groan; then to lament, or grieve Psa 90:13; Jer 15:6; then to comfort or console one’s-self Gen 38:12. then to take vengeance (compare the note at Isa 1:24). All the forms of the word, and all the significations, indicate deep emotion, and the obtaining of relief either by repenting, or by taking vengeance, or by administering the proper topics of consolation. Here the topic of consolation is, that their calamities were about to come to an end, in accordance with the unchanging promises of a faithful God Isa 40:8, and is thus in accordance with what is said in Heb 6:17-18.
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My people - The people of God. He regarded those in Babylon as his people; and he designed also to adduce such topics of consolation as would be adapted to comfort all his people in all ages.
Saith your God - The God of those whom he addressed - the God of the prophets or ministers of religion whose office was to comfort the people. We may remark here, that it is an important part of the ministerial office to administer consolation to the people of God in affiction; to exhibit to them his promises; to urge the topics of religion which are adapted to sustain them; and especially to uphold and cheer them with the assurance that their trials will soon come to an end, and will all terminate in complete deliverance from sorrow and calamity in heaven.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Be. Septuagint, "comfort my people." Let them not be…
Be. Septuagint, "comfort my people." Let them not be dejected. (Haydock) --- The end of the captivity, and still more the coming of the Messias, afford consolation, (Calmet) and to this the prophet chiefly alludes. (Worthington)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1The Prologue: the Objective and Subjective basis of Redemption
I.—THE FIRST DISCOURSE
The Prologue: the Objective and Subjective basis of Redemption
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Isaiah 40
1. THE PROLOGUE OF THE SECOND PART AND OF THE FIRST DISCOURSE
Isa_40:1-11
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
Saith your God.
2 Speak ye 2comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
That her 3warfare is accomplished,
That 4her iniquity is pardoned:
5For she hath received of the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that crieth 6in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low:
And the crooked shall be made 7straight,
And 8the rough places 9plain:
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together:
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
6 10The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass,
And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
Because 11the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it:
Surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
But the word of our God shall stand forever.
9 12O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain;
13O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings,
Lift up thy voice with strength;
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the Lord God will come 14 15with strong hand,
And his arm shall rule for him:
Behold his reward is with him,
And 16his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd:
He shall gather the lambs with his arm,
And carry them in his bosom,
And shall gently lead those 17that are with young.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_40:1. The rhetorical form of anadiplosis (epanalepsis, epizeuxis) occurs, indeed, principally in the second part (Isa_40:1; Isa_41:27; Isa_43:11; Isa_43:25; Isa_48:11; Isa_48:15; Isa_51:9; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:17; Isa_52:1; Isa_52:11; Isa_57:6; Isa_57:14; Isa_57:19; Isa_62:10; Isa_65:1). But it occurs also not unfrequently in passages of the first part that are the acknowledged productions of Isa. (Isa_8:9; Isa_18:2; Isa_18:7; Isa_21:11; Isa_28:10; Isa_28:13; Isa_29:1. Comp., beside Isa_15:1; Isa_21:9; Isa_24:16; Isa_26:3; Isa_26:15; Isa_27:5; Isa_38:11; Isa_38:17; Isa_38:19. Agreeably to the character of this section, the Piel נִחַם occurs oftener in the second part: Isa_40:1; Isa_49:13; Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:19; Isa_52:9; Isa_61:2; Isa_66:13 (Pual Isa_54:11; Isa_66:13). Piel occurs twice in the first part: Isa_12:1; Isa_22:4. The passages Isa_49:13; Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12; Isa_52:9; Isa_66:13, are manifest echoes of the present passage—עם with the suffix referring to Jehovah, as it suits the contents of the second part, is found there oftener than in the first: comp. Isa_3:12; Isa_10:2; Isa_10:24; Isa_32:13; Isa_32:18, with Isa_40:1; Isa_43:20; Isa_47:6; Isa_51:4; Isa_51:16; Isa_52:5 sq.; Isa_28:5; Isa_30:26; Isa_58:1; Isa_65:10; Isa_65:19, etc.
The expression יאמַר א׳, as an introductory formula, is peculiar to Isaiah; for it is found only in Isaiah, and that in both parts: Isa_1:11; Isa_1:18; Isa_33:10; Isa_40:1; Isa_40:25; Isa_41:21; Isa_66:9 (comp. Kleinert, Echtheit der jesajan, Weissag, I. p. 239 sqq.). The Imperfect יאמר corresponds to the aim of chapters 40–66. Comp., the formula with which the Prophet introduces the prophecies he addresses to the present church (שִׁמְעוּדְבַר י׳ Isa_1:10; נְאֻם י׳ Isa_1:24; הַרָּבָר אֲשֶׁר חָזָה ונו׳ Isa_2:1, etc., comp. Isa_7:3; Isa_7:7; Isa_7:10; Isa_8:1; Isa_8:5; Isa_8:11; Isa_14:28; Isa_20:2, etc.). יאמר, taken exactly, is for us an untranslatable verbal form, that, according to its original sense, designates the thought neither as present nor future, nor in any way as one to be estimated by time measure, but one to be estimated by the measure of its mode of existence. That is, the Imperfect designates, not that which has objectively come into actual existence, but what is only present some way subjectively. In other words, יאמר, standing at the beginning of the second part, characterizes it as addressed to an ideal church. In itself, indeed, יאמר can mean, “he will speak.” Thus it is taken by Stier, v. Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1. p. 91, Ausg. v. J. 1853), and Klostermann (Zeitschrift f. Luth. Th. u. K. 1876, I. p. 24 sqq.); the last named of whom, however, errs in thinking that the following discourse Isa_40:3-11 gives the Imperfect the direction toward the future. For what follows, and is separated by intermediate members can never determine the specific sense of a Hebrew verbal form. יאמר can, also in itself mean frequent repetition (Delitzsch). But all these significations are too special. The subjective force of the Imperfect is capable of various signification according to the context. Here at the beginning we are much too little au fait, to assign to the word a construction as definite as those expositors would do. Here we know from the יאמר only this much, that what follows is to be regarded, not as something that has just gone forth, something to be executed at once for the present church, but as an ideal word of God according to its point of departure and aim.—We have said above that עם with a suffix referring to Jehovah occurs much oftener in the second part than in the first. The same is to be said of אלהים with the suffix referring to Israel. אֱלֹהַי occurs twice in the first part (Isa_7:13; Isa_25:1), five times in the second (Isa_40:27; Isa_49:4-5; Isa_57:21; Isa_61:10); אלהינו six times in the first part (Isa_50:10; Isa_25:9; Isa_26:13; Isa_35:2; Isa_36:7; Isa_37:20), eight times in the second (Isa_40:3; Isa_40:8; Isa_42:17; Isa_52:10; Isa_55:7; Isa_59:13; Isa_61:2; Isa_61:6); אֱלֹהֶיךָ in the first part properly only once in the sense here under review (Isa_7:11; beside this Isa_37:4; Isa_37:10), six times in the second (Isa_41:10; Isa_41:13; Isa_43:3; Isa_48:17; Isa_51:15; Isa_55:5); אֱלֹהַיִךְ occurs not at all in the first part, on the other hand nine times in the second (Isa_51:20; Isa_51:22; Isa_52:7; Isa_54:6; Isa_60:9; Isa_60:19; Isa_62:3; Isa_62:5; Isa_66:9); אלהיכם in the first part only Isa_35:4, in the second Isa_40:1; Isa_40:9; Isa_59:2; אלהיו in the sense meant here only Isa_50:10; Isa_58:2; אלהיה and אלהיהם occur in this sense in neither part. It is quite natural that the affectionate words of endearment should occur oftener in the book of comfort than in the book of threatening.
Isa_40:2. The question might be raised whether כִּי is to be construed as a causal particle. But in that case קראו must be referred to what precedes, and that, say, in the sense of קִרְאוּ מַלְאוּ (Jer_4:5) in order that it may not stand as flat and superfluous. This construction is not allowable here because קראו must be closely connected with the preceding דברו על־לב.
We must therefore refer קראו to what follows, and כִּי, in the sense of “that,” introduces the objective clause.—צָבָא only here and Dan_8:12 is used as feminine. The reason seems to me to lie in this, that in both passages the word is conceived as collective, i. e., as designation, not of a single conflict, but of a multitude of conflicts, of a long continued period of conflict.—מלא of time (comp. Gen_25:24; Gen_29:21; Jer_25:12) occurs again in Isaiah only Isa_65:20 in the Piel.—The expression בִּפְלַיִם occurs elsewhere only Job_11:6; the singular, also, כֶּפֶל, duplicatio, only Job_41:4.
Isa_40:3. Piel יִשַׁר, “make straight,” occurs again only Isa_45:2; Isa_45:13.—(ערבה, regio arida, apart from Isa_35:1; Isa_35:6, occurs in part first only Isa_33:9; whereas in part second, beside the present it occurs Isa_41:19; Isa_51:3.—מסלה occurs in the same sense as here Isa_11:16; Isa_19:23; Isa_62:10; comp. Isa_33:8; Isa_49:11; Isa_59:7. It occurs beside Isa_7:3; Isa_36:2. It is “the highway, embankment road, chaussee.”
Isa_40:4. שָׁפֵל a word of frequent recurrence, especially in the second introduction: Isa_2:9; Isa_2:11-12; Isa_2:17; Isa_5:15; then Isa_10:33; Isa_29:4; Isa_32:18; also the antithesis of הַר andנִבְעָה in parallelism occurs very often in part first: Isa_2:14; Isa_10:32; Isa_30:17; Isa_30:25; Isa_31:4, and somewhat oftener still in part second: Isa_40:4; Isa_40:12; Isa_41:15; Isa_42:15; Isa_54:10; Isa_55:12; Isa_65:7.—עָקֹב in the present sense only here; comp. Jer_17:9—מִישׁוֹר Isa_11:4 in the ethical sense; Isa_42:16.—רֶכֶם ἅπ. λεγ., from רָכַם alligavit Exo_28:28; Exo_39:21, like jugum from jungere. “the joining,” particularly the union between two mountains, “the yoke.”
Isa_40:5. בִּקְעָה again in Isaiah only Isa_41:18; Isa_63:14.—The expression כְּבוֹד י׳ is found in Isaiah again only Isa_35:2; Isa_58:8; Isa_60:1. נִנְלָה כבוד י׳ does not occur again in Isaiah. The expression seems to connect with נִרְאָה כבוד י׳ in the Pentateuch: Exo_16:10; Lev_9:6; Num_14:10, etc.—כל־בשׂר found again only Isa_49:26; Isa_66:16; Isa_66:23-24; with following יחַד again only in Job_34:15.—The clause וראו to יחדו is to be referred to what precedes, and not to what follows. For if ראו were to be taken in the sense of spiritual seeing, of knowing, still it would be a secondary thought that all flesh shall know that revelation as one that was announced beforehand. The chief thing will be that they will verify with their own eyes that revelation. And this seeing shall win them to the Lord. Moreover ראו evidently corresponds to the preceding נִנְלָה. Therefore the pronominal object must be supplied to ראו as is often the case. The causal clause כיפי י׳ ד׳ relates to all that precedes.
Isa_40:6. Notice the verbal form אמר with a simple Vav copulativum. It does not say וַיֹּאמַר. That would be to present this saying as a new chief member of the consecutio rerum, of the succession of facts that naturally unfold themselves. That might and perhaps would have happened were it a merely earthly transaction that is treated. To represent such in the completeness of its successive points, it must have read: וָאֶשְׁמַע קוֹל ֹאמֵר וַיֹּאמַר מָה אֶקְרָא וַיַּעַן ונו׳. But the Prophet translates us into the spirit world where time and space cease. There what with us develops one after another is side by side. For this reason the Prophet here makes use of a form of speech which otherwise serves only to fill out some trait or to mention accompanying circumstances: comp. Isa_6:3; Isa_21:7; Isa_29:11 sq.; Isa_65:8.—בשׂר ְכָּל־הַבָּשָׂר is meant collectively or as designation of the genus: whereas in כל־בשׂר Isa_40:5 (each flesh) it has individual signification.
Isa_40:7. The perfects יָבֵשׁ and נָבֵל must not be compared with the aoristus gnomicus of the Greeks (nor even Isa_26:9; comp. my remarks in loc). For only that Hebrew verbal form that has, too, the notion of succession, therefore includes that of time, viz.: the imperf., with Vav cons., can be compared with the Greek aorist. Here, as in Isa_26:9, the perf., designates timeless objectivity and reality. כי is not “for,” but “when.” Were it taken in the sense of “for,” then the nature of the wind would be designated as the constant cause of the withering of vegetation. But it withers also when its time comes, without wind. But when a hot desert wind (Isa_18:4; Jer_4:11) blows, then it withers especially quick. נָשַׁב flavit, inflavit, occurs in Kal only here. Hiph. Gen_15:11; Psa_147:18.—There is much uncertainty about the origin of the particle אָבֵן. Gesen. (Thes. p. 668 under לָכֵן), Fuerst. (Lex. under אכן and כן) and Ewald § 205 d seem to me to be right in maintaining that אכן, on account of its derivation from כֵּן, has resident in it an argumentative meaning. Thus Fuerst. regards it primarily as “a strengthened = כֵּן therefore in a resumptive apodosis.” He refers in proof to Exo_2:14 and to our passage. And in fact Exo_2:14 seems to involve the drawing of a conclusion. For after Moses perceived the defiant answer of the Hebrew man, he cries out: אָכֵז נוֹרַע חַדָּבָר. Would not this be most correctly rendered: “is the matter therefore really known?”—It is clear that the omission of Isa_40:7 in the Alexand. and Vatic, text of the LXX. is owing to arbitrariness, if not to oversight. Koppe, Gesenius, Hitzig, who regard the whole verse, or at least 7 b as a gloss, as “a very diluted, sense-disturbing thought,” as “an ejaculation of a reader,” only prove thereby how little they have understood the sense and connection of the prophetic discourse.
Isa_40:8. The words יבשׁ חציר are taken verbatim from Isa_15:6, like נבל ציץ from Isa_28:1, where we find צִיץ נֹבֵל. The expression דבר יקום occurs in Isa_8:10, comp. Isa_7:7.
Isa_40:9. Piel בשׂר is exclusively peculiar to part second: Isa_41:27; Isa_52:7; Isa_60:6; Isa_61:1, a fact that need occasion no surprise. For it is natural, that the word, which means εὐαγγελίζειν, should be found chiefly in the εὐαγγέλιον of the Old Testament.—הָרִים קוֹל Isa_13:2, Isa_58:1.—בַּכֹּחַ comp. בְּכֹחַ יָדַי Isa_10:13. With that exception כֹּחַ occurs only in the second part: (Isa_37:3); Isa_40:26; Isa_40:29; Isa_40:31; Isa_41:1; Isa_44:12; Isa_49:4; Isa_50:2; Isa_63:1.—The expression אַל תִּירָא is very frequent not only in Isaiah but also in the whole Old Testament; Isa_7:4; Isa_8:12; Isa_10:24; Isa_35:4; Isa_37:6; Isa_40:9; Isa_41:10; Isa_41:13-14; Isa_43:1; Isa_43:5; Isa_44:2; Isa_51:7; Isa_54:4; Isa_54:14.—הנה אלהיכם strongly reminds one, and just by reason of what follows, of Isa_35:4. Comp. beside Isa_25:9. The expression is found in no other Prophet.
Isa_40:10. בְּ ,בְּחָזָק essentiae. חזק occurs again Isa_27:1; Isa_28:2.—אדני יהוה occurs ten times in the first part: Isa_3:15; Isa_7:7; Isa_10:24, etc., and thirteen times in the second part: Isa_48:16; Isa_49:22; Isa_50:4-5; Isa_50:9, etc.—The clause וזרע משׁלה לו is not co-ordinate with the foregoing chief clause, but subordinate to it. It is a clause expressive of situation (comp. Ewald, § 306, c; 341 a, sqq.), that more precisely explains the notion קזחב—לוֹis properly Dat. commodi, not mere Dat. ethicus as in עֲלִיּ לָךְ Isa_40:9, which is, moreover, to be seen from the masculine לֹו. For were it Dat. ethicus, then, corresponding to the gender of זרע, it must read לָהּ.
Isa_40:11. It is remarkable that the verb רָעָה is never used in part first in the sense of “to pasture,” the action of the shepherd, although רֹעִימ “shepherds” occurs Isa_31:4 (Isa_38:12), (comp. Isa_5:17; Isa_11:7; Isa_14:30; Isa_27:10; Isa_30:23). In part second, also, the word means “pasture” in the active sense only once: Isa_61:5, three times “pasture” of beasts: Isa_44:20; Isa_49:9; Isa_65:25.—רֹעֶה “shepherd” in part second: Isa_44:28; Isa_56:11; Isa_63:11.—עדר “the flock” found again Isa_17:2; Isa_32:14.—טְלָאִים=טְלָיִים, from טְלִי occurs in Isaiah only here (comp. 1Sa_15:4). Beside this טָלֶה Isa_65:25.—חֵיק occurs again only Isa_65:6-7.—The word עָלוֹת is joined Gen_33:13 with צאן and בקר; is used therefore of sucking beeves and sheep, 1Sa_6:7; 1Sa_6:10 of sucking beeves alone, Psa_78:71 as here used of both without addition. The word occurs only here in Isaiah. But comp עוּל, “the suckling” Isa_49:15; Isa_65:20.—נִוִזִל, which has in Gen_47:17 the meaning “to bring through,” sustentare, 2Ch_32:22, the meaning “to protect, hedge about,” and also Isa_51:18 the meaning “careful guiding,” occurs in Isaiah beside here and the passage just named, only Isa_49:10.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. We have here before us the Prologue both of the first discourse and of the entire prophetic cycle of Isa_40:12 to Isa_66:24. For the representation of Jehovah as the comforter after protracted suffering (Isa_40:1-2), as the true One, whose word abides when all that is earthly is destroyed (Isa_40:6-8), and as the true shepherd that leads His people with paternal care (Isa_40:11) corresponds to what follows (Isa_40:12 and onwards), wherein Jehovah is portrayed as the infinite, incomparable, almighty God, and the restorer of His people, so that we find in our passage the keynote of the whole of part second of Isaiah’s prophecies. Their contents are predominantly consolatory; but our passage is like the outline of the thoughts of peace therein unfolded. The outward form of the discourse, moreover, bears the imprint of this inward correspondence. The entire second part is dominated by the fundamental number three. For it is composed of three subdivisions, of which each consists of three times three, therefore nine discourses. But our Prologue consists first of an introduction that contains twice three clauses. By three imperatives, namely (“comfort ye,” “speak ye,” “cry”) it is announced that the Lord has a comforting message for His people, and by three clauses, each of which begins with כִּי (“that,” “that,” “for”) is stated what is the contents of this joyful message (Isa_40:1-2). Hahn was the first to maintain (what Delitzsch, too, finds “not without truth,” p. 408) that these three clauses beginning with כִּי correspond to the three calls that follow (Isa_40:3-11) and to the three parts of the book, not only in respect to number but also their contents. . That there is a correspondence in respect to number can hardly be doubted. But that the contents corresponds to the three times three corresponding degrees can only be made out by great ingenuity.
After the prologue of the prologue, there follow, as remarked, three calls, each of which comprises three Masoretic verses. But by the similar beginnings of the three calls, and by their internal arrangement, it appears certain that the Masoretic division into verses corresponds in general here to that division into periods intended also by the author. Only in regard to the first הנה (behold) at the close of Isa_40:9 (comp. below) there may be a divergence. Each of the three calls begins with a vivid dramatic announcement. And here, in fact, occurs a remarkable gradation. The first call is introduced by the simple קול קורא (“Hark! a call”). The second call begins with the extended formula, containing a summons to call קול אמר קרא ואמר מה אקרא. The third call, finally, begins with a still more comprehensive formula of summons. It contains three members: 1) go up on a high mountain evangelist Zion; 2) raise with might thy voice evangelist Jerusalem; 3) raise it, fear not, say to the cities of Judah. Herewith it is worthy of notice that the third member itself has again three verbs (“raise, “be not afraid,” “say”). There follows then on this threefold formula of summons a threefold הנה (behold) Isa_40:9-10. Here, perhaps, the Masoretic division into verses may not quite correspond to the meaning of the Prophet. For if the first הנה corresponds to the two that follow, then the clause introduced by it ought rather to be referred to what follows. Verse 9, accordingly, ought to end with the word Judah. The concluding verse (11) also contains three members: 1) he shall feed his flock like a shepherd; 2) he shall gather——bosom; 3) shall gently lead——with young. According to this the division into threes is not absolutely carried out in the prologue, but only just so far as it could be done without spiritless, outward mechanism, and tiresome monotony, and with such delicacy that it reveals itself only to close observation and not at all in a disagreeable way. Thereby the Prophet has proved himself to be a real artist. Moreover this tripartite division has its complete analogy in Isaiah’s style in that twofold division that we noticed in the second introduction and in chaps. 24–27.
In regard to the order of thought, the three calls contain a threefold specification of that general announcement of salvation contained in Isa_40:1-2. The first call (Isa_40:3-5) expresses the thought that now is the time to get out of the way every outward and inward obstacle that may obstruct the promised revelation of glory. The second call (Isa_40:6-8) declares that all earthly glory—even of the elect people—must be destroyed before and in order that Jehovah’s promise of glory may be fulfilled in its complete sense. The third call, finally, (Isa_40:9-11) summons Israel, which is in exile, to rally to its Lord, who comes as Redeemer, and to commit itself to His faithful, parental guidance.
2. Comfort——all her sins.
Isa_40:1-2. With three emphatically comforting words the Prophet begins. For the twice-repeated נחמו, that stands significantly at the head, as the stamp, so to speak, of the entire second part, is not alone comforting. The object “my people,” that depends on it, is quite as much so. Although judged and exiled, Israel had not ceased to be Jehovah’s people, the elect peculiar people. It is usual to understand the prophets to be the ones addressed. But it was not possible for every Israelite to hear the voice of a prophet directly. Hence there lies also in the words a summons to carry the prophetic word further. Every one shall help to comfort. Each one shall contribute his part, so that the comforting word of God may come to all the members of the people. Not once only will the Lord assure Israel of His consolation. With emphasis in Isa_40:2 He summons the same ones whom He had already commanded in Isa_40:1 to comfort His people, to speak to the heart of Jerusalem (personification and metonymy at the same time, comp. Isa_4:4; Isa_40:9; Isa_41:27). The phrase דבר על־לב (to speak out over the heart, to charm the heart, to cover with words, to sooth, to quiet) occurs elsewhere eight times in the Old Test.: Gen_34:3; Gen_50:21; Jdg_19:3; Rth_2:13; 2Sa_19:8; 2Ch_30:22; 2Ch_32:6; Hos_2:16. Whereas “speak ye to the heart” implies affecting address, קארו (call ye) involves rather the notion of loud, strong and clear speaking. By every means the conviction must be brought to the people that now the time of grace is at hand.—צָבָא, militia, “warfare” is used here figuratively as in Job_7:1; Job_10:17; Job_14:14. As in general the trials and troubles of this life can be set forth as conflicts (comp. Eph_6:11 sqq.; 1Ti_6:12; 2Ti_2:3 sqq.; 2Ti_4:7), so here the whole time of Israel’s affliction and suffering and especially the exile is designated as a time of conflict.
The second clause כי נרצה עונה (“for her guilt is thoroughly tasted”), is difficult. First of all it must be noted that the Prophet has here in mind the passages Lev_26:34; Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43. It is said there that when the judgment of exile shall come upon the people Israel the land will be desert, and by that means shall enjoy the rest which it could not enjoy so long as the land was inhabited by a disobedient people that would not observe the prescribed Sabbath seasons (אֵת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־שָֽׁבְתָה בְּשַׁבְּתֹתֵיכֶם בְּשִׁבְתְּכֶם עָלֶיהLev_26:35). The land will then enjoy its time of rest (תִּרְצֵה אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתֶיהָ Isa 40:34). רָצָה with the accusative is “to have pleasure in something, enjoy something, delectari aliquare.” The Hiph. הִרְצָת that stands parallel with תִּרְצֶה is nothing else than a direct causative Hiphil which means “delectationem agere, to pursue pleasure,” thus signifies continued, undisturbed enjoyment; as e. g. הִשְׁקִיט is not merely quietum facere but quietum agere (Isa_7:4), and like expressions, such as הִלְבִּין הִשְׁמִין, etc., signify not merely “make fat, make white,” but a continued activity whose product is “to be fat, to be white.” In contrast with this thought that the land shall enjoy its period of rest stands now the other (Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43) that the people in exile shall enjoy their guilt: “the land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity (וְהֵם יִרְצוּ אֶת־עֲוֹנָם “they shall enjoy their fault,” Isa 40:43). This expression “enjoy their guilt,” is manifestly ironical. Whereas the absence of the wicked people is for the land a benefit, an enjoyment, the people in exile must enjoy the fruit of their disobedience. They must at last taste how bitter and bad it is to forsake the Lord (Jer_2:19), after having been unwilling to believe that apostacy from the Lord was ruinous. If now רָצָה עָוֹן is frui culpa, delectari culpa, then נִרְצָה עָון is the passive of it, and means “the fault is enjoyed, thoroughly tasted.” Niph. נִרְצָה, it is true, occurs in many places where it is used of the favorable acceptance of sacrifices. But there it means “enjoyed,” “accepted as lovely enjoyment,” “to be pronounced welcome.” Moreover this use is found only in Lev_1:4; Lev_7:18; Lev_19:7; Lev_22:23; Lev_22:25; Lev_22:27.
If עָוֹן ever had the meaning “guilt offering,” then the matter would be quite simple. For then עונה נרצה would mean “their guilt offering is favorably accepted.” But it never has this meaning. We can only say therefore that the Prophet construes נרצה in the sense of “is enjoyed,” so that it forms the antithesis of ירצר עונם, Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43.
That mournful time when Israel must enjoy the bitter fruits of its sin is now gone. The peculiar ironical antithesis of “the land shall enjoy her sabbaths,” and “they shall enjoy their fault,” has the effect that we are necessitated to hear now of an enjoyed, thoroughly tasted guilt-broth into which they have broken crumbs for themselves and have now eaten it up. The third clause beginning with כִּי is best construed as an objective clause parallel with the two preceding objective clauses. For if it were a causal clause, as Hahn would have it, it must be so indicated by an unmistakable causal particle opposed to the two objective particles preceding. But that the Perfect לקחה is not to be taken in a future sense (“in time to come receives,” Hahn) is plain from the parallelism with the foregoing Perfects. Nor can בִּפְלַיִם mean the double amount of salvation (Hahn, comp. Isa_61:7), for neither לקחה, nor בכל־הטאתיה suits that. The former does not for the reasons already given; the latter does not because it must in that case read תַּחַת. For how Hahn can say that the sins are the means by which Jerusalem comes into possession of a double amount of salvation is incomprehensible. If Jerusalem had not committed these sins, would it then have been the worse off for it? The Prophet can therefore only mean to say that Jerusalem has received double punishment, has been chastised with double rods. Then בְּ is the preposition of recompense, as the recompense may be regarded as the means in order to acquiring the thing [“comp. Gen_29:18, בְּרָחֵל, properly by means of Rachel, as the price is the means by which one acquires the work or the wares,” From Dr. N.’s Gramm.—Tr.].
But how can it be said that Jehovah has laid on double the punishment deserved? How does this agree with His justice? One must remember first that the executors of the judgments against Israel did not merely restrict themselves to the measure of chastisement determined by Jehovah, but ex propriis intensified it, and thus brought on Israel a measure of punishment pressed down and shaken together (Isa_10:7; Jer_50:7; Jer_50:11; Jer_50:17, etc.). Yet if Jehovah permitted this, He is still accountable for it, seeing He could hinder it. And Jer_16:18 : “And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double” shows that this severe measure was intended by God. But was it really too severe? Delitzsch is right in saying that the expression is not to be taken in a juristic sense. It is rather to be taken rhetorically. It is an hyperbola, meant to set forth the compassionating love of God in the clearest light. For this love is at once so high and so humble that it accuses and excuses itself as if it had done too much in the way of punishment. Thereby, too, it betrays the motive for that overflowing salvation it proposes to display. For if one has given others so much pain, he will gladly make it up by so much the greater benefaction.
It is to be noticed that in Isa_40:1-2, first the Prophet speaks. For by means of “saith your God” he takes up the word himself in order to introduce the Lord as speaking the remaining words to עונה. In the latter half of Isa_40:2 the Prophet himself again speaks, as appears from “the hand of the Lord.” The Prophet therefore partly cites the verba ipsissima of Jehovah, partly states what the Lord has done. This is the usual manner of prophetic announcements. It is necessary to note this here, because in what follows there is joined in climax fashion an unusual form of announcement.
2. The voice——hath spoken it.
Isa_40:3-5. The Prophet hears a voice. He does not say whence or from whom the voice came. This is unusual. For if now and then in other cases the prophets hear terrestrial or super-terrestrial voices, still in every case the source of it is explained. The context makes known whence and why the voice sounds (comp. Isa_21:11; Eze_1:28; Dan_10:9). Here one learns only that a voice sounded. This is manifestly a rhetorical embellishment. The Prophet would make prominent thereby the importance of what follows by saying that it was important to him in an especially solemn way by a special superterrestrial voice. קול קורא can in itself mean: “a voice cries” (comp. e. g. Mic_6:9). But it is more drastic and consonant with other analogies to take the words as an exclamatory phrase and as a genitive relation (comp. Isa_6:4; Isa_13:4; Isa_52:8; Isa_66:6). A heavenly messenger, then, brings the command to prepare for the Lord the way through the desert (Isa_40:3-4). This command has evidently a double sense. For in the first place the people shall in fact be redeemed out of exile and be brought back home. And Jehovah Himself will conduct this return, as appears beyond doubt from Isa_40:9-11. But the Lord will lead them in order that the journey of the people may be made easy and prosperous without obstacle or attack (comp. Isa_41:17 sqq.; Isa_43:1 sqq., 14 sqq.; Isa_48:20 sq.; Isa_49:9 sqq.; Isa_55:12 sq.; Isa_57:14). Such is certainly the immediate sense of our passage. In fact, the whole context, especially In its immediate connection with the comforting prologue, proves that it contains a promise and not an exhortation to repentance. With this agrees Isa_40:5, which plainly declares that Isa_40:3-4 announce the fulfilment, evident to all the world, of a promise given long before by the Lord. But of course it cannot be doubted that the old figurative meaning given already by John the Baptist is also justified. For in the first place it comports with the universal and everywhere to be assumed principles of the divine pedagogy, that that physical desolation of the way homewards were not possible without an ethical desolation of the ways of the heart. And in the second place, since the language is such that it can mean both, this possibility of doublemeaning makes it a natural conjecture that such was actually intended. In the third place it is to be noticed that this first voice announces the chief matter, redemption and return home, in a general way. The second (Isa_40:6-8) gives explanation respecting the when of its accomplishment. The third (Isa_40:9-11) defines the manner of fulfilment, and contains only in this respect those two points, one after the other, which in Isa_40:3-5 we observe in one another. For what is that “behold your God,” Isa_40:9, but the announcement that the Lord by repentance and faith will come to His people? And what are Isa_40:10-11 but the statement that the Lord Himself as a parental guide will come home with His people?
במדבר Isa_40:3 is referred by the LXX., the Vulg. and the Evangelists (Mat_3:3 : Mar_1:3; Luk_3:4) to what precedes. This is not only contrary to the accents, but to the very sound of the words, since במדכר evidently corresponds to the following בערבה, and must be construed like the latter. John the Baptist, in the application of these words, calling himself a φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ (Joh_1:23), followed the LXX. He found in that sound of words familiar to his hearers, which our passage has in that translation, a fitting expression for what he would say, without meaning to give thereby an authentic interpretation of the original text (comp. Tholuck, The Old Testament in the New, 1868, p. 5). For when Delitzsch says: “One may, indeed ought, as it appears, to represent to himself that the caller, going out into the desert, summons men to make a road in it,” I can find no point of support for this statement in the Hebrew text. The command to make a road in the desert does not of necessity sound out of the desert itself. If the matter itself presents no necessity for this view, I see nothing else in the Hebrew text to indicate that the voice which the Prophet heard sounded out from the desert. Therefore the meaning which the Baptist, following the LXX., gives to the words קול קורא במדבר seems to me to belong to the category of those free citations that occur so often in the New Testament in reference to Old Testament passages, and which constitute one of those departments of biblical hermeneutics that still remain the most obscure. Of course from our point of view no objection arises against the meaning and application given by the Evangelists (especially Luk_4:3-6) to the words that follow במדבר.
The Piel פִנָּה, used elsewhere also of clearing out a house (Gen_24:31; Lev_14:36) occurs again in reference to ways, in the sense of “making clear, light, opening a road;” Isa_57:14; Isa_62:10; Mal_3:1, the last of which passages is likely a reference to the present. The subject of Isa_57:14 and Isa_62:10 is also that road on which the people shall return out of exile to their home. If the customary route from Babylon to Canaan did not pass through the desert, yet the properly nearest one did. And from יַשְׂרוּ and Isa_40:4 it is seen that Israel was to go along, not only the most convenient, but also the directest way home. From Egypt, also, the people had to traverse the desert in order to reach Canaan. The notion “desert” plays an important part in all the pictures of the future that relate to the deliverance out of exile. How consonant to Isaiah’s style it is to represent, that on their return home also from the second exile Israel will wander through the desert, may be seen from Isa_11:15-16. The meaning of יִשַׁר is evidently that the way of the people shall go out straight, and thus be as short as possible. To be such, it must make no deviations either in horizontal or vertical directions. The former appears to be the meaning of Isa_40:3 b; the latter is made prominent Isa_40:4. The valleys (the form נֶּיא only here) shall raise themselves (נִשָׂא used antithetically with שָׁפֵל11, 12; comp. Isa_2:2; Isa_2:13-14; Isa_6:1; Isa_30:25; Isa_33:10; Isa_52:13; Isa_57:7; Isa_57:15), and all mountains and hills shall lower themselves [שׁפל, see Text. and Gr.] the rugged places shall become even and the connection of mountains [רכםBergjoch see Text. and Gram.] shall become valley depths. The Prophet would say, therefore, that the obstacles that would prevent the coming of the Lord into the heart of His people, and thereby hinder the coming of the people into their land, shall be rid away. And should not thereby the glory of Jehovah become manifest to the world? When the nations see how gloriously the people Israel serve their God and how gloriously He serves His people, will they not make efforts to attain the righteousness and salvation of this people and seek the Lord who is the author of both (comp. Isa_2:2 sq.)? The great, glorious promise, which the Prophet has just announced, must be fulfilled, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and the mouth of the Lord does not lie. The expression occurs in Isaiah again Isa_1:20; Isa_58:14. Comp. on Isa_1:2.
4. The voice——stand forever.
Isa_40:6-8. The rhetorical dress of this second call, contains in relation to the first a climax. For there it is simply said: “voice of one crying.” But here: “voice of one saying, cry! And answer: what shall I cry?” Thus a second voice here precedes the voice of the one calling, and summons him to cry. This is indeed primarily rhetorical embellishment. Yet this embellishment has its material reason. In the first place, not only is the importance of the call set in the clearest light, but also its divine source, as we have already seen was also the aim of קול קרא Isa_40:3. In the second place we have this additional, that the caller must be summoned to call. The reason for this seems to me to be, that the second call expresses properly as its immediate thought something unpleasant. It is like a shadow that not only suddenly, but also almost incomprehensibly breaks in on the full light of the foregoing announcement of consolation. For is it not an oppressive thought, that not only all glory of the kingdoms of this world (that alone were indeed consolation for Israel), but also that all merely earthly glory of the elect people is subject to change? Is it not a deep humiliation that comes also on the people of God, that it is said to them, they must be divested of all their own human strength and adornment, and thus first share the fate of the totality of profane flesh, before the divine promise can be fulfilled to them? Behind the caller, therefore, there appears another that commands him to call out what, of himself, he would not have called. The first call is quite spontaneous: the second is by special command. The LXX. and Vulg. take the view, that the summons to call is directed to the Prophet, whence they translate וְאָמַר by καὶ εἶπαet dixi. But this is plainly caprice. The Prophet describes a visionary transaction: he relates only what he has seen and heard. וְאָמַר [see Text. and Gram.] must therefore signify that all that is related here took place simultaneously, and together, and not one after another. This suits capitally the pregnant brevity which the Prophet studiously observes here generally. He marks out the chief features with only a few strong touches of the brush. Hence he leaves unnoted whether we are to regard כל־הבשׂר ונו׳ as the language of the one calling or of the questioner. It could be both. The questioner could have noticed the answer without the Prophet hearing it. Or the caller could answer audibly to the Prophet. It was then unnecessary to make the questioner say again what was heard. In short, the Prophet tells us only once what from the nature of the case must have been spoken twice.
As Isa_40:3-4 are no exhortation to repentance, so too Isa_40:6-8 are not meant to be a sermon on the perishableness of all that is earthly. For what fitness were there in such a sermon here? Israel is to be comforted; the downfall of the world-power at present so flourishing, the end of their period of conflict, and a corresponding period of glory and triumph is to be held up to view. But at the same time Israel is to be warned, in reference to its entrance upon these, not to surrender itself to rash, fleshly hopes. For the promises of that time of glory will not be so quickly fulfilled. Israel thinks, perhaps, that the present generation, that the nation as at present constituted, that the present reigning Davidic dynasty, that the present Jerusalem as now existing is to behold that glory. Just that is false hope. For all these are flesh, and therefore grass and flower of the field, and as such will and must perish. Thereupon, naturally, the fleshly Israel asks: how can then the promises of the Lord be fulfilled? If Jerusalem with the temple is destroyed, and the posterity of David extinct, the nation dissolved as a state and scattered in all lands, where then does there remain room and possibility for the realization of that which God has promised? The word of the Lord standeth forever, replies the Prophet. The perishing of all that is flesh in the people of God is no obstacle to the realization of what God has promised. On the contrary! The Prophet makes us read between the lines, that the word of the Lord, precisely because of its own imperishable nature, finds in what perishes rather a hinderance than a condition of its own fulfilment. Such is in general the sense of our passage. If we have correctly apprehended it, then the Prophet means thereby to prevent erroneous representations in regard to the time and manner of fulfilling what he has before, and especially in Isa_40:5, held in prospect.
Grass as an image of the perishable, Psa_37:2; Psa_90:5 sq.; Psa_103:15; Psa_129:6; Job_8:12. Also flowers: Job_14:2; Psa_103:15. The word חֶסֶד occurs only here in the sense of physical loveliness, agreeableness. Elsewhere it is always used of the ethical friendliness, favor, complacency of persons (men and God). But has not the poet a right to personify things, and to represent lovely, gracious appearance as the favor and friendliness that they show us? Whence the rendering δόξα (LXX.), gloria (Vulg). is inexact (more suitable εὐπρἐπεια, Jam_1:11), but to retain the meaning “piety” would be pedantry. If the loveliness of human things is like the grass and the flower of the field, then it must resemble these not only in blossoming, but also in casting its blossoms. The continuance of bloom here as well as there is short. Indeed grass and flower do not even complete the brief period of bloom appointed them by nature. They wither before their time when the Lord breathes on them with the scorching wind as with a hot breath. The wind is called רוח י׳—not only because it is Jehovah that charges it with its mission, but because, as breath, as life respiration of nature, it has a likeness to the Spirit of God. Thus in other places not only is the Spirit of God that operates like the wind (1Ki_18:12; 2Ki_2:16) designated רוח י׳, but also the wind that operates like the Spirit of God (Hos_13:15; Isa_59:19).
From the antithesis to the concluding words, the word of the Lord shall stand forever, we may infer that the Prophet in Isa_40:6-8 has in mind primarily the people Israel. For would the Prophet thus here in the prologue to his great consolatory discourse comfort the heathen? Does he not begin with the words: “comfort, comfort ye my people?” Thus we must understand by “the word that stands” primarily that word of promise given to Israel. The continuance of this is made prominent in contrast with the perishing of all flesh; thus, also, of the outward, fleshly Israel. From the general statement, “all flesh is grass,” Isa_40:6, the Prophet draws the conclusion, Isa_40:7 : therefore, verily, the people is grass, and to this is joined the further consequence that therefore the people as grass and flower must wither and fade (Isa_40:8). Hence the literal repetition of “the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.” From what has been said already, it results of course that we must understand by העם, Isa_40:7, Israel and not human kind (Isa_42:5). At the same time it is made clear that there is nothing superfluous in the text, but rather that the Prophet employs only what is needful to express his thought. He would say that, even if in the remote future all that is earthly, and even what is earthly in the holy people, will have perished, still the word of the Lord will remain and demonstrate its truth by the fulfilment of its contents.
5. O Zion——that are with young.
Isa_40:9-11. The third call begins also with a solemn summons to let the call sound forth, and this third formula of summons is the most copious of all, so that in this respect a gradation occurs. The Prophet so far had heard the summons to call and the contents of the call from above, so that he only cited to his readers things heard; but here it is himself that emits the summons to call, and defines the contents of what is to be called. As a man he turns to, an ideal person, it is true, yet one conceived as human, to Zion or Jerusalem personified, and commissions it to assemble all its children, that they may rally about the newly appearing, strong Saviour, and commit themselves to His faithful guidance into their home. The relation of this call therefore to the two that precede, is that it points to the gathering for the journey and the guidance and providence during the journey, after that the first call had treated of the inward and outward preparation of the way, and the second had dealt with the period of the journey. The first announcement of a call, Isa_40:3, contained one member; the second, which at the same time is a summons to call, Isa_40:6, contained two members; the last, Isa_40:9, that contains two summons, has three members. Thus we see the inward emotion of the Prophet grows more intense and seeks its expression in a climax. For this purpose the personification of the central point of the nation is distributed, that is to say, the function is assigned to a twofold personification, Zion and Jerusalem, although each of these two and both together represent only one subject, viz., the ideal centre of the nation that must now again become active and head the cities of Judah. This distribution of the role of representation among the two notions Zion and Jerusalem is frequent in both parts of our book: Isa_2:3; Isa_4:3-4; Isa_10:12; Isa_10:32; Isa_24:23; Isa_31:9; Isa_33:20; Isa_37:22; Isa_37:32; Isa_41:27; Isa_46:13; Isa_52:1-2; Isa_62:1; Isa_64:10. It is worthy of notice, that this form of expression is by no means found in all the prophets. First we find it in Joel 3:5; 4:16, 17; next in Amo_1:2; then in Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah: Mic_3:10; Mic_3:12; Mic_4:2. It is remarkable that Jeremiah uses the expression only in two places: Jer_26:18, as a citation from Mic_3:12, and Jer_51:35. In Lamentations the expression occurs three times: Lam_1:17; Lam_2:10; Lam_2:13. It is found beside Zep_3:14; Zep_3:16 and Zec_1:14; Zec_1:17; Zec_8:3; Zec_9:9.
Zion must ascend a high mountain in order to be heard afar (comp. Isa_42:11; the expression הר נבה again Isa_30:25; Isa_57:7). Zion and Jerusalem are addressed as מְבַשֶׂרֶת. This word therefore has not the genitive relation to Zion and Jerusalem=“Zion’s herald of joy.” Such it is taken to be by the LXX., Vulg., Targ., and after these by Gesenius, Hitzig, Knobel, Hahn, etc. It is the attribute of Zion and Jerusalem, as the following reasons show: 1) According to the view of those that assume the genitive relation, מבשׂרת is to be construed collectively, and designate the messengers of salvation as a totality, so that it stands for מְבַשְׂרִים and means the “embassy of salvation” (Heilsbotenschaft, Knobel). But even if grammatically this is allowable, still such a collective designation of messengers or of prophets is quite contrary to the usus loquendi. In this sense the sing. masc. מְבַשֵׂר is used Isa_52:7; Nah_2:1. Moreover one would expect, in order to obviate indistinctness, that the verbs would be in the plural (הָרִימוּ ,עֲלוּ, etc.). קֹהֶלֶת, which is quoted as analogous, means, according to Ecc_1:1, not a plurality, but a single person. 2) Hahn says it were “inadmissible to use Jerusalem antithetically to the cities of Judah, seeing it belongs itself to them.” But it is just the constant usus loquendi with Isaiah to distinguish Jerusalem and Judah (meaning the cities of Judah): Isa_1:1; Isa_2:1; Isa_3:1; Isa_3:8; Isa_5:23; Isa_22:21; Isa_36:7; Isa_44:26. This finds, too, its echo in later books: Jer_4:5; Jer_9:10; Jer_11:12; Jer_25:18; Zec_1:12; Psa_69:36. Precisely this prominent part, which we thus see Jerusalem play, justifies us in maintaining that the Prophet means not to rank Jerusalem with the cities of Judah, but would summon it to exercise its primacy over them. It is even a very important point in salvation, that at once, still in the exile, the old domestic constitutional organism should have effect. Jerusalem must at once exercise her maternal right over her daughters (comp. e. g. Eze_16:48; Eze_16:55). She must gather them like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and require them to receive well their Lord and rally under His leadership for the return home. Involuntarily we are reminded here of the fact, that a great part of the Israelites, when they received the permission or rather summons to return home to Palestine, preferred to remain in the land of exile. These did not recognize the visitation of their God in that altered sentiment of the world-power toward the kingdom of God, in that wonderful summons to return home, as also later, when the Lord came in person to His own, His own did not receive Him (Joh_1:11). [See Lange on Joh_1:11, which he refers to the theocratic advent in the Old Testament, and thus exactly to the present subject as included.—Tr.] By Behold your God, the Lord is, as it were, presented to His people. What the Lord, who has thus appeared in the midst of His people, would now further reveal, how especially He would show Himself toward the people, this is now described by a series of imperfects only, because these were still purely latent facts. First, it is said the Lord comes as a strong one. Not only will the Lordbe strong, but He will also show Himself strong. His arm will so rule that it shall benefit Him, not others, as is the case under a weak regent. As there lies in the for him the idea that He undertakes for Himself, so the following clause expresses that, opposed to others, He knows also how to preserve the suum cuique. He has for friend and foe the reward prepared that becomes each. One will not err in taking שָׂכָר, which is never used in malam partem, in a good sense. On the other hand, פְעֻלָּה which occurs also of retributive punishment (Psa_109:20; Isa_65:7), may be understood in a bad sense. פעלה is primarily labore partum, that which is wrought out, then, generally, what is acquired, effected, retribution (Lev_19:13; Isa_49:4; comp. Job_7:2; Jer_22:13). The words הנה שׂכרו ונו occur literally again Isa_62:11. זְרֹעַ occurs in the symbolical sense also Isa_33:2, yet much oftener in part second: Isa_40:10; Isa_48:14; Isa_51:5; Isa_51:9; Isa_52:10; Isa_53:1; Isa_59:16; Isa_63:5; Isa_63:12. The passages Isa_59:16; Isa_63:5 are especially worthy of notice, because the form of expression וַתּוֹשַׁע לוֹ זְרֹעוֹ occurs there reminding us of משׁלה לו. Verse 11 makes the impression as if thereby the prophet would obviate the dread of the hardships of the return journey, especially in reference to the delicate women and children. Hence it is said that the Lord will lead His people as a good shepherd leads his flock. The tender lambs that cannot walk, the good shepherd gathers in his strong arm and carries them in his bosom—that is, in the bosom of his garment.
Footnotes:
[2]Heb. to the heart.
[3]Or, appointed time.
[4]her guilt has been enjoyed.
[5]that.
[6]prepare in the wilderness.
[7]Or, a straight place.
[8]the connecting ridges become valley bottoms.
[9]Or, a plain place.
[10]Hark! there speaks, “cry! And there replies: “what” etc.
[11]the breath of Jehovah blew on it.
[12]Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.
[13]Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem.
[14]Or, against the strong.
[15]as a strong one.
[16]Or, recompense for his work.
[17]Or, that give suck.
2. JEHOVAH’S INFINITUDE AND INCOMPARABLENESS THE OBJECTIVE BASIS OF THE REDEMPTION
Isa_40:12-26
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
And 18meted out heaven with the span,
And 19comprehended the dust of the earth in a 20measure,
And weighed the mountains in scales,
And the hills in a balance?
13 Who hath adirected the Spirit of the Lord,
Or being 21his counsellor hath taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who 22instructed him,
And taught him in the path of judgment,
And taught him knowledge,
And showed to him the way of 23 24understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust of the balance:
Behold, he taketh up the isles as 25a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing;
And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will ye liken God?
Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
19 The workman 26melteth a graven image,
And the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold,
And casteth silver chains.
20 He that 27is so impoverished that he hath no oblation
Chooseth a tree that will not rot;
He seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not 28be moved.
21 29Have ye not known? have ye not heard?
Hath it not been told you from the beginning?
Have ye not understood 30from the foundations of the earth?
22 31 32It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,
And the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers;
That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,
And spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That bringeth the princes to nothing;
He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they 33shall not be planted;
Yea, they jshall not be sown:
Yea, their stock 34shall not take root in the earth:
And 35he shall also blow upon them, and they 36shall wither,
And the whirlwind 37shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will ye liken me,
Or shall I be equal?
Saith the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold
Who hath created these things,38
That bringeth out their host by number:
He calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power;
Not one faileth.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See the List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_40:12. מֹאזֲניִם–פֶּלֶס–שָׁלִישׁ–תִּכֵּן–זֶרֶת–שֹׁעַל–מָדַד. Isa_40:13. הוֹדִיעַ–עֵצָה. Isa_40:14. הֵבִין–נוֹעַץ. Isa_40:15. –הֵן נָטַל–דַּק–שַׁחַק–דְּלִי–מַדאִיִּיס–גוֹים. Isa_40:16. דֵּי. Isa_40:17. תּהֹוּ–אֶפֶס–נֶגֶד–אַיִן. Isa_40:18. דְּמוּת–עָרַךְ. Isa_40:19. רְתוּקָה–רָקַע–צרֵֹף–חָרָש–נָסַךְ–פֶּסֶל. Isa_40:20. לֹא–יִמּוֹט–רָקַב–תִּרוּמָה. Isa_40:21. מוֹסָדוֹת–מֵרֹאשׁ. Isa_40:22. מָתַח–דּק–נָטָה–חוּג. Isa_40:23. שׁוֹפֵט–רוֹזֵן. Isa_40:24. קַשׁ–סְעָרָה–נָשַׁף–בַּל–אַף. Isa_40:26. אוֹנִים–מֵרֹב–בָּרָא–מָרוֹם.
Isa_40:12. The perfects שׁקל ,תכן ,מדד do not mean: Who can or will measure, etc.? But: who has measured, etc. The fact that no one has been able can (poetically) serve for proof that it is on the whole impossible. מדד, which occurs only twice in Isaiah, is used by Ezekiel thirty-six times; a proof that the use of a word often depends, not on the subjectivity of the author, but also on the objectivity of the contents.—–תָּכַן, related to תָּקַן on the one hand, and to כּוּן on the other, involves the fundamental meaning “to establish.” In this sense it is used in various relations wherein it concerns determining a level, evenness, likeness. Piel תִּכֵּן is used Psa_75:4 of setting up pillars according to the balance; also of raising and leveling a road (Eze_18:25; Eze_18:29; Eze_33:17; Eze_33:20), then of weighing itself (Job_28:25), then of testing by means of weighing (Pro_16:2; Pro_21:2; Pro_24:12), and also of weighing out money (1Ki_12:2). But when “determining the level,” has once acquired the meaning “to test,” it may stand for all kinds of making trial, even such as occurs without using the scales. Thus it stands here for a testing by measurement by means of the span, and in the same sense Isa_40:13 of testing and examining the divine spirit. Hence I have in both places translated תכן by “comprehend,” because the former (spanning) is a physical, and the latter (examining) is a spiritual comprehending.—Notice that also כל־עפר ו׳ depends as object on תכן. On the insertion of בשׁלישׁ after כל see Isa_38:16. [Gesenius construed כָּל as “the whole” in his Lehrgebäude. But having afterwards observed that the Hebrew text has כָּֽל with a conjunctive accent, he corrected the error in his Lexicon and Commentary, and referred the word to the root כּוּל, which does not occur elsewhere in Kal, but the essential idea of which, as appears from the Chaldee and Arabic analogy, as well as from its own derivations in Hebrew, is that of measuring, or rather that of holding and containing, which agrees with the common English Version (comprehended).”—J. A. A. See Fuerst, Lex. s. v.—TR.].
Isa_40:13. The clause ואישׁ עצתו יודיענו is dependent on the interrogation מי תכן ו׳. The imperf. is to be construed as jussive, and the paratactic Vav. copul. is to be translated in our syntactical way with “that,” as also afterwards in the last clause of Isa_40:14.
Isa_40:14. I think that משׁפט is to be taken in the wide sense meaning the norm that governs the life of every thing, thus in a certain sense, the natural law and right of everything (comp. e. g. מִשְׁפַּט אַרְמוֹן Jer_30:18; comp. Exo_26:30 : 2Ki_1:7; Jdg_13:12).—לִמַּד stands with בְּ only here; more frequently הוֹרָה is so construed: 1Sa_12:23; Psa_25:8; Psa_25:12; Psa_32:8, etc.—דַּעַת and תְּבוּנָה conjoined also Isa_44:19 (comp. Exo_31:3; Exo_35:31; Pro_2:6).
Isa_40:15. יִטּוֹל is imperf. Kal from נָטַל= “tellere, to lift up.”
Isa_40:18. דּמָּה Piel occurs in Isa., meaning “to think, combine, meditari” Isa_10:7; Isa_14:24 : meaning “to make like,” it occurs reflexively Isa_14:14 in Hithpael; in part second Isa_40:25; Isa_46:5. דמה is joined here with אֵל as is נִמְשַׁל Isa_14:10; elsewhere it is used with לְ: Isa_46:5; Lam_2:13; Son_1:9.
Isa_40:19. הפסל (used Exo_20:4; Deu_5:8; in Isa. see List) stands first emphatically as the chief notion.—רָקַע “to pound, beat” (Eze_6:11; 2Sa_22:43) then “to beat flat,” with the hammer, to extend (Isa_42:5; Isa_44:24, also Piel has this meaning Exo_39:3; Num_17:4), acquires in our text the meaning “to cover with something beaten out flat,” so that רִקַּע means “to plate over.”—צֹרֵף stands last epanaleptically.—On the frequent omission of the pronominal subject by Isaiah comp. Isa_2:6; Isa_24:2; Isa_29:8; Isa_32:12, etc.
Isa_40:20. [“לו may either be reflexive (for himself), as some consider it in Isa_40:11, and as all admit לָךְ to be in Isa_40:9, or it may be referred to עֵץ. Having secured the stuff, he seeks for it a skilful workman. As עֵץ is an obvious antecedent, and as the reflexive use of the pronouns is comparatively rare, this last construction seems entitled to preference.”—J. A. A.].
Isa_40:22-23 are without predicate. הנותן ,הנטה ,הישב are exclamations whose predicate must be supplied. The contents of the verses and what precedes (Isa_40:19-21) show that this must be “has made the earth.”—According to Hebrew usage, the secondary forms (inf. and partic.) return to the principal forms (וימתחם verse 22 and עשׂה Isa_40:23). Comp. Isa_5:8; Isa_5:23; Isa_31:1; Isa_32:6.
Isa_40:26. מרב אונים is nearer definition; אמיץ (Isa_28:2) is in apposition with המוציא and with the subject of יקרא.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The exceeding comforting introduction Isa_40:1-11 does not at once cheer up Israel. Doubts arise. Is the Lord in earnest when He promises? And can He do it too? Shall He that did not uphold us when we stood, lift us up again when we have fallen down? To these doubts, which he utters in express words Isa_40:27, the Prophet replies in the present section. He amplifies here the incomparableness, the aloneness and infinite sublimity of God. This idea underlies the whole passage.
2. Who hath measured——understanding.
Isa_40:12-14. First a standard is given by which one may estimate God’s elevation above all human ability to comprehend Him. The hollow hand, the span, the measure, the scales are human measures. Who does not instantly see the impossibility of measuring the divine works of creation with those measures? It is not meant that God has done this, as many expositors would explain. For even if appeal is made to the suffix in שׁעלו as referring to the divine hand, and though the suffix may be supplied to זרת and thus the divine span be understood, still this cannot be done in reference to the measures that follow, which are of human devising and make. Does the Prophet mean to say that there is a divine “measure, scales, balance” of which God made use at the creation? Certainly not. But he would say: what man is able to measure the divine works with his human measures, i. e., to submit them to supplementary inspection and test their correctness? This is confirmed by Isa_40:13-14 where it is expressly said that no man before the creation influenced the divine creative thoughts in the way of counseling and guiding (so Gesenius, Hahn, etc.). The immeasurableness of God is expressed by Jer_10:6-7 in this way, which passage especially in Isa_40:8 sq., unmistakably looks back to our text (see below). שָׁלִישׁ is probably the third part of an Epha, and thus like the סְאָה “seah, measure” (σάτον), of which the Epha contained three, according to the Rabbis, whence the LXX. often translated אֵיפָה “ephah” by τρία μέτρα (Exo_16:36; Isa_5:10). Comp. Herz. R.-Encycl. 9 p. 149. Dust of the earth is an expression of the Pentateuch, Gen_13:16; Gen_28:14; Exo_8:12-13. Beside these comp. Job_14:19; 2Sa_22:43. פֶּלֶס distinguished from מאזנים, and certainly the Schnellwage [an apparatus like the steelyard], occurs Pro_16:11. On הרים and גבעות occurring together, see on Isa_40:4.
As there underlies Isa_40:12 the thought that no one is in a position to inspect and test the Creator’s work after its completion, so Isa_40:13-14 would declare that no one could inspire and direct the Creator before He worked. Thus the Prophet asks: Who comprehended the Spirit of Jehovah? The context shows that the Spirit as the Spirit of Creation (Gen_1:2) is meant. To comprehend the Spirit of God, according to Isa_40:12, means nothing else than to grasp it, so that he that grasps is greater than the Spirit of God; he spans and from all sides influences it. This passage is cited Rom_11:34; 1Co_2:16. At first sight Isa_40:14 appears to be only an amplification of Isa_40:13 b. But from with whom took he counsel it appears that the Prophet makes a distinction. There are counsellors who are consulted as authority and experts, whose word is law to be followed. In this sense, which corresponds also to תכן, Isa_40:12 seems intended. But there are also counsellors with whom one consults on an equality, but who, still, though equals, in one or other respect, by instruction, correction, defining, influence the determination that is to be made. This seems intended by Isa_40:14. The Prophet would say that neither in the one nor in the other sense did the Lord have counsellors. The last clause of Isa_40:14. and shewed to him the way of understanding signifies the consequence of the three preceding verbs of teaching: so that He taught him to know the way of judicious conduct.
3. Behold—and vanity.
Isa_40:15-17. The absolute sublimity of God that has been revealed in the creation, is revealed also in history. In the former the Spirit of God showed itself to be conditioned by no one. In the latter the absolute dependence of men on God appears. Not merely single men, but whole nations count for no more before the almighty God than the small drop of a bucket that the bearer does not notice, or than the little crumb in the scale that does not influence the weight. Isa_40:16 must be regarded as a parenthesis. For it stands between Isa_40:14-15 on the one hand, and Isa_40:17 on the other, all which compare the greatness of God with earthly greatness, without itself presenting any comparison. Rather Isa_40:16 draws a conclusion from that incomparable sublimity of God: because He is so great, all the forests of Lebanon do not suffice for a worthy sacrificial fire, nor all the beasts of those forests for a worthy burnt-offering. Of course this very conclusion serves for a measure of the greatness of God, and it seems to me that the Prophet, along with “the nations” and “the isles,” the most widely extended and the furthest, (comp. Isa_66:19; Jer_31:10), would apply as a measure also the earthly highest. But would He also make prominent again the weighty mass of the mountain? He would then for the fourth time have made use of the same figure. Hence, not the ponderous mass of the mountain itself, but as much of its riches in vegetation and animal life as is suitable for the service of the Lord, must serve Him for a figure. דַּי is “sufficientia, copia;” thus דֵּי עוֹלָח ,דַּי בָעֵר=sufficientia, copia sufficiens, i. e., satis incendii, sacrificii. The construction is like Lev_5:7 “if his hand cannot reach the sufficiency of a lamb,” i. e., if he cannot bring enough to buy a lamb. Comp. Lev_12:8; Deu_25:8. Isa_40:17 with all the nations joins close with “nations” Isa_40:15, and recapitulates and intensifies the contents of it. Modern expositors for the most part construe מאפם ו׳ in a partitive sense, because it is nonsense to say: less than nothing, and because מאפם would properly mean “more than no thing.” But those are strange scruples. אפם is “the ceasing to be, where there is nothing more, the not being:” תֹּהוּ is “inanitas, emptiness, void.” Now one may say that absolute nihilism, the horror of an absolute emptiness, void is still more impressive than a being that by its miserable nothingness makes not even an impression. And of course מאפם ו׳=more than, viz.: in a negative sense. The Prophet, who indeed is governed here wholly by the idea of comparison, compares the nations and the nothing, and finds that the nations in respect to insignificance weigh down more than אֶפֶם and תֹּהוּ.
4. To whom then——not one faileth.
Isa_40:18-26. Having shown that no finite spirit may compare with God (Isa_40:12-18), the Prophet shows in these verses that it is also impossible to make any image or likeness of God. Because God has not His like, therefore there is no creature form that is like Him, and under whose image one may represent Him visibly. If this thought, coming in the middle between the promise Isa_40:1-11, and the inquiry Isa_40:27, would serve, on the one hand, to assure Israel that Jehovah has the power to keep what He has promised, so, on the other, this painting up the manufacture of idols appears intended to represent to Israel in glaring light, the folly and wrong of such a degradation of divinity to the sphere of common creatures. It is to be noted moreover that this warning in the first Ennead of our book appears in the form of an ascending and descending climax; the Prophet beginning with the more refined form of image worship, ascends to the coarser Isa_44:8 sqq., and Isa_45:16, and closes again with the more refined Isa_46:5-7. Let it be noted, too, that the Exile any way brought about the great crisis that had for its result an entire breaking with idolatry on Israel’s part. Before the Exile they were Jews, and yet at the same time served idols. After the Exile, all that was called Jew renounced idolatry. Whoever still worshipped idols ceased also to be a Jew and disappeared among the heathen. Our passage, as all others of like contents in the second part of Isaiah, attacks still with vigor the coarse idolatry, such as it was in the time of Isaiah. At the close of the Exile such a polemic was no more in place. For then Israel was beyond this sin of its youth. To the overcoming of it the word of the redoubtable Prophet no doubt mightily contributed.
That in general no one is like the Lord either in heaven or in earth, either among the gods or among the rest of creatures, is the constant teaching of the Old Testament, on the ground of Exo_15:11; Deu_3:24 (comp. Psa_35:10; Psa_71:19; Psa_86:8; Psa_89:9; Mic_7:18 and Caspari, Micha der Morastite, p. 16). But from this doctrine must be distinguished the other, of course closely connected with it, that one can and must make no visible image or likeness of God, because with that is given the more refined form of idolatry, that worships Jehovah Himself under an image (comp. on Isa_46:5). This is emphatically enjoined in the Decalogue (Exo_20:4; Deu_5:8), and in Deu_4:12 sqq., the reason is given, that on Mount Sinai, Israel observed nothing corporeal of God except the voice. The Prophet here joins on to these propositions of the Law. He shows, by describing the genesis of such idols, how senseless it is to regard images of men’s make as adequate representations of the divinity. He shows how all their parts are brought together in succession, by human labor, just as any other product of industry. How disgraceful is the origin of such an idol! Men are its creators. The exterior is gold, but the interior vulgar metal. To keep it from, falling, it must be fastened to the wall with chains. When the idol is of wood, especial care must be taken against the wood rotting. And still how often it does rot! To keep the idol from falling it must be rightly proportioned and well fastened. Thus a god concerning which extreme care must be taken to keep it (inwardly) from rotting, and (outworldly) from falling down! מְסֻכָּן is “the reduced, impoverished.” For סָכַן, related to שָׁכַן, is “sedere, desidere,” מסכן, therefore, is “desidere factus,” i. e., one that from standing is made to sit, thus brought down. Also the Arabic meskin=one brought to sit still, i. e., to inactivity, powerlessness (comp. Fleischer in Delitzsch, in loc). This meaning appears in מִסְכֵּן “poor” (Pro_4:13; Pro_9:15 sq.), and מִסְכֵנוֹת “poverty” (Deu_8:9). תְּרוּמָה is the consecrated gift, the voluntary offering presented for the service of the sanctuary; frequent in the Pentateuch after Gen., it occurs only here in Isaiah, הָכִין is erigere, statuere, stabilire; see List. It is incomprehensible how there can be people among the Israelites to give to idols the honor that becomes divinity. Rightly the Prophet turns to such with the inquiry; are you not in a position to know better? This question he propounds in four clauses. When a man acquires a knowledge of anything, there must first be made to him the suitable communication, and he must corporeally hear it, and spiritually understand it. Hence the Prophet asks if all this has not occurred, only he asks in a reversed order. The spiritual understanding is the decisive and chief concern; hence he puts this first, making the two conditions of hearing and communicating follow. Notice that the Imperfect is used for the subjective transaction of hearing and understanding, while for the objective transaction of communicating the Perfect is used. In these three members the Prophet has, as yet, named no object. This follows in the fourth with the foundations of the earth. Here, too, he uses the Perfect, because he no longer distinguishes the subjective and objective transactions, but would only learn whether the knowledge in question is an actual fact or not. With Gesenius, Stier, Hahn, I prefer to translate מוסדותfundatio rather than by fundamentum, for which there is adequate justification grammatically. For the word, like מַלְאָךְ ,מִשְׁלוֹחַ ,מוֹדַעַת ,מִשְׁמַעַת, etc., can have primarily an abstract meaning (comp. Ewald § 160 b). This abstract meaning better suits the context, for it concerns, not the make up of the foundations themselves, but the way in which they originated. The Prophet manifestly refers back to Isa_40:12-13. How the foundations of the earth were laid, and who laid them, respecting this we have, of course, received intelligence (מֵרֹאשׁ) from the beginning. It is that which has been transmitted from Adam on down, and which we have in its purest form in the Mosaic account of the creation. The Prophet certainly means this latter information, because for him it was the authentic one, divinely attested.
[Respecting the different tenses of the verbs in the first clause of Isa_40:21; J. A. A., says: “The most satisfactory, because the safest and most regular construction, is the strict one given in the LXX. (οὐ λνώσεσθἐ; οὐκ ἀκούσεσθε;) revived by Lowth (will you not know? will you not hear) and approved by Ewald. The clause is then an expression of concern or indignation at their being unwilling to know. There is no inconsistency between this explanation of the first two questions and the obvious meaning of the third, because the proof of their unwillingness to hear and know was the fact of their having been informed from the beginning.” The argument, he adds, is to show that they were without excuse, like that of Paul in Rom_1:20; comp. Act_14:17; Act_17:24.—Tr.].
In Isa_40:22-23 (which are without a predicate, see Text. and Gram.), the Prophet would say: not the idols (Isa_40:19-20) are the originators of the earth, but He that sits above the circle of the earth, spreads out the heavens and abandons the rulers to nothing. חָגָב “locust,” is chosen here on account of likeness in sound to חוּג; it occurs again only Lev_11:12; Num_13:33; 2Ch_7:13; Ecc_12:5. דּק according to the context “a thin fabric, cloth” (comp. דַק Isa_40:15, “thin dust”) see List. Isa_40:24. In order to make still more impressive the nothingness of men of might as compared with the Almighty, a series of drastic images is used to paint the completeness and thoroughness of that bringing them to nought of which Isa_40:23 speaks. אַף בַּל occurs only here; but אַף אֵין occurs Isa_41:26. Both, in the repetition, are the negative אַף–אַף (Isa_46:11). As the latter=et-et, so the former=neque-neque, or more correctly=et non—et non. For the sense is: both their planting and the scattering of their seed, and their taking root is not yet completed, when He has already blown on them, etc. Or more plainly: they are hardly planted, hardly sown, hardly rooted, but, etc. שֹׁרֵשׁ, “radices agree,” only here and Jer_12:2; the passage in Jer. seems to rest on our text. Like the Simoon of the desert (comp. Isa_40:7) causes the young green herb to wither suddenly, so the Almighty suddenly withers the mighty ones and the wind-storm carries them off.
To the first inquiry “to whom will ye liken me” (Isa_40:18) the Prophet has replied by referring to the power of God over the earth and its inhabitants (Isa_40:21-24). Now he asks the question again, Isa_40:25, and replies by a reference to God’s power over the heavenly constellations Isa_40:26. The Prophet uses the verb שָׁוָה in a precisely similar connection Isa_46:5. He has used this word before in various significations (see List). In the sense of “like, adequate, fitting” it occurs chiefly in Job (Job_33:27) and in Prov. (Pro_3:15; Pro_8:11; Pro_26:4). קדושׁ, poetically without article, occurs only here as abbreviation of the Isaianic קדושׁ ישׂראל, which on its part rests on Isa_6:3, which see. It appears to me suitable to the context to take that bringeth out their host, etc., as the answer to the question “who hath created,” etc. For it is verily a very fitting demonstratio ad occulos to say: the same who day by day calls them all by name and without one of them failing, even He made them. He that can do the one, can do the other. He that leads out “their host” (צבאם comp. Isa_24:21; Isa_34:4) according to their number by name, that is just the Lord of hosts, Jehovah Sabaoth. The expression אַמִּיץ כֹּחַ occurs Job_9:4. אישׁ לא נעדר comp. Isa_34:16.
Footnotes:
[18]comprehended.
[19]all
[20]Heb. a tierce.
[21]Heb. man of his counsel.
[22]Heb. made him understand.
[23]Heb. understandings?
[24]judicious conduct.
[25]fine dust.
[26]has moulded.
[27]Heb. is poor of oblations.
[28]totter.
[29]know ye not t hear ye not?
[30]omit from.
[31]Or, Him that sitteth, etc.
[32]he that sitteth.
[33]were not.
[34]did not.
[35]he just blew.
[36]withered.
[37]took.
[38]?
3. TRUST IN JEHOVAH THE SUBJECTIVE BASIS OF REDEMPTION
Isa_40:27-31
27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel,
My way is hid from the Lord,
And my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard,
39That the everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Fainteth not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint;
And to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall 40renew their strength
They 41shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They 42shall run, and 43not be weary;
And they shall walk, and not faint.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See the List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_40:28. תבונה–חֵקֶר–יגע–יעף–קצות הארצ. Isa_40:29. יָעֵף הִרְבָּה–עָצְמָה–אוֹנִים–. Isa_40:30. כָּשַׁל–בַּחוּרִים Isa_40:31.חָלַף–קוה.
Isa_40:27. אָמַר and דִּבֵּר in parallelism as here does not again occur; but Isa_29:4 affords an analogy. עָבַר with מִן in the sense of “to depart unobserved, escape,” occurs only here. Yet comp. in a physical sense עָבַר with מֵעַל Gen_18:3.
Isa_40:28, On the partic. pro verbo fin. compare on verse 19 (צֹרֵף).
Isa_40:30. The verb in the first clause put first shows, as Delitzsch well remarks, that the clause is to be construed as a sort of adversative clause, that is, as concessive: and though young men grow weary. The second clause returns from this potential construction to the simple, conformably to Hebrew usage, that demands the prompt return from all intensive discourse and verbal forms to the simple chief form.
Isa_40:31. The expression קוי י׳ occurs again only Psa_37:9. In our text it is, according to the punctuation, to be spoken Koje, whereas in the Psalms it is to be spoken Kove (comp. Delitzsch on our text). חָלַף (comp. חֵלֶף, ἀντί, Num_18:21; חֲלִיפוֹת “the change of clothing”) is “to change,” and is used partly of changing place (transire, Isa_8:8; Isa_21:1; Isa_24:5), partly of change of condition in pejus (perire, pass away, Isa_2:18) or in melius (hence revirescere, Isa_9:9; Isa_41:1).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Why sayest——not faint.
Isa_40:27-31. One sees here plainly the purpose intended by the preceding discussion concerning the incomparableness of God. The Prophet sees that the long chastisement of the Exile would call up doubts in the spirits of the Israelites. Carried off into a heathen land, they will suppose that God’s eyes do not penetrate to them, and that the wrong they suffer escapes His notice (Isa_40:27). On the parallelism of Jacob and Israel see Isa_9:7, and the List. This parallelism is a characteristic of Isaianic language, for it occurs in no other prophet so often. It is manifest that it is the people in exile that speak. Just because of their remoteness from the Holy land, the territory of Jehovah (comp. the prophet Jonah) they think their way, i. e., the course of their life is hidden from the Lord, and their right, i. e., the wrong done them by their oppressors, passes unnoticed by their God. This doubt of little faith the Prophet reproves by referring to the infinitude and incomparableness of God set forth in Isa_40:12-26. The words, Isa_40:28, hast thou not known, etc., are an echo of Isa_40:21. Jehovah is an eternal God, therefore He had no beginning as the idols had, which before the workmen made them (Isa_40:19-20) were not. Jehovah also made the ends of the earth; therefore they must be known to Him, and wherever Israel may dwell in exile, it cannot say that its way is hidden from God (Isa_40:27). Just as little may one say of God, who created all things, that it is too great a labor for Him, or that His power is not adequate to help banished Israel. For He does not get tired. Nor can it be said that He wants the necessary penetration, the necessary knowledge of the measures to be adopted; for His discernment is infinite, unsearchable. תבונה occurs Deu_32:28, and often in Prov. (Pro_2:2-3; Pro_2:6; Pro_3:13, etc.) and in Job (Job_12:12-13; Job_26:12; Job_32:11).
Isa_40:29 : Jehovah is so far from exposure to inability to do more, that He is rather the one who out of His inexhaustible treasure gives strength to all that are weary. Isa_40:30 : Merely natural force does not hold out in the long run. Of this the youth are examples. But those that hope in the Lord receive new strength, etc. Therefore Jehovah is the dispenser of power, but only on the condition that one by trust makes it possible for Him to bestow His treasures of grace. They feather themselves afresh as eagles, Isa_40:31. Since the LXX. and Jerome, etc., very many expositors, influenced by “they renew their strength,” understand these words of the annual moulting of eagles; on which seems to be based the opinions of the ancients that this bird periodically renewed its youth. Comp. Psa_103:5 and Bochart, Hieroz. II., p. 745 sqq., ed. Lips., who enumerates the fabulous representations of the ancients on this point. Hitzig objects to this exposition that הֶֽעֱלָה as causative of עָלָה as used Isa_5:6, does not occur elsewhere, and that it must read נוֹצָה instead of אֵבֶר. But הֶֽעֱלָה, though not in that sense, occurs often in another much more nearly related to our passage. For not to mention where it is used of putting on sackcloth (Amo_8:10) and of coating over with gold (1Ki_10:17), it also stands for covering the bones with flesh and skin (Eze_37:6). And this may the more be taken as analogous to covering the naked bird-body with feathers, seeing that the foliage of trees is called עָלֶה “the mounting up, growing up over” (comp. redeunt jam gramina campis, arboribusque comae). Regarding the second remark of Hitzig’s, it is true that one might rather expect נוֹצָה, since it appears undoubted from Eze_17:3; Eze_17:7 that אבר is the pinion, נוצה the feathers in general. But our passage does not deal in zoological exactness. Moreover the context has more especially to do with pinions as the chief organ for flying. The second clause describes the intended effect: rapid, untiring forward effort. The first clause says what makes this effect possible: ever new power, ever new, eagle-like rejuvenescence. That the rejuvenescence of the eagle extended to the entire body Bochart, l. c, expressly shows to have been a view of the Hebrews in distinction from the Greeks. For he says in reference to Mic_1:16 : “Tam Graeci, quam Hebraei calvitium avibus tribuunt. Ita, ut hoc solo differant, quod, cum avium calvitium juxta Graccos pertineat ad solum caput, id Hebraei calvitium extendunt ad totum corpus.” Thus we may assume (that the Prophet, whether correct or not according to natural history is immaterial, referred the renewal to the pinions. Now as “they feather themselves afresh” says figuratively the same that “they shall renew their strength” says literally, we need not wonder that the second half of the verse does not carry out the figure and say: they shall run, etc., they shall fly, etc. The Prophet emphasizes the promise of unwearied power to run and walk, doubtless, because he has in mind primarily the people returning from the Exile and the toilsome journey through the desert. Thus the conclusion of the discourse corresponds quite exactly to the conclusion of the Prologue Isa_40:11.
Footnotes:
[39]eternal divinity is Jehovah that created. He does not tire, etc.
[40]Heb. change.
[41]feather themselves anew.
[42]omit shall.
[43]do not weary.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. “Quia haec posterior pars (prophetiarum Jesajae) prophetia est de Christo et evangelio, pertinet ad nostra quoque tempora, immo est proprie nostra. Quare nobis commendatior esse debet.” Luther.
2. On Isa_40:1. “Est mandatum ad apostolos, quibus novum praedicationis genus mandatur. Quasi dicat: lex praedicavit hactenus terrores, vos consolamini, mutate doctrinam, praedicate gratiam, misericordiam et remissionem peccatorum.” Luther.
3. On Isa_40:2. “Non auribus tantum, sed cordi potius concionandum est, hoc nempe sibi vult Jehova, dum ait: Dicite ad cor Hierosolymae. Et huc quoque pertinet illud tritum,: nisi intus sit, qui praedicat, frustra docentis lingua laborat.” Foerster.
4. On Isa_40:3 sqq. “John the Baptist was the first of those messengers and heralds of our redemption of whom the redemption from Babylon was only a type. But the latter comprehends all other ministers of the word that God has sent and will send to the end of the world to conduct wretched souls out of this miserable desert, and out of the prison of the law to the heavenly city of God. The way is prepared for the Lord when we cast away the great stones and immoveable idols, viz., pride and trust in works, and acknowledge our sin. For they utterly bar the entrance of grace.” Heim and Hoffmann.
5. On Isa_40:3 sqq. “When we attentively observe the quiet, yet mighty movement of the Lord through the world’s history, we see how before His going the vallies elevate themselves and the mountains sink down, how steep declivities become a plane, and cliffs become flats. Let us not fear to pass through the deserts of life if God be with us! It is a walk along lovely, level paths.” Umbreit.
6. On Isa_40:3. [“Applied to the Messiah, it means that God was about to come to His people to redeem them. This language naturally and obviously implies, that He whose way was thus to be prepared was Jehovah, the true God. That John the Baptist had such a view of Him is apparent from what is said of him. Joh_1:34,:comp. Joh_1:15; Joh_1:18; Joh_3:31; Joh_10:30; Joh_10:33; Joh_10:36. Thought his is not one of the most direct and certain proof-texts of the divinity of the Messiah, yet it is one which may be applied to Him when that divinity is demonstrated from other places.” Barnes.]
7. On Isa_40:8 b. By the word of the Lord was he world made (Genesis 1; Joh_1:3; Psa_33:6), and He upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb_1:3). By His word, too, heaven and earth are kept for the day of judgment (2Pe_3:7). For heaven and earth shall pass away, but His word will not with that also pass away (Isa_51:6; Psa_102:27; Mat_5:18; Luk_21:33). Rather the word of the Lord will not return empty to Him, but it shall accomplish that which He pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it (Isa_55:11). And when all earthly forms, in which the word of the Lord invests itself, grow old and pass away like a garment, still the eternal truth concealed in these forms will issue forth only the more glorious from their demolished shapes, and all that have lived themselves into the word of God and have trusted in Him shall rise with Him to new life.
8. On Isa_40:8 b. “Verbum Dei nostri manet in aeternum. Insignis sententia, quam omnibus parietibus inscribi oportuit … Hic institue catalogum omnium operum, quae sine verbo Dei in papatu, fiunt: ordo monachorum, missa, cucullus, satisfactio, peregrenationes, indulgentiae, etc. Non sunt verbum Dei, ergo peribunt, verbum autem Domini et omnes, qui verbo credunt, manebunt in aeternum.” Luther.
9. On Isa_40:10-11. What a huge contrast between these two verses! In Isa_40:10 we see the Lord coming as the almighty Ruler and stern Judge; but Isa_40:11 He appears as the true Shepherd that carries the lambs in His bosom, and leads softly the sheep giving suck. Sinai and Golgotha! The tempest that rends the mountains and cleaves the rock, the earthquake and the fire, and then afterwards the quiet, gentle murmuring (1Ki_19:11 sqq.)! For His deepest being is—love (Luk_9:55 sq.; 1Jn_4:8).
10. On Isa_40:11. “Christus oves suas redimit pretiose, pascit laute, ducit sollicite, collocat secure.” Bernhard of Clairvaux.
11. On Isa_40:16. “Fancy never invented a mightier sacrifice. Magnificent Lebanon the altar in the boundless temple of nature—all its glorious cedars the wood for the fire—and the beasts of its forest the sacrifice.” Umbreit.
12. On Isa_40:16. The reading of this place in Church, Christmas A. D. 814 moved the Emperor Leo v. the Armenian to take severe measures against the friends of images. The passage moves Foerster to propose the question whether it is permitted to make pictures of God and to possess paintings representing divinity. He distinguishes in respect to this between οὐσια and ἐπιφάνεια or revelatio, and says, no one can picture God κατ̓ οὐσίαν, but κατ̓ ἐπιφάνειαν, i. e. iis in rebus, quibus se revelavit one can and may picture Him. This reply is manifestly unsatisfactory. For it is not about res, quibus Deus se revelavit that one inquires. That one may picture things by which, or in which God has revealed Himself, thus certainly created things, cannot be contested from the standpoint of Christian consciousness. But the question is: is it allowable to picture the person of God, or more exactly, the person of God the Father? For it has long been settled that it is allowable to picture Christ the man. But though there are many paintings of God the Father, still it is no wonder that not only strict Reformed, but that earnest Christians of fine feeling generally take offence at them. It seems to me to depend on whether this offence is absolute or relative. Is it not allowable to represent in colors what the prophet Daniel represented in words in that vision of the four beasts, Isa_7:9 sqq.? May one not paint the “Ancient of days”? And if it be God the Father that appears here under this name, which is certainly most probable, may one not paint Him in this form that He gives Himself as allowably as one may paint the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and with that paint the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove? But who is able to do that? Who is able to worthily represent the Ancient of days? I regard that as the most difficult task of art. To him that can do it, it is allowable also. He that attempts it and cannot do it need not wonder if men take offence at his picture. So far no one has been able to do it, and hardly will any one ever be able. Hence the best thing is to let it alone.
13. On Isa_40:26. [“It is proof of man’s elevated nature that he can thus look upward and trace the evidences of the power and wisdom of God in the heavens, that he can fix his attention on the works of God in distant worlds. This thought was most beautifully expressed by one of the ancient poets:
Pronaque cum spectent animalia caetera terram;
Os homini sublime dedit; coelumque tueri,
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Ovid Met. Lib. I. 84–86.
In the Scriptures, God not unfrequently appeals to the starry heavens in proof of His existence and perfections, and as the most sublime exhibition of His greatness and power, Psa_19:1-6. And it may be remarked that this argument is one that increases in strength, in the view of men, from age to age, just in proportion to the advances which are made in the science of astronomy. It is now far more striking than it was in the times of Isaiah.” Barnes.]
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_40:1-5. “Why is the advent of Jesus on earth to-day still a ground of comfort and joy? 1) By Him the season of bondage ends (Isa_40:2); 2) the curse of sin is removed (Isa_40:2-3): 3) the promised new creation is introduced (Isa_40:4); 4) the mouth of the Lord has revealed the glory.” Advent sermon by E. Bauer, in Manch. G. u. Ein G. Jahrg. III. p. 35.
2. On Isa_40:1-5. “The precious commission of God to the ministers of the word: Comfort ye, comfort ye My people! We inquire: 1) To whom, according to God’s word, shall the comfort be brought? 2) What sort of comfort is it that according to God’s word should be brought?” Luger. Christus unser Leben. Götting, 1870.
3. On Isa_40:1-9. “What preparation does God demand of us that we may become partakers of the comfort in Christ? 1) Prepare the way of the Lord. 2) Learn to know your nothingness.” Haenchen. Manch. G. u. Ein G. 1868 p. 39. [“It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us if we find God’s grace preparing us for it. Psa_10:17. To prepare the way of the Lord we must be convinced. 1) Of the vanity of the creature. 2) Of the validity of the promise of God.” M. Henry.]
4. On Isa_40:6-8. “What shall I preach? 1) So I asked with the Prophet, and looked into the face of this motley, multi-formed time. 2) So again I asked, and looked into the depths of my own poor, weak soul. 3) So I asked once more, and looked to thee, my charge that the Lord of the Church has given me to lead.” Kliefoth. Installation sermon at Ludwigslust, printed in Zeugniss der Seele, Parchim und Ludwigslust, 1845.
5. On Isa_40:11. [“God is the Shepherd of Israel (Psa_80:1); Christ is the good Shepherd, Joh_10:11. 1) He takes care of all His flock. 2) He takes particular care of those that most need it: of lambs, those that cannot help themselves, young children, young converts, weak believers, sorrowful spirits. [1] He will gather them in the arms of His power. [2] He will carry them in the bosom of His love and cherish them there. [3] He will gently lead them. After M. Henry.]
6. On Isa_40:12-17. To what the contemplation of the sublimity of God admonishes us. 1) The consideration of His infinite greatness admonishes us to be humble. 2) The consideration of His infinite power admonishes us to trust Him. 3) The consideration of His infinite wisdom admonishes us to be obedient.
7. On Isa_40:22-24. When might takes precedence of right and the unrighteousness of the powerful gets the upper hand, then we ought 1) To consider that our cause is no other than that of God; 2) that even the mightiest are before Him only like locusts, or like the trees that the wind sweeps away; 3) wait patiently till the hour comes for the Lord to show His power.
8. On Isa_40:25-31. “Jubilate! 1) Holy is the Lord our God in His ways (Isa_40:25). 2) Almighty is the Lord our God in His works (Isa_40:26-28). 3) Rich is the Lord our God in His gifts of grace (Isa_40:29-31).” Scheerer. Manch. G. u. Ein G., 1868.
9. On Isa_40:27-31. [Reproof of dejection and despondency under afflictions. I. The ill words of despair under present calamity (Isa_40:27). II. The titles God gives His people are enough to shame them out of their distrusts. O Jacob—O Israel. Let them consider whence they took these names, and why they bore them. III. He reminds them of that which, if duly considered, was sufficient to silence all their fears and distrusts (Isa_40:28). He communicates what He is Himself to others, choosing especially the weak for the display of this heaven-imparted strength (Isa_40:29). Comp. 1Co_1:27-29. V. The glorious effect: strength perfected in weakness, comp. 2Co_12:9-10; and enhanced by the failures of those naturally strong (Isa_40:29-31). After M. Henry.]
10. On Isa_40:31. [I. “Religion is often expressed in the Scriptures by “waiting on Jehovah,” i. e., by looking to Him for help, expecting deliverance through His aid, putting trust in Him. See Psa_25:3; Psa_25:5; Psa_25:21; Psa_27:14; Psa_37:7; Psa_37:9; Psa_37:34; Psa_69:3; Isa_8:17; Isa_30:18.” II. “It does not imply inactivity or want of personal exertion.” III. “They only wait on Him in a proper manner who expect His blessing in the common modes in which He imparts it to men—in the use of those means and efforts which He has appointed, and which He is accustomed to bless.” The farmer does not wait for God to plow and sow his field; but having plowed and sown he waits for the blessing. After Barnes, in loc.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–3comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.
comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.
Jerusalem--Jerusalem though then in ruins, regarded by God as about to be rebuilt; her people are chiefly meant, but the city is personified.
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cry--publicly and emphatically as a herald cries aloud (Isa 40:3).
warfare--or, the appointed time of her misery (Job 7:1, Margin; Job 14:14; Dan 10:1). The ulterior and Messianic reference probably is the definite time when the legal economy of burdensome rites is at an end (Gal 4:3-4).
pardoned--The Hebrew expresses that her iniquity is so expiated that God now delights in restoring her.
double for all her sins--This can only, in a very restricted sense, hold good of Judah's restoration after the first captivity. For how can it be said her "warfare was accomplished," when as yet the galling yoke of Antiochus and also of Rome was before them? The "double for her sins" must refer to the twofold captivity, the Assyrian and the Roman; at the coming close of this latter dispersion, and then only, can her "iniquity" be said to be "pardoned," or fully expiated [HOUBIGANT]. It does not mean double as much as she deserved, but ample punishment in her twofold captivity. Messiah is the antitypical Israel (compare Mat 2:15, with Hos 11:1). He indeed has "received" of sufferings amply more than enough to expiate "for our sins" (Rom 5:15, Rom 5:17). Otherwise (cry unto her) "that she shall receive (blessings) of the Lord's hand double to the punishment of all her sins" (so "sin" is used, Zac 14:19, Margin) [LOWTH]. The English Version is simpler.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv1–31. Comfort ye — This chapter proleptically opens the…
1. Comfort ye — This chapter proleptically opens the scene, as it was laid in Babylon during the exile, of God’s coming deliverance to his people. The interminable ring of “a remnant shall be saved,” still sounds loud and clear. The voice is to the prophet and his partners and successors, — “Comfort ye.” The charge to “comfort” is re-doubled, denoting no cessation, no letting up, of this duty, for God is in earnest, and his promise means continuance of consolation till the exile is over.
My people — The humble remnant, who are to be purified wholly of every idolatrous taint, and who shall be worthy of complete deliverance.
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Your God — Emphatic of “your;” because the humbled people are, and shall be accounted worthy to be, his — a people to whom he twice commands to announce a perpetual consolation.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–31, 2. The term of Jerusalem’s servitude is accomplished;…
1, 2. The term of Jerusalem’s servitude is accomplished; she has suffered the full penalty of her transgressions.
Comfort ye] The repetition of an emphatic opening word is characteristic of the writer’s style; cf. ch. Isa_43:11; Isa_43:25, Isa_48:11; Isa_48:15, Isa_51:9; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:17, Isa_52:1; Isa_52:11 etc. (see Introd. p. xlv). It is rather idle to enquire who are the persons addressed; they might no doubt be prophets (as the clause is paraphrased by the Targ.) or the prophetically minded among the people, but certainly not the priests, as is suggested by the Sept. addition of ἱερεῖς at the beginning of Isa_40:2.
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saith your God] The verb differs in tense from the usual prophetic formula, being an impf. either of continued or of incipient action (see Introd. p. xlvii, and Driver, Tenses, § 33 (a) Obs.). To translate it by a future and take this as a proof that the words were written by Isaiah 150 years before is quite unwarranted.
Ch. Isa_40:1-11. The Prologue
This first proclamation of glad tidings to Zion (see ch. Isa_41:27) is a passage of singular beauty, breathing the spirit of new-born hope and enthusiasm with which the prophet enters on his work. The announcement of a miraculous restoration of the exiles to their own land is the central theme of his prophecy, and the point around which all the ideas of the book crystallize. As yet the historical fact is but dimly outlined, the writer’s mind being occupied with its ideal significance as a revelation of the glory and the gracious character of Jehovah (Isa_40:5; Isa_40:10 f.). His state of mind borders on ecstasy; his ears are filled with the music of heavenly voices telling him that the night is far spent and the day is at hand; and although his home is with the exiles in Babylon, his gaze is fixed throughout on Jerusalem and the great Divine event which is the consummation of Israel’s redemption.—The prologue consists of two parts:
i. Isa_40:1-2.—Proclamation of forgiveness and promise of deliverance to the exiled nation.
ii. Isa_40:3-11. An imaginative description of the process by which the promise is to be fulfilled,—Jehovah’s return with His people to their ancient abode. This second division contains three sections:—
(1) Isa_40:3-5. A voice is heard calling on un seen agencies to prepare a way for Jehovah through the desert. The idea expressed is that already the spiritual and supernatural forces are in motion which will bring about the return of the captives and a revelation of the Divine glory to all the world.
(2) Isa_40:6-8. A second voice calls on the prophet to proclaim the fundamental truth on which the realisation of his hope depends,—the perishableness of all human power, and the enduring stability of the word of the Lord.
(3) Isa_40:9-11. The prophet himself now takes up the strain; he summons a company of ideal messengers to announce to Zion and the cities of Judah the advent of Jehovah with His ransomed people.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–3(1) Comfort ye . . .—I start with the…
XL.
(1) Comfort ye . . .—I start with the assumption that the great prophetic poem that follows is the work of Isaiah himself, referring to the Introduction for the discussion of all questions connected with its authorship and arrangement. It has a link, as has been noticed, with the earlier collection of his writings in Isa_35:9-10. The prophet’s mind is obviously projected at the outset into the future, which it had been given him to see, when the time of punishment and discipline was to be succeeded, having done its work, by blessedness and peace. The key-note is struck in the opening words. The phrase “my people” is a distinct echo of Hos. ii. 1. Lo Ammi (i.e. “not my people,”) has been brought back to his true position as Ammi (i.e. “my people”).
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Saith your God.—Noticeable as a formula which is at once peculiar to Isaiah and common to both his volumes (Isa_1:11; Isa_1:18; Isa_33:10; Isa_41:21; Isa_66:9).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–3THE Assyrian struggle is over. The prophet has accepted…
THE Assyrian struggle is over. The prophet has accepted into the depths of his spirit God"s announcement that the true spoiler, "the rod of his anger, and the staff of his indignation," is not Assyria, but Babylon. He has accepted the sentence that his people is to go into captivity. Into this future of his nation he throws himself with a faith, a fervour, and a power of realization, which are all his own. "The familiar scenes and faces, among which he has hitherto lived and laboured, have grown dim and disappeared. All sounds and voices of the present are hushed, and move him no more. The present has died out of the horizon of his soul"s vision.... The voices in his cars are those of men unborn, and he lives a second life among events and persons, sins and suffering, and fears and hopes, photographed sometimes with the minutest accuracy on the sensitive and sympathetic medium of his own spirit; and he becomes the denouncer of the special sins of a distant generation, and the spokesman of the faith and hope and passionate yearning of an exiled nation, the descendants of men living, when he wrote, in the profound peace of a renewed prosperity" (Stanley, quoted by Mr. Cheyne, "Prophecies of Isaiah," vol. 2. p. 213). The primary idea which occurs to him is that of "comfort." He will "comfort his people" in their affliction, so far as in him lies; and he will do this by preaching
(1) the recovery of Israel from sin by faith and waiting upon God; and
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(2) their recovery from the bondage to Babylon, which was the consequence of sin. In the present chapter it is the former topic especially which he urges.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. The key-note is struck at once. With that iteration which is his favourite mode of emphasizing what is important, (see the comment on Isa_38:11) the prophet declares that he and his brethren have a direct mission from God to "comfort" Israel. Note the encouragement contained in the expressions, "my people," and "your God." Israel is not cast off, even when most deeply afflicted.
Vers. 1, 2. Comfort after trouble.
God "has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth;" it is no satisfaction to him to punish. As soon as ever those whom he is forced to punish will submit to the chastening rod in a proper spirit, and allow the staff of the Divine indignation to have its due effect upon them, God is ready to comfort. God the Holy Ghost is the One True Comforter. He and he alone can pour balm into the heart, quiet the conscience, enable the stricken soul to feel that it is once more at one with God. A few words may be said on
(1) the conditions of comfort;
(2) the methods of comfort; and
(3) the proper results of comfort.
I THE CONDITIONS OF COMFORT. As trouble comes upon us to punish sin, the first condition of our receiving comfort is that sin be put away. The next is that we implore God"s pardon for our past transgressions, and acknowledge the justice of his chastisement. The third is that we pray to him of his great goodness to remit his anger, and speak comfort to our souls, and pour his peace into our hearts. If we neglect any of these conditions, we have no right to expect that God will bless us with the great blessing of his comforting grace, which is not, like the rain and sunshine, an ordinary blessing of his providence, but is a special boon reserved for those who have prepared themselves to receive it.
II THE METHODS OF COMFORT. God sometimes comforts us through the instrumentality of our fellow-men. Job"s friends were "miserable comforters, all of them"; (Job_16:2) but it is not always so with the afflicted. The kind sympathy of friends, the wise counsel of spiritual guides, is often blessed by God to the relief and solace of those who are in trouble. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," was his address to the prophets of Israel (ver. 1); and we may be assured that his Spirit went with the month of his prophets, and made the comfort which they strove to We effectual. Again, sometimes he comforts us by his Word. Many a time has the despairing soul found peace and joy in the promises of the gospel, which are indeed potent to raise up hope in the most despondent, and to comfort the most unhappy. But frequently perhaps we may say mostly God gives his comfort himself, without intermediary. The stricken soul strays itself" upon him, leans on him, makes its moan to him; and he "comes to it," and with his blessed presence puts an end to the soul"s trouble, dispels the darkness, drives away despair and fear, infuses hope, breathes peace, imparts comfort. (see Psa_71:2 Isa_51:3 Isa_66:13 2Co_1:3, 4 2Th_2:17, etc.)
III THE RESULTS OF COMFORT. The immediate result of comfort is peace and happiness. The soul comforted by God is at least contented, blissful. The further results should be
(1) gratitude for the great mercy and loving-kindness showed to us;
(2) perseverance in well-doing, the fruit and necessary result of gratitude, the chief means which creatures have of showing forth their thankfulness to God for any and every mercy vouchsafed to them;
(3) praise and thanksgiving, the natural utterance of the mouth, when the heart is really touched with gratitude, and sensible of God"s goodness. As David says, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord... in the presence of all his people... I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the Name of the Lord". (Psa_116:12-17)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-11. The prophet"s commission.
He is to unfold a theme of consolation, which runs through the whole of the book, introduced by this chapter. He speaks to the prophets: "Ye prophets, prophesy consolation concerning my people" (Targum of Jonathan); or, "O priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem," according to the LXX The former is probably correct. The prophets were numerous both in Isaiah"s time (Isa_3:1 Isa_29:10, Isa_29:20) and during the Babylonian. (Jer_29:1) Jehovah is now reconciled to his erring people, and calls them no longer by names expressive of rejection or contempt, (as Hos_1:9 Isa_6:9) but as my people. "Israel, my people, and I their God," is the great word on which both Judaism and Christianity rest. Now the prophets are to "speak to the heart of Jerusalem." It is to be in a voice clear and distinct and penetrating. "Heart," in Hebrew use, is a comprehensive word; it stands for" intelligence, conscience, feeling," in one. (cf. Gen_34:3 Gen_50:21, where the Hebrew is, "to their hearts Perhaps chiefly the latter here. The vocation of the prophet is now especially to comfort and encourage. And so ever with the preacher. We may compare with these words the scene in the synagogue at Nazareth. Christ announces himself as the Bearer of consolation to the heart of his people, to the heart of mankind, especially to the poor and the distressed and dejected. And surely the burden of every ministry may well be the "Christ of consolation.
I THE MESSAGE TO JERUSALEM.
1. "Her warfare is fulfilled." "Warfare" standing for "enforced hardships." The metaphor "very suggestive of the peculiar troubles of military service in ancient times:" "Hath not man a warfare hard service on the earth?". (Job_7:1) The idea of an appointed time of service enters into the word the discharge of a duty for which a man has been enlisted, or solemnly engaged, as that of the Levites in the tabernacle. (Num_4:23 Num_8:24, Num_8:25) Life as a period of enforced service. It means for most of us, perhaps for all of us, toil, danger, suffering. From this enlistment the only discharge is by death. (Job_14:14 Dan_10:1) Our times are in the hand of God. A period is fixed to all suffering and trial. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound has been set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us. "Let them rave; thou art quiet in thy grave.
2. "Her guilt is paid off." For punishment is viewed as the payment of a debt, and so as the satisfaction of the demands of Divine justice. In the Law, the sword and dispersion among the heathen are threatened against the disobedient and the unreformed; but never does Jehovah forget the covenant between him and the people; he is ever ready to suspend punishment when they suspend sin. Here the people are represented "as having suffered what God had appointed them endured the natural punishment he saw to be necessary. They had served out the long term he had appointed. Now he is satisfied, has pleasure in releasing them and restoring them to their own land." Happy that moment in the personal life when the soul can be assured that suffering has done its work, and that it may be self-forgiven, because God-forgiven. "At the last, do as the heavens have done: Forget your evil; with them, forgive yourself.
3. hath received double for all her sins." The expression seems to denote what is amply sufficient" (cf. Jer_17:18 Rev_18:6) (Cheyne); "As much as God judged to be sufficient" (Grotius); "Double to be received for large and abundant" (Calvin). The great law of compensation running through life, we must believe, is exact in its operation. God makes no mistakes in his reckonings. Suffering may continue long after sin has been forgiven. If the memory of guilt be still poignant, if the consequences of sin seem still "ever before us," it is as if God were saying, "Not enough hast thou suffered yet to know how precious is the peace of forgiveness." And when that blessed sense of forgiveness steals into the soul, it is the symptom that the hand of God is removed, that the cup of sorrow has been drained, that the medicine has done its work. The justice of our God will exact sufficient from us in the way of suffering; his clemency and mercy will never add a superfluous stroke from the scourge; rather he will stop short of the full exaction thirty-nine rather than the full forty stripes.
II THE MYSTERIOUS CALL. From what is to be believed of Jehovah, we pass to what is to be done for Jehovah. So ever does faith push on to practice. The internal act of the mind realizes itself and is made perfect in the external act of the life.
1. Mysteriously a voice bids the listening heart prepare for Jehovah. It is a "non-Divine, yet supernatural voice." The poetic effect is heightened by the mystery. (cf. Isa_51:9 Isa_52:1 Isa_57:14 Isa_62:10) Similar voices are spoken of in the Book of Revelation. (Rev_1:10, 12 4:1 10:4, 8) There are times when the breath of coming change is felt stirring, and voices are heard calling to men to welcome it in and to help it on. Whence come they? Who knows? A spiritual world is all about us. It has music, and words; but while "this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear." But at times they pierce through our sensuality and break up our lethargic indolence. "Clear ye Jehovah"s way in the desert." The Divine monarch is about to make a progress. Let the heart of the nation be as a highway for their God. (Psa_84:5) So the Gospels understand the cry. (Mat_3:3 Mar_1:3 Luk_3:4) From another point of view, the way of Jehovah through the desert is symbolic of his people"s destinies. Babylon, as the scene of captivity, reminds us of the scene of captivity of yore in Egypt. When the temple was destroyed and Israel went forth, it was as if Jehovah had departed perhaps to his sacred seat in the north, where Ezekiel (Eze_1:4) sees the cherubic chariot. His coming back is the people"s coming back under his leadership. The imagery of clearing the way may be illustrated from the practice of Oriental princes. Diodorus tells of Semiramis that, in her march to Ecbatana, she had precipices digged down, and hollows filled up, so as to leave an everlasting memorial of herself the "road of Semiramis". (cf. RAPC Bar 5:7) Then the glory of Jehovah, eclipsed or hidden through his people"s suffering and exile, will shine forth in its splendour, and all mankind shall look on.
2. Again the voice is heard saying, "Call!" And the prophet answers, "What shall I call?" The burden of the cry is the frailty of man, and the eternity of the truth. Homer compares the race of man to the successive generations of the leaves of the wood; the prophet to the grass and the flowers. (of. Psa_90:5, Psa_90:6) Israel and Assyria are both politically extinct, and Babylon is hurrying to its end. The thought is suggested, though not expressed, that if Israel is to rise again from its ashes, it can only be by abstaining from all attempts at secular aggrandizement. The new Israel will be, in all the circumstances of its growth, supernatural. And what is true of one people is true of all. Princes, nobles, and monarchs, armies and magistrates, are feeble like grass and will soon pass away. On the one hand, they would not be able to accomplish what was needed for the deliverance of the people; on the other, their oppressors had no power to continue their bondage, since they were like grass and must pass away. But Jehovah had all power, and was ever-enduring, and able to fulfil all his promises, especially those concerning Israel. (Isa_44:26 Isa_45:19 Isa_52:6 Jer_44:28, Jer_44:29) And the healing results are to be known by all mankind.
III THE INSPIRING VISION The prophet is carried away in spirit to Palestine, and sees the fulfilment of the promise drawing near. He personifies Zion and Jerusalem, and calls upon them to lift up their voices and announce to the cities of Judah the approach of God. Perhaps he idealizes the city, or is thinking of the city out of sight the spiritual commonwealth of which the earthly and visible one was the type. Lo! he comes! the God and Leader of the people returning to the city, the temple, the land. He will come in his might; the arm is the very symbol of his almightiness; and it rules for him, i.e. for the peculiar people, the people of his possession. He comes to recompense his friends and to execute vengeance on his foes. The ruler of a people is fitly imaged as a shepherd, and they as his flock. And now he has sought and found his sheep again, and will once more lead them to green pastures, (Jer_31:10 Jer_50:19 Eze_34:11-16) and, as a good shepherd, will not overdrive the suckling ewes. (Gen_33:13) In the Syrian plains the frequent removal to fresh pastures is very destructive to the young, and shepherds may now be seen in the Orient carrying, on such occasions, the lambs in their bosoms. We need, by any means in our power, travel, and observation, to realize strongly the grave responsibility, the constant anxiety, the patient and unwearied tendance, connected with the shepherd"s life in the East. Compare such a life with that of the hunter, who, from watching, pursuing, outwitting wild beasts, comes to partake of their fierce and cunning nature. The life of the shepherd draws upon the fund of love and tenderness in his heart; it is a humanizing life, full of a fine education; elevating by means of condescension. Then how rich a symbol is the pastoral character of the nature of the redeeming God! And how do the numerous passages in the New Testament, in which Jesus is so described, start into life and beauty, when these things are considered! (Joh 10 Heb_13:20 1Pe_2:25 1Pe_5:4) There is an ineffable union of might with tenderness in the character of the Redeemer-God, which should in some sort be reflected in the pastoral character of Christ"s servants. J. (Joh_16:15-17)
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Vers. 1, 2. Divine consolations.
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem." Here, after prophetic revelation of danger and warning against the Nemesis of sin, we come upon the evangel of love. For God delights not in denunciation or death. All his universe testifies that he loves life, that he "has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
I HERE IS REITERATION. "Comfort ye, comfort ye." It is an inspiration of earnestness in conveying the heavenly message. For God is the God of comfort. Not comfort in sin, but comfort to all who seek to be delivered from it. This is like the "Verily, verily." It gives emphasis to hope. For love deals not in cold aphorisms, but repeats itself, that the heart may be sure of the message. To convince of sin is not enough. To expose evil may be the work of the moral dramatist. To scorn it may be the work of the satirist. But God is more than a Judge; he is a Saviour. The Son of man came (as his great work), "not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
II HERE IS REST. "Her warfare is accomplished." The weapons to be put into the hands of the faithful suffice to secure victory, and therefore the warfare is spoken of as accomplished. Looking forward to the Redeemer"s days, Isaiah reminds us that his sacrifice is to be complete, as we read in Hebrews, "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Thus Christ spake of his own death, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." This is the spirit of the New Testament. "Iniquity is pardoned." All who believe have full and free remission of sins. And the warfare within them must end in holy conquest every rebel flag on every province of the nature will be hauled down, and every worldly enemy will be laid low. "This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.
III HERE IS DEPENDENCE. We receive double from "the Lord"s hand." This is the theme of all the true Churches of Christ. Whether we express our gratitude for redemption in the words of Lyte or Watts, Keble or Doddridge, Faber or Wesley, it is still the same, and antedates the great Church worship of heaven: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us kern our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God,... be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 2. Pardon and penalty.
Israel is to be comforted by her teachers and pastors, because the time of her exile, which is the period of the Divine sentence, has nearly expired, and the hour of her redemption is consequently nigh. If we ask what ground of comfort we find here for the Christian Church, or for the chastened human soul, we have to reply
I THAT COMFORT IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE SUPPOSED LENIENCY OF GOD. No thought can be more perilously false than the imagination that God is too great to concern himself with our misdeeds, or too "good" to take offence with our shortcoming. Scripture, providence, and a sound philosophy alike protest against that ruinous doctrine. Sin is clearly a most serious thing, a heinous and terrible departure in the sight of God. Let no man comfort his soul with the hope that "le bon Dieu" will overlook his life of impiety or his various acts of iniquity. God does, indeed, pardon sin on man"s penitence and faith; but even then pardon does not absolutely exclude penalty. We may not press into our service here the word "pardoned" (ver. 2), as it may perhaps there signify expiated; but elsewhere the redemption of Israel is treated as an act of Divine mercy. Yet here we have judgment and mercy blended. The guilty nation is not to be restored until "her warfare" (the time of her service) has been "accomplished," until she has received at the Lord"s hand "double" (full and ample chastisement) for all her sins. And the fact is, as we find in our daily experience, that when God now pardons and restores, he lets his reconciled children feel the effects of their past folly and sin. The consequences of a vicious youth go far on into even Christian manhood. The penalties of an unwise and irreverent fatherhood follow the parent to the very foot of the grave. God"s mercy does not immediately arrest the tide of suffering and sorrow which flows from a long course of wrongdoing. The man "bears his penalty until his warfare" (his time of servitude) "is accomplished;" and that is often a long time, covering many years, extending over whole periods of human life.
II THAT COMFORT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE FACT OF A REAL RESTORATION to the love and favour of God. In a very true sense, when a man repents and seeks the Divine mercy in Christ Jesus, he is one of God"s "people" (ver. 1); God is his God, as he was not before (ver. 1). And the ills that he now suffers lose their stern aspect; penalty becomes discipline it is no longer the sentence of the Judge, it is the correction of the Father.
III THAT COMFORT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE RELEASE OF DEATH and the free( loin of the heavenly country. When the end of life"s hard service comes, and the note of the soul"s return shall be sounded, then shall there be a glorious deliverance from evil, and entrance on the highest good. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. The comfort of God"s restored favour.
The question of the authorship of the latter half of Isaiah resolves itself into a discussion of its claim to be prophetical. If it is descriptive, it must have been written by some "great unknown." If it is prophetical, and a vision of historical events covering long centuries, but grouped for effective representation, then it may have been written by Isaiah, and it fittingly completes a work which, revealing Divine judgments, also reveals "mercy rejoicing over judgment." Isaiah seems to be among the wearied, burdened, disheartened exiles in Babylon, towards the close of the Captivity. They are "hanging their harps on the willows," and refusing to sing. They have waited so long, that it seems quite plain "God has forgotten to be gracious." To them Isaiah has a message from God. He is to "comfort them;" and this is to be the comforting God"s time of judgment is almost over, God"s restoring mercies are close at hand. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound". (Rom_5:20) "Having, in Isa_39:6, Isa_39:7, predicted the Captivity, Isaiah, with a view to console his nation, delivers the prophetic discoveries which, in perspective vision, he obtained of the remarkable interposition of Divine providence for their deliverance." We notice that the comfortable and comforting message is to give assurance of three things.
I WARFARE ENDED. The warfare meant is that struggle to bear and keep heart which had been so trying all through the long years of captivity. Or it may mean God"s warfare with their idolatry and iniquity, the Captivity being regarded as God"s fighting with the national sins, in order to destroy them and root them out. There can be no comfort, no rest, for us until sin is resisted and mastered. Heaven is only a rest-time, because, then and there, the people are all holy. We must keep the warfare so long as we keep the sin. The discipline will be ended, the pressure of our military service, only when the victory of righteousness is won.
II GUILT PAID OFF. This seems to be the idea of the original, which we have as, "her iniquity is pardoned." Reference is rather to the penalty of iniquity being effectively removed. There can be no comfort while we are compelled to look this way and that, asking, "Where shall iniquity be laid?" On Israel it lay as a burden of so many years of national humiliation and captivity. To us the mystery of the "Sin-bearer" has been revealed; and we know that God has "laid on him the iniquity of as all." This knowledge is comfort indeed.
III FAVOUR AT THE DOUBLE. The sentence is variously explained. Some refer it to the sufficiency of the sufferings endured. Others think it suggests abundance of restored grace and favour. Treated meditatively, we may take the "double" to suggest the temporal restorations under Cyrus and the spiritual restoration under Messiah. When God restores, he does it in such a gracious, fall, superabounding way, as to be an infinite consolation and joy to us. The comfort unspeakable is God"s restored smile. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv1–3Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
Isa_40:1
Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
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The great prophecy of Israels restoration
In passing from chaps, 36-39, to chap. 40. we find ourselves introduced into a new world. The persons whom the prophet addresses, the people amongst whom he lives and moves, whose feelings he portrays, whose doubts he dispels, whose faith he confirms, are not the inhabitants of Jerusalem under Ahaz, or Hezekiah, or Manasseh, but the Jewish exiles in Babylonia. Jerusalem and the Temple are in ruins (Isa_44:10), and have been so for long Isa_58:12; Isa_61:4 --the old waste places): the proud and imposing Babylonian empire is to all appearance as secure as ever; the exiles are in despair or indifferent; they think that God has forgotten them, and have ceased to expect, or desire, their release (Isa_40:27; Isa_49:14; Isa_49:24). Toarouse the indifferent, to reassure the wavering, to expostulate with the doubting, to announce with triumphant confidence the certainty of the approaching restoration, is the aim of the great prophecy which now occupies the last twenty-seven chapters of the Book of Isaiah. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
The Gospel of Isaiah
Here beginneth the Gospel of the prophet Isaiah, and holdeth on to the end of the book. (J. Trapp.)
Does Isa_40:1-31. treat of the return from Babylon?
The specific application of this chapter to the return from Babylon is without the least foundation in the text itself. The promise is a general one of consolation, protection, and change for the better, to be wrought by the power and wisdom of Jehovah, which are contrasted, first, with those of men, of nations, and of rulers, then with the utter impotence of idols. That the ultimate fulfilment of the promise was still distant, is implied in the exhortation to faith and patience. The reference to idolatry proves nothing with respect to the date of the prediction, although more appropriate in the writings of Isaiah than of a prophet in the Babylonish Exile. It is evidently meant, however, to condemn idolatry in general, and more particularly all the idolatrous defections of the Israelites under the old economy. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
A comforting message
There is evident allusion to the threatening in Isa_39:7. Having there predicted the captivity in Babylon, as one of the successive strokes by which the fate of Israel as a nation and the total loss of its peculiar privileges should be brought about, the prophet is now sent to assure the spiritual Israel, the true people of Jehovah, that although the Jewish nation should not cease to be externally identified with the Church, the Church itself should not only continue to exist, but in a far more glorious state than ever. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
Gods return to a pardoned people
The beginning of the good tidings is Israel s pardon; yet it seems not to be the peoples return to Palestine which is announced in consequence of this, so much as their Gods return to them. Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway for our God. Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
My people; your God
All the prophecy we are about to study may be said to hang from these pronouns. They are the hinges on which the door of this new temple of revelation swings open before the long-expectant people. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
A storehouse of Divine promise
This portion (chaps. 40-66.) of the great prophets writings may well be regarded as the Old Testament Store house and Repertory of exceeding great and precious promises, in which Jehovah would seem to anticipate His own special Gospel name as the God of all comfort. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Jehovah and His Church
1. A glorious change awaits the Church, consisting in a new and gracious manifestation of Jehovahs presence, for which His people are exhorted to prepare (Isa_40:1-5).
2. Though one generation perish after another, this promise shall eventually be fulfilled, because it rests not upon human but Divine authority (Isa_40:6-8).
3. Zion may even now see Him approaching as the conqueror of His enemies, and at the same time as the Shepherd of His people (Isa_40:9-11).
4. The fulfilment of these pledges is insured by His infinite wisdom, His almighty power, and His independence both of individuals and nations (Isa_40:12-17).
5. How much more is He superior to material images, by which men represent Him or supply His place (Isa_40:18-25).
6. The same power which sustains the heavens is pledged for the support of Israel (Isa_40:26-31). (J. A. Alexander.)
Comfort ye, comfort ye
The double utterance of the Comfort ye, is the well-known Hebrew expression of emphasis, abundance, intensity;--Great comfort, saith your God. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Gods great comfort
At the close of the prophecy, the prophet tells us what the strength and abundance of that comfort is. Earths best picture of strong consolation is that of the mother bending over the couch of her suffering and sorrowing child (Isa_66:13). (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
A Divine art
When the soul is in the period of its exile and bitter pain, it should do three things.
I. LOOK OUT FOR COMFORT.
1. It will come certainly. Wherever the nettle grows, beside it grows the dock-leaf; and wherever there is severe trial, there is, somewhere at hand, a sufficient store of comfort, though our eyes, like Hagars, are often holden that we cannot see it. It is as sure as the faithfulness of God. I never had, says Bunyan, writing of his twelve years imprisonment, in all my life, so great an insight into the Word of God as now; insomuch that I have often said, Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comforts sake. God cannot forget His child.
2. It will come proportionately. Thy Father holds a pair of scales. This on the right is called As, and is for thine afflictions; this on the left is called So, and is for thy comforts. And the beam is always kept level The more thy trial, the more thy comfort. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth through Christ.
3. It will come Divinely. God reserves to Himself the prerogative of comfort. It is a Divine art.
4. It will come mediately. What the prophet was as the spokesman of Jehovah, uttering to the people in human tones the inspirations that came to him from God, so to us is the great prophet, whose shoe-latchet the noblest of the prophetic band was not worthy to unloose; and our comfort is the sweeter because it reaches us through Him.
5. It will come variously. Sometimes by the coming of a beloved Titus; a bouquet; a bunch of grapes; a letter; a message; a card. There are many strings in the dulcimer of consolation. In sore sorrow it is not what a friend says, but what he is, that helps us. He comforts best who says least, but simply draws near, takes the sufferers hand, and sits silent in his sympathy. This is Gods method.
II. STORE UP COMFORT. This was the prophets mission. He had to receive before he could impart. Thy own life becomes the hospital ward where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort. Thou art wounded, that in the binding up of thy wounds by the Great Physician thou mayest learn how to render first-aid to the wounded everywhere.
III. PASS ON COMFORT. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Divine ministry of comfort
There are ministries in the world.
1. There is the Divine ministry of instruction. In this ministry nature, history, and the Bible are constantly employed.
2. There is the Divine ministry of Justice. Nemesis is always and everywhere at work, treading on the heels of wrong, and inflicting penalties.
3. In the text we have the Divine ministry of comfort. The words suggest three thoughts concerning this ministry.
I. It implies the existence of DISTRESS. Bright and fair as the material world often appears, a sea of sorrow rolls through human souls The distress is of various kinds.
1. Physical suffering.
2. Social bereavement.
3. Secular anxieties.
4. Moral compunction.
II. It implies the existence of SPECIAL MEANS. All this distress is an abnormal state of things. Misery is not an institution of nature, and the creation of God, but the production of the creature. To meet this abnormal state something more than natural instrumentality is required.
1. There must be special provisions. Those provisions are to be found in the Gospel. To the physically afflicted there are presented considerations fitted to energise the soul, endow it with magnanimity, fill it with sentiments and hopes that will raise it, if not above the sense of physical suffering, above its depressing influence. To the socially, bereaved it brings the glorious doctrine of a future life. To the secularly distressed it unfolds the doctrine of eternal providence. In secular disappointments and anxieties it says, Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
2. There must be special agency. A physician may know the disease of his patient, but if he does not know the precise mode of application he will not succeed. So it is with the Gospel. A man to give comfort to another requires a special qualification. The comforting elements must be administered--
(1) Not officially, but humanly.
(2) Not verbosely, but sympathetically.
III. It implies a LIMITED SPHERE. My people. The whole human family is in distress, but there is only a certain class qualified to receive comfort, those who are here called Gods people, and who are they? Those who have surrendered themselves to His will, yielded to His claims, and dedicated themselves to His service. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Comfort for Gods people
I. THE SPEAKER. It is the God of comfort, the God of all comfort that here speaks comfortably to His people. There is a danger of our thinking too much of comfort, and one may only value the word preached as it administers comfort; this is a great error, because all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, and reproof, as well as for comfort. One great end which even the Scriptures have in view, is not only to lead us to patience in suffering, but to comfort us under suffering. It is one thing for man to speak comfort, it is another thing for God to speak comfort.
II. THE PERSONS THAT ARE HERE SPOKEN TO. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.
1. The Lord has a people upon earth--He has never been without a people.
2. The Lord has a people; and if He has a people He will try them, and they shall not be found summer flies just resting on the surface of things, but they shall be found to be those that know the truth in the power of it, and they shall be made to feel and experience the worth of it. It shall not be enough for them to say, I am a sinner, but they shall feel the wretchedness of being a sinner, they shall not only confess that Christ is precious, but they shall be placed where they shall know Him to be precious.
3. The Lord has a people; and it is a most blessed consideration to reflect that while He has a people, He is their God. Talk not of your wretchedness and your poverty and your disease, of your weakness; if God be your God, not only heaven is your home, but you have that without which heaven would not be worth the having.
4. God has a people; no wonder then He comforts them--His eye is upon them from the beginning to the end of the year. They are the salt of the earth to Him, and he that touches them touches the apple of His eye.
III. THE LORDS MESSAGE UNTO HIS MINISTERS. Comfort ye, etc. The-great cause of comfort to a child of God may be summed up in a little sentence--through eternity he never shall come to the close of it. Let me point out some few of those great mercies that flow to a child of God in consequence of his having Christ as his portion.
1. He has that which made David glad (Psa_32:1-2). The great contest Satan has with our consciences is about the pardon of our sins. Well might the people of God then be comforted by this truth, that their sins have all been blotted out as a cloud.
2. Do you ask for another ground of comfort? See it in a covenant, ordered in all things (2Sa_23:5).
3. But the Psalmist found another source of comfort. It is good for me to draw near to God (Psa_73:1-28.). There is no mercy on earth greater than to have a God in heaven, to have an Intercessor at the right hand; to have the heart of God; to have the promise of God: to have Jehovah Himself as my portion.
4. One comfort more is the bright prospect that is before the child of God. (J. H.Evans, M. A.)
Comfort for Zion
It was once said by Vinet, that the three great objects of the preacher were the illumination, consolation, and regeneration of men. The work of comforting is surely an important one, but it is Gods people whom we are to comfort. We are not to say, Peace, peace! where there is no peace. Stoical indifference is not real comfort, but peace alone is found in God.
I. Notice what a discovery is made in the text of GODS NATURE. He has not hidden away from men; He is not asleep or tied down by law, but His tender mercies are over all His works. He is near to every one of us, seeking our love and confidence.
II. HUMAN SOULS NEED COMFORT. Constitutional characteristics render us susceptible to consolatory truths. Even those hardened in sin have been melted by a womans tears, or have yielded to the persuasiveness of a child.
III. Look at the GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS COMFORT IS ADMINISTERED. Not those of philosophy. When the Greeks, under Xenophon, caught sight of the Euxine, they jubilantly cried, The sea, the sea! The discoveries of Divine grace--a sea without a bottom or a shore--elicit profounder joy. (G. Norcross, D. D.)
Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God had breathed for them in His word. I venture to think that they were laden with a richer consolation in that they came down a vista of nearly two hundred years. Old words are precious to mourners. That which is spoken at the moment is apt to be coloured by the thoughts and the doubts of the moment; an old word spoken out of the region of these present sorrows has double force. It seems to bring that which is absolute and universal to bear on that which is present and passing. This is why the Scripture is so precious to mourners. It belongs to all time. And these words rule all its declarations. It is comfort throughout and to the end. The mercies of judgment is a subject we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Stern, hard, unfaltering to the eye, but full of rich mercy to the heart. It was in tender mercy that man, the sinner, was sent forth to labour. In society we see on a large scale how Gods judgments are blessings in disguise. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunderstorms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere.
Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world. May we pray, then, in calamities for deliverance, when they are so likely to be blessings? Yes, for prayer is the blessed refuge of our ignorance and dread. But Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak o| comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs--Emmanuel, God with us. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Divine comfort
1. Living in the midst of sorrow, and himself personally its victim, the Christian has need of comfort. Whatever form the affliction may take, it is hard for flesh and blood to bear; it runs contrary to all the tastes and desires of the natural man. Often under its pressure, especially when long continued and severe, is he tempted to faint and despond; it may be, even to repine and murmur; to doubt the faith fulness of God; to ask, in bitterness of heart, why such woe is appointed to man?
2. With what power, then, do words like these reach him in the midst of his sorrow, coming from God Himself, Comfort ye, comfort ye My people! No sooner are they heard than hope revives, and the assurance of Divine sympathy at once soothes his trouble, and allays his fears.
(1) Here is the first light from heaven which breaks upon human sorrow, and which removes from it, for the Christian, its keenest sting. God knows your suffering and thinks of it, and seeks to comfort you under it. You are not the sport of inexorable fate, or blind and reckless chance; still less are your afflictions proof that God has abandoned you in wrath.
(2) How sweet is the solace of human sympathy! But here we have Divine sympathy; sympathy from One both able and willing to deliver,--from the God of all comfort.
(3) Not afar off, does the voice of God reach us, from an inaccessible heaven, telling us we are His people and that He cares for us. He has come and made us His people, by taking our nature, and being born and living as a man. (J. N. Bennie, LL. B.)
I. GOD HAS A PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
The Lords people comforted
II. I proceed TO COMPLY WITH THE INJUNCTION IN THE TEXT. To this end, I will endeavour to obviate some few of the most common causes of that want of comfort to which the people of God are liable.
1. One cause is their misunderstanding the nature and extent of that pardon of sin, which the Gospel provides.
2. Another cause arises from their seeking comfort where it is not to be found. You can never find it from poring into your own hearts. Look in faith to Jesus Christ--His glorious person and gracious offices, etc.
3. Another cause arises from their mistaking the proofs and marks of a really religious state. They suppose that it consists in warm and rapturous feelings. Your salvation is grounded on the faithfulness of Him who cannot lie. (E. Cooper.)
The trials of business men
These words came to the prophet in the olden time, but they come just as forcibly to any man who stands to-day in any one of the pulpits of our great cities. A preacher has no more right to ignore commercial sorrows than any other kind of sorrow.
I. A great many of our business men feel ruinous trials and temptations coming to them FROM SMALL AND LIMITED CAPITAL IN BUSINESS. This temptation of limited capital has ruined men in two ways. Despondency has blasted them. Others have said, Here I have been trudging along. I have been trying, to be honest all these years. I find it is of no use. Now it is make or break.
II. A great many of our business men are tempted to OVER-ANXIETY AND CARE. God manages all the affairs of your life, and He manages them for the best.
III. Many of our business men are tempted TO NEGLECT THEIR HOME DUTIES. How often it is that the store and the home seem to clash, but there ought not to be any collision. If you want to keep your children away from places of sin, you can only do it by making your home attractive. We need more happy, consecrated, cheerful Christian homes.
IV. A great many of our business men are tempted to PUT THE ATTAINMENT OF MONEY ABOVE THE VALUE OF THE SOUL. The more money you get, the better if it come honestly and go usefully. But money cannot satisfy a mans soul; it cannot glitter in the dark valley; it cannot pay our fare across the Jordan of death; it cannot unlock the gate of heaven.
Treasures in heaven are the only uncorruptible treasures. Have you ever ciphered out in the rule of Loss and Gain the sum, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? Seek after God; find His righteousness, and all shall be well here and hereafter. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
Religious comfort
I. SHOW WHAT THE COMFORT IS which the Gospel of our Lord conveys to mankind. Whenever we speak of comforting another, the very expression implies that he is in tribulation and distress. Without the Gospel of Christ the condition of men must be wretched.
II. DESCRIBE THE PERSONS WHO ARE AUTHORISED TO TAKE THAT COMFORT TO THEMSELVES. Evangelical obedience is to be the foundation of evangelical comfort. (T. Gisborne.)
Comfort for Gods people
Comfort ye My people--
1. By reminding them that I am their God.
2. By reminding them that their captivity in this world is nearly over, and that they will soon be home.
3. The Saviour is coming to this world, and is on His way to show His glory here. He will come and fill the world with His victories. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Comfort proclaimed
What a sweet title: My people! What a cheering revelation: Your God! How much of meaning is couched in those two words, My people! Here is speciality. The whole world is Gods. But He saith of a certain number, My people. While nations and kindreds are passed by as being simply nations, He says of them. My people. In this word there is the idea of proprietorship. In some special manner the Lords portion Is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He has done more for them than others; He has brought them nigh to Himself. How careful God is of His people; mark how anxious He is concerning them, not only for their life, but for their comfort. He would not only have us His living people, His preserved people, but He would have us be His happy people too. He likes His people to be fed, but what is more, He likes to give them wines on the lees well refined, to make glad their hearts.
I. TO WHOM IS THIS COMMAND ADDRESSED? The Holy Spirit is the great Comforter, and He it is who alone can solace the saints; but He uses instruments to relieve His children in their distress and to lift up their hearts from desperation. To whom, then, is this command addressed?
1. To angels, first of all. You often talk about the insinuations of the devil. Allow me to remind you that there is another side of that question, for if evil spirits assault us, doubtless good spirits guard us. It is my firm belief that angels are often employed by God to throw into the hearts of His people comforting thoughts.
2. But on earth this is more especially addressed to the Lords ministers. The minister should ask of God the Spirit, that he may be filled with His influence as a comforter.
3. But do not support your ministers as an excuse for the discharge of your own duties; many do so. When God said, Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, He spake to all His people to comfort one another.
II. WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR THIS COMMAND?
1. Because God loves to see His people look happy. The Roman Catholic supposes that God is pleased with a man if he whips himself, walks barefooted for many miles, and torments his body. When I am by the seaside, and the tide is coming in, I see what appears to be a little fringe, looking almost like a mist; and I ask a fisherman what it is. He tells me there is no mist there; and that what I see are all little shrimps dancing in ecstasy, throwing themselves in convulsions and contortions of delight. I think within myself, Does God make those creatures happy, and did He make me to be miserable? Can it ever be a religious thing to be unhappy? No; true religion is in harmony with the whole world; it is in harmony with the whole sun and moon and stars, and the sun shines and the stars twinkle; the world has flowers in it and leaping hills and carolling birds; it has joys in it; and I hold it to be an irreligious thing to go moping miserably through Gods creation.
2. Because uncomfortable Christians dishonour religion.
3. Because a Christian in an uncomfortable state cannot work for God much. It is when the mind is happy that it can be laborious.
4. Again, Comfort ye Gods people, because ye profess to love them.
III. God never gives His children a duty without giving them THE MEANS TO DO IT. Let me just hint at those things in the everlasting Gospel which have a tendency to comfort the saints. Whisper in the mourners ear electing grace, and redeeming mercy, and dying love. Tell him that God watcheth the furnace as the goldsmith the refining pot. If that does not suffice, tell him of his present mercies; tell him that he has much left, though much is gone. Tell him that Jesus is above, wearing the breast-plate, or pleading his cause. Tell him that though earths pillars shake, God is a refuge for us; tell the mourner that the everlasting God faileth not, neither is weary. Let present facts suffice thee to cheer him. But if this is not enough, tell him of the future; whisper to him that there is a heaven with pearly gates and golden streets. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Comfort for England
I will make one little change in the translation, taking the words of Dr. George Adam Smith, Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God! Speak ye to the heart of England, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. Had the Hebrew prophets no other claim upon our regard we ought to hold them in everlasting respect for their patriotism. For Israel the prophet thought a man might well die. Israel was also Gods people. The strength of Israel in every time of trouble was the Lord of hosts. And the prophets interest was not confined to the sacrifices of the temple, nor to the coteries of pious people, but swept into its heart everything that concerned the welfare of the community.
1. Why should not our faith go farther afield and have a more generous range? We also carry in our hearts, not only as citizens, but also as Christians, this England which God gave to our fathers, and has continued in its glory unto their children. Why should we not take our courage in both our hands and, looking at the history of the past and comparing it with the history of the present, recognise in our own people another Israel called of God in a special manner, set apart by God for a special mission, and gather into our soul all the promises of God, and also make our boast in Him as the prophets did? What did they depend on, the Hebrew prophets, for this great conception that God had called the nation, and had a great work for that nation to do? They depended on the facts of history behind them creating in their soul an irresistible conviction. And I ask you whether the right arm of the Most High has not been as conspicuous in English history? From what perils in past centuries has He not delivered this country when the whole world was against us and was put to confusion! Have not we been surrounded by the sea, our national character formed, for purposes that we can recognise? What nation has ever planted so many colonies, explored so many unknown lands, made such practical contributions to civilisation, set such an illustrious example of liberty?
Within our blood is the genius for government, the passion for justice, the love of adventure, and the intelligence of pure faith. Our Lord came of the Jewish stock, and therefore that people must have a lonely place, but when it comes to the carrying out of those great blessings, physical, political, social, and religious, which have been conferred upon the world by the Cross and the pierced hand of the Lord, I challenge anyone to say whether any nation has so extended them within her own borders, or been so willing to give them to the ends of the earth as Gods England.
2. I do not forget Englands sins, for we have sinned in our own generation by inordinate love of material possessions, by discord between the classes of the commonwealth, by a certain insolence which has offended foreign peoples, and also by hideous sins of the flesh. Our sins have been great, and it becomes us to acknowledge them. Does our sin destroy our calling? Does our sin break the Covenant which the Eternal made with our fathers? No people ever sinned against God like Israel. And between the sin of Israel and the sin of England, Gods chosen people of ancient and modern times, there has been the similarity which arises from the sin of people in the same position. Both boasted themselves over-much against other peoples. Both were intoxicated with prosperity. Both depended upon it instead of utilising and conserving the favour of the Most High. When we desire to confess our sins where do we go? We go to the confessions of the Hebrew prophets. And when we ask mercy for our sins, what are the promises we plead? The great promise of mercy declared by the evangelical prophet and now sealed by the life and death and resurrection of our Lord! Because the Hebrew prophet believed that his people were Gods people, he had the courage to speak plainly to them. He is not a traitor to his country who on occasions points out his countrys sins. When Israel sinned there was no voice so loud as that of Isaiah or Amos, but they delighted not in the work, any more than their God delighted in judgment. If God sent them with a rod they took the rod and gave the stroke, but the stroke fell also on the prophets own heart, and he suffered most of all the people. When the people repented and turned again to God, when they brought forth works meet for repentance and showed humility, there was no man so glad as the prophet.
3. When the prophet takes up the work of consolation he has no bounds, he makes the comfort of God to run down the streets like a river. It is not enough to say it once, but twice must he sound it, till the comfort of God shall run like lightning through Jerusalem. And when he takes to comforting he is not to be bound by theories of theology or arguments of the schools. He is not going to ask questions--whether a man can expiate his sins, or whether a nation can win repentance. He flings all this kind of argument to the wind, for he has come out from the presence of the Eternal, who does not keep accounts like that, and he cries, Speak ye home to Jerusalem; her warfare is accomplished. Accomplished! More than that! God hath now repented! It was His people repented first, now He is repenting. They repented of their sins; behold, God has begun to repent of His judgment! I have, he makes the Eternal say--I have been over-hard with these people, and I have punished them more than they have deserved. Go and comfort them. Comfort them royally. Give it out with a lavish hand--they have received double for all their sins. When the prophet speaks in this fashion he is not referring to material prosperity, for the words were spoken to the exiles in Babylon. He comforted the exiles because they had repented and been reconciled unto God. The comfort I preach is not based on arms. It is based on the nobler spirit which God has given England during the progress of the war in South Africa. We sinned, and according to our sin was our punishment. We have repented. Through our churches and through our homes, and individually, we have laid the lessons of the Eternal to heart; and according to our repentance shall be the blessing of God. (J. Watson, M. A.)
Comfort ye My people
This command is adapted to the needs of the country in which we live. There is a good deal of weariness and depression in modem life. If the blessings of an advanced civilisation can make people happy, there are multitudes who ought to be enraptured, for they are surrounded by material comfort. The gospel of recreation is preached to them. Outward nature is enjoyed and reverenced. Music and painting are filling them with sensibility; literature is contributing to their intellectual gratification; and church privileges abound. Worship to-day gratifies the artistic faculty, without putting a very great strain on the spiritual nature of man. There never was so much ingenuity displayed as now in the manufacture of forms of enjoyment. People never waged such a successful war as to-day against physical and social discomfort. And yet, if you watch them closely, you can see that they are not really satisfied. Affection to-day is not at rest, intellect is not at rest, conscience is not at rest, faith is not at rest. Thank God, there is sweet satisfaction of soul to be found. Comfort ye, etc.
I. There is a message in this text for ALL WHO ARE UNDER DISCIPLINE ON ACCOUNT OF SIN. The connection between sin and punishment is never really broken. Men were never so clever as they are to-day in the efforts they have put forth to evade the penalties of wrong-doing, and they very often succeed so far as outward effects are concerned, But the inward penalty is always sure. Loss of self-respect, loss of faculty, and deterioration of nature itself. Thy warfare is accomplished, thy discipline may come to an end. It is the spirit of rebellion which lengthens the period of discipline. Lay down your weapons, give up fighting against God, and He will forgive you now, and the consequences of your wrongdoing shall inwardly be done away. Further, your pardon will tell at once on the outward consequences of your wrong-doing. You forfeited the confidence of your friends by your sin; that will come back to you. You damaged your health; that will improve. You injured your social position; that will be retrieved. Just as there is no decree in Gods mind as to the length of time during which a mans discipline shall be continued, so there is no decree as to the amount of suffering man can endure. The suffering, like the time, may be relieved by speedy submission and penitence.
II. There is a message in this text for ALL WHO IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE HAVE NEVER GOT BEYOND CONVICTION. Beyond conviction there is the forgiveness of God. Beyond the sin there is purity. Beyond doubt there is faith; and beyond all this miserable weariness of spirit there is rest.
III. There is a message here, also, for ALL TIMID CHRISTIANS. They feel it would be presumption to expect conscious pardon and Christian perfection. Cultivate your capacity to take in the comfort of God.
IV. There is a message here for ALL DISCONSOLATE CHRISTIANS. You want new ideas, the old ones are about worn out. Thy warfare with weariness is accomplished.
V. There is a message here for DISCONSOLATE CHURCHES. The Jewish Church was disconsolate at the time of the captivity, and there are Churches to-day which are in a sort of captivity. They have made exceptional provision for the needs of the people, yet they are declining. The declension of Churches in great populations is due to many causes, but due to one cause that is a great deal overlooked, and that is the very peculiar temperament of the generation in which your lot has been east. Competition, in particular, has led to a vast amount of advertising. But disconsolate Churches may be comforted. We are coming out of the captivity of those habits and conditions which have come down from the restrictive ages of society. Modern evangelism has grown steadily in the elements of truth and spiritual intelligence. It is resulting to-day in the deepening of spiritual life, and in the expansion of the kingdom of God.
VI. There is a message here for THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE. The return from captivity was the beginning of a new spiritual movement, which was destined to extend over many countries. The classical period of human history was about to begin. My text is the new strain with which the prophet greets the expanding prospect. As one has said, It is the keynote of the revived and purified Israel, and the reason of the hold of Christendom on Europe and on modern times. There is a wonderful correspondence between that period and ours. England is the centre to-day. Judaism at the time referred to was rational-ised by being brought into contact with forms of Roman and Greek thought. Christianity is being rationalised by contact with natural religion. But who is the leader of the improvement of the modern world? Who is this that cometh from Edom? etc. (chap. 63:1). Was it some king ruling the nations with a rod of iron? No. Some soldier with a two-edged sword? No. Some philosopher ruling the intellect of the race? No. Jehovah s righteous servant and witness it was: that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. And the Lord Christ, the Son of God, never spoke to the race as He is speaking to-day, and He needs His messengers to prepare His way. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Conviction and comfort
A quaint Scotch preacher said that the needle of the law opens the way for and carries the thread of the Gospel. I once quoted this saying in a tent-meeting, and a hearer remarked to me afterwards: Yes, youre right; but the needle should be pulled out and not left behind. (H. G. Guinness, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v1THE problem of the date of Isa 40-66 is…
CHAPTER I
THE DATE OF ISAIAH 40-66
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THE problem of the date of Isa 40-66 is this: In a book called by the name of the prophet Isaiah, who flourished between 740 and 700 B.C., the last twenty-seven chapters deal with the captivity suffered by the Jews in Babylonia from 598 to 538, and more particularly with the advent, about 550, of Cyrus, whom they name. Are we to take for granted that Isaiah himself prophetically wrote these chapters, or must we assign them to a nameless author or authors of the period of which they treat?
Till the end of the last century it was the almost universally accepted tradition, and even still is an opinion retained by many, that Isaiah was carried forward by the Spirit, out of his own age to the standpoint of one hundred and fifty years later; that he was inspired to utter the warning and comfort required by a generation so very different from his own, and was even enabled to hail by name their redeemer, Cyrus. This theory, involving as it does a phenomenon without parallel in the history of Holy Scripture, is based on these two grounds: first, that the chapters in question form a considerable part-nearly nine-twentieths-of the Book of Isaiah; and second, that portions of them are quoted in the New Testament by the prophets name. The theory is also supported by arguments drawn from resemblances of style and vocabulary between these twenty-seven chapters and the undisputed oracles of Isaiah but, as the opponents of the Isaian authorship also appeal to vocabulary and style, it will be better to leave this kind of evidence aside for the present, and to discuss the problem upon other and less ambiguous grounds.
The first argument, then, for the Isaian authorship of chapters 40-66 is that they form part of a book called by Isaiahs name. But, to be worth anything, this argument must rest on the following facts: that everything in a book called by a prophets name is necessarily by that prophet, and that the compilers of the book intended to hand it down as altogether from his pen. Now there is no evidence for either of these conclusions. On the contrary, there is considerable testimony in the opposite direction. The Book of Isaiah is not one continuous prophecy. It consists of a number of separate orations, with a few intervening pieces of narrative. Some of these orations claim to be Isaiahs own: they possess such titles as "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz." But such titles describe only the individual prophecies they head, and other portions of the book, upon other subjects and in very different styles, do not possess titles at all. It seems to me that those who maintain the Isaian authorship of the whole book have the responsibility cast upon them of explaining why some chapters in it should be distinctly said to be by Isaiah, while others should not be so entitled. Surely this difference affords us sufficient ground for understanding that the whole book is not necessarily by Isaiah, nor intentionally handed down by its compilers as the work of that prophet.
Now, when we come to chapters 40-66, we find that, occurring in a book which we have just seen no reason for supposing to be in every part of it by Isaiah, these chapters nowhere claim to be his. They are separated from that portion of the book, in which his undisputed oracles are placed, by a historical narrative of considerable length. And there is not anywhere upon them nor in them a title nor other statement that they are by the prophet, nor any allusion which could give the faintest support to the opinion, that they offer themselves to posterity as dating from his time. It is safe to say, that, if they had come to us by themselves, no one would have dreamt for an instant of ascribing them to Isaiah; for the alleged resemblances, which their language and style bear to his language and style, are far more than overborne by the undoubted differences, and have never been employed, even by the defenders of the Isaian authorship, except in additional and confessedly slight support of their main argument, viz., that the chapters must be Isaiahs because they are included in a book called by his name.
Let us understand, therefore, at this very outset, that in discussing the question of the authorship of "Second Isaiah," we are not discussing a question upon which the text itself makes any statement, or into which the credibility of the text enters. No claim is made by the Book of Isaiah itself for the Isaian authorship of chapters 40-66.
A second fact in Scripture, which seems at first sight to make strongly for the unity of the Book of Isaiah, is that in the New Testament, portions of the disputed chapters are quoted by Isaiahs name, just as are portions of his admitted prophecies. These citations are nine in number. {Mat_3:3, Mat_8:17, Mat_12:17, Luk_3:4, Luk_4:17, Joh_1:23, Joh_12:38, Act_8:28, Rom_10:16-20} None is by our Lord Himself. They occur in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul. Now if any of these quotations were given in answer to the question, Did Isaiah write chapters 40-66 of the book called by his name? or if the use of his name along with them were involved in the arguments which they are borrowed to illustrate as, for instance, is the case with Davids name in the quotation made by our Lord from Psalms 110, then those who deny the unity of the Book of Isaiah would be face to face with a very serious problem indeed. But in none of the nine cases is the authorship of the Book of Isaiah in question. In none of the nine cases is there anything in the argument, for the purpose of which the quotation has been made, that depends on the quoted words being by Isaiah. For the purposes for which the Evangelists and Paul borrow the texts, these might as well be unnamed, or attributed to any other canonical writer. Nothing in them requires us to suppose that Isaiahs name is mentioned with them for any other end than that of reference, viz., to point out that they lie in the part of prophecy usually known by his name. But if there is nothing in these citations to prove that Isaiahs name is being used for any other purpose than that of reference, then it is plain-and this is all that we ask assent to at the present time-that they do not offer the authority of Scripture as a bar to our examining the evidence of the chapters in question.
It is hardly necessary to add that neither is there any other question of doctrine in our way. There is none about the nature of prophecy, for, to take an example, chapter 53, as a prophecy of Jesus Christ, is surely as great a marvel if yon date it from the Exile as if you date it from the age of Isaiah. And, in particular, let us understand that no question need be started about the ability of Gods Spirit to inspire a prophet to mention Cyrus by name one hundred and fifty years before Cyrus appeared. The question is not, Could a prophet have been so inspired?-to which question, were it put, our answer might only be, God is great!-but the question is, Was our prophet so inspired? does he himself offer evidence of the fact? Or, on the contrary, in naming Cyrus does he give himself out as a contemporary of Cyrus, who already saw the great Persian above the horizon? To this question only the writings under discussion can give us an answer. Let us see what they have to say.
Apart from the question of the date, no chapters in the Bible are interpreted with such complete unanimity as Isaiah 40-48. They plainly set forth certain things as having already taken place-the Exile and Captivity, the ruin of Jerusalem, and the devastation of the Holy Land. Israel is addressed as having exhausted the time of her penalty, and is proclaimed to be ready for deliverance. Some of the people are comforted as being in despair because redemption does not draw near; others are exhorted to leave the city of their bondage, as if they were growing too familiar with its idolatrous life. Cyrus is named as their deliverer, and is pointed out as already called upon his career, and as blessed with success by Jehovah. It is also promised that he will immediately add Babylon to his conquests, and so set Gods people free.
Now all this is not predicted, as if from the standpoint of a previous century. It is nowhere said-as we should expect it to be said, if the prophecy had been uttered by Isaiah-that Assyria, the dominant world-power of Isaiahs day, was to disappear and Babylon to take her place; that then the Babylonians should lead the Jews into an exile which they had escaped at the hands of Assyria; and that after nearly seventy years of suffering God would raise up Cyrus as a deliverer.
There is none of this prediction, which we might fairly have expected had the prophecy been Isaiahs; because, however far Isaiah carries us into the future, he never fails to start from the circumstances of his own day. Still more significant, however-there is not even the kind of prediction that we find in Jeremiahs prophecies of the Exile, with which indeed it is most instructive to compare Isaiah 40-66 Jeremiah also spoke of exile and deliverance, but it was always with the grammar of the future. He fairly and openly predicted both; and, let us especially remember, he did so with a meagreness of description, a reserve and reticence about details, which are simply unintelligible if Isaiah 40-66 was written before his day, and by so well-known a prophet as Isaiah.
No: in the statements which our chapters make concerning the Exile and the condition of Israel under it, there is no prediction, not the slightest trace of that grammar of the future in which Jeremiahs prophecies are constantly uttered. But there is a direct appeal to the conscience of a people already long under the discipline of God; their circumstance of exile is taken for granted; there is a most vivid and delicate appreciation of their present fears and doubts, and to these the deliverer Cyrus is not only named, but introduced as an actual and notorious personage already upon the midway of his irresistible career.
These facts are more broadly based than just at first sight appears. You cannot turn their flank by the argument that Hebrew prophets were in the habit of employing in their predictions what is called "the prophetic perfect"-that is, that in the ardour of their conviction that certain things would take place they talked of these, as the flexibility of the Hebrew tenses allowed them to do, in the past or perfect as if the things had actually taken place. No such argument is possible in the case of the introduction of Cyrus. For it is not only that the prophesy, with what might be the mere ardour of vision, represents the Persian as already above the horizon and upon the flowing tide of victory; but that, in the course of a sober argument for the unique divinity of the God of Israel, which takes place throughout chapters 41-48, Cyrus, alive and irresistible, already accredited by success, and with Babylonia at his feet, is pointed out as the unmistakable proof that former prophecies for a deliverance for Israel are at last coming to pass. Cyrus, in short, is not presented as a prediction, but as the proof that a prediction is being fulfilled. Unless he had already appeared in flesh and blood, and was on the point of striking at Babylon, with all the prestige of unbroken victory, a great part of Isaiah 41-Isaiah 48 would be utterly unintelligible.
This argument is so conclusive for the date of Second Isaiah, that it may be well to state it a little more in detail, even at the risk of anticipating some of the exposition of the text.
Among the Jews at the close of the Exile there appear to have been two classes. One class was hopeless of deliverance, and to their hearts is addressed such a prophecy as chapter 40: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people." But there was another class, of opposite temperament, who had only too strong opinions on the subject of deliverance. In bondage to the letter of Scripture and to the great precedents of their history, these Jews appear to have insisted that the Deliverer to come must be a Jew, and a descendant of David. And the bent of much of the prophets urgency in chapter 45 is to persuade those pedants, that the Gentile Cyrus, who had appeared to be not only the biggest man of his age, but the very likely means of Israels redemption, was of Jehovahs own creation and calling. Does not such an argument necessarily imply that Cyrus was already present, an object of doubt and debate to earnest minds in Israel? Or are we to suppose that all this doubt and debate were foreseen, rehearsed, and answered one hundred and fifty years before the time by so famous a prophet as Isaiah, and that, in spite of his prediction and answer, the doubt and debate nevertheless took place in the minds of the very Israelites, who were most earnest students of ancient prophecy? The thing has only to be stated to be felt to be impossible.
But besides the pedants in Israel, there is apparent through these prophecies another body of men, against whom also Jehovah claims the actual Cyrus for His own. They are the priests and worshippers of the heathen idols. It is well known that the advent of Cyrus cast the Gentile religions of the time and their counsellors into confusion. The wisest priests were perplexed; the oracles of Greece and Asia Minor either were dumb when consulted about the Persian, or gave more than usually ambiguous answers. Over against this perplexity and despair of the heathen religions, our prophet confidently claims Cyrus for Jehovahs own. In a debate in chapter 41, in which he seeks to establish Jehovahs righteousness-that is, Jehovahs faithfulness to His word, and power to carry out His predictions - the prophet speaks of ancient prophecies which have come from Jehovah, and points to Cyrus as their fulfilment. It does not matter to us in the meantime what those prophecies were. They may have been certain of Jeremiahs predictions; we may be sure that they cannot have contained anything so definite as Cyrus name, or such a proof of Divine foresight must certainly have formed part of the prophets plea. It is enough that they could be quoted; our business is rather with the evidence which the prophet offers of their fulfilment. That evidence is Cyrus. Would it have been possible to refer the heathen to Cyrus as proof that those ancient prophecies were being fulfilled, unless Cyrus had been visible to the heathen, -unless the heathen had been beginning already to feel this Persian "from the sunrise" in all his weight of war? It is no esoteric doctrine which the prophet is unfolding to initiated Israelites about Cyrus. He is making an appeal to men of the world to face facts. Could he possibly have made such an appeal unless the facts had been there, unless Cyrus had been within the ken of "the natural man"? Unless Cyrus and his conquests were already historically present, the argument in 41-48 is unintelligible.
If this evidence for the exilic date of Isaiah 40-48-for all these chapters hang together-required any additional support, it would find it in the fact that the prophet does not wholly treat of what is past and over, but makes some predictions as well. Cyrus is on the way of triumph, but Babylon has still to fall by his hand. Babylon has still to fall, before the exiles can go free. Now, if our prophet were predicting from the standpoint of one hundred and forty years before, why did he make this sharp distinction between two events which appeared so closely together? If he had both the advent of Cyrus and the fall of Babylon in his long perspective, why did he not use "the prophetic perfect" for both? That he speaks of the first as past and of the second as still to come, would most surely, if there had been no tradition the other way, have been accepted by all as sufficient evidence, that the advent of Cyrus was behind him and the fall of Babylon still in front of him, when he wrote these chapters.
Thus the earlier part, at least, of Isaiah 40-66-that is, chapters 40-48-compels us to date it between 555, Cyruss advent, and 538, Babylons fall. But some think that we may still further narrow the limits. In Isa_41:25, Cyrus, whose own kingdom lay east of Babylonia, is described as invading Babylonia from the north. This, it has been thought, must refer to his union with the Medes in 549, and his threatened descent upon Mesopotamia from their quarter of the prophets horizon. If it be so, the possible years of our prophecy are reduced to eleven, 549-538. But even if we take the wider and more certain limit, 555 to 538, we may well say that there are very few chapters in the whole of the Old Testament whose date can be fixed so precisely as the date of chapters 40-48.
If what has been unfolded in the preceding paragraphs is recognised as the statement of the chapters themselves, it will be felt that further evidence of an exilic date is scarcely needed. And those, who are acquainted with the controversy upon the evidence furnished by the style and language of the prophecies, will admit how far short in decisiveness it falls of the arguments offered above. But we may fairly ask whether there is anything opposed to the conclusion we have reached, either, first, in the local colour of the prophecies: or, second, in their language; or, third, in their thought - anything which shows that they are more likely to have been Isaiahs than of exilic origin.
1. It has often been urged against the exilic date of these prophecies, that they wear so very little local colour, and one of the greatest of critics, Ewald, has felt himself, therefore, permitted to place their home, not in Babylonia, but in Egypt, while he maintains the exilic date. But, as we shall see in surveying the condition of the exiles, it was natural for the best among them, their psalmists and prophets, to have no eyes for the colours of Babylon. They lived inwardly; they were much more the inhabitants of their own broken hearts than of that gorgeous foreign land; when their thoughts rose out of themselves it was to seek immediately the far-away Zion. How little local colour is there in the writings of Ezekiel! Isaiah 40-66 has even more to show; for indeed the absence of local colour from our prophecy has been greatly exaggerated. We shall find as we follow the exposition, break after break of Babylonian light and shadow falling across our path, -the temples, the idol-manufactories, the processions of images, the diviners and astrologers, the gods and altars especially cultivated by the characteristic mercantile spirit of the place; the shipping of that mart of nations, the crowds of her merchants; the glitter of many waters, and even that intolerable glare, which so frequently curses the skies of Mesopotamia. {Isa_49:10} The prophet speaks of the hills of his native land with just the same longing, that Ezekiel and a probable psalmist of the Exile {Psalms 121} betray, -the homesickness of a highland-born man whose prison is on a flat, monotonous plain. The beasts he mentions have for the most part been recognised as familiar in Babylonia; and while the same cannot be said of the trees and plants he names, it has been observed that the passages, into which he brings them, are passages where his thoughts are fixed on the restoration to Palestine. Besides these, there are many delicate symptoms of the presence, before the prophet, of a people in a foreign land, engaged in commerce, but without political responsibilities, each of which, taken by itself, may be insufficient to convince, but the reiterated expression of which has even betrayed commentators, who lived too early for the theory of a second Isaiah, into the involuntary admission of an exilic authorship. It will perhaps startle some to hear John Calvin quoted on behalf of the exilic date of these prophecies. But let us read and consider this statement of his: "Some regard must be had to the time when this prophecy was uttered; for since the rank of the kingdom had been obliterated, and the name of the royal family had become mean and contemptible, during the captivity in Babylon, it might seem as if through the ruin of that family the truth of God had fallen into decay; and therefore he bids them contemplate by faith the throne of David, which had been cast down."
2. What we have seen to be true of the local colour of our prophecy holds good also of its style and language. There is nothing in either of these to commit us to an Isaiah authorship, or to make an exilic date improbable; on the contrary, the language and style, while containing no stronger nor more frequent resemblances to the language and style of Isaiah than may be accounted for by the natural influence of so great a prophet upon his successors, are signalised by differences from his undisputed oracles, too constant, too subtle, and sometimes too sharp, to make it at all probable that the whole book came from the same man. On this point it is enough to refer our readers to the recent exhaustive and very able reviews of the evidence by Canon Cheyne in the second volume of his Commentary, and by Canon Driver in the last chapter of "Isaiah: His Life and Times," and to quote the following words of so great an authority as Professor A. B. Davidson. After remarking on the difference in vocabulary of the two parts of the Book of Isaiah, he adds that it is not so much words in themselves as the peculiar uses and combinations of them, and especially "the peculiar articulation of sentences and the movement of the whole discourse, by which an impression is produced so unlike the impression produced by the earlier parts of the book."
3. It is the same with the thought and doctrine of our prophecy. In this there is nothing to make the Isaian authorship probable, or an exilic date impossible. But, on the contrary, whether we regard the needs of the people or the analogies of the development of their religion, we find that, while everything suits the Exile, nearly everything is foreign both to the subjects and to the methods of Isaiah. We shall observe the items of this as we go along, but one of them may be mentioned here (it will afterwards require a chapter to itself), our prophets use of the terms righteous and righteousness. No one, who has carefully studied the meaning which these terms bear in the authentic oracles of Isaiah, and the use to which they are put in the prophecies under discussion, can fail to find in the difference a striking corroboration of our argument-that the latter were composed by a different mind than Isaiahs, speaking to a different generation.
To sum up this whole argument. We have seen that there is no evidence in the Book of Isaiah to prove that it was all by himself, but much testimony which points to a plurality of authors; that chapters 40-66 nowhere assert themselves to be by Isaiah; and that there is no other well-grounded claim of Scripture or doctrine on behalf of his authorship. We have then shown that chapters 40-48 do not only present the Exile as if nearly finished and Cyrus as if already come, while the fall of Babylon is still future; but that it is essential to one of their main arguments that Cyrus should be standing before Israel and the world, as a successful warrior, on his way to attack Babylon. That led us to date these chapters between 555 and 538. Turning then to other evidence, -the local colour they show, their language and style, and their theology, -we have found nothing which conflicts with that date, but, on the contrary, a very great deal, which much more agrees with it than with the date, or with the authorship, of Isaiah.
It will be observed, however, that the question has been limited to the earlier chapters of the twenty-seven under discussion, viz., to 40-48 Does the same conclusion hold good of 49 to 66? This can be properly discovered only as we closely follow their exposition; it is enough in the meantime to have got firm footing on the Exile. We can feel our way bit by bit from this standpoint onwards. Let us now merely anticipate the main features of the rest of the prophecy.
A new section has been marked by many as beginning with chapter 49. This is because chapter 48, concludes with a refrain: "There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked," which occurs again at the end of chapter 57, and because with chapter 48. Babylon and Cyrus drop out of sight. But the circumstances are still those of exile, and, as Professor Davidson remarks, chapter 49 is parallel in thought to chapter 42, and also takes for granted the restoration of Israel in chapter 48, proceeding naturally from that to the statement of Israels world-mission. Apart from the alternation of passages dealing with the Servant of the Lord, and passages whose subject is Zion - an alternation which begins pretty early in the prophecy, and has suggested to some its composition out of two different writings-the first real break in the sequence occurs at Isa_52:13, where the prophecy of the sin-bearing Servant is introduced. By most critics this is held to be an insertion, for Isa_54:1 follows naturally upon Isa_52:12, though it is undeniable that there is also some association between Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53, and chapter 54. In chapters 54-55, we are evidently still in exile. It is in commenting on a verse of these chapters that Calvin makes the admission of exilic origin which has been quoted above.
A number of short prophecies now follow, till the end of chapter 59 is reached. These, as we shall see, make it extremely difficult to believe in the original unity of "Second Isaiah." Some of them, it is true, lie in evident circumstance of exile; but others are undoubtedly of earlier date, reflecting the scenery of Palestine, and the habits of the people in their political independence, with Jehovahs judgment-cloud still unburst, but lowering. Such is Isaiah 56:9-Isaiah 57, which regards the Exile as still to come, quotes the natural features of Palestine, and charges the Jews with unbelieving diplomacy-a charge not possible against them when they were in captivity. But others of these short prophecies are, in the opinion of some critics, post-exilic. Cheyne assigns chapter 56 to after the Return, when the temple was standing, and the duty of holding fasts and sabbaths could be enforced, as it was enforced by Nehemiah. I shall give, when we reach the passage, my reasons for doubting his conclusion. The chapter seems to me as likely to have been written upon the eve of the Return as after the Return had taken place.
Chapter 57, the eighteenth of our twenty-seven chapters, closes with the same refrain as chapter 48, the ninth of the series: "There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked." Chapter 58, has, therefore, been regarded, as beginning the third great division of the prophecy. But here again, while there is certainly an advance in the treatment of the subject, and the prophet talks less of the redemption of the Jews and more of the glory of the restoration of Zion, the point of transition is very difficult to mark. Some critics regard chapter 58, as post-exilic; but when we come to it we shall find a number of reasons for supposing it to belong, just as much as Ezekiel, to the Exile. Chapter 59 is perhaps the most difficult portion of all, because it makes the Jews responsible for civic justice in a way they could hardly be conceived to be in exile, and yet speaks, in the language of other portions of "Second Isaiah," of a deliverance that cannot well be other than the deliverance from exile. We shall find in this chapter likely marks of the fusion of two distinct addresses, making the conclusion probable that it is Israels earlier conscience which we catch here, following her into the days of exile, and reciting her former guilt just before pardon is assured. Chapters 60, 61, and 62 are certainly exilic. The inimitable prophecy, Isa_63:1-6, complete within itself, and unique in its beauty, is either a promise given just before the deliverance from a long captivity of Israel under heathen nations (Isa_63:4), or an exultant song of triumph immediately after such a deliverance has taken place. Isaiah 63:7-Isaiah 64 implies a ruined temple (Isa_63:10), but bears no traces of the writer being in exile. It has been assigned to the period of the first attempts to rebuild Jerusalem after the Return. Chapter 65 has been assigned to the same date, and its local colour interpreted as that of Palestine. But we shall find the colour to be just as probably that of Babylon, and again I do not see any certain proofs of a post-exilic date. Chapter 66, however, betrays more evidence of being written after the Return. It divides into two parts. In Isa_66:1-4 the temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun. In Isa_66:5-24, the arrival of the Jews in Palestine, the resumption of the life of the sacred community, and the disappointments of the returned at the first meagre results, seem to be implied. And the music of the book dies out in tones of warning, that sin still hinders the Lords work with His people.
This rapid survey has made two things sufficiently clear. First, that while the bulk of chapters 40-66 was composed in Babylonia during the Exile of the Jews, there are considerable portions which date from before the Exile, and betray a Palestinian origin; and one or two smaller pieces that seem-rather less evidently, however-to take for granted the Return from the Exile. But, secondly, all these pieces, which it seems necessary to assign to different epochs and authors, have been arranged so as to exhibit a certain order and progress-an order, more or less observed, of date, and a progress very apparent (as we shall see in the course of exposition) of thought and of clearness in definition. The largest portion, of whose unity we are assured and whose date we can fix, is found at the beginning. Chapters 40-48 are certainly by one hand, and may be dated, as we have seen, between 555 and 538-the period of Cyrus approach to take Babylon. There the interest in Cyrus ceases, and the thought of the redemption from Babylon is mainly replaced by that of the subsequent Return. Along with these lines, we shall discover a development in the prophecys great doctrine of the Servant of Jehovah. But even this dies away, as if the experience of suffering and discipline were being replaced by that of return and restoration; and it is Zion in her glory, and the spiritual mission of the people, and the vengeance of the Lord, and the building of the temple, and a number of practical details in the life and worship of the restored community, which fill up the remainder of the book, along with a few echoes from pre-exilic times. Can we escape feeling in all this a definite design and arrangement, which fails to be absolutely perfect, probably, from the nature of the materials at the arrangers disposal?
We are, therefore, justified in coming to the provisional conclusion, that Second Isaiah is not a unity, in so far as it consists of a number of pieces by different men, whom God raised up at various times before, during, and after the Exile, to comfort and exhort amid the shifting circumstance and tempers of His people; but that it is a unity, in so far as these pieces have been gathered together by an editor very soon after the Return from the Exile, in an order as regular both in point of time and subject as the somewhat mixed material would permit. It is in this sense that throughout this volume we shall talk of "our prophet," or "the prophet"; up to chapter 49, at least, we shall feel that the expression is literally true; after that it is rather an editorial than an original unity which is apparent. In this question of unity the dramatic style of the prophecy forms, no doubt, the greatest difficulty. Who shall dare to determine of the many soliloquies, apostrophes, lyrics, and other pieces that are here gathered, often in want of any connection save that of dramatic grouping and a certain sympathy of temper, whether they are by the same author or have been collected from several origins? We must be content to leave the matter uncertain. One great reason, which we have not yet quoted, for supposing that the whole prophecy is not by one man, is that if it had been his name would certainly have come down with it. Do not let it be thought that such a conclusion, as we have been led to, is merely a dogma of modern criticism. Here, if anywhere, the critic is but the patient student of Scripture, searching for the testimony of the sacred text about itself, and formulating that. If it be found that such a testimony conflicts with ecclesiastical tradition, however ancient and universal, so much the worse for tradition. In Protestant circles, at least, we have no choice. Litera Scripta manet. When we know that the only evidence for the Isaiah authorship of chapters 40-66 is tradition, supported by an unthinking interpretation of New Testament citations, while the whole testimony of these Scriptures themselves denies them to be Isaiahs, we cannot help making our choice, and accepting the testimony of Scripture. Do we find them any the less wonderful or Divine? Do they comfort less? Do they speak with less power to conscience? Do they testify with more uncertain voice to our Lord and Saviour? It will be the task of the following pages to show that, interpreted in connection with the history out of which they themselves say that Gods Spirit drew them, these twenty-seven chapters become only more prophetic of Christ, and more comforting and instructive to men, than they were before.
But the remarkable fact is that anciently tradition itself appears to have agreed with the results of modern scholarship. The original place of the Book of Isaiah in the Jewish canon seems to have been after both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, a fact which goes to prove that it did not reach completion till a later date than the works of these two prophets of the Exile.
If now it be asked, Why should a series of prophecies written in the Exile be attached to the authentic works of Isaiah? that is a fair question, and one which the supporters of the exilic authorship have the duty laid upon them of endeavouring to answer. Fortunately they are not under the necessity of falling back, for want of other reasons, on the supposition that this attachment was due to the error of some scribe, or to the custom which ancient writers practised of filling up any part of a volume, that remained blank when one book is finished, with the writing of any other that would fit the place. The first of these reasons is too accidental, the second too artificial, in face of the undoubted sympathy which exists among all parts of the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah himself plainly prophesied of an exile longer than his own generation experienced, and prophesied of a return from it (chapter 11). We saw no reason to dispute his claims to the predictions about Babylon in chapters 21 and 39 Isaiahs, too, more than any other prophets, were those great and final hopes of the Old Testament - the survival of Israel and the gathering of the Gentiles to the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem. But it is for the express purpose of emphasising the immediate fulfilment of such ancient predictions, that Isaiah 40-66 were published. Although our prophet has "new things to publish," his first business is to show that the "former things have come to pass," especially the Exile, the survival of a Remnant, the sending of a Deliverer, the doom of Babylon. What more natural than to attach to his utterances those prophecies, of which the events he pointed to were the vindication and fulfilment? The attachment was the more easy to arrange that the authentic prophecies had not passed from Isaiahs hand in a fixed form. They do not bear those marks of their authors own editing, which are borne by the prophecies both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It is impossible to be dogmatic on the point. But these facts-that our chapters are concerned, as no other Scriptures are, with the fulfilment of previous prophecies; that it is the prophecies of Isaiah which are the original and fullest prediction of the events they are busy with; and that the form, in which Isaiahs prophecies are handed down, did not preclude additions of this kind to them-contribute very evident reasons why Isaiah 40-66, though written in the Exile, should be attached to Isaiah 1-39.
Thus we present a theory of the exilic authorship of Isaiah 40-66 within itself complete and consistent, suited to all parts of the evidence, and not opposed by the authority of any part of Scripture. In consequence of its conclusion, our duty, before proceeding to the exposition of the chapters, is twofold: first, to connect the time of Isaiah with the period of the Captivity, and then to sketch the condition of Israel in Exile. This we shall undertake in the next three chapters.
NOTE TO CHAPTER I
Readers may wish to have a reference to other passages of this part, in which the questions of the date, authorship and structure of Isaiah 40-66, are discussed. See: Introduction to Book III; opening paragraphs of chapter 18, and of chapter 19, etc.
CHAPTER V
THE PROLOGUE: THE FOUR HERALD VOICES
Isa_40:1-11
IT is only Voices which we hear in this Prologue. No forms can be discerned, whether of men or angels, and it is even difficult to make out the direction from which the Voices come. Only one thing is certain-that they break the night, that they proclaim the end of a long but fixed period, during which God has punished and forsaken His people. At first, the persons addressed are the prophets, that they may speak to the people (Isa_40:1-2); but afterwards Jerusalem as a whole is summoned to publish the good tidings. {Isa_40:9} This interchange between a part of the people and the whole-this commission to prophesy, made with one breath to some of the nation for the sake of the rest, and with the next breath to the entire nation-is a habit of our prophet to which we shall soon get accustomed. How natural and characteristic it is, is proved by its appearance in these very first verses.
The beginning of the good tidings is Israels pardon; yet it seems not to be the peoples return to Palestine which is announced in consequence of this, so much as their Gods return to them. "Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway for our God. Behold the Lord Jehovah will come." We may, however, take "the way of Jehovah in the wilderness" to mean what it means in the sixty-eighth Psalm, -His going forth before His people and leading of them back; while the promise that He will come to "shepherd His flock" {Isa_40:11} is, of course, the promise that He will resume the government of Israel upon their own land. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this chapter was meant for the people at the close of their captivity in Babylon. But do not let us miss the pathetic fact that Israel is addressed not in her actual shape of a captive people in a foreign land, but under the name and aspect of her far-away desolate country. In these verses Israel is "Jerusalem, Zion, the cities of Judah" Such designations do not prove, as a few critics have rather pedantically supposed, that the writer of the verses lived in Judah and addressed himself to what was under his eyes. It is not the vision of a Jew at home that has determined the choice of these names, but the desire and the dream of a Jew abroad: that extraordinary passion, which, however distant might be the land of his exile, ever filled the Jews eyes with Zion, caused him to feel the ruin and forsakenness of his Mother more than his own servitude, and swept his patriotic hopes, across his own deliverance and return, to the greater glory of her restoration. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent us taking for granted, as we did in the previous chapter, that the speaker or speakers of these verses stood among the exiles themselves; but who they were-men or angels, prophets or scribes-is lost in the darkness out of which their music breaks.
Nevertheless the prophecy is not anonymous. By these impersonal voices a personal revelation is made. The prophets may be nameless, but the Deity who speaks through them speaks as already known and acknowledged: "My people, saith your God."
This is a point, which, though it takes for its expression no more than these two little pronouns, we must not hurriedly pass over. All the prophecy we are about to study may be said to hang from these pronouns. They are the hinges, on which the door of this new temple of revelation swings open before the long-expectant people. And, in fact, such a conscience and sympathy as these little words express form the necessary premise of all revelation. Revelation implies a previous knowledge of God, and cannot work upon men, except there already exist in them the sense that they and God somehow belong to each other. This sense need be neither pure, nor strong, nor articulate. It may be the most selfish and cowardly of guilty fears, -Jacobs dread as he drew near Esau, whom he had treacherously supplanted, -the vaguest of ignorant desires, the Athenians worship of the Unknown God. But, whatever it is, the angel comes to wrestle with it, the apostle is sent to declare it; revelation in some form takes it as its premise and starting-point. This previous sense of God may also be fuller than in the cases just cited. Take our Lords own illustration. Upon the prodigal in the strange country there surged again the far-ebbed memory of his home and childhood, of his years of familiarity with a Father; and it was this tide which carried back his penitent heart within the hearing of his Fathers voice, and the revelation of the love that became his new life. Now Israel, also in a far-off land, were borne upon the recollection of home: and of life in the favour of their God. We have: seen with what knowledge of Him and from what relations with Him they were banished.
To the men of the Exile God was already a Name and an Experience, and because that Name was The Righteous, and that Experience was all grace and promise, these men waited for His Word more than they that wait for the morning; and when at length the Word broke from the long darkness and silence, they received it, though its bearers might be unseen and unaccredited, because they recognised and acknowledged in it Himself. He who spoke was their God, and they were His people. This conscience and sympathy was all the title or credential which the revelation required. It is, therefore, not too much to say, as we have said, that the two pronouns in Isa_40:1, are the necessary premise of the whole prophecy which that verse introduces.
With this introduction we may now take up the four herald voices of the Prologue. Whatever may have been their original relation to one another, whether or not they came to Israel by different messengers, they are arranged (as we saw at the close of the previous chapter) in manifest order and progress of thought, and they meet in due succession the experiences of Israel at the close of the Exile. For the first of them (Isa_40:1-2) gives the "subjective assurance" of the coming redemption: it is the Voice of Grace. The second (Isa_40:3-5) proclaims the "objective reality" of that redemption: it may be called the Voice of Providence, or-to use the name by which our prophecy loves to entitle the just and victorious providence of God-the Voice of Righteousness. The third (Isa_40:6-8) uncovers the pledge and earnest of the redemption: in the weakness of men this shall be the Word of God. While the fourth (Isa_40:9-11) is the Proclamation of Jehovahs restored kingdom, when He cometh as a shepherd to shepherd His people. To this progress and climax the music of the passage forms a perfect accompaniment. It would be difficult to find in any language lips that first more softly woo the heart, and then take to themselves so brave a trumpet of challenge and assurance. The opening is upon a few short pulses of music, which steal from heaven as gently as the first ripples of light in a cloudless dawn-
Nahamu, nahamu ammi:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people:
Dabberu al-lev Yerushalaim.
Speak upon the heart of Jerusalem.
But then the trumpet-tone breaks forth, "Call unto her"; and on that high key the music stays, sweeping with the second voice across hill and dale like a company of swift horsemen, stooping with the third for a while to the elegy upon the withered grass, but then recovering itself, braced by all the strength of the Word of God, to peal from tower to tower with the fourth, upon the cry, "Behold, the Lord cometh," till it sinks almost from sound to sight, and yields us, as from the surface of still waters, that sweet reflection of the twenty-third Psalm with which the Prologue concludes.
1. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God
Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her,
That accomplished is her warfare, that absolved is her iniquity;
That she hath received of Jehovahs hand double for all her sins.
This first voice, with the music of which our hearts have been thrilled ever since we can remember, speaks twice: first in a whisper, then in a call-the whisper of the Lover and the call of the Lord. "Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her."
Now Jerusalem lay in ruins, a city through whose breached walls all the winds of heaven blew mournfully across her forsaken floors. And the "heart of Jerusalem," which was with her people in exile, was like the city-broken and defenceless. In that far-off, unsympathetic land it lay open to the alien; tyrants forced their idols upon it, the peoples tortured it with their jests.
For they that led us captive required of us songs,
And they that wasted us required of us mirth.
But observe how gently the Divine Beleaguerer approaches, how softly He bids His heralds plead by the gaps, through which the oppressor has forced his idols and his insults. Of all human language they might use, God bids His messengers take and plead with the words with which a man will plead at a maidens heart, knowing that he has nothing but love to offer as right of entrance, and waiting until love and trust come out to welcome him. "Speak ye," says the original literally, "on to," or "up against" or "up round the heart of Jerusalem,"-a forcible expression, like the German "An das Herz," or the sweet Scottish, "It cam up roond my heart," and perhaps best rendered into English by the phrase, "Speak home to the heart." It is the ordinary Hebrew expression for wooing. As from man to woman when he wins her, the Old Testament uses it several times. To "speak home to the heart" is to use language in which authority and argument are both ignored, and love works her own inspiration. While the haughty Babylonian planted by force his idols, while the folly and temptations of heathendom surged recklessly in, God Himself, the Creator of this broken heart, its Husband and Inhabitant of old, stood lowly by its breaches, pleading in love the right to enter. But when entrance has been granted, see how He bids His heralds change their voice and disposition. The suppliant lover, being received, assumes possession and defence, and they, who were first bid whisper as beggars by each unguarded breach, now leap upon the walls to call from the accepted Lord of the city: "Fulfilled is thy time of service, absolved thine iniquity, received hast thou of Jehovahs hand double for all thy sins."
Now this is no mere rhetorical figure. This is the abiding attitude and aim of the Almighty towards men. Gods target is our heart. His revelation, whatever of law or threat it send before, is, in its own superlative clearness and urgency, Grace. It comes to man by way of the heart; not at first by argument addressed to the intellect, nor by appeal to experience, but by the sheer strength of a love laid "on to the heart." It is, to begin with, a subjective thing. Is revelation, then, entirely a subjective assurance? Do the pardon and peace which it proclaims remain only feelings of the heart, without anything to correspond to them in real fact? By no means; for these Jews the revelation now whispered to their heart will actually take shape in providences of the most concrete kind. A voice will immediately call, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," and the way will be prepared. Babylon will fall; Cyrus will let Israel go; their release will appear-most concrete of things!-in "black and white" on a Persian state-parchment. Yet, before these events happen and become part of His peoples experience, God desires first to convince His people by the sheer urgency of His love. Before He displays His Providence, He will speak in the power and evidence of His Grace. Afterwards, His prophets shall appeal to outward facts; we shall find them in succeeding chapters arguing both with Israel and the heathen on grounds of reason and the facts of history. But, in the meantime, let them only feel that in His Grace they have something for the heart of men, which, striking home, shall be its own evidence and force.
Thus God adventures His Word forth by nameless and unaccredited men upon no other authority than the Grace, with which it is fraught for the heart of His people. The illustration, which this affords of the method and evidence of Divine revelation, is obvious. Let us, with all the strength of which we are capable, emphasise the fact that our prophecy-which is full of the materials for an elaborate theology, which contains the most detailed apologetic in the whole Bible, and displays the most glorious prospect of mans service and destiny-takes its source and origin from a simple revelation of Grace and the subjective assurance of this in the heart of those to whom it is addressed. This proclamation of Grace is as characteristic and dominant in Second Isaiah as we saw the proclamation of conscience in Isaiah 1 to be characteristic of the First Isaiah.
Before we pass on, let us look for a moment at the contents of this Grace, in the three clauses of the prophets cry: "Fulfilled is her warfare, absolved her guilt, received hath she of Jehovahs hand double for all her sins." The very grammar here is eloquent of grace. The emphasis lies on the three predicates, which ought to stand in translation, as they do in the original, at the beginning of each clause. Prominence is given, not to the warfare, nor to the guilt, nor to the sins, but to this, that "accomplished" is the warfare, "absolved" the guilt, "sufficiently expiated" the sins. It is a great AT LAST which these clauses peal forth; but an At Last whose tone is not so much inevitableness as undeserved grace. The term translated warfare means "period of military service, appointed term of conscription"; and the application is apparent when we remember that the Exile had been fixed, by the Word of God through Jeremiah, to a definite number of years. "Absolved" is the passive of a verb meaning to "pay off what is due." {Leviticus 27} But the third clause is especially gracious. It declares that Israel has suffered of punishment more than double enough to atone for her sins. This is not a way of regarding either sin or atonement, which, theologically speaking, is accurate. What of its relation to our Articles, that man cannot give satisfaction for his sins by the work of his hands or the pains of his flesh? No: it would scarcely pass some of our creeds today. But all the more, that it thus bursts forth from strict terms of dealing, does it reveal the generosity of Him who utters it. How full of pity God is, to take so much account of the sufferings sinners have brought upon themselves! How full of grace to reckon those sufferings "double the sins" that had earned them! It is as when we have seem gracious men make us a free gift, and in their courtesy insist that we have worked for it. It is grace masked by grace. As the height of art is to conceal art, so the height of grace is to conceal grace, which it does in this verse.
Such is the Voice of Grace. But,
2. Hark, One calling!
In the wilderness prepare the way of Jehovah!
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be exalted,
And every mountain and hill be made low:
And the crooked grow straight,
And rough places a plain:
And the glory of Jehovah be revealed,
And see it shall all flesh together;
For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.
The relation of this Voice to the previous one has already been indicated. This is the witness of Providence following upon the witness of Grace. Religion is a matter in the first place between God and the heart; but religion does not, as many mock, remain an inward feeling. The secret relation between God and His people issues into substantial fact, visible to all men. History vindicates faith; Providence executes Promise; Righteousness follows Grace. So, as the first Voice was spoken "to the heart," this second is for the hands and feet and active will. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." If you, poor captives as you are, begin to act upon the grace whispered in your trembling hearts, the world will show the result. All things will come round to your side. A levelled empire, an altered world-across those your way shall lie clear to Jerusalem. You shall go forth in the sight of all men, and future generations looking back shall praise this manifest wonder of your God. "The glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and see it shall all flesh together."
On which words, how can our hearts help rising from the comfort of grace to the sense of mastery over this world, to the assurance of heaven itself? History must come round to the side of faith-as it has come round not in the case of Jewish exiles only, but wheresoever such a faith as theirs has been repeated. History must come round to the side of faith, if men will only obey the second as well as the first of these herald voices. But we are too ready to listen to the Word of the Lord, without seeking to prepare His way. We are satisfied with the personal comfort of our God; we are contented to be forgiven and-oh mockery!-left alone. But the word of God will not leave us alone, and not for comfort only is it spoken. On the back of the voice, which sets our heart right with God, comes the voice to set the world right, and no man is godly who has not heard both. Are we timid and afraid that facts will not correspond to our faith? Nay, but as God reigneth they shall, if only we put to our hands and make them; "all flesh shall see it," if we will but "prepare the way of the Lord."
Have we only ancient proofs of this? On the contrary, God has done like wonders within the lives of those of us who are yet young. During our generation, a people has appealed from the convictions of her heart to the arbitrament of history, and appealed not in vain. When the citizens of the Northern States of the American Republic, not content as they might have been with their protests against slavery, rose to vindicate these by the sword, they faced, humanly speaking, a risk as great as that to which Jew was ever called by the word of God. Their own brethren were against them; the world stood aloof. But even so, unaided by united patriotism and as much dismayed as encouraged by the opinions of civilisation, they rose to the issue on the strength of conscience and their hearts. They rose and they conquered. Slavery was abolished. What had been but the conviction of a few men became the surprise, the admiration, the consent of the whole world. "The glory of the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw it together."
3. But the shadow of death falls on everything, even on the way of the Lord. By 550 B.C.-that is, after thirty-eight years of exile-nearly all the strong men of Israels days of independence must have been taken away. Death had been busy with the exiles for more than a generation. There was no longer any human representative of Jehovah to rally the peoples trust; the monarchy, each possible Messiah who in turn held it, the priesthood, and the prophethood-whose great personalities so often took the place of Israels official leaders-had all alike disappeared. It was little wonder, then, that a nation accustomed to be led, not by ideas like us Westerns, but by personages, who were to it the embodiment of Jehovahs will and guidance, should have been cast into despair by the call, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." What sort of a call was this for a people whose strong men were like things uprooted and withered! How could one be, with any heart, a herald of the Lord to such a people!
Hark one saying "Call."
And I said:
"What can I call?
All flesh is grass,
And all its beauty like a wild-flower!
Withers grass, fades flower,
When the breath of Jehovah blows on it.
Surely grass is the people."
Back comes a voice like the east winds for pitilessness to the flowers, but of the east winds own strength and clearness, to proclaim Israels everlasting hope.
Withers grass, fades flower,
But the word of our God endureth for ever,
Everything human may perish; the day may be past of the great prophets, of the priests-of the King in his beauty, who was vicegerent of God. But the people have Gods word; when all their leaders have fallen, and every visible authority for God is taken away, this shall be their rally and their confidence.
All this is too like the actual experience of Israel in Exile not to be the true interpretation of this third, stern Voice. Their political and religious institutions, which had so often proved the initiative of a new movement, or served as a bridge to carry the nation across disaster to a larger future, were not in existence. Nor does any Moses, as in Egypt of old, rise to visibleness from among his obscure people, impose his authority upon them, marshal them, and lead them out behind him to freedom. But what we see is a scattered and a leaderless people, stirred in their shadow, as a ripe cornfield is stirred by the breeze before dawn-stirred in their shadow by the ancient promises of God, and everywhere breaking out at the touch of these into psalms and prophecies of hope. We see them expectant of redemption, we see them resolved to return, we see them carried across the desert to Zion, and from first to last it is the word of God that is their inspiration and assurance.
They, who formerly had rallied round the Ark or the Temple, or who had risen to the hope of a glorious Messiah, do not now speak of all these, but their "hope," they tell us, "is in His word"; it is the instrument of their salvation, and their destiny is to be its evangelists.
4. To this high destiny the fourth Voice now summons them, by a vivid figure
Up on a high mountain, get thee up,
Heraldess of good news, O Zion!
Lift up with strength thy voice,
Heraldess of good news, Jerusalem!
Lift up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah:-
Behold, your God.
Behold, my Lord Jehovah, with power He cometh,
And His arm rules for Him.
Behold, His reward with Him,
And His recompense before Him.
As a shepherd His flock He shepherds;
With His right arm gathers the lambs,
And in His bosom bears them.
Ewe-mothers He tenderly leads.
The title which I have somewhat awkwardly translated "heraldess"-but in English there is really no better word for it-is the feminine participle of a verb meaning to "thrill," or "give joy, by means of good news." It is used generally to tell such happy news as the birth of a child, but mostly in the special sense of carrying tidings of victory or peace home from the field to the people. The feminine participle would seem from Psalms 68 "the women who publish victory to the great host," to have been the usual term for the members of those female choirs, who, like Miriam and her maidens, celebrated a triumph in face of the army, or came forth from the city to hail the returning conqueror, as the daughters of Jerusalem hailed Saul and David. As such a chorister, Zion is now summoned to proclaim Jehovahs arrival at the gates of the cities of Judah.
The verses from "Behold, your God," to the end of the Prologue are the song of the heraldess. Do not their mingled martial and pastoral strains exactly suit the case of the Return? For this is an expedition, on which the nations champion has gone forth, not to lead His enemies captives to His gates, but that He may gather His people home. Not mailed men, in the pride of a victory they have helped to win, march in behind Him.-"armour and tumult and the garment rolled in blood,"-but a herd of mixed and feeble folk, with babes and women, in need of carriage and gentle leading, wander wearily back. And, therefore, in the mouth of the heraldess the figure changes from a warrior-king to the Good Shepherd. "With His right arm He gathers the lambs, and in His bosom bears them. Ewe-mothers He gently leads." How true a picture, and how much it recalls! Fifty years before, the exiles left their home (as we can see to this day upon Assyrian sculptures) in closely-driven companies, fettered, and with the urgency upon them of grim soldiers, who marched at intervals in their ranks to keep up the pace, and who tossed the weaklings impatiently aside. But now, see the slow and loosely-gathered bands wander back, just as quickly as the weakest feel strength to travel, and without any force or any guidance save that of their Almighty, Unseen Shepherd.
We are now able to appreciate the dramatic unity of this Prologue. How perfectly it gathers into its four Voices the whole course of Israels redemption: the first assurance of Grace whispered to the heart, cooperation with Providence, confidence in Gods bare Word, the full Return, and the Restoration of the City.
But its climax is undoubtedly the honour it lays upon the whole people to be publishers of the good news of God. Of this it speaks with trumpet tones. All Jerusalem must be a herald-people. And how could Israel help owning the constraint and inspiration to so high an office, after so heartfelt an experience of grace, so evident a redemption, so glorious a proof of the power of the Word of God? To have the heart thus filled with grace, to have the will enlisted in so Divine a work, to have known the almightiness of the Divine Word when everything else failed-after such an experience, who would not be able to preach the good news of God, to foretell, as our prophet bids Israel foretell, the coming of the Kingdom and Presence of God-the day when the Lords flock shall be perfect and none wanting, when society, though still weary and weak and mortal, shall have no stragglers nor outcasts nor reprobates.
O God, so fill us with Thy grace and enlist us in Thy work, so manifest the might of Thy word to us, that the ideal of Thy perfect kingdom may shine as bright and near to us as to Thy prophet of old, and that we may become its inspired preachers and ever labour in its hope. Amen.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v1Isa_40:1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your…
THE LORD’S PEOPLE COMFORTED
Isa_40:1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
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I. God has a people in the world. In one sense, all whom the Lord designs to create anew by His Holy Spirit, and who, though at present afar off, will at length be brought nigh unto Him, are His people (Act_18:10). But these are not the persons referred to in our text, for they cannot at present be known or addressed as God’s people; neither at present are they capable of being comforted, according to the direction here given. The “people” to whom the text refers are those who have fled to Christ for refuge from the wrath to come, and who are earnestly desiring to walk in newness of life.
II. It is the will of God that His people should enjoy the comforts of religion. The very nature of the religion He has given is to inspire comfort, as it is the very nature of the sun to diffuse light and heat. If His people are sorrowful or dejected, it is not because of their religion, but because they have too little religion, or because they do not know how to use the religion which they have. But it is desirable that they should be comforted—
1. For their own sakes. While they lack peace and joy they can never be as diligent as they ought to be in the duties of religion (H. E. I. 306–308).
2. For the honour of religion. The despondency and gloom of professors affords a handle to those who speak evil of the Christian life, and misrepresent it as a life of melancholy (H. E. I. 756–762). For these reasons God’s people should lay aside all unreasonable fears, and preachers of the Gospel should consider it an essential part of their office to minister to the people of God that consolation which belongs to them, and which they are capable of receiving. “Comfort ye,” &c.
III. Let us examine a few of the most common causes of that want of comfort of which God’s people frequently complain.
1. Their misunderstanding the nature and extent of that pardon of sin which the Gospel provides. Reclaimed from a worldly course, the recollection of their former sins is very painful to them. It often overspreads their minds like a thick cloud, and fills them with darkness and alarm. They are not indeed without a hope that they shall obtain forgiveness at last for Christ’s sake; but still they ask themselves, “What if God should not pardon me at last?” (H. E. I. 1268). But God does not offer to pardon you at some distant day. He offers, in the Gospel, to forgive you now; nay, He tells you, that if you have in your heart come to Christ and believed in Him, your sins are already forgiven (Rom_8:1; Luk_7:47; Col_2:13; 1Jn_2:12; Isa_44:22). The pardon vouchsafed is a present pardon (H. E. I. 2332–2339). When the prodigal returned to his father’s house a penitent, were not his offences fully and instantly forgiven and his self-reproaches stopped? Was he told, amid all the pleasures of the feast provided for him, that he must not enjoy himself too much, because perhaps his father might some years afterwards remember his past misconduct and visit it upon him? An apprehension of this kind would doubtless have much diminished his comfort; but would it not have been groundless and unreasonable? Equally groundless and unreasonable are your apprehensions, if you have indeed come to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Put them away and rejoice in a present salvation (2Co_4:17; Joh_5:24).
2. Their seeking comfort where it is not to be found. It is one of their privileges that they are renewed in the spirit of their minds, but this renewal is not, and cannot be, at present perfect. But they forget this, and when they look within themselves they find so many imperfections that they are greatly distressed. If you are never to partake of the peace and consolations of Christianity so long as you fall short of the spiritual standard of obedience, you must go mourning all your days: for the more spiritually-minded you grow, the more spiritual will that standard become in your estimation, and consequently the more unholy you will appear in your own eyes. You can never find comfort by poring into your own heart. Peace and joy come by believing. Christ is the only source of consolation to the soul. If you wanted light, would you expect to find it by looking downwards on the ground, or upwards to the sun? Would the Israelite, when bitten by the serpents, have found relief by meditating on his wounds and lamenting the violence and deadly nature of his disease? No; it was by looking on the serpent of brass that he found a cure, and had his heart filled with hope and joy. Look unto Jesus, rejoice in the sufficiency of His grace to redeem you from all evil (Jud_1:24; H. E. I. 4470–4474).
3. Their mistaking the proofs and marks of a really religious state. They say, “If we were the Lord’s people, we should feel it in our hearts.” But who has told you that warm and rapturous feelings are sure proofs of a truly religious state?
(1.) As a matter of fact, they are really reasons for suspicion when they are experienced at the outset of a religious life (Mat_13:5). There is a religion that is like a bundle of thorns on fire; for a little time there is noise and light and some measure of heat, but presently the flame subsides, the fire goes out, and all is dark and chill.
(2.) Even when feelings are real, it is not possible for them to be long wound up to one high pitch (H. E. I. 2073, 2074).
(3.) The Bible never bids you judge of your religious state by your own feelings. You are there told that you are to walk, not by sight, but by faith; and if by faith, not by feelings. The promises are not made to feeling, but to faith. St. Paul did not say to the jailer who asked what he must do to be saved, “Feel that you have Christ in your heart, and you shall be saved;” but, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,” &c. Are you humbly believing in Jesus Christ as your only Saviour? Are you living in dependence on the Divine promises, and in a faithful use of the means of grace? Are you doing the duties of your station in dependence on God, and with a desire to please, serve, and honour Him? Are you walking in Christian holiness? Then the comforts of Christianity belong to you. Receive them in faith. Be not discouraged because you cannot find in yourself this or that feeling. Rejoice in the Lord; believe His promises, because they are His. Abraham against hope believed in hope. He had nothing but the bare word of the Almighty on which he could confide. But what other ground of confidence could he desire? You have the same word; confide in that. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” You believe on Him, therefore you have everlasting life. What you may feel is nothing to the purpose. Your salvation is grounded, not on the changeable feelings of a frail and mutable creature, but on the faithfulness of Him who cannot lie (H. E. I. 2064–2067).—Edward Cooper: Practical and Familiar Sermons, vol. vii 345–362.
THE CURE FOR ANXIETY
Isa_40:1-2. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, &c.
The skill of a physician is shown—
1. In detecting the disease under which his patient suffers; and,
2. In choosing the best remedy.
There is as great variety in the diseases of the soul as in those of the body: there is the moral palsy, fever, consumption, answering in their symptoms to the corporeal maladies similarly designated; and some souls require quite a different regimen from all others.
I. A PREVALENT SICKNESS.
1. This is pointed out in the words, “Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,” &c. The condition of Jerusalem is one of distress, anxiety, and distraction; and this so well accords with a passage in the Psalms that it may be connected with it: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul.” The disease is here more clearly described—a “multitude of thoughts.” An old translation has it, “In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul;” and Bishop Austin’s version is, “In the multitude of my anxieties within me;” whilst the representation in the original Hebrew would seem that of a man involved in a labyrinth from whose intricacies there was no way of escape. All this agrees precisely with the case of Jerusalem in the text; and what cause of distressing anxiety would there be whilst there was warfare unfinished and sin unforgiven! The case of sickness, then, so emphatically prescribed for, is that under which the righteous may be labouring from the difficulties which encompass him.
2. Who labour most under this disease? The persons supposed are they who strive to walk according to the precepts of religion. A man may be “a man after God’s own heart,” and yet subject to the invasion of a crowd of anxieties; and it is never a part of our business to lessen the extent of what is blameworthy, nor to endeavour to persuade the righteous that freedom from anxiety is not a privilege to be sought after. The Christian may rise superior to all intruders, and prove that they do but heighten the blessedness of the blessing (H. E. I. 2053, 4054–4056).
II. IS THE PRESCRIPTION SUFFICIENT? The disease incapacitates for any process of argument; it were of little use to prescribe dark sayings, mysterious dogmas, as though God, in His dealings with His distracted people, did but prescribe the application of “things hard to be understood.” With David, recourse was not had to the mysteries of God, but only to His comfort—and with these the Psalmist found that he could delight his soul. Of what does this comfort consist? Of the rich assurances of His forgiving and accepting love; of the gracious declarations of His everlasting purpose to preserve to the end those chosen in Christ; the multiplied promises of spiritual guidance, protection, victory; the foretastes of immortality; the glimpses of things “within the veil.” It is the part of a righteous man, in his season of anxiety and distraction, to confine himself to those comforts, regarding them as a sick man does the medicines given him, as the cordial specially adapted to his state.
Observe that the comforting message is to be delivered to Jerusalem, and that annexed is a statement of “her warfare” being “accomplished.” Connect with the exclamation of Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.” It is no farfetched application of the text to affirm it as specially appropriate on the approach of the last enemy—death. It is here that the power of all mere human resources must eventually fail; for when a man thinks on what it is to die; when he reflects that die he must, so inevitable is the doom; and yet, that die he cannot, so certain is his immortality,—in vain does the world offer its richest possessions, or philosophy its conclusions. It can only be what emanates from another world, what comes with authority from another world, that can have a solacing power, when it is the loosening of our connection with this world which causes the confused tumult in the soul; and Christianity furnishes an abundance of what is needed for allaying the fear of death and soothing man’s passage to the tomb.
The anxious believer has then only to give himself meekly over into the Good Shepherd’s hands. Let him not argue, let him not debate, let him not sit in judgment; let him simply have recourse to the comforts of God. “None,” says Christ, “can pluck them out of my hands.” Christ holds His sheep; it is not the sheep that hold Christ, and God has caused it to be said of him, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my servant, and tell him that his warfare is accomplished.”—Henry Melvill, B.D.; Golden Lectures, 1851, pp. 737–744.
THE DIVINE GLORY REVEALED IN CHRIST
(Preached on Christmas Day.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of Him that crieth in the wilderness, &c. [1309]
[1309] Many have admired this prophecy as an ancient poem who have not arrived at the proper interpretation. The poet seizes on one point in the national theology—the coming of a great Deliverer. In his imagination he gives him the character of a conqueror, coming to save and deliver. He represents him as marching along in Eastern pomp, issuing messengers before him to prepare the way; sending out pioneers to raise the valleys, to level the mountains, to make “the crooked places straight, and the rough places plain.” And some have seen no more than this in it; they have lost all the character of the prophecy in their admiration of the poem. We are to remember that the prophetic dispensation was a Divine dispensation, and that the prophets were holy men of God. There is the richest poetry, yet there is no mere adornment that is, there is nothing designed only to please the imagination; but with every circumstance of figure and ornament some new revelation is communicated, or some old revelation placed in a new aspect, and shown with fresh vigour. Hence, therefore, in the interpretation of this text, we are really to expect a person crying, a voice preparing the way; we are really to expect the removing of difficulties, similar to the levelling of mountains, the raising of valleys, &c.; and we are really to expect, not merely some great deliverer indefinitely, but such a Deliverer, such a Saviour, as shall answer the description given of him in the text, “The glory of the Lord.”—Watson.
I take the text to be prophecy, in the first and lowest sense, of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon; then of the appearance of Christ in the flesh; of the manifestation, also, of Christ in the believer’s soul; and of the manner in which He will set up His spiritual kingdom in the world [1312]
[1312] We cannot understand the Scriptures aright unless we know that God has established an instructive set of types, making one thing the figure of another. All Nature is full of types of the most blessed things; and happy is the man who can read the book of Nature in the light of the Lord. Everything around him shall give him instruction. But one event is often made the type of another. The deliverance of the children of Israel was a type of the deliverance of the people of God. Their journey through the wilderness, their supplies, their deliverances, their entrance into Canaan, are a type of the true Joshua bringing His “many sons to glory.” The Babylonish captivity is a type of the present state of the Jews; and their restoration, probably alluded to in the text, is the best type of their being brought again into the Church; and the whole together is a type of the deliverance which God works out for His people and for the whole Church. The language, too, which is suited to these outward events is often employed by the Spirit to denote other events. For instance, the language which refers to the deliverance of His people out of the Babylonish captivity, and their restoration to their own land, is employed to set forth His plan of working in the hearts of men and in the world at large.
These things must be remembered in reference to prophecy. What appears to be human skill is absolutely heavenly wisdom. It must not be interpreted by the common canons of criticism, or we shall lose all its force, and beauty, and meaning.—Watson.
I. ITS LITERAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.
This prophecy was literally accomplished,—
1. In the appearance of John the Baptist.
2. Following the footsteps of the servant comes the Master. Here the glory of God was manifested, and all flesh living at that time in Judea saw it together. Jesus Christ was the visible image of the power, the truth, the holiness of God.
II. ITS SPIRITUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT. This is seen in the work of God in the human soul. In this there is both preparation and manifestation. For Christ no more bursts upon the soul at once than He did upon the world; He sends His messenger to prepare the way before Him. That preparing herald, figured by John the Baptist, is repentance. Consider what repentance is, and you will see how it prepares the soul for Christ, for pardon, happiness, and purity.
1. The first element in repentance is a deep and serious conviction of the fact of our sin.
2. The second is a conviction of the extreme danger of sin and its infinite desert.
3. The third is a burdened and disquieted spirit. When these convictions and feelings have been produced in the soul, it is prepared for the coming of Christ into it. And when He comes into it, in its deliverance from the guilt, misery, and dominion of sin there is a glorious manifestation of the mercy and power of God.
III. ITS ALLEGORICAL ACCOMPLISHMENT. It is seen in the establishment of Christ’s kingdom upon earth. He sends forth His heralds, and by them the world is being prepared for that fuller manifestation of God which will constitute the latter-day glory.—Richard Watson: Works, vol. iv. pp. 307–318.
PREPARING FOR THE COMING OF THE KING
(For Advent Sunday.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of him that crieth, &c.
The Spirit of Christ, which spake by the prophets, thus describes the preparatory work assigned to the heralds and forerunners of His advent. The application to John the Baptist is made by all the Evangelists, by John himself, and is confirmed by our Lord. One great point is thereby determined,—the whole passage has a spiritual meaning. It is, in fact, a parable or sacred allegory, by which alone we can be prepared to behold the glory of God revealed in the person of the Son. The “wilderness” represents the whole race of mankind alienated from God and abandoned to the impulses of a corrupt nature. Just so far as men are influenced by worldly principles the call is addressed to them. His way has yet to be prepared in their hearts. This saying applies in the full sense to the unconverted, but in a very true and practical sense it reaches all.
1. In order that the highway shall be made straight, the first injunction is that every valley shall be exalted. In mountainous districts many a deep ravine is found, scarcely visited by the sun’s light, filled with noxious vapours, producing scanty and unwholesome food for its squalid inhabitants. How many dark places of our common humanity may be described in these very terms! Man bridges the chasms, and makes a way by which he pusses triumphantly to the accomplishment of his objects; but as for the places themselves, he leaves them for the most part unchanged, or, if changed, but sadder and darker than before, the rushing sounds which tell of his onward progress being no solace to the startled mind of the dweller in the gloomy hollow. Far different is God’s way; not thus does He bid us prepare our brethren’s hearts, our own hearts, for His coming. He wills that the valley itself shall be exalted—the ignorant raised into the clear light of heaven, the gloomy and despondent spirit raised out of its state of hopeless foreboding and brooding sorrow.
2. “Every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Self-exaltation is the surest hindrance to the favour of the great King.
3. “The crooked shall be made straight.” Crookedness, dishonesty, the absence of candour, of sincerity, of straightforwardness, is a hateful thing and must be put away. In our temporal and spiritual things alike there must be an integrity that will bear the scrutiny of our Lord (H. E. I. 3000, 3010). When He finds a heart open to receive Him, an humble spirit, and guileless simplicity, He will never withhold the full disclosure of His love.
4. “And the rough places plain.” Such rough places were ever common in the East—rugged passes beset by dense thickets, lairs of wild beasts, intricate fastnesses, in which robbers find covert, which obstruct the progress of the sovereign into the remote parts of his dominions. In this we recognise a lively image of the evil passions, the corrupt affections, the unregulated desires which overrun the unregenerate heart, and which are extirpated slowly, with much effort, and very imperfectly from the heart when regenerate. We cannot say that the Saviour will not come to us, nor even that He will not dwell with us, until those hindrances are cleared away. That assertion would paralyse all hope; it is both contrary to experience and to plain texts of Holy Writ. But this we must say, He will not abide in us if things so evil are indulged and tolerated. The rough places must be made plain, at whatever cost; for until that work is accomplished, we cannot know the deep peace of the redeemed and sanctified child of grace (H. E. I. 1466–1468).
The work of preparation must be done. Are we dismayed at its extent? Then remember that it is a work of grace. What is low in us must be exalted by the action of grace upon our consenting hearts; what is haughty must be thus abased, the crooked be made straight, and the rough be made plain (H. E. I. 1071, 2376).—.F. C. Cook, M.A.: Sermons Preached in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, pp. 279–291.
The charge to “prepare the way of the Lord” implies that there are obstacles in the way.
His way is to be made through the desert and the wilderness, i.e., where hitherto there was no way. The reference may be, first, to the state of the Jewish Church in the time of John; but the words contain a true and clear description of the Gentile nations. And what is applied generally to the nations is equally applicable to every human heart:—
1. There is the pride and self-righteousness of man. The thoughts of men rise like mountains to impede the truth. At the very time when man is diseased and dying, he imagines himself whole, and without need of a physician.
2. The heart is by nature hard, impenitent, blinded to its own defects, and, even after confession of them, unwilling to have them condemned or to give them up. Men hear the righteous law denouncing them, but go on to break it; they can stand unmoved before the cross of Jesus and trample upon His blood (H. E. I. 2669–2279).
3. The state of human desires and affections presents other and formidable obstacles to the claims of the Lord. Their desires are low, their affections carnal (Luk_14:18-20).
4. In some there exists a mass of prejudice, and the truth of Christ is viewed under a false light, or through a perverting medium. They will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and they cannot enter therein. Some are prejudiced against the authority of revelation,—some against the doctrine of grace, or salvation by the merit of another; and many dislike the holiness, the self-denial, the separation from the world which Christianity inculcates.
CONCLUSION.—
1. Repentance is necessary to prepare the way,—humility, to receive and learn the doctrine,—prayer, to give it success in the heart,—and watchfulness, to carry it out into practice.
2. Every Christian has something to do in preparing the way of Christ in the earth.—George Redford, D.D., LL. D.: Weekly Christian Teacher, vol. ii. pp. 105–108.
This chapter opens the great evangelic poem, the work of Isaiah’s last years. It is among the most conspicuous of the heralds of the Advent. It contains three distinctly marked features which indicate definite stages of preparation for it.
1. It marks the period of Jewish history in which the temporal power and splendour of Judaism began visibly to wane. The mission of Judah as a kingdom was accomplished. But something in it did not wither. Faded and fallen as a nation, the Jews became at once more powerful than ever as a Church. 2. A very marked prophecy of a universal Church. The first promise (Gen_12:1-3) was hidden for ages. Here it does not flash,—it shines, the calling of the Gentiles being the great burden of it (Isa_49:5-6; Isa_49:22-23; Isa_9:1-6). The words were spoken on which the King, when He came, could rest His appeal (Luk_4:18-19).
3. There was a clear vision set before the Jews of a great Sufferer for man who should yet be a great Conqueror. From the day when Isaiah wrote, the form of the Messiah was set clearly before mankind.
How far did this preparation fall in with larger movements which made the world ready for the actual Advent?
How the heralds prepared the way of the Lord.
I. THE JEWISH THEOCRACY. Some suppose Christ to have grown out of His age. But Christ and Christianity cannot be accounted for by natural evolution, with the Jewish theocracy standing in the way. Gen_12:1-3 struck a keynote which runs through Jewish history.
II. THE JEWISH DISPERSION. The witnesses charged with the promise and the prophecy were scattered through the civilised world. Up to the captivity the Jews kept themselves sternly and sullenly isolated (Act_10:28); afterwards they dispersed with facility. The significance of this is to be found in estimating the confusion of religious beliefs among mankind; and especially that neither Oriental nor Western thought became victorious. Jewish communities, with a firm belief in revelation, sacred books containing credible history, and a definite system of Divine legislation, the purity, righteousness, and charity of which were self-evident, settled among them.
III. THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PROGRESS OF THE AGES PRECEDING THE ADVENT IN THE DIRECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. There was progress between Socrates and Seneca; from the citizen of a state, almost domestic in its character, man became the subject of a great empire, and developed individuality and responsibility. Alexander led the Greek into a world too big for him; he became oppressed, distracted, and broke away from his traditions in a world of ceaseless conflict and change. Between Alexander’s conquests and Roman supremacy the thinker was thrown back upon himself, and compelled to ask ultimate questions: What am I? Whence came I? &c. There was a tendency towards the Christian question of salvation. But there was no response to the question forcing itself forward, What must I do to be saved? All was waiting for the proclamation (Isa_61:1).
IV. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. This was by far the most important secular herald of the Advent (Luk_2:1).
1. Modern European society is but the fully-developed Empire of Rome.
2. Amid a universal peace, and with a universal language, preachers could go almost everywhere.
3. The fundamental question opened by the Roman Empire is also that of Christianity—the relation of men to each other. Is it enmity or brotherhood?
(1.) Political amity gave rise to the idea of human brotherhood.
(2.) Still men were at sea about the reality, grounds, and claims of this brotherhood.
(3.) Thus the way was prepared till the time came when there were “shepherds abiding in the field,” &c. (Luk_2:8-14). Thus the Lord entered into this world and took possession of His throne.—J. Baldwin Brown: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii. p. 40.
THE MORAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD
(Missionary Sermon.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of Him that crieth, &c.
We are authorised by the four Evangelists to understand these verses as a prophecy of the ministry of John the Baptist, who appeared as the forerunner of the Messiah; and they may be properly applied to all missionaries and religious workers who go out to uncivilised, heathen, and superstitious countries, to prepare the inhabitants for the reception of pure Christianity. The language is figurative, and is borrowed from an ancient Eastern custom. When monarchs went out to visit distant parts of their dominions or to invade neighbouring kingdoms, they sent heralds or pioneers before them to clear the way and remove obstructions. In allusion to this custom, John the Baptist and all his successors in similar work are represented as going out before the Messiah to clear away obstructions and prepare the way for the establishment of His kingdom in the world. Let us notice—
I. THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD IN ITS SINFUL AND UNREFORMED STATE.
It is here represented as a wild, pathless, and dreary wilderness. This figurative description suggests—
1. That it is unproductive of anything good. The earth when left uncultivated will produce nothing valuable and useful; and so men in their sinful state will bear no fruit to the glory of God and the good of their fellow-creatures.
2. That it is productive of things worthless, noxious, and injurious. A wilderness produces briars, thorns, and worthless weeds, and forms hiding-places for ravenous beasts and poisonous reptiles. This is a proper description of the heathen and uncivilised world. Men there rob, deceive, and devour each other. “The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”
II. THE NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT PREPARATION FOR ITS MORAL TRANSFORMATION.
1. Religious teachers must be employed to combat with the ignorance and thick darkness which cover the people. To preach the Gospel to people without any kind of elementary education would be like throwing grain-seed among thorns or over hard rocks uncovered with any soil. This preparatory work is carried on most effectively in the present day. Eleven Protestant missionaries and assistants are now employed on the wide field of the heathen and superstitious world for every one so employed fifty years ago.
2. The Word of God must be made accessible to the rations in their respective languages and dialects. Eighty years ago the Bible had not been translated into more than forty of the languages of the world; now the whole book, or portions of it, is translated into more than two hundred and fifty languages. We thus see that the Christian Church has done six times more to prepare the way of the Lord in the last eighty years than it had done in the previous eighteen hundred years.
3. The international communications which are rapidly opening in every direction are promoted by men of the world simply for mercantile and scientific purposes, but they are evidently overruled by Divine Providence to prepare the way of the Lord. Many are running to and fro, and knowledge is increasing. Pure Christianity will ultimately reap all the advantages of this, for every form of false religion can only thrive in the darkness of ignorance and thoughtlessness.
III. THE GLORIOUS TRANSFORMATION WHICH SHALL BE EFFECTED.
“Every valley shall be exalted,” &c., i.e., all the malarious morasses of immorality shall be drained and converted into healthy and productive land; all high hills and barren mountains of false systems of religion shall be levelled down and disappear; and all crooked and uneven dealings in the diplomacies of nations and commercial transactions shall be straightened and made conformable to the golden rule of the Gospel (Mat_7:12). When this blessed change is realised, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”—
1. In the number of converts to the true religion. The true followers of Christ in every age hitherto have been only a “little flock” in comparison with all the inhabitants of the world, but the time is coming “when they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.”
2. In the beauty of their holy and consistent characters. “Holiness unto the Lord” shall be stamped upon every person and thing then; “and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.” The good works of God’s people will so shine before men that they shall be led to glorify our Father which is in heaven.
3. In the temporal and spiritual happiness of the world. All the sources of misery and unhappiness shall be dried up entirely. Wars and bloody contentions between nations shall cease unto the ends of the earth. All tyranny, oppression, and every form of injustice shall be removed, and kindness, charity, and justice will occupy their place. Men who used to be likened to bears, wolves, lions, leopards, and poisonous serpents, shall be changed and become tame and as harmless as the lamb, the kid, and the weaned child (chap. Isa_11:6-8). The whole earth will become the holy mountain of the Lord. The spiritual condition of the Church will then be indescribably happy and glorious. There will be no lifeless religious service, and no worshipper groaning and downcast under the hidings of the Lord’s face, for “the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defence.”
IV. THE CERTAINTY OF THE REALISATION OF THIS TRANSFORMATION.
“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
1. The Lord has ample power to fulfil all His promises. The opponents and obstructors of the promised transformation are described in the next three verses as grass and withering flowers. And what is grass to withstand Almighty power?
2. The Lord is omniscient, and no unforeseen contingencies can derange His plans, as it is often with us (chap. Isa_46:9).
3. The Lord is the God of truth, and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of His law and promises to fail (Num_23:19).—Thomas Rees, D.D.
THE LEVELLING FORCE OF CHRISTIANITY
Isa_40:4. Every valley shall be exalted, &c.
The primary reference of these words is to the clearing of the way for the captive Jews in Babylon to return to their own land. Between Babylon and Jerusalem there was an immense tract of country, which was an untrodden and mountainous desert. The prophet hears in vision the voice of a herald demanding that a highway should be made, that the valleys be filled up, the mountains levelled, and the crooked way made straight. The Evangelists give the passage another and a moral application. They regard John the Baptist as the herald who in his wakening ministry prepared the way in men’s hearts for the mission of Him who was the spiritual Deliverer of mankind.
The words illustrate the socially levelling force of Christianity. There are and ever have been in the soul of society opinions, prejudices, feelings, conventional notions, which, like mountains and valleys, have separated men into classes, and prevented the free and loving interchange of soul. How does Christianity remove those mountains, fill up the valleys, and give a straight pathway into souls?
In two ways:—
I. By the levelling truths which it reveals.
1. A common God. A plurality of deities divides heathen society into sections. Christianity reveals one God, the Father of all, by whom are all things, and to whom are all things. It denounces all other deities as vanities and lies. A common God wakens a community of love, purpose, and worship.
2. A common nature. In heathen mythology men are represented as the offspring of different deities. In India one caste claims a nobler origin than another; and even in Christendom there are those who impiously claim a higher blood (Act_17:26).
3. A common obligation. Different codes of duty divide men. The Gospel reveals one law for all—to love the one God with all our hearts, and our neighbours as ourselves.
4. A common depravity. Pharisaic sentiment divides (Rom_3:23; Isa_53:6).
5. A common salvation. All are diseased, and there is but one Physician. All are captives, and there is but one Deliverer. All are lost, and there is but one Saviour.
II. By the levelling spirit which it generates. It generates a spirit which raises a man above the prejudices of heart and conventionalities that divide men. It is a spirit which has supreme regard to three things—
1. The spiritual in man. The true Christian spirit sees no dignity where there is meanness of soul, no degradation where there is a true nobility of heart.
2. The right in conduct. The true spirit judges not by custom and policy, but by principles of everlasting right; and it inspires a man to attempt the removal of all social mountains and hills that stand in the way of the right
3. The eternal in destiny. The human race is regarded not in its merely visible and temporal relation, but in its unseen and eternal.
Its levelling, however, does not involve spoliation. Distinctions arising from varieties in intellectual power, mental tastes, physical capacity, and individual circumstances, it recognises and respects. These do not necessarily involve social separations. Rightly used they are a blessed media of intercourse. It is the mountains arising from individual vanity, religious bigotry, national pride, worldly pretensions, and spiritual ignorance that Christianity levels to the dust.—David Thomas, D.D.: Homilist, Third Series, vol. viii. p. 95.
THE UNIVERSAL REVELATION OF THE GLORY OF THE LORD
Isa_40:5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, &c.
The chapter of which the text is a part forms the commencement of a series of addresses, distinguished not only for their elegance and sublimity, but for the manner in which they point to a future and far-distant period, when a display should be given of Divine splendour infinitely superior to any previously exhibited in our world. The institutions of the kingdom and Church of Judea, even in the days of Isaiah, were glory itself as compared with those of the nations around, and yet even their glory was as darkness when compared with those to which these predictions pointed as constituting the New Testament Church, and what has been emphatically characterised as “the glory of the latter days.” The former was but the dawn of a lengthened day; the latter was to be the brightness of meridian splendour; the former illumined a very limited sphere, the latter was to irradiate every part of the world, and to send its brilliancy through the universe.
I. The glory to be revealed—“the glory of the Lord.” The word glory is a figurative expression, signifying lustre, effulgence, splendour, magnificence. The glory of the Lord means the bright shining forth of the consummate excellences or perfections of His nature. Never was such an exhibition given of that glory as in the mission and mediation of the Son of God for the redemption of sinful men. It is to this that the declaration in the text unquestionably refers (cf. Isa_40:3-4; Joh_1:28; Mat_3:3). No event had ever given such a demonstrative display of the glory of the Lord as this (Luk_2:13-14). That the redemption of a ruined world was the object of the Messiah’s mission is undoubted (Gal_4:4-5); in this the glory of the Lord appeared (Isa_44:23). He displays His glory in all His works (Psa_19:1-2; Rom_1:20); but the brightest display of that glory by far is given, and is to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Note particularly that the glory of every Divine perfection was manifested in the mission and work of Christ.
2. Power (1Co_1:24); all the resources of earth and hell were laid under requisition to hinder the execution of His undertaking (Isa_63:1-6; Col_2:15).
3. Holiness and justice (Isa_53:5; Isa_53:10-12; Psa_22:1-3). How the glory of Divine grace now triumphed! Though the “Holy One,” He yet provided for the happiness of sinners; He showed Himself to be at once “the just God and the Saviour” (Rom_3:23-26; Eph_2:4-8). Like Him who accomplished it, redemption was not only “full of grace,” it was also “full of truth;” through Him all the promises of God were made “yea and amen to the glory of God by us;” the significance of the ancient sacrifices and ceremonies was disclosed; feeble glimmerings of light were swallowed up by a full blaze of glory (Mic_7:20; Joh_1:29).
The glory of the Lord was further demonstrated in the manner in which His various attributes were thus made to harmonise. There was no clashing; while the honour of each was advanced, the whole were glorified together (Psa_85:10-11).
II. The means that were to be employed in revealing this glory of the Lord.
1. The personal ministry of our Lord Himself (Heb_1:1-3). The manner in which Christ proved the truth of His mission and doctrines emphatically declared His glory (Joh_3:2; Luk_24:19); and all this was substantiated by His sufferings and death, His resurrection and ascension (Php_2:8-11).
2. The written Word of Christ (Joh_5:39; Col_3:16; 2Ti_3:15). All, therefore, who wish the glory of the Lord to be more and more revealed shall strive and “pray that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified.”
3. The preaching of the Gospel (Mar_16:15-16; Mar_16:20). Whenever the preaching of evangelical truth is rightly conducted, the glory of the Lord will be more and more revealed (1Co_1:18-24); but the members of the Church generally are to be instrumental by their prayers, instructions, and example (Mat_6:10; Isa_2:5; Mat_5:16; Php_1:9-11).
III. The extent to which the glory of the Lord shall be exhibited—“All flesh shall see it together.” When Isaiah spoke thus, the very existence of Jehovah was unknown to every nation under heaven but one. Innumerable multitudes are yet sitting in darkness. This great promise has still, therefore, to receive its full accomplishment (Isa_12:3; Mat_9:37-38; Rom_10:13; Rom_10:15); then shall come to pass the saying that is written (Hab_2:14; Isa_35:1-2).
IV. The great purpose for which the exhibition of the Divine glory is to be made. What this must be is clearly implied, though, in our version at least, not expressed. It is, that the Lord may so be made known as to be universally and exclusively honoured and obeyed (Isa_2:11). And the next grand object in view is, to promote the best interests of men (Isa_45:22; Isa_52:10).
V. The certainty of the whole, as intimated by the assertion—“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Heb_10:23; Heb_11:11; 1Sa_15:29). What the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, the power of the Lord will accomplish (Jer_32:27).
APPLICATION.—
1. Let us rejoice that our God is the God of glory, and in this character the God of salvation.
2. Let us individually seek to have saving manifestations of His glory (Exo_30:3; Exo_30:18).
3. Let us recognise our infinite obligations for the means we enjoy for this purpose.
4. Let us seek to advance His glory far and wide (Isa_62:1).—Adam Thomson, D.D.: Outlines, pp. 108–114.
We believe that Jesus Christ was that image of God whom prophets had been desiring to behold. Is that enough for us? Are we content that the world should go on as it is,—the Christian world, or the world that is not Christian?
If not, what is it we wish for? Is Jesus the One that shall come, or do we look for another?
There is a disposition among religious men to look for something else than the manifestation of Christ. Christ is, according to them, a means to an end, but not the end; the sight of Him is not itself what they covet; the loss of Him is not itself what they dread. Again, there are not a few who say that the Gospel has failed of its object. Has it set the world right? Has misery ceased? Has wrong ceased? Has the reign of peace begun? The last of these opinions ought not to be rejected till men have cleared their minds of the first.
I. In the Old Testament the misery of the Jewish people, though produced by the most different instruments, has but one cause. Whoever are the tyrants—Pharaoh, Jabin, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar—tyranny is the cause of their groaning. A Deliverer is their one infinite necessity. Men appear as their deliverers; but they appear in the name of the Lord. Idolatry is the worship of some tyrant force. These thoughts and experiences were the school of the prophets. Through the prevalence of idolatry in the world, they were forced to rely upon the might of God and to expect the revelation of His glory. God cannot be disappointed. His purpose is to reveal Himself, and He will reveal Himself.
II. Isaiah is rightly called “The Evangelical Prophet,” because he saw more clearly than any one that only One who perfectly revealed God, who perfectly revealed Him as a Deliverer, could be the Person whom Israelites and all nations desired. Every event was a partial Epiphany. He hungered for one which should be for “all flesh.” The mouth of the Lord had as much spoken this as He had spoken the commands against adultery, or murder, or false witness.
III. Apostles, while they claimed the words of this prophet as pointing to Christ, forbade a contentment with what disciples had heard, or seen, or felt, or believed. They said, “We are saved by hope” (Rom_11:33; Eph_3:18-19).
IV. Of such teaching the consequence must be, that whatever calamities come upon the world will be stimulants and encouragements to this hope. There will be no shame in indulging it; because it is a hope for the world and not only for ourselves. There will be no uncertainty about it; because it does not depend upon our faith or virtue, but upon the eternal Word of God. The mouth of the Lord had spoken it.
LESSONS.—
1. Let us have no doubt that, however we may classify men’s oppressions, as individual or social, as political or intellectual, as animal or spiritual, God Himself has awakened the cry for freedom.
2. Let us have no doubt that that cry is, when truly understood and interpreted, a cry that God will appear as the Deliverer, that His glory may be revealed.
3. Let us therefore be most eager to meet all these cries, however discordant they be, with a true sympathy and recognition.
4. Let us, without precipitation—rather by acts than by words—show that we believe we can give God’s answer to them.
It is an old commonplace of divinity which we are strangely forgetting, that despair is the only utter perdition, because despair binds a man in the prison of his evil nature, and fastens the chain of the evil spirit upon him; because all hope points upwards to God, and is the response of our spirit to His Spirit. The promise of this final Epiphany stands not on the decrees of lawgivers, or the expectations of holy men, or the confidence of seers. It comes from Him who said, “Let there be light, and there was light.”—F. D. Maurice: Lincoln’s Inn Sermons, vol. i. pp. 175–289.
COMFORT FOR THE SUFFERING
Isa_40:1-5. Comfort ye, &c.
IT is generally agreed that these last twenty-six chapters relate to the restoration of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon. They are the Gospel of the Old Testament. This is their value to us.
Put into the briefest words, the ideas contained in the first five verses of this chapter are—That a glorious change awaits the exiles, consisting of a new and generous manifestation of Jehovah’s presence, for which His people are exhorted to prepare.
The prophet is commanded to speak words of comfort to those captives from Jerusalem—to assure them that her warfare, her time of slavery, is about to end; that her sins are pardoned, abundantly expiated by her sufferings; that her God is coming to deliver her from the oppressor; and that she must prepare the way for His coming, as heralds ride before a conquering king.
The comforting announcement which the prophet was to make to Jerusalem was—
1. That her affliction had become full, and had therefore come to an end.
2. Her iniquity is atoned for and the justice of God is satisfied.
3. The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone.
The double punishment which she had endured is not to be taken in a judicial sense, in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust. The compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant.
But this is only the negative side of the consolation. What positive salvation is to be expected? “Hark, the voice of one crying!” The summons proceeds in a commanding tone: “Let every valley be exalted,” &c. Spiritually interpreted, the command points to the encouragement of those that are cast down, the humiliation of the self-righteous and self-secure, the changing of dishonesty into simplicity, and of haughtiness into submission. Israel is to take care that God shall find them in such an inward and outward state as shall enable Him to fulfil His purpose. “And the glory of Jehovah,” &c. When the way is prepared for the coming One, the glory of the God of salvation will be unveiled; and this revelation is made for the sake of Israel, but not secretly or exclusively, for “all flesh” will come to see the salvation of God. “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,” is the confirmation of the foregoing prophecy.
Suffering endured through a long period, comfort promised, the elements of that comfort and the preparation for receiving it—these are the chief thoughts and main topics of the passage.
I. We all have to suffer, and to suffer for our own sins and for the sins of one another, in one way or another, and in a greater or less degree. It is part of the mystery of the world that some lives, even in the morning of their days, are overhung with dark clouds of sorrow. With how many is life a continual struggle with feeble health; in others, mental cares, cares of business, anxieties; in others, pangs suffered over sins committed and things left undone.
II. The Old and New Testaments say that there is Divine comfort for the sorrowful sufferers. This teaching casts a new light upon human grief. It puts to shame all ancient and modern philosophy. The Divine Physician uses suffering as a medicine (Psa_119:67; Psa_119:71).
1. We feel ourselves drawn into the true path of life.
2. Then the comfort of another message begins to be felt—that our iniquity is pardoned.
3. Then His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
III. God is coming over the desert of our lives to reveal His glory to us (Isa_40:5).
IV. But, for coming into the possession of this privilege, we must prepare the way of the Lord (Isa_40:4; Mat_3:2). The conditions of comfort are here laid down. Christian comfort comes by raising up the whole soul of a man; by bringing down every proud thought; by straightening every crooked course; by chastening and refining all that is rugged in character or conduct. It is thus we prepare ourselves for the incoming of God.—Charles Short: Sermons, pp. 255–269.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible1900 · Public DomainOn v1I. In our text there is a specification of…
Isa 40:1
I. In our text there is a specification of one large class of medicine for spiritual disease; and therefore, by inference, one large class of sickness. "Comfort" is the staple of the prescription, and what was the condition of the patients? "Cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord’s hands double for all her sins." Here evidently the condition of Jerusalem is one of distress, anxiety, and distraction, and this accords most exactly with a passage of the Psalms: "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul." We conclude that the case of sickness so emphatically prescribed for in our text is that under which the righteous may be labouring from the difficulties which may encompass him. Our text contains a prescription, but not a prescription which will serve in all cases wherever there is a throng of anxious thoughts, but only in cases in which the party strives to walk according to the precepts of religion, and may therefore be classed among the people of God.
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II. Consider the faithfulness and efficacy of the medicine prescribed. The case is that of a righteous man, on whom cares and sorrows press with great weight, and whose mind is torn with anxieties, and thronged by a crowd of restless intruders, distracting him even in his communings with God. Now the very disease under which this man labours incapacitates him in a great measure for any process of argument. The comforts of God are the rich assurances of His forgiving and accepting love; the gracious declarations of His everlasting purpose of preserving to the end those whom He has chosen in Christ; the multiplied promises of spiritual guidance, protection, and victory, which make to the eye of faith the page of Scripture one sheet of burning brightness, always presenting most radiantly what is most suited to the necessity. There are the foretastes of immortality, the glimpses of things within the veil, the communications of the Spirit, the anticipations of glory, which if the cold and the worldly resolve into a dream of enthusiasm, the faithful know by experience belong to the realities of their portion. Here then are comforts, and it is the part of the righteous man in his season of anxiety and distraction to confine himself to these comforts, regarding them as a sick man the cordials which are specially adapted to his state.
III. We make no far-fetched application of the text, if we affirm it as specially appropriate on the approach of the last enemy, death. What has the believer to do when conscious that the time of his departure is at hand, but seize the consolations of Christianity, and give himself meekly over into the Good Shepherd’s hands? Let him not argue; let him not debate; let him not sit in judgment,—let him simply have recourse to the comforts of God.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1712.
I. With these words Isaiah opens his gospel; God’s good word to man. The earlier chapters are burdens; in view of the sins and wrongs around him, he lifts up his voice and denounces doom. But mercy rejoices against judgment, so he breaks forth before the burden is ended into the most sublime strains of consolation and hope which God’s prophets have ever been commissioned to utter to the world. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but I am thy Saviour," is the real text of his prophecy. It is the theme of his poem wrought out with consummate art through a hundred suggestive variations. A people self-destroyed, God-redeemed, is the thought which meets us everywhere; and it is this which makes these closing chapters the great evangelic poems, not of Israel only, but of the world.
II. The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God has breathed for them in His Word. These words look on through all the ages of human history. It is comfort throughout and comfort to the end. The mercy of judgment is a subject which we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunder-storms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere. Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world.
III. Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak of comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 1.
I. In the first place, let us identify the people spoken of. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people." There was a first reference to the people of the Jews, who we know all through were a people that shadowed forth other people. The people spoken of in these words who are to be comforted are preeminently the people of God. They are those who have Christ for their righteousness, and the Spirit for their strength, grace for their life, God for their Father, heaven for their home.
II. Notice next those messengers through whom this comfort is to be given. There seems to have been no plurality at first, for this is the writing of the prophet Isaiah; but as it was written it was not done with, and as the secretary of the Holy Spirit entered the minute in this book the All-wise Spirit said, "I shall want it for the future; for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul,—for all My servants through all ages. I shall be saying through all time through them, ’Comfort ye, comfort ye My people."
III. Consider the comfort we are to convey. "Comfort ye My people." (1) By reminding them that I am their God. All this chapter is a remembrance that God is the Father of His people. (2) By reminding them that their captivity in this world is nearly over, and that they will soon be home. There is a glorious world beyond this. We know that there is such a world. Let us cherish the thought, and push through the difficulties of this world. We shall not see it until we reach the throne of glory, and see God as He is. (3) The Saviour is coming to this world, and is on His way to show His glory here. Comfort the people who feel amazed and disquieted by the sight of the strong things that are arrayed against Christ. Tell them that Christ will overcome these things. He will come and fill the world with His victories.
C. Stanford, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 9.
References: Isa 40:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 221; Ibid. Old Testament Outlines, p. 197; C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 168. Isa 40:1, Isa 40:2.—H. Christopherson, Penny Pulpit, No. 440; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 110; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 117. Isa 40:3.—J. Service, Sermons, p. 1; A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 380; J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 40. Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 129.
Isa 40:3-5
I. The text teaches us that there are certain things which hinder the spread of the Redeemer’s kingdom, spoken of here as valleys, hills, mountains, rough places, and crooked ways. The obstacles to the spread of the Redeemer’s kingdom are so numerous, that I must not even attempt to name them, but refer, as an illustration, to heathenism and idolatry abroad, and to ignorance and vice at home. The heathenism we are trying to remove; and that yawning valley of ignorance we are, by God’s grace, as a nation, trying to fill up; but our national vices, which are like mountains, we are also commanded by God to level and to remove. Take the vice of intemperance. (1) Intemperance hinders the progress of God’s kingdom at home. (2) It is also a hindrance to the spread of the Gospel abroad. How is it that though eighteen hundred years have passed since the Redeemer made His great provision, and gave us the command to carry the glad tidings to all, midnight darkness rests upon most of the human family? (a) There is a want of means.(b) There is a want of men. (c) There is a want of success on the part of those who are already in the field. With all those reasons strong drink has something to do.
II. It is the duty of the Christian Church to sweep this mountain away. (1) The Church must, if she would hold her own. There is no neutrality in this war. (2) The Church must, if she would please her Master.
III. The text puts before us the glorious result. "Thy kingdom come "is our cry. Here is God’s answer: "Set to work; lift up the valley, bring down the mountain, make the rough places plain and the crooked places straight, and then I will come." God waits for man. As soon as the Church is prepared to do the Lord’s bidding, the world shall be filled with His glory.
C. Garrett, Loving Counsels, p. 142.
The imagery of the text appears to be drawn from the journey-ings of Israel to Canaan. That great event in their national history was constantly before the mind of Isaiah, and is presented in his writings with ever-varying illustration. Let us
I. Compare this prophecy with the history of the Exodus. The prophecies of God’s Word shine both before and behind. They not only illumine the darkness of futurity, but they reflect a radiance back on the page of history. So here. In the desert the Gospel was preached to Israel (as St. Paul says) in types and ordinances, and especially by that great act of their redemption out of Egypt. In this was a perpetual type of the Redeemer’s work of salvation, a foreshadowing of the inspired song, "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God." In the ordinances given by the dispensation of angels might be heard "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way for our God."
II. Isaiah used the message as an illustration of his own ministry. He too, living now probably in the idolatrous reign of Manasseh, felt himself in a spiritual desert. Led by faith he sees afar off, and the seer is himself transported into that bright future. Just as heralds announced the coming of an Oriental king, and pioneers prepared his march across hill and vale and desert plains, so would Divine Providence lead His exiles home, removing all obstacles from their path, and overruling the designs of their enemies.
III. The words of Isaiah certainly point on to Gospel times; for John the Baptist distinctly announced himself as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." This preparation, in a spiritual sense, he accomplished by his personal ministry.
IV. But even in John’s day the words had a wider signification. Not only the land of Israel, but the Gentile world, even all flesh, was then being prepared to see the salvation of God. Providential agencies were even then at work preparing Christ’s way among the Gentiles, as it were constructing a road for the march of Christianity through the desolate regions of heathendom. The two most powerful agencies were Greek literature and Roman dominion.
V. The prophecy sheds a lustre on the world’s future. The Christ has indeed come to earth, but it was to suffer and to die. Once more in this wide desert the "glory of the Lord shall be revealed," and not one but "all lands shall see it together."
S. P. Jose, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, May 13th, 1880.
References: Isa 40:3-5.—A. Rowland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 323; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 200.
Isa 40:4
I. Rough places. (1) In general human history. (2) In individual human life.
II. Rough places made plain. (1) The supreme power of Jesus Christ. (2) The supreme power of Jesus Christ used for the advantage of mankind. (3) The advantage of mankind identified with the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ.
III. The tranquil and blessed future of the world. Christianity is good news. Inequalities are to be rectified. Relations are to be adjusted.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 59.
Isa 40:5
Has this revelation of God’s glory respect only to the past and to the present? Has it nothing to do with the future? We believe that Jesus Christ was that image of God whom prophets had been desiring to behold. He took flesh, and through His flesh showed forth the fulness of that glory which the previous ages had only seen in scattered glimpses. Is that enough for us? If not, what is it we wish for? Is it something else than the manifestation of Christ? Is Jesus the One that shall come, or do we look for another?
I. If you read the Old Testament, you will perceive that there is a striking uniformity amidst the variety of its records. The misery of the Jewish people in the different ages of their commonwealth is produced by the most different instruments, but the cause of it is always the same. Tyranny is the cause of their groaning. And as the disease is the same, the remedy is the same. A deliverer is their one infinite necessity. Men appear as their deliverers, but they appear in the name of the Lord. He is the enemy of tyrants. He is the Deliverer.
II. Isaiah saw more clearly than any one that only One who perfectly revealed God—who perfectly revealed Him as a Deliverer—could be the Person whom Israelites and all nations desired, whom He Himself was teaching them to desire. He saw, indeed, in every event which took place in his own day a partial epiphany—a manifestation of God the righteous Judge, of God the Deliverer. But the more he recognised these revelations of the glory of God, the more he craved for One that should be perfect, that should be in the strictest and fullest sense for all flesh. Less than that it was treason against God to expect.
III. Let us have no doubt that, however we may classify men’s oppressions as individual or as social, as political or intellectual, as animal or spiritual, God Himself has awakened the cry for freedom. Let us have no doubt that that cry is, when truly understood and interpreted, a cry that God will appear as the Deliverer, that His glory may be revealed. We ought to stir up hope in every human being,—hope for present help from God to overcome the sin that most easily besets him; hope that he shall be able to say to the mountains which now stand in his way, "Remove, and be cast into the sea;" hope for the future, that the glory of God the Deliverer shall be fully revealed; and that we, being included in the "all flesh" of which the prophet writes, bearing that nature in and for which Christ died, shall be able to see it and rejoice in it.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i., p. 175.
References: Isa 40:5.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 327; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 361.
Isa 40:6
I. The text is an assertion of the shortness and uncertainty of life. And we may naturally be surprised that there should be so sublime and startling a machinery for the delivery to us of so commonplace a truth. Here is a voice from the firmament. An invisible agency is brought to bear, as though for the announcement of something altogether startling and unexpected. The amazed prophet asks what the message can be for the delivery of which he is summoned by so awful a call. And then he is merely called to publish what every one knew before: "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Truths, which we never think of disputing, may be practically those which we are most in the habit of forgetting. It is of well-known truths that a voice from heaven must speak to us, if it would speak of what it is important that we know.
II. It is but needful that the shortness and uncertainty of life should be actually felt, and there must pass a great moral revolution over the world; and numbers who persist in sinning because they believe themselves sure of an opportunity for repentance would be almost driven to an immediate attention to religion, feeling that if not an immediate there would probably be none. And the effect wrought on the unconverted, if we could penetrate them with a consciousness of the uncertainty of life, would not be without its parallel in the righteous on whom we cannot charge the habitual disregard of the dread things of the future. The same feeling is at work, if not in the same measure, in the righteous and the unrighteous—the feeling that the day of death is not near. It could not be that men professing religion would so entangle themselves with the affairs of earth, be so loth to make sacrifices in the cause of God, and apply themselves with so little earnestness and self-denial to the discipline of the heart, were they fraught with the persuasion that "the Judge standeth at the door."
III. If the exhibitions of human frailty may not teach men how frail they are, it may be that these exhibitions will dispose men to prayer. They cannot produce the consciousness, that "in the midst of life we are in death;" but they may excite the feeling, that there ought to be this consciousness, and this feeling may issue in an earnest cry that God would implant it.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1827.
References: Isa 40:6-8.—A. Boyd,Penny Pulpit, No. 498; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 999; J. G. Wood, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 114.
Isa 40:8
The immediate, the historical purpose of these words is undoubtedly to reassure the Jews of the captivity. It was to men whose eyes were resting on the magnificence and power of Bablyon that Isaiah spoke, but of another land and out of an earlier age, the solemn words: "All flesh is grass, and all the beauty thereof is as the flower of the field." In contrast with the perishing life of the great empire city and its vast populations, Isaiah points to the "word of our God." That word, he says, "will stand for ever."
I. By the word of our God—of Jehovah, the God of His people—Isaiah means, beyond doubt, in the first instance, the word of promise uttered in the desert by the inspired voice. The promise of the return from Babylon, the promise of the after-presence of Israel’s great Redeemer, would be verified. St. Peter detaches this text for us Christians from its immediate historical setting. He widens it; he gives it a strictly universal application.
II. Isaiah refers to the grass as an emblem of the perishable and the perishing. In looking at it, we look at that which is at best a vanishing form, ready almost ere it is matured to be resolved into its elements, to sink back into the earth from which it sprang. As soon as we are born, says the wise man, we begin to draw to our end. That is true of the highest and of the lowest forms of natural life. Whatever else human life is, whatever else it may imply, it is soon over. It fades away suddenly like the grass. The frontiers of life do not change with the generations of men, as do its attendant circumstances.
III. The word of the Lord endureth for ever. How do we know that? Certainly not in the same way as we know and are sure of the universality of death. We know it to be true if we believe two things: first, that God the perfect moral being exists; secondly, that He has spoken to man. If He is eternal then that which He proclaims as His truth and will, will bear on it the mark of His eternity. The word of God, speaking in conscience, speaking in revelation, is like God Himself above the waterfloods of change; it lasts. While men differ from each other about His word, it remains what it was, hidden, it may be, like our December sun,—hidden behind the clouds of speculation, or behind the clouds of controversy, but in itself unchanged, unchangeable. "Thy word, O Lord, endureth for ever in heaven."
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 706.
"Hast thou not known?" This is not a new revelation. It is an appeal to memory, and that is a strong point in all the Divine pleading. Our memory is to be as the prophet of the Lord in our life. Recollection is to be inspiration; the forty years gone are a pledge of the forty years to come. Let a man be faithful to his own recollections, and it is impossible he can long be despondent, weary and slow of heart, to lay hold of the great work and discipline of life.
I. Is God almighty? (1) Then do not fear for the stability of His works. (2) Have no fear about the realisation of His promises. (3) Do not imagine you can escape His judgments. (4) Be assured that the throne of right shall stand upon the ruins of all wrong.
II. God is not only powerful, but all wise. There is no searching of His understanding. Infinite strength would terrify us, but infinite strength under the dominion of infinite mind recovers us from the tremendous shock which comes of. abstract, immeasurable, unwasting strength. Is God all-wise? (1) Then the darkest providences have meaning. (2) His plan of salvation is complete and final, and we shall waste our strength and show how great is our folly by all attempts to improve the method of redemption and recovery of the world. (3) Our individual life is all understood by Him. That life is but dimly known to ourselves. We catch glimpses of it here and there, but its scope and meaning are still unrevealed to us. It is enough that God knows our life, and that His wisdom is pledged as our defence. (4) We have a guarantee of endless variety in our future studies and services. God is ever extending our knowledge of His works, in reward of the endeavours we are making to acquaint ourselves with the wonders by which we are enclosed.
III. The subject forces upon us the solemn enquiry: What is our relation to this dread Being, whose power is infinite, and whose wisdom is past finding out? We must sustain some relation to Him. We are the loyal subjects of His crown, or rebels in His empire. Pause and determine the answer. Everything depends upon our relation to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Parker, City Temple, 1870, p. 349.
References: Isa 40:8.—G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 17; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 73. Isa 40:9.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 275; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 362; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 101; W. Young, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 330; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 330. Isa 40:11.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xi., No. 652, vol. xiv., No. 794, vol. ix., No. 540, vol. xxiii., No. 1381; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 177; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 44; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 135, 293. Isa 40:20.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 244.
Isa 40:27
I. Isaiah here reaches and rests upon the very foundations of the faith, trust, and hope of mankind—the living God. Creation rests on His hand; man, the child of the higher creation, rests on His heart. What His power is to the material universe His moral nature and character are to the spiritual universe. This is the one ultimate answer of the Bible to all the questions which perplex and bewilder the intellect of man, the one solution of the mysteries which baffle his heart. "Have faith in God." Creation lives by faith unconsciously, and all her voices to our intelligent ear iterate and reiterate, "Have faith in God."
II. Have faith in God. What do we know of God that we should trust Him? what aspects does He present to us? We have two sources of knowledge—what He has said to, and what He has done for, man. (1) There is something unspeakably sublime in the appeal in Isa 40:26. It is heaven’s protest against man’s despair. Nor is Isaiah the only sacred writer who utters it. There is something very strikingly parallel in Job. And in both cases God’s appeal is to the grand and steadfast order of the vast universe, which He sustains and assures (read Job xxxviii.). God tells us, if words can tell, that all the hosts of heaven are attendant on the fortunes of mankind. They all live that God’s deep purpose concerning man may be accomplished. (2) God declares here that we are not only involved inextricably in the fulfilment of His deepest and most cherished counsels, but that we are needed to satisfy the yearnings of His Father’s heart.
III. We may apply these principles to the seasons of our experience when faith in the living God is the one thing which stands between us and the most blank despair. (1) The deep waters of personal affliction. (2) The weary search of the intellect for truth, the struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, to know the inscrutable, to see the invisible, which is part, and not the least heavy part, of the discipline of a man and of mankind. (3) Dark crises of human history, when truth, virtue, and manhood seem perishing from the world.
J. Baldwin Brown, Aids to the Development of the Divine Life, No. 9.
References: Isa 40:27-29.—E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 81. Isa 40:27-31.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 136. Isa 40:28.—Parker, Cavendish Pulpit, p. 269.
Isa 40:27-29
Notice:—
I. Isaiah’s despondency. It arose from a twofold source. (1) The sense of a Divine desertion: "My way is hid from the Lord." (2) The absence of Divine recompense: "My judgment is passed over from my God."
II. The truth that removed Isaiah’s despondency. (1) The greatness of God in nature. (2) The tenderness of the revealed will.
III. The results of its removal. (1) Strength in weakness. (2) Immortal youth.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 94.
Isa 40:28-31
I. We have, first, the prophet’s appeal to the familiar thought of an unchangeable God as the antidote to all despondency and the foundation of all hope. The life of men and of creatures is like a river, with its source and its course and its end. The life of God is like the ocean, with joyous movement of tides and currents of life and energy and purpose, but ever the same and ever returning upon itself. Jehovah, the unchanged, unchangeable, inexhaustible Being, spends and is unspent; gives and is none the poorer; works and is never wearied; lives and with no tendency to death in His life; flames—with no tendency to extinction in the blaze.
II. Notice, next, the unwearied God giving strength to wearied men. The more sad and pathetic the condition of feeble humanity by contrast with the strength, the immortal strength, of God, the more wondrous is that grace and power of His which are not contented with hanging there in the heavens above us, but bend right down to bless us and to turn us into their own likeness. It is much to preserve the stars from wrong; it is more to restore and to bring power to feeble men. It is much to uphold all those that are falling so that they may not fall; but it is more to raise up all those that have fallen and are bowed down.
III. The last thing in these words is, the wearied man lifted to the level of the unwearied God and to His likeness. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." That phrase means, of course, the continuous bestowment in unintermitting sequence of fresh gifts of power; as each former gift is exhausted, more is required. Grace abhors a vacuum, as nature does; and just as the endless procession of the waves rises on the beach, or as the restless network of the moonlight irradiation of the billows stretches all across the darkness of the sea, so that unbroken continuity of strength after strength gives grace for grace according to our need, and as each former supply is expended and used up God pours Himself into our hearts anew. That continuous communication leads to the perpetual youth of the Christian soul.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 293.
References: Isa 40:28-31.—H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 263. Isa 40:29.—Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 444. Isa 40:30, Isa 40:31.—J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 308.
Isa 40:31
I. Consider, first, what it is to wait upon the Lord. Three things make it: service, expectation, patience. "Wait on the Lord." We must be as those Eastern maidens who, as they ply their needle or their distaff, look to the eye and wait upon the hand of their mistress, as their guide which is to teach them, or their model which they are to copy. Our best lessons are always found in a Father’s eye. Therefore, if you would "wait upon the Lord," you must be always looking out for voices— those still small voices of the soul,—and you must expect them, and you must command them. But service, however devoted, or expectation, however intense, will not be waiting without patience. Here is where so many fail. The waiting times are so long: the interval between the prayer and the answer, between the repentance and the peace, between the work and the result, between sowing-time and reaping-time, and we are such impatient, impetuous creatures. We could not "tarry the Lord’s leisure."
II. Consider, next, the action: elevation, rapid progress, a steady course—soar, run, walk. Is it not just what we want—to get higher, to go faster, and to be more calmly consistent? (1) Elevation. What are the wings? Beyond a doubt, faith, prayer; or, if you will, humility and confidence in a beautiful equipoise, balancing one another on either side, so that the soul sustains itself in mid-air and flies upward. (2) "They shall run." Have you ever noticed how the servants of God in the Bible—from Abraham and David to Philip in the Acts—whenever they were told to do anything, always ran. It is the only way to do anything well. A thousand irksome duties become easy and pleasant if we do them runningly, that is, with a ready mind, an affectionate zeal, and a happy alacrity. (3) But there is something beyond this. It is more difficult to walk than to run. To maintain a quiet sustained walk, day by day, in the common things of life, in the house and out of the house, not impulsive, not capricious, not changeable,—that is the hardest thing to do. Let me give four rules for this walk: (a) Start from Christ; (b) walk with Christ; (c) walk leaning on Christ; (d) walk to Christ.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 279.
Isa 40:31
I. This is the gospel of the exile, the "gospel before the gospel," the good news of the swift accession of power and deliverance to the Jewish people, humiliated, dispirited, and tired out by monotonously waiting in their Babylonian captivity for a long-expected, long-delayed good.
II. Like all gospels, this gospel of the exile is God’s. God, in His loving care for a constant education of souls, is the Alpha and Omega of this whole gospel for captive Israel.
III. Like all Divine evangels, this good news for the captives of Babylon is addressed immediately to a special need, and adapted by its form to effect a particular result, viz., that of patient endurance of acute affliction, steadfast resistance to cowardly fears and weakening apprehension, brave battling with anxiety and carewornness, a resolute and determined climb towards the sunny heights and clear expanses of cheerfulness and joy. "Wait for God" is the ever-recurring and all-luminous word of the exile-gospel.
IV. Like all gospels from the heavens, this one for the Hebrew exiles obtained its full and complete verification from the uncontradicted facts of human experience. The sevenfold blessing of the exile stands written in the chronicles of Israel and of the world. (1) First, and most distinctive of the gains of the Jews from their captivity, stands their advanced and perfected knowledge of God. (2) Next comes up out of the exile the more definitely shaped and clearly conceived image of the Anointed of the Lord, the Daysman or Mediator, the Lord our Righteousness, the Herald of a new covenant, the suffering and conquering servant of God, who is to realise the ideal Jerusalem, and bring a new heaven and a new earth. (3) Fired by this hope of a personal Redeemer, and controlled by a spiritual conception of Jehovah, the worship of God entered on that final spiritual phase which has never been wholly eclipsed, though it has suffered, and still suffers, many painful obscurations. (4) Bound up with this we see the generation of a higher ethic, the birth of a nobler conception of life, as the sphere for rightness of aim and righteousness of character. (5) The temporary limitations and restrictions of Israel being removed, it is forthwith lifted into the stream of universal history, never to be taken out again as long as sun and moon endure. (6) The missionary spirit, as well as the missionary idea, glows and throbs in the oracles and songs which represent the highest thought and the purest emotion of this time. (7) This was completed by the enlargement and recension of that unique and marvellous missionary agent, the Old Testament literature.
V. This gospel, like all its fellows, never dies. It endures for ever and ever as a living message, not effete though old, not wasted though abundantly used, but partaking of the unwearied energy and eternal reproductiveness of its Infinite Source.
J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 241.
Isa 40:31
I. Physical weariness is the least part of the weariness of our world. The extent and the depth of heart-weariness is greater than complaint ever utters. There is a hidden, dull, weary, aching weariness in souls everywhere, which never reveals itself.
II. Hope in God is a quenchless hope for our essential, enduring nature, if we can come home to it—a hope that is capable of being re-born and newborn after every disappointment and death. It is a childlike confidence that we are heirs of our Father’s estate, and as a matter of birthright entitled to His friendship.
III. Those who wait upon God, and daily lay open their souls to His Spirit and working, know that a new nature is forming in them, and to that nature, in the proper sphere of God’s kingdom, all our hopes will be fulfilled. They that wait on God do mount up, they do leave earth’s weariness and despair far beneath them.
IV. A new will against all base earthborn inclinations, and a piercing intelligence beyond anything that the natural mind knows, are direct results of intercourse with God. They are virtues of the Divine Breath in man. "They shall mount up with wings as eagles." They are practising little daily ascensions before the day of the great ascension comes. They will come to life’s full cup, for they taste it already. God means Human Blessedness; and as often as they mount up into the fine air of His presence, the blessedness meets them and creates new assurance in their breast.
J. Pulsford, Our Deathless Hope, p. 126.
References: Isa 40:31.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 270; F. Tucker, Penny Pulpit, No. 439; Short Sermons for Family Reading, p. 425; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 876, vol. xxix., No. 1756; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 219; J. H. Anderson, Ibid., vol. iii., p. 84; J. Vaughan, Children’s Sermons, 6th series, p. 49.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1Israel's Restoration from Exile in Babylon
Israel's Restoration from Exile in Babylon
On the authorship and date of these chapters see Intro. According to their subject matter, they fall naturally into three divisions of almost equal length (Isaiah 40-48, 49-57, , 58-66), the close of each division being marked by an intimation that the wicked shall not share in the blessings promised to God's people.
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The hope of return is grounded by the prophet upon the fact that Jehovah is the only God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, the Disposer of the fate of nations, who guides the course of history according to His will. The tone of this section is argumentative, the respective claims of Jehovah and of the heathen gods being discussed as in a court of justice. The object of the argument is to encourage the Jews in their exile by showing that, since Jehovah is thus supreme, no obstacles will be able to interfere with the restoration to their own land which He has promised. With fine irony the prophet exhibits the infatuation of idol-makers and idol-worshippers; proving that, while the idols are senseless blocks and less than nothing (Isa_40:17), Jehovah is Lord of the world and controls all things. The Israelites can testify to His power, because through His prophets He has told them of things be fore they came to pass. Jehovah is, therefore, set forth as the deliverer of His people. But in the carrying out of His purposes He employs agents: (a) Cyrus, who is commissioned as His shepherd (Isa_44:28), His anointed (Isa_45:1), to perform all His pleasure in the overthrow of Babylon and deliverance of the Israelites from their exile; (b) the nation of Israel, which has its own work to do in the furthering of Jehovah's purposes. The title 'servant of Jehovah,' hitherto applied to individuals, is in these chapters (Isa_41:8; Isa_44:1-2, Isa_44:21; Isa_48:20) applied to the nation in its corporate capacity: perhaps also, though less directly, to the faithful Jews within the nation (Isa_42:1-7, Isa_42:18; Isa_43:8, Isa_43:10) on whom would devolve the fulfilment of God's will. The name implies, in the first place, the fact of the nation's election by Jehovah (Isa_48:8), and further the truth that Israel has a mission in the world, viz. to bring the knowledge of true religion to the Gentiles, and be a means of universal blessing (Isa_42:1 f).
The Proclamation of Deliverance
1, 2. The theme of the prophecies following: the period of Zion's trouble and affliction is over.
3-26. Celestial voices give the message of restoration to God's people, who are encouraged by the thought of His infinite power.
27-31. Trust in Jehovah is, therefore, the source of true strength.
2. Warfare] RM 'time of service,' i.e. enforced service and hardship: cp. Job_7:1. Double] i.e. double (ample) penalty (Jer_17:18), in the sufferings of the exile.
3-5. A first voice enjoins preparation for the progress of the great King, who will bring back His people from exile.
3. Crieth, etc.] RV 'crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness.' The passage was understood by the Baptist as prophetic of his own mission (Joh_1:23), and is so taken by thé Evangelists (Mat_3:3 and parallels).
4. This imagery is from the practice of Eastem monarchs, who thus made roads for the passage of their armies.
5. Shall see] shall see Jehovah's glorious deeds for His people, and acknowledge Him.
6-8. The message of the second voice. Human things must decay: Israel's oppressors are mortal, but Jehovah's promiseissure.
6. He said] i.e. the prophet himself; then in the words following, in reply to his question, a message is put into his mouth. 7. Spirit] RV 'breath,' or wind.
9-11. The third voice—the good tidings brought to Zion that Jehovah is approaching in triumph, bringing back His people.
9. Read, 'O thou that teilest good tidings to Zion.. O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem.' 'Thou that teilest'is fem. in Heb. The prophet in spirit sees a maiden, or a company of women (Psa_68:11) bringing the news.
10. His reward, etc.] The figure is that of a conqueror bringing the spoils of war. His work] RV 'recompense,' his redeemed people regarded as the prize of war.
11. The v. indicates in a figure the tender care with which God will support His people on their journey home. Are with young] RV 'give suck.'
12-26. The prophet's object is to show the power of Jehovah to deliver the people from captivity. He emphasises two thoughts: (a) the wonderful order and proportion in the universe show His infinite power and wisdom (Isa_40:12-17), and (b) no representation can be made of Him. How futile are the idols that men make! (Isa_40:18-20).
20. RV 'He that is too impoverished for such an oblation,' etc.
24. Shall not] read the tenses as past (RV). The v. expresses the transitory character of earthly powers in the sight of Jehovah.
26. Faileth] is missing.
27. The foregoing argument is addressed to a people who had suffered so long, that they thought God had forgotten them, and were despondent.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v1The first two verses of Isaiah 40. give the…
Comfort
The first two verses of Isaiah 40. give the key-note of the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah. The great theme of this section is Jesus Christ in His sufferings, and the glory that shall follow in the Davidic kingdom. (See "Christ in O.T.," sufferings,) Gen 4:4; Heb 10:18 glory,; 2Sa 7:8-15; Zec 12:8 Since Israel is to be regathered, converted, and made the centre of the new social order when the kingdom is set up, this part of Isaiah appropriately contains glowing prophecies concerning these events. The full view of the redemptive sufferings of Christ (e.g. Isaiah 53) leads to the evangelic strain so prominent in this part of Isaiah. (e.g. Isa 44:22-23; Isa 55:1-3).
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The change in style, about which so much has been said, is no more remarkable than the change of theme. A prophet who was also a patriot would not write of the sins and coming captivity of his people in the same exultant and joyous style which he would use to describe their redemption, blessing, and power. In Joh 12:37-44 quotations from Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6 are both ascribed to Isaiah.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v1Like the first part this second part of Isaiah…
II. THE LATER PROPHECIES OF COMFORT AND GLORY (40-66)
Like the first part this second part of Isaiah has three sections. The three sections of the first part revealed the judgments to come upon the Jewish people, Jerusalem, the nations and the earth. The three sections of the second part reveal the great blessings in store for the people of Israel, Jerusalem, the nations and the earth, after the judgments are passed. These sections give the past, present, and the future history of the Jewish people.
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In the first section (40-48) they are seen prophetically in Babylon, but about to be delivered and brought back to the land. Cyrus is predicted as the chosen instrument. However, this section looks also beyond the return of the remnant from Babylon. Their present dispersion and coming restoration is predicted as well.
In the second section (49-57) we find this period of their history more fully brought forward. In this section the servant of Jehovah is more fully revealed. He came to His own and they received Him not. They hid their faces from Him and esteemed Him not. In consequence of this rejection Israel is not gathered (Isa 49:5), while those who are afar Off, the Gentiles and the isles of the sea, hear of the salvation of God. It is the present age which can be traced in this section. Israel not gathered and the rejected One is given for a light to the nations. The great central figure in this section is the suffering servant of Jehovah (chapter 53).
In the third section we discover their future history. Here we see Him, who suffered, as the victorious King. A remnant is seen back in the land and the glories and blessings of the future burst forth in marvelous splendor.
1. In Babylon: Deliverance Promised Through Cyrus (40-48)
CHAPTER 40
The Opening Message: Key and Introduction to this Section
1. Comfort for His people (Isa 40:1-2) 2. The voice in the wilderness (Isa 40:3-5) 3. The prophet’s message (Isa 40:6-8) 4. The message to Zion (Isa 40:9-11) 5. The supremacy of Jehovah (Isa 40:12-26) 6. Comfort for Jacob and Israel (Isa 40:27-31)The first verses of this chapter are the key and introduction to the entire section. The Lord now speaks in comfort to Jerusalem and announces the pardoning of her iniquity and that in blessing she will receive double for her sins. In verses 3-11 the first and second coming of Christ are again blended together. John the Baptist was that voice crying in the wilderness John 1:233). Not in Matthew, but in Luke,Isa 40:3-31 is quoted with the exception of verse 5. In its place the Holy Spirit saith, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The glory of the Lord will be revealed with the second Advent. When that glory appears Israel is saved, in the meantime the salvation of God is offered to the Gentiles. Jehovah speaks in this chapter of Himself and the evidences that He is God. This is the peculiar feature of the entire section. All is spoken to encourage the faith of His people. Blessed lessons we find here. Verses 27-31, however, will only be fully realized in the future kingdom.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1The Word of Comfort and the God of Comfort.
The Word of Comfort and the God of Comfort.
The last part of the book of the prophet Isaiah has fitly been called the Book of Comfort, for in its beautiful language and in its exalted visions the Gospel of salvation is so clearly taught that it often seems as though John himself were speaking. The preacher and the prophet are combined in the message brought out by Isaiah to such an extent as to make us feel that voices from the world beyond are singing a glorious hymn of praise.
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The Gospel of Comfort
v. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Note the repetition of the charge, with the emphasis implied, the significance of the address in the plural as including the Gospel-messengers of all times, and the inviting designations "My" people and "your" God. In the very charge of Jehovah there is contained a tender call to the believers of all times to find true comfort and consolation in the message of salvation.
v. 2. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, literally, "to the heart of Jerusalem," addressing words of consolation to all members of the spiritual Zion, the Church of God, and cry unto her, in a sermon of sweetest assurance, that her warfare is accomplished, that the tribulation to which His people are subjected would soon be ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, namely, in and through the Messiah, whose coming is so clearly foretold in this series of prophecies; for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins, that is, the severe punishment which the Lord’s people had to endure for their sins was to be replaced in richest measure by evidences of His grace and mercy. That is the strange and wonderful manner in which the Lord deals with His children always—He substitutes acts of love and mercy for the well-merited condemnation. The prophet now shows in what way his threefold message would be realized.
v. 3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, of the herald of the great King Messiah, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, in the very midst of the spiritual wilderness in which men find themselves by nature, they should make ready a road on which their King might come into their hearts, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
v. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, the hearts that have been humbled by the hammer-blows of the Law being lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, the proud and self-righteous spirits being taught to despair of their own virtue; and the crooked shall be made straight, the hindrances laid flat, and the rough places plain, all obstructions due to sin and objection to the Lord and His Word being removed by the message of the New Testament;
v. 5. and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, namely, chiefly in the coming of His only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth, Joh 1:14, and all flesh shall see it together, all men having an opportunity to become acquainted with the Gospel of salvation, Mat 24:14; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The paragraph deals with the call to repentance with which the Messianic era opened, particularly in the preaching of John the Baptist, Mat 3:1-3; Mar 1:2-3; Luk 3:2-6; Joh 1:23, but finds its application also in all true preaching of the New Testament, which is essentially a proclamation of sin and grace. The prophet now introduces a dialog between a heavenly voice and that of the ideal prophet concerning the proclamation which is to be made.
v. 6. The voice, some one with authority speaking from heaven, said, Cry, call out, announce! And he, a voice on earth representing all true preachers of righteousness, said, What shall I cry? What are to be the contents of his preaching? And the answer comes down from heaven, All flesh is grass, all human beings are mortal, transitory, perishable, subject to death and decay, and all the goodliness thereof, all the outward show and pomp of men, is as the flower of the field, barely reaching an early maturity before it withers.
v. 7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, for it is He who gives them their being, and it is He who causes their decay; surely the people is grass, even the covenant nation. Cf Psa 104:29-30; Ecc 8:8; Rom 6:23; Psalms 90.
v. 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, the repetition being made for the sake of impressing this great truth upon all minds; but the Word of our God shall stand forever, in the midst of the death and decay of this world, in the midst even of the final great cataclysm which will usher in the end of the present earth, the Word of the Lord abides without change and modification, throughout eternity. The prophet, therefore, urges Zion, the Church of the Lord, to make known this Word with rejoicing,
v. 9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, the congregation of the Lord being regarded as an evangelist proclaiming the message of the Gospel, get thee up into the high mountain, from where her voice could be heard far and wide. O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, the parallelism bringing out the urgency of the call, lift up thy voice with strength, in triumphant strains, in a cheerful announcement; lift it up, be not afraid, faint-hearted on account of the feeling of unworthiness; say unto the cities of Judah, to all those who have experienced tribulation similar to that of the mother, Behold your God! The picture is that of the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity, but its application throughout presupposes New Testament conditions.
v. 10. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, the almighty Ruler making use of His omnipotence, and His arm shall rule for Him, in triumphing over all enemies. Behold, His reward is with Him, namely, that which He gained in the severe battle which He undertook, and His work before Him, the spoils which He has brought back, with which He intends to bless His people. One of these blessings is now described.
v. 11. He shall feed His flock, take the proper care of all His children in the faith, like a shepherd, in His capacity as the one true Shepherd of their souls; He shall gather the lambs, the young, weak, and inexperienced, with His arm, picking them up since they are unable to walk, and carry them in His bosom, with the most tender care, and shall gently lead those that are with young, lest the ewes be harmed by being overdriven. This entire introductory section, with its four strophes outlining the last part of the book, pictures the coming of the Messiah in all the beauty of its comfort, calls to repentance, emphasizes the certainty of His salvation, and proclaims the victory of the Lord and the glorification of the believers.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3Comfort, comfort
Comfort, comfort
The word "comfort" is repeated for emphasis.
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says your God
Here "your" is plural and refers to those whom the prophet tells to comfort God's people. (See: Forms of You)
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem
The prophet speaks of Jerusalem as if it were a woman whom Yahweh has forgiven. As such, Jerusalem represents the people who live in that city. AT: Speak tenderly to the people of Jerusalem" (See: Personification and Metonymy)
proclaim to her ... her warfare ... her iniquity ... she has received ... her sins
These pronouns refer to Jerusalem but may be changed if "the people of Jerusalem" is adopted as a translation. AT: "proclaim to them ... their warfare ... their iniquity ... they have received ... their sins" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
her warfare
Possible meanings are that the word "warfare" refers 1) to military battle or 2) to forced labor.
her iniquity is pardoned
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Yahweh has pardoned her iniquity" (See: Active or Passive)
from Yahweh's hand
Here the word "hand" represents Yahweh himself. AT: "from Yahweh" (See: Synecdoche)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1–340:1–66:24 The rest of Isaiah provides a message of…
40:1–66:24 The rest of Isaiah provides a message of comfort and a revelation of God’s character and his purposes for Israel. As 39:6-7 predicted, Judah would experience judgment and exile after the time of Isaiah. Throughout chs 40–66, Isaiah prophesied from the vantage point of the Exile having already become a reality. Therefore, the Babylonian exile provides the background for understanding these chapters.
40:1–55:13 This section announces the good news of God’s coming salvation. The Lord is coming to vindicate his own and to judge his enemies. Salvation would be accomplished through the arrival, suffering, and exaltation of the Lord’s servant—the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
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40:1-31 This chapter introduces chs 40–66. In this section, comfort refers to the result of God’s merciful way of dealing with people in the age to come. It includes encouragement, strength, and acceptance. God wants to rescue his people (40:1-11) and is more than able to do so (40:12-26). The exiles needed to believe God’s promises and wait on him for their rescue (40:27-31; see also 30:15-18).
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This is a consolation for the Church, assuring them,…
This is a consolation for the Church, assuring them, that they shall be never destitute of Prophets whereby he exhorteth the true ministers of God that then were, and those also that should come after him, to comfort the poor afflicted, and to assure them of their deliverance both of body and soul.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Isa 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith…
Isa 40:1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Ver. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.] Hitherto hath been the comminatory part of this prophecy: followeth now the consolatory. Here beginneth the gospel of the prophet Isaiah, and holds on to the end of the book. The good people of his time had been forewarned by the foregoing chapter of the Babylonian captivity, Those in later times, not only during the captivity, but under Antiochus and other tyrants, were ready to think themselves utterly cast off, because heavily afflicted. See Isa 40:27 of this chapter, with Lam 5:22. Here, therefore, command is given for their comfort, and that gospel be preached to the penitent; the word here used signifieth, first to repent, then to comfort. {1Sa 15:35 1Sa 12:24} This our prophet had been a Boanerges, a thundering preacher, all the fore part of his life. See one instance for all, {Isa 24:1-23} where, Pericles-like, fulgurat, intonat, totam terram permiscet, &c. Now toward his latter end, and when he had one foot in the grave, the other in heaven, he grew more mellow and melleous, as did likewise Mr Lever, Mr Perkins, Mr Whately, and some other eminent and earnest preachers that might be named, setting himself wholly in a manner to comfort the abject and feeble minded; which also he doth with singular dexterity and efficacy. This redoubled "Comfort ye," is not without its emphasis; but that which followeth {Isa 40:2} is a very hive of heavenly honey. {a}
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{a} Sunt autem omnia plena magnis adfectibus. - Hyp.
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.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2–3 Cry unto her; proclaim it in my name.
Cry unto her; proclaim it in my name.
Her warfare; the time of her servitude, and captivity, and misery.
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Her iniquity is pardoned; I am reconciled to her; I will not impute sin to her, to punish her any longer for it.
Double for all her sins; not twice as much as her sins deserved, for she herself confessed the contrary, Ezr 9:13; Lam 3:22; but abundantly enough to answer God’s design in this chastisement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example. Double is oft put for abundantly, as Isa 61:7; Jer 16:18; 17:18. God here speaks of himself after the manner of men, and compareth himself to a tender-hearted father, who when he hath corrected his child for his misdemeanour, relenteth and repenteth of his severity, and casteth his rod away.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 We have here the commission and instructions given, not…
We have here the commission and instructions given, not to this prophet only, but, with him, to all the Lord's prophets, nay, and to all Christ's ministers, to proclaim comfort to God's people. 1. This did not only warrant, but enjoin, this prophet himself to encourage the good people who lived in his own time, who could not but have very melancholy apprehensions of things when they saw Judah and Jerusalem by their daring impieties ripening apace for ruin, and God in his providence hastening ruin upon them. Let them be sure that, notwithstanding all this, God had mercy in store for them. 2. It was especially a direction to the prophets that should live in the time of captivity, when Jerusalem was in ruins; they must encourage the captives to hope for enlargement in due time. 3. Gospel ministers, being employed by the blessed Spirit as comforters, and as helpers of the joy of Christians, are here put in mind of their business. Here we have,
I. Comfortable words directed to God's people in general, Isa 40:1. The prophets have instructions from their God (for he is the Lord God of the holy prophets, Rev 22:6) to comfort the people of God; and the charge is doubled, Comfort you, comfort you - not because the prophets are unwilling to do it (no, it is the most pleasant part of their work), but because sometimes the souls of God's people refuse to be comforted, and their comforters must repeat things again and again, ere they can fasten any thing upon them. Observe here, 1. There are a people in the world that are God's people. 2. It is the will of God that his people should be a comforted people, even in the worst of times. 3. It is the work and business of ministers to do what they can for the comfort of God's people. 4. Words of conviction, such as we had in the former part of this book, must be followed with words of comfort, such as we have here; for he that has torn will heal us.
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II. Comfortable words directed to Jerusalem in particular: "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem (Isa 40:2); speak that which will revive her heart, and be a cordial to her and to all that belong to her and wish her well. Do not whisper it, but cry unto her: cry aloud, to show saints their comforts as well as to show sinners their transgressions; make her hear it:" 1. "That the days of her trouble are numbered and finished: Her warfare is accomplished, the set time of her servitude; the campaign is now at an end, and she shall retire into quarters of refreshment." Human life is a warfare (Job 7:1); the Christian life much more. But the struggle will not last always; the warfare will be accomplished, and then the good soldiers shall not only enter into rest, but be sure of their pay. 2. "That the cause of her trouble is removed, and, when that is taken away, the effect will cease. Tell her that her iniquity is pardoned, God is reconciled to her, and she shall no longer be treated as one guilty before him." Nothing can be spoken more comfortably than this, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. Troubles are then removed in love when sin is pardoned. 3. "That the end of her trouble is answered: She has received of the Lord double for the cure of all her sins, sufficient, and more than sufficient, to separate between her and her idols," the worship of which was the great sin for which God had a controversy with them, and from which he designed to reclaim them by their captivity in Babylon: and it had that effect upon them; it begat in them a rooted antipathy to idolatry, and was physic doubly strong for the purging out of that iniquity. Or it may be taken as the language of the divine compassion: His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel (Jdg 10:16), and, like a tender father, since he spoke against them he earnestly remembered them (Jer 31:20), and was ready to say that he had given them too much correction. They, being very penitent, acknowledged that God has punished them less than their iniquities deserved; but he, being very pitiful, owned, in a manner, that he had punished them more than they deserved. True penitents have indeed, in Christ and his sufferings, received of the Lord's hand double for all their sins; for the satisfaction Christ made by his death was of such an infinite value that it was more than double to the demerits of sin; for God spared not his own Son.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.…
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. The Babylonish captivity being predicted in the preceding chapter, for the comfort of God's people a deliverance is promised, expressed in such terms, as in the clearest and strongest manner to set forth the redemption and salvation by Jesus Christ, of which it was typical. Here begins the more evangelical and spiritual part of this prophecy, which reaches to and includes the whole Gospel dispensation, from the coming of John the Baptist to the second coming of Christ. It begins with comforts, and holds on and ends with them; which consolations, Kimchi observes, are what should be in the times of the Messiah; and the word "comfort" is repeated, he says, to confirm the thing. It is God that here speaks, who is the God of all comfort; the persons whom he would have comforted are his "people", whom he has chosen, with whom be has made a covenant in Christ, whom he has given to him, and he has redeemed by his blood, and whom he effectually calls by his grace; these are sometimes disconsolate, by reason of the corruptions of their nature, the temptations of Satan, the hidings of God's face, and the various afflictions they meet with; and it is the will of God they should be comforted, as appears by sending his Son to be the comforter of them, by giving his Spirit as another comforter, by appointing ordinances as breasts of consolation to them, by the promises he has made to them, and the confirmation of them by an oath, for their strong consolation; and particularly by the word of the Gospel, and the ministers of it, who are Barnabases, sons of consolation, who are sent with a comfortable message, and are encouraged in their work from the consideration of God being their God, who will be with them, assist them, and make their ministrations successful; and to these are these words addressed; which are repeated, not to suggest any backwardness in Gospel ministers, who are ready to go on such an errand, however reluctant they may be to carry bad tidings; but rather to signify the people's refusal to be comforted, and therefore must be spoken to again and again; and also to show the vehement and hearty desire of the Lord to have them comforted. The Targum is,
"O ye prophets, prophesy comforts concerning my people.''
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And the Septuagint and Arabic versions insert, "O ye priests", as if the words were directed to them. The preachers of the Gospel are meant, and are called unto; what the Lord would have said for the comfort of his people by them is expressed in the following verse.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap.…
The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap. xxxix, 6, 7, does here arm his people against it by the consideration of their certain deliverance out of it, and their blessed condition after it, as in other things so especially in the coming of the Messiah, and the great and glorious privileges conferred upon God's church and people in his days. The preaching of the gospel by John the baptist and the apostles, ver. 1-11. The power and wisdom of God in governing the world, ver. 12-17. The folly of idolatry, ver. 18-26. God knows the state of his people, and both can and will protect them, ver. 27-31.
Ye - Ye prophets and ministers.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–3 In this chapter the prophet opens the subject respecting…
CHAPTER XL
In this chapter the prophet opens the subject respecting the
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restoration of the Church with great force and elegance;
declaring God's command to his messengers the prophets to
comfort his people in their captivity, and to impart to them
the glad tidings that the time of favour and deliverance was
at hand, 1, 2.
Immediately a harbinger is introduced giving orders, as usual
in the march of eastern monarchs, to remove every obstacle, and
to prepare the way for their return to their own land, 3-5.
The same words, however, the New Testament Scriptures authorize
us to refer to the opening of the Gospel dispensation.
Accordingly, this subject, coming once in view, is principally
attended to in the sequel. Of this the prophet gives us
sufficient notice by introducing a voice commanding another
proclamation, which calls of our attention from all temporary,
fading things to the spiritual and eternal things of the
Gospel, 6-11.
And to remove every obstacle in the way of the prophecy in
either sense, or perhaps to give a farther display of the
character of the Redeemer, he enlarges on the power and wisdom
of God, as the Creator and Disposer of all things. It is
impossible to read this description of God, the most sublime
that ever was penned, without being struck with inexpressible
reverence and self-abasement. The contrast between the great
Jehovah and every thing reputed great in this world, how
admirably imagined, how exquisitely finished! What atoms and
inanities are they all before HIM who sitteth on the circle of
the immense heavens, and views the potentates of the earth in
the light of grasshoppers, - those poor insects that wander over
the barren heath for sustenance, spend the day in continual
chirpings, and take up their humble lodging at night on a blade
of grass! 12-26.
The prophet concludes with a most comfortable application of
the whole, by showing that all this infinite power and
unsearchable wisdom is unweariedly and everlastingly engaged in
strengthening, comforting, and saving his people, 27-31.
The course of prophecies which follow, from hence to the end of the book, and which taken together constitute the most elegant part of the sacred writings of the Old Testament, interspersed also with many passages of the highest sublimity, was probably delivered in the latter part of the reign of Hezekiah. The prophet in the foregoing chapter had delivered a very explicit declaration of the impending dissolution of the kingdom, and of the captivity of the royal house of David, and of the people, under the kings of Babylon. As the subject of his subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise of the restoration of the kingdom, and the return of the people from that captivity, by the merciful interposition of God in their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to this event. As the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe of Judah, which would otherwise have soon become undistinguished, and have been irrecoverably lost, was necessary, in the design and order of Providence, for the fulfilling of God's promises of establishing a more glorious and an everlasting kingdom, under the Messiah to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, the prophet connects these two events together, and hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intimations of the latter; and sometimes is so fully possessed with the glories of the future and more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the question.
Indeed this evangelical sense of the prophecy is so apparent, and stands forth in so strong a light, that some interpreters cannot see that it has any other; and will not allow the prophecy to have any relation at all to the return from the captivity of Babylon. It may therefore be useful to examine more attentively the train of the prophet's ideas, and to consider carefully the images under which he displays his subject. He hears a crier giving orders, by solemn proclamation, to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; to remove all obstructions before JEHOVAH marching through the desert; through the wild, uninhabited, impassable country. The deliverance of God's people from the Babylonish captivity is considered by him as parallel to the former deliverance of them from the Egyptian bondage. God was then represented as their king leading them in person through the vast deserts which lay in their way to the promised land of Canaan. It is not merely for JEHOVAH himself that in both cases the way was to be prepared, and all obstructions to be removed; but for JEHOVAH marching in person at the head of his people. Let us first see how this idea is pursued by the sacred poets who treat of the exodus, which is a favourite subject with them, and affords great choice of examples: -
"When Israel came out of Egypt,
The house of Jacob from the barbarous people;
Judah was his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion."
Ps 114:1-2.
"JEHOVAH his God is with him;
And the shout of a king is among them:
God brought them out of Egypt"___
Nu 23:21-22.
"Make a highway for him that rideth through the deserts:
O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people.
When thou marchedst through the wilderness,
The heavens dropped"___
Ps 68:4; Ps 68:7.
Let us now see how Isaiah treats the subject of the return of the people from Babylon. They were to march through the wilderness with JEHOVAH at their head, who was to lead them, to smooth the way before them, and to supply them with water in the thirsty desert; with perpetual allusion to the exodus: -
"Come ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the land of the
Chaldeans with the voice of joy: Publish ye this, and make it heard; utter it forth even to the
end of the earth; Say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob: They thirsted not in the deserts, through which he made them go; Waters from the rock he caused to flow for them; Yea, he clave the rock, and forth gushed the waters."
Isa 48:20-21.
"Remember not the former things;
And the things of ancient times regard not:"
(That is, the deliverance from Egypt:)
"Behold, I make a new thing;
Even now shall it spring forth; will ye not regard it?
Yea, I will make in the wilderness a way;
In the desert streams of water."
Isa 43:18-19.
"But he that trusteth in me shall inherit the land,
And shall possess my holy mountain.
Then will I say: Cast up, cast up the causeway; make
clear the way;
Remove every obstruction from the road of my people."
Isa 57:13-14.
"How beautiful appear on the mountains
The feet of the joyful messenger, of him that announceth
peace;
Of the joyful messenger of good tidings, of him that
announceth salvation;
Of him that saith to Sion, Thy God reigneth!
All thy watchmen lift up their voice, they shout together;
For face to face shall they see, when JEHOVAH returneth to
Sion.
Verily not in haste shall ye go forth,
And not by flight shall ye march along:
For JEHOVAH shall march in your front;
And the God of Israel shall bring up your rear."
Isa 52:7-8; Isa 52:12.
Babylon was separated from Judea by an immense tract of country which was one continued desert; that large part of Arabia called very properly Deserta. It is mentioned in history as a remarkable occurrence, that Nebuchadnezzar, having received the news of the death of his father, in order to make the utmost expedition in his journey to Babylon from Egypt and Phoenicia, set out with a few attendants, and passed through this desert. Berosus apud Joseph., Antiq. x. 11. This was the nearest way homewards for the Jews; and whether they actually returned by this way or not, the first thing that would occur on the proposal or thought of their return would be the difficulty of this almost impracticable passage. Accordingly the proclamation for the preparation of the way is the most natural idea, and the most obvious circumstance, by which the prophet could have opened his subject.
These things considered, I have not the least doubt that the return at the Jews from the captivity of Babylon is the first, though not the principal, thing in the prophet's view. The redemption from Babylon is clearly foretold and at the same time is employed as an image to shadow out a redemption of an infinitely higher and more important nature. I should not have thought it necessary to employ so many words in endeavouring to establish what is called the literal sense of this prophecy, which I think cannot be rightly understood without it, had I not observed that many interpreters of the first authority, in particular the very learned Vitringa, have excluded it entirely.
Yet obvious and plain as I think this literal sense is, we have nevertheless the irrefragable authority of John the Baptist, and of our blessed Saviour himself, as recorded by all the Evangelists, for explaining this exordium of the prophecy of the opening of the Gospel by the preaching of John, and of the introduction of the kingdom of Messiah; who was to effect a much greater deliverance of the people of God, Gentiles as well as Jews, from the captivity of sin and the dominion of death. And this we shall find to be the case in many subsequent parts also of this prophecy, where passages manifestly relating to the deliverance of the Jewish nation, effected by Cyrus, are, with good reason, and upon undoubted authority, to be understood of the redemption wrought for mankind by Christ.
If the literal sense of this prophecy, as above explained, cannot be questioned, much less surely can the spiritual; which, I think, is allowed on all hands, even by Grotius himself. If both are to be admitted, here is a plain example of the mystical allegory, or double sense, as it is commonly called, of prophecy; which the sacred writers of the New Testament clearly suppose, and according to which they frequently frame their interpretation of passages from the Old Testament. Of the foundation and properties of this sort of allegory, see De S. Poes. Hebr. Praelect. xi.
NOTES ON CHAP. XL
Verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye] "The whole of this prophecy," says Kimchi, "belongs to the days of the Messiah."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Isa 40:1-2. Comfort ye, &c. — “The prophet, in…
Isa 40:1-2. Comfort ye, &c. — “The prophet, in the foregoing chapter, had delivered a very explicit declaration of the impending dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and of the captivity of the royal house of David, and of the people, under the king of Babylon. As the subject of his subsequent prophecies was to be chiefly of the consolatory kind, he opens them with giving a promise of the restoration of the kingdom, and the return of the people from that captivity, by the merciful interposition of God in their favour. But the views of the prophet are not confined to this event; as the restoration of the royal family, and of the tribe of Judah, was necessary, in the design and order of Providence, for the fulfilling of God’s promises of establishing a more glorious and everlasting kingdom, under the Messiah, to be born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of David; the prophet connects these two events together, and hardly ever treats of the former without throwing in some intimation of the latter, and sometimes is so fully possessed with the glories of the future more remote kingdom, that he seems to leave the more immediate subject of his commission almost out of the question.” — Bishop Lowth.
Comfort ye my people — Ye prophets and ministers of the Lord, which now are, or hereafter shall be; the LXX. say, ιερεις, ye priests; deliver the following comfortable message from me to my people, that they may not sink under their burdens. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem — Hebrew, על לב, to the heart of Jerusalem. So the LXX., λαλησατε εις την καρδιαν. And cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished — Proclaim in my name, that the time of her servitude, captivity, and misery, is finished. The LXX. render it, Comfort her, οτι επλησθη η ταπεινωσις αυτης, because her humiliation, that is, the time of her humiliation, is fulfilled. Her iniquity is pardoned — I am reconciled to her; I will not impute sin to her, so as to punish her any longer for it. She hath received at the Lord’s hand double, &c. — Not twice as much as her sins deserved, for she herself confesses the contrary, Lam 3:22; Ezr 9:13; but abundantly enough to answer God’s design in this chastisement, which was to humble and reform them, and to warn others by their example; double being often put for abundantly. Or, “double in proportion to God’s usual severity in punishing men’s sins.” See Jer 16:18; Jer 17:18; Rev 18:6. God always punishes men less than their iniquities deserve; yet he showed greater severity against the sins of the Jews than toward those of other nations, Dan 9:12; Amo 3:2. For as they had received more peculiar favours from God, and a clearer knowledge of his will, than the rest of mankind, their sins were the more aggravated, and required a severer chastisement. Vitringa, however, and Bishop Lowth, not to mention some other learned interpreters, understand the clause in a different light. The meaning, according to the former, is, “that though God might, with great justice, punish the sins of his people more severely, yet, at this time of grace, he would cease from his severity, would forgive their sins, and crown them with a double portion of his blessings.” And the bishop, comparing the passage with Isa 61:7; Job 42:10; and Zec 9:12, (which see,) translates the verse, “Speak ye animating words to Jerusalem, and declare unto her that her warfare is fulfilled; that the expiation of her iniquity is accepted; that she shall receive, at the hands of Jehovah, blessings double to the punishment of all her sins.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people - This is…
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people - This is the exordium, or the general subject of this and the following chapters. The commencement is abrupt, as often happens in Isaiah and the other prophets. The scene where this vision is laid is in Babylon; the time near the close of the captivity. The topic, or main subject of the consolation, is stated in the following verse - that that captivity was about to end, and that brighter and happier days were to succeed their calamities and their exile. The exhortation to ‘comfort’ the people is to be understood as a command of God to those in Babylon whose office or duty it would be to address them - that is, to the ministers of religion, or to the prophets. The Targum of Jonathan thus renders it: ‘Ye prophets, prophesy consolations concerning my people.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith God. O priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem; comfort her.’ The design of Isaiah is doubtless to furnish that which should be to them a source of consolation when amidst the deep distress of their long captivity; to furnish an assurance that the captivity was about to end, and that brighter and happier times were to ensue.
The exhortation or command is repeated, to give intensity or emphasis to it, in the usual manner in Hebrew, where emphasis is denoted by the repetition of a word. The word rendered ‘comfort’ (from נחם nâcham) means properly to draw the breath forcibly, to sigh, pant, groan; then to lament, or grieve Psa 90:13; Jer 15:6; then to comfort or console one’s-self Gen 38:12. then to take vengeance (compare the note at Isa 1:24). All the forms of the word, and all the significations, indicate deep emotion, and the obtaining of relief either by repenting, or by taking vengeance, or by administering the proper topics of consolation. Here the topic of consolation is, that their calamities were about to come to an end, in accordance with the unchanging promises of a faithful God Isa 40:8, and is thus in accordance with what is said in Heb 6:17-18.
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My people - The people of God. He regarded those in Babylon as his people; and he designed also to adduce such topics of consolation as would be adapted to comfort all his people in all ages.
Saith your God - The God of those whom he addressed - the God of the prophets or ministers of religion whose office was to comfort the people. We may remark here, that it is an important part of the ministerial office to administer consolation to the people of God in affiction; to exhibit to them his promises; to urge the topics of religion which are adapted to sustain them; and especially to uphold and cheer them with the assurance that their trials will soon come to an end, and will all terminate in complete deliverance from sorrow and calamity in heaven.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Be. Septuagint, "comfort my people." Let them not be…
Be. Septuagint, "comfort my people." Let them not be dejected. (Haydock) --- The end of the captivity, and still more the coming of the Messias, afford consolation, (Calmet) and to this the prophet chiefly alludes. (Worthington)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Prologue: the Objective and Subjective basis of Redemption
I.—THE FIRST DISCOURSE
The Prologue: the Objective and Subjective basis of Redemption
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Isaiah 40
1. THE PROLOGUE OF THE SECOND PART AND OF THE FIRST DISCOURSE
Isa_40:1-11
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
Saith your God.
2 Speak ye 2comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
That her 3warfare is accomplished,
That 4her iniquity is pardoned:
5For she hath received of the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that crieth 6in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low:
And the crooked shall be made 7straight,
And 8the rough places 9plain:
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together:
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
6 10The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass,
And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
Because 11the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it:
Surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
But the word of our God shall stand forever.
9 12O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain;
13O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings,
Lift up thy voice with strength;
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10 Behold, the Lord God will come 14 15with strong hand,
And his arm shall rule for him:
Behold his reward is with him,
And 16his work before him.
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd:
He shall gather the lambs with his arm,
And carry them in his bosom,
And shall gently lead those 17that are with young.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_40:1. The rhetorical form of anadiplosis (epanalepsis, epizeuxis) occurs, indeed, principally in the second part (Isa_40:1; Isa_41:27; Isa_43:11; Isa_43:25; Isa_48:11; Isa_48:15; Isa_51:9; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:17; Isa_52:1; Isa_52:11; Isa_57:6; Isa_57:14; Isa_57:19; Isa_62:10; Isa_65:1). But it occurs also not unfrequently in passages of the first part that are the acknowledged productions of Isa. (Isa_8:9; Isa_18:2; Isa_18:7; Isa_21:11; Isa_28:10; Isa_28:13; Isa_29:1. Comp., beside Isa_15:1; Isa_21:9; Isa_24:16; Isa_26:3; Isa_26:15; Isa_27:5; Isa_38:11; Isa_38:17; Isa_38:19. Agreeably to the character of this section, the Piel נִחַם occurs oftener in the second part: Isa_40:1; Isa_49:13; Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:19; Isa_52:9; Isa_61:2; Isa_66:13 (Pual Isa_54:11; Isa_66:13). Piel occurs twice in the first part: Isa_12:1; Isa_22:4. The passages Isa_49:13; Isa_51:3; Isa_51:12; Isa_52:9; Isa_66:13, are manifest echoes of the present passage—עם with the suffix referring to Jehovah, as it suits the contents of the second part, is found there oftener than in the first: comp. Isa_3:12; Isa_10:2; Isa_10:24; Isa_32:13; Isa_32:18, with Isa_40:1; Isa_43:20; Isa_47:6; Isa_51:4; Isa_51:16; Isa_52:5 sq.; Isa_28:5; Isa_30:26; Isa_58:1; Isa_65:10; Isa_65:19, etc.
The expression יאמַר א׳, as an introductory formula, is peculiar to Isaiah; for it is found only in Isaiah, and that in both parts: Isa_1:11; Isa_1:18; Isa_33:10; Isa_40:1; Isa_40:25; Isa_41:21; Isa_66:9 (comp. Kleinert, Echtheit der jesajan, Weissag, I. p. 239 sqq.). The Imperfect יאמר corresponds to the aim of chapters 40–66. Comp., the formula with which the Prophet introduces the prophecies he addresses to the present church (שִׁמְעוּדְבַר י׳ Isa_1:10; נְאֻם י׳ Isa_1:24; הַרָּבָר אֲשֶׁר חָזָה ונו׳ Isa_2:1, etc., comp. Isa_7:3; Isa_7:7; Isa_7:10; Isa_8:1; Isa_8:5; Isa_8:11; Isa_14:28; Isa_20:2, etc.). יאמר, taken exactly, is for us an untranslatable verbal form, that, according to its original sense, designates the thought neither as present nor future, nor in any way as one to be estimated by time measure, but one to be estimated by the measure of its mode of existence. That is, the Imperfect designates, not that which has objectively come into actual existence, but what is only present some way subjectively. In other words, יאמר, standing at the beginning of the second part, characterizes it as addressed to an ideal church. In itself, indeed, יאמר can mean, “he will speak.” Thus it is taken by Stier, v. Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1. p. 91, Ausg. v. J. 1853), and Klostermann (Zeitschrift f. Luth. Th. u. K. 1876, I. p. 24 sqq.); the last named of whom, however, errs in thinking that the following discourse Isa_40:3-11 gives the Imperfect the direction toward the future. For what follows, and is separated by intermediate members can never determine the specific sense of a Hebrew verbal form. יאמר can, also in itself mean frequent repetition (Delitzsch). But all these significations are too special. The subjective force of the Imperfect is capable of various signification according to the context. Here at the beginning we are much too little au fait, to assign to the word a construction as definite as those expositors would do. Here we know from the יאמר only this much, that what follows is to be regarded, not as something that has just gone forth, something to be executed at once for the present church, but as an ideal word of God according to its point of departure and aim.—We have said above that עם with a suffix referring to Jehovah occurs much oftener in the second part than in the first. The same is to be said of אלהים with the suffix referring to Israel. אֱלֹהַי occurs twice in the first part (Isa_7:13; Isa_25:1), five times in the second (Isa_40:27; Isa_49:4-5; Isa_57:21; Isa_61:10); אלהינו six times in the first part (Isa_50:10; Isa_25:9; Isa_26:13; Isa_35:2; Isa_36:7; Isa_37:20), eight times in the second (Isa_40:3; Isa_40:8; Isa_42:17; Isa_52:10; Isa_55:7; Isa_59:13; Isa_61:2; Isa_61:6); אֱלֹהֶיךָ in the first part properly only once in the sense here under review (Isa_7:11; beside this Isa_37:4; Isa_37:10), six times in the second (Isa_41:10; Isa_41:13; Isa_43:3; Isa_48:17; Isa_51:15; Isa_55:5); אֱלֹהַיִךְ occurs not at all in the first part, on the other hand nine times in the second (Isa_51:20; Isa_51:22; Isa_52:7; Isa_54:6; Isa_60:9; Isa_60:19; Isa_62:3; Isa_62:5; Isa_66:9); אלהיכם in the first part only Isa_35:4, in the second Isa_40:1; Isa_40:9; Isa_59:2; אלהיו in the sense meant here only Isa_50:10; Isa_58:2; אלהיה and אלהיהם occur in this sense in neither part. It is quite natural that the affectionate words of endearment should occur oftener in the book of comfort than in the book of threatening.
Isa_40:2. The question might be raised whether כִּי is to be construed as a causal particle. But in that case קראו must be referred to what precedes, and that, say, in the sense of קִרְאוּ מַלְאוּ (Jer_4:5) in order that it may not stand as flat and superfluous. This construction is not allowable here because קראו must be closely connected with the preceding דברו על־לב.
We must therefore refer קראו to what follows, and כִּי, in the sense of “that,” introduces the objective clause.—צָבָא only here and Dan_8:12 is used as feminine. The reason seems to me to lie in this, that in both passages the word is conceived as collective, i. e., as designation, not of a single conflict, but of a multitude of conflicts, of a long continued period of conflict.—מלא of time (comp. Gen_25:24; Gen_29:21; Jer_25:12) occurs again in Isaiah only Isa_65:20 in the Piel.—The expression בִּפְלַיִם occurs elsewhere only Job_11:6; the singular, also, כֶּפֶל, duplicatio, only Job_41:4.
Isa_40:3. Piel יִשַׁר, “make straight,” occurs again only Isa_45:2; Isa_45:13.—(ערבה, regio arida, apart from Isa_35:1; Isa_35:6, occurs in part first only Isa_33:9; whereas in part second, beside the present it occurs Isa_41:19; Isa_51:3.—מסלה occurs in the same sense as here Isa_11:16; Isa_19:23; Isa_62:10; comp. Isa_33:8; Isa_49:11; Isa_59:7. It occurs beside Isa_7:3; Isa_36:2. It is “the highway, embankment road, chaussee.”
Isa_40:4. שָׁפֵל a word of frequent recurrence, especially in the second introduction: Isa_2:9; Isa_2:11-12; Isa_2:17; Isa_5:15; then Isa_10:33; Isa_29:4; Isa_32:18; also the antithesis of הַר andנִבְעָה in parallelism occurs very often in part first: Isa_2:14; Isa_10:32; Isa_30:17; Isa_30:25; Isa_31:4, and somewhat oftener still in part second: Isa_40:4; Isa_40:12; Isa_41:15; Isa_42:15; Isa_54:10; Isa_55:12; Isa_65:7.—עָקֹב in the present sense only here; comp. Jer_17:9—מִישׁוֹר Isa_11:4 in the ethical sense; Isa_42:16.—רֶכֶם ἅπ. λεγ., from רָכַם alligavit Exo_28:28; Exo_39:21, like jugum from jungere. “the joining,” particularly the union between two mountains, “the yoke.”
Isa_40:5. בִּקְעָה again in Isaiah only Isa_41:18; Isa_63:14.—The expression כְּבוֹד י׳ is found in Isaiah again only Isa_35:2; Isa_58:8; Isa_60:1. נִנְלָה כבוד י׳ does not occur again in Isaiah. The expression seems to connect with נִרְאָה כבוד י׳ in the Pentateuch: Exo_16:10; Lev_9:6; Num_14:10, etc.—כל־בשׂר found again only Isa_49:26; Isa_66:16; Isa_66:23-24; with following יחַד again only in Job_34:15.—The clause וראו to יחדו is to be referred to what precedes, and not to what follows. For if ראו were to be taken in the sense of spiritual seeing, of knowing, still it would be a secondary thought that all flesh shall know that revelation as one that was announced beforehand. The chief thing will be that they will verify with their own eyes that revelation. And this seeing shall win them to the Lord. Moreover ראו evidently corresponds to the preceding נִנְלָה. Therefore the pronominal object must be supplied to ראו as is often the case. The causal clause כיפי י׳ ד׳ relates to all that precedes.
Isa_40:6. Notice the verbal form אמר with a simple Vav copulativum. It does not say וַיֹּאמַר. That would be to present this saying as a new chief member of the consecutio rerum, of the succession of facts that naturally unfold themselves. That might and perhaps would have happened were it a merely earthly transaction that is treated. To represent such in the completeness of its successive points, it must have read: וָאֶשְׁמַע קוֹל ֹאמֵר וַיֹּאמַר מָה אֶקְרָא וַיַּעַן ונו׳. But the Prophet translates us into the spirit world where time and space cease. There what with us develops one after another is side by side. For this reason the Prophet here makes use of a form of speech which otherwise serves only to fill out some trait or to mention accompanying circumstances: comp. Isa_6:3; Isa_21:7; Isa_29:11 sq.; Isa_65:8.—בשׂר ְכָּל־הַבָּשָׂר is meant collectively or as designation of the genus: whereas in כל־בשׂר Isa_40:5 (each flesh) it has individual signification.
Isa_40:7. The perfects יָבֵשׁ and נָבֵל must not be compared with the aoristus gnomicus of the Greeks (nor even Isa_26:9; comp. my remarks in loc). For only that Hebrew verbal form that has, too, the notion of succession, therefore includes that of time, viz.: the imperf., with Vav cons., can be compared with the Greek aorist. Here, as in Isa_26:9, the perf., designates timeless objectivity and reality. כי is not “for,” but “when.” Were it taken in the sense of “for,” then the nature of the wind would be designated as the constant cause of the withering of vegetation. But it withers also when its time comes, without wind. But when a hot desert wind (Isa_18:4; Jer_4:11) blows, then it withers especially quick. נָשַׁב flavit, inflavit, occurs in Kal only here. Hiph. Gen_15:11; Psa_147:18.—There is much uncertainty about the origin of the particle אָבֵן. Gesen. (Thes. p. 668 under לָכֵן), Fuerst. (Lex. under אכן and כן) and Ewald § 205 d seem to me to be right in maintaining that אכן, on account of its derivation from כֵּן, has resident in it an argumentative meaning. Thus Fuerst. regards it primarily as “a strengthened = כֵּן therefore in a resumptive apodosis.” He refers in proof to Exo_2:14 and to our passage. And in fact Exo_2:14 seems to involve the drawing of a conclusion. For after Moses perceived the defiant answer of the Hebrew man, he cries out: אָכֵז נוֹרַע חַדָּבָר. Would not this be most correctly rendered: “is the matter therefore really known?”—It is clear that the omission of Isa_40:7 in the Alexand. and Vatic, text of the LXX. is owing to arbitrariness, if not to oversight. Koppe, Gesenius, Hitzig, who regard the whole verse, or at least 7 b as a gloss, as “a very diluted, sense-disturbing thought,” as “an ejaculation of a reader,” only prove thereby how little they have understood the sense and connection of the prophetic discourse.
Isa_40:8. The words יבשׁ חציר are taken verbatim from Isa_15:6, like נבל ציץ from Isa_28:1, where we find צִיץ נֹבֵל. The expression דבר יקום occurs in Isa_8:10, comp. Isa_7:7.
Isa_40:9. Piel בשׂר is exclusively peculiar to part second: Isa_41:27; Isa_52:7; Isa_60:6; Isa_61:1, a fact that need occasion no surprise. For it is natural, that the word, which means εὐαγγελίζειν, should be found chiefly in the εὐαγγέλιον of the Old Testament.—הָרִים קוֹל Isa_13:2, Isa_58:1.—בַּכֹּחַ comp. בְּכֹחַ יָדַי Isa_10:13. With that exception כֹּחַ occurs only in the second part: (Isa_37:3); Isa_40:26; Isa_40:29; Isa_40:31; Isa_41:1; Isa_44:12; Isa_49:4; Isa_50:2; Isa_63:1.—The expression אַל תִּירָא is very frequent not only in Isaiah but also in the whole Old Testament; Isa_7:4; Isa_8:12; Isa_10:24; Isa_35:4; Isa_37:6; Isa_40:9; Isa_41:10; Isa_41:13-14; Isa_43:1; Isa_43:5; Isa_44:2; Isa_51:7; Isa_54:4; Isa_54:14.—הנה אלהיכם strongly reminds one, and just by reason of what follows, of Isa_35:4. Comp. beside Isa_25:9. The expression is found in no other Prophet.
Isa_40:10. בְּ ,בְּחָזָק essentiae. חזק occurs again Isa_27:1; Isa_28:2.—אדני יהוה occurs ten times in the first part: Isa_3:15; Isa_7:7; Isa_10:24, etc., and thirteen times in the second part: Isa_48:16; Isa_49:22; Isa_50:4-5; Isa_50:9, etc.—The clause וזרע משׁלה לו is not co-ordinate with the foregoing chief clause, but subordinate to it. It is a clause expressive of situation (comp. Ewald, § 306, c; 341 a, sqq.), that more precisely explains the notion קזחב—לוֹis properly Dat. commodi, not mere Dat. ethicus as in עֲלִיּ לָךְ Isa_40:9, which is, moreover, to be seen from the masculine לֹו. For were it Dat. ethicus, then, corresponding to the gender of זרע, it must read לָהּ.
Isa_40:11. It is remarkable that the verb רָעָה is never used in part first in the sense of “to pasture,” the action of the shepherd, although רֹעִימ “shepherds” occurs Isa_31:4 (Isa_38:12), (comp. Isa_5:17; Isa_11:7; Isa_14:30; Isa_27:10; Isa_30:23). In part second, also, the word means “pasture” in the active sense only once: Isa_61:5, three times “pasture” of beasts: Isa_44:20; Isa_49:9; Isa_65:25.—רֹעֶה “shepherd” in part second: Isa_44:28; Isa_56:11; Isa_63:11.—עדר “the flock” found again Isa_17:2; Isa_32:14.—טְלָאִים=טְלָיִים, from טְלִי occurs in Isaiah only here (comp. 1Sa_15:4). Beside this טָלֶה Isa_65:25.—חֵיק occurs again only Isa_65:6-7.—The word עָלוֹת is joined Gen_33:13 with צאן and בקר; is used therefore of sucking beeves and sheep, 1Sa_6:7; 1Sa_6:10 of sucking beeves alone, Psa_78:71 as here used of both without addition. The word occurs only here in Isaiah. But comp עוּל, “the suckling” Isa_49:15; Isa_65:20.—נִוִזִל, which has in Gen_47:17 the meaning “to bring through,” sustentare, 2Ch_32:22, the meaning “to protect, hedge about,” and also Isa_51:18 the meaning “careful guiding,” occurs in Isaiah beside here and the passage just named, only Isa_49:10.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. We have here before us the Prologue both of the first discourse and of the entire prophetic cycle of Isa_40:12 to Isa_66:24. For the representation of Jehovah as the comforter after protracted suffering (Isa_40:1-2), as the true One, whose word abides when all that is earthly is destroyed (Isa_40:6-8), and as the true shepherd that leads His people with paternal care (Isa_40:11) corresponds to what follows (Isa_40:12 and onwards), wherein Jehovah is portrayed as the infinite, incomparable, almighty God, and the restorer of His people, so that we find in our passage the keynote of the whole of part second of Isaiah’s prophecies. Their contents are predominantly consolatory; but our passage is like the outline of the thoughts of peace therein unfolded. The outward form of the discourse, moreover, bears the imprint of this inward correspondence. The entire second part is dominated by the fundamental number three. For it is composed of three subdivisions, of which each consists of three times three, therefore nine discourses. But our Prologue consists first of an introduction that contains twice three clauses. By three imperatives, namely (“comfort ye,” “speak ye,” “cry”) it is announced that the Lord has a comforting message for His people, and by three clauses, each of which begins with כִּי (“that,” “that,” “for”) is stated what is the contents of this joyful message (Isa_40:1-2). Hahn was the first to maintain (what Delitzsch, too, finds “not without truth,” p. 408) that these three clauses beginning with כִּי correspond to the three calls that follow (Isa_40:3-11) and to the three parts of the book, not only in respect to number but also their contents. . That there is a correspondence in respect to number can hardly be doubted. But that the contents corresponds to the three times three corresponding degrees can only be made out by great ingenuity.
After the prologue of the prologue, there follow, as remarked, three calls, each of which comprises three Masoretic verses. But by the similar beginnings of the three calls, and by their internal arrangement, it appears certain that the Masoretic division into verses corresponds in general here to that division into periods intended also by the author. Only in regard to the first הנה (behold) at the close of Isa_40:9 (comp. below) there may be a divergence. Each of the three calls begins with a vivid dramatic announcement. And here, in fact, occurs a remarkable gradation. The first call is introduced by the simple קול קורא (“Hark! a call”). The second call begins with the extended formula, containing a summons to call קול אמר קרא ואמר מה אקרא. The third call, finally, begins with a still more comprehensive formula of summons. It contains three members: 1) go up on a high mountain evangelist Zion; 2) raise with might thy voice evangelist Jerusalem; 3) raise it, fear not, say to the cities of Judah. Herewith it is worthy of notice that the third member itself has again three verbs (“raise, “be not afraid,” “say”). There follows then on this threefold formula of summons a threefold הנה (behold) Isa_40:9-10. Here, perhaps, the Masoretic division into verses may not quite correspond to the meaning of the Prophet. For if the first הנה corresponds to the two that follow, then the clause introduced by it ought rather to be referred to what follows. Verse 9, accordingly, ought to end with the word Judah. The concluding verse (11) also contains three members: 1) he shall feed his flock like a shepherd; 2) he shall gather——bosom; 3) shall gently lead——with young. According to this the division into threes is not absolutely carried out in the prologue, but only just so far as it could be done without spiritless, outward mechanism, and tiresome monotony, and with such delicacy that it reveals itself only to close observation and not at all in a disagreeable way. Thereby the Prophet has proved himself to be a real artist. Moreover this tripartite division has its complete analogy in Isaiah’s style in that twofold division that we noticed in the second introduction and in chaps. 24–27.
In regard to the order of thought, the three calls contain a threefold specification of that general announcement of salvation contained in Isa_40:1-2. The first call (Isa_40:3-5) expresses the thought that now is the time to get out of the way every outward and inward obstacle that may obstruct the promised revelation of glory. The second call (Isa_40:6-8) declares that all earthly glory—even of the elect people—must be destroyed before and in order that Jehovah’s promise of glory may be fulfilled in its complete sense. The third call, finally, (Isa_40:9-11) summons Israel, which is in exile, to rally to its Lord, who comes as Redeemer, and to commit itself to His faithful, parental guidance.
2. Comfort——all her sins.
Isa_40:1-2. With three emphatically comforting words the Prophet begins. For the twice-repeated נחמו, that stands significantly at the head, as the stamp, so to speak, of the entire second part, is not alone comforting. The object “my people,” that depends on it, is quite as much so. Although judged and exiled, Israel had not ceased to be Jehovah’s people, the elect peculiar people. It is usual to understand the prophets to be the ones addressed. But it was not possible for every Israelite to hear the voice of a prophet directly. Hence there lies also in the words a summons to carry the prophetic word further. Every one shall help to comfort. Each one shall contribute his part, so that the comforting word of God may come to all the members of the people. Not once only will the Lord assure Israel of His consolation. With emphasis in Isa_40:2 He summons the same ones whom He had already commanded in Isa_40:1 to comfort His people, to speak to the heart of Jerusalem (personification and metonymy at the same time, comp. Isa_4:4; Isa_40:9; Isa_41:27). The phrase דבר על־לב (to speak out over the heart, to charm the heart, to cover with words, to sooth, to quiet) occurs elsewhere eight times in the Old Test.: Gen_34:3; Gen_50:21; Jdg_19:3; Rth_2:13; 2Sa_19:8; 2Ch_30:22; 2Ch_32:6; Hos_2:16. Whereas “speak ye to the heart” implies affecting address, קארו (call ye) involves rather the notion of loud, strong and clear speaking. By every means the conviction must be brought to the people that now the time of grace is at hand.—צָבָא, militia, “warfare” is used here figuratively as in Job_7:1; Job_10:17; Job_14:14. As in general the trials and troubles of this life can be set forth as conflicts (comp. Eph_6:11 sqq.; 1Ti_6:12; 2Ti_2:3 sqq.; 2Ti_4:7), so here the whole time of Israel’s affliction and suffering and especially the exile is designated as a time of conflict.
The second clause כי נרצה עונה (“for her guilt is thoroughly tasted”), is difficult. First of all it must be noted that the Prophet has here in mind the passages Lev_26:34; Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43. It is said there that when the judgment of exile shall come upon the people Israel the land will be desert, and by that means shall enjoy the rest which it could not enjoy so long as the land was inhabited by a disobedient people that would not observe the prescribed Sabbath seasons (אֵת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־שָֽׁבְתָה בְּשַׁבְּתֹתֵיכֶם בְּשִׁבְתְּכֶם עָלֶיהLev_26:35). The land will then enjoy its time of rest (תִּרְצֵה אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתֶיהָ Isa 40:34). רָצָה with the accusative is “to have pleasure in something, enjoy something, delectari aliquare.” The Hiph. הִרְצָת that stands parallel with תִּרְצֶה is nothing else than a direct causative Hiphil which means “delectationem agere, to pursue pleasure,” thus signifies continued, undisturbed enjoyment; as e. g. הִשְׁקִיט is not merely quietum facere but quietum agere (Isa_7:4), and like expressions, such as הִלְבִּין הִשְׁמִין, etc., signify not merely “make fat, make white,” but a continued activity whose product is “to be fat, to be white.” In contrast with this thought that the land shall enjoy its period of rest stands now the other (Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43) that the people in exile shall enjoy their guilt: “the land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity (וְהֵם יִרְצוּ אֶת־עֲוֹנָם “they shall enjoy their fault,” Isa 40:43). This expression “enjoy their guilt,” is manifestly ironical. Whereas the absence of the wicked people is for the land a benefit, an enjoyment, the people in exile must enjoy the fruit of their disobedience. They must at last taste how bitter and bad it is to forsake the Lord (Jer_2:19), after having been unwilling to believe that apostacy from the Lord was ruinous. If now רָצָה עָוֹן is frui culpa, delectari culpa, then נִרְצָה עָון is the passive of it, and means “the fault is enjoyed, thoroughly tasted.” Niph. נִרְצָה, it is true, occurs in many places where it is used of the favorable acceptance of sacrifices. But there it means “enjoyed,” “accepted as lovely enjoyment,” “to be pronounced welcome.” Moreover this use is found only in Lev_1:4; Lev_7:18; Lev_19:7; Lev_22:23; Lev_22:25; Lev_22:27.
If עָוֹן ever had the meaning “guilt offering,” then the matter would be quite simple. For then עונה נרצה would mean “their guilt offering is favorably accepted.” But it never has this meaning. We can only say therefore that the Prophet construes נרצה in the sense of “is enjoyed,” so that it forms the antithesis of ירצר עונם, Lev_26:41; Lev_26:43.
That mournful time when Israel must enjoy the bitter fruits of its sin is now gone. The peculiar ironical antithesis of “the land shall enjoy her sabbaths,” and “they shall enjoy their fault,” has the effect that we are necessitated to hear now of an enjoyed, thoroughly tasted guilt-broth into which they have broken crumbs for themselves and have now eaten it up. The third clause beginning with כִּי is best construed as an objective clause parallel with the two preceding objective clauses. For if it were a causal clause, as Hahn would have it, it must be so indicated by an unmistakable causal particle opposed to the two objective particles preceding. But that the Perfect לקחה is not to be taken in a future sense (“in time to come receives,” Hahn) is plain from the parallelism with the foregoing Perfects. Nor can בִּפְלַיִם mean the double amount of salvation (Hahn, comp. Isa_61:7), for neither לקחה, nor בכל־הטאתיה suits that. The former does not for the reasons already given; the latter does not because it must in that case read תַּחַת. For how Hahn can say that the sins are the means by which Jerusalem comes into possession of a double amount of salvation is incomprehensible. If Jerusalem had not committed these sins, would it then have been the worse off for it? The Prophet can therefore only mean to say that Jerusalem has received double punishment, has been chastised with double rods. Then בְּ is the preposition of recompense, as the recompense may be regarded as the means in order to acquiring the thing [“comp. Gen_29:18, בְּרָחֵל, properly by means of Rachel, as the price is the means by which one acquires the work or the wares,” From Dr. N.’s Gramm.—Tr.].
But how can it be said that Jehovah has laid on double the punishment deserved? How does this agree with His justice? One must remember first that the executors of the judgments against Israel did not merely restrict themselves to the measure of chastisement determined by Jehovah, but ex propriis intensified it, and thus brought on Israel a measure of punishment pressed down and shaken together (Isa_10:7; Jer_50:7; Jer_50:11; Jer_50:17, etc.). Yet if Jehovah permitted this, He is still accountable for it, seeing He could hinder it. And Jer_16:18 : “And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double” shows that this severe measure was intended by God. But was it really too severe? Delitzsch is right in saying that the expression is not to be taken in a juristic sense. It is rather to be taken rhetorically. It is an hyperbola, meant to set forth the compassionating love of God in the clearest light. For this love is at once so high and so humble that it accuses and excuses itself as if it had done too much in the way of punishment. Thereby, too, it betrays the motive for that overflowing salvation it proposes to display. For if one has given others so much pain, he will gladly make it up by so much the greater benefaction.
It is to be noticed that in Isa_40:1-2, first the Prophet speaks. For by means of “saith your God” he takes up the word himself in order to introduce the Lord as speaking the remaining words to עונה. In the latter half of Isa_40:2 the Prophet himself again speaks, as appears from “the hand of the Lord.” The Prophet therefore partly cites the verba ipsissima of Jehovah, partly states what the Lord has done. This is the usual manner of prophetic announcements. It is necessary to note this here, because in what follows there is joined in climax fashion an unusual form of announcement.
2. The voice——hath spoken it.
Isa_40:3-5. The Prophet hears a voice. He does not say whence or from whom the voice came. This is unusual. For if now and then in other cases the prophets hear terrestrial or super-terrestrial voices, still in every case the source of it is explained. The context makes known whence and why the voice sounds (comp. Isa_21:11; Eze_1:28; Dan_10:9). Here one learns only that a voice sounded. This is manifestly a rhetorical embellishment. The Prophet would make prominent thereby the importance of what follows by saying that it was important to him in an especially solemn way by a special superterrestrial voice. קול קורא can in itself mean: “a voice cries” (comp. e. g. Mic_6:9). But it is more drastic and consonant with other analogies to take the words as an exclamatory phrase and as a genitive relation (comp. Isa_6:4; Isa_13:4; Isa_52:8; Isa_66:6). A heavenly messenger, then, brings the command to prepare for the Lord the way through the desert (Isa_40:3-4). This command has evidently a double sense. For in the first place the people shall in fact be redeemed out of exile and be brought back home. And Jehovah Himself will conduct this return, as appears beyond doubt from Isa_40:9-11. But the Lord will lead them in order that the journey of the people may be made easy and prosperous without obstacle or attack (comp. Isa_41:17 sqq.; Isa_43:1 sqq., 14 sqq.; Isa_48:20 sq.; Isa_49:9 sqq.; Isa_55:12 sq.; Isa_57:14). Such is certainly the immediate sense of our passage. In fact, the whole context, especially In its immediate connection with the comforting prologue, proves that it contains a promise and not an exhortation to repentance. With this agrees Isa_40:5, which plainly declares that Isa_40:3-4 announce the fulfilment, evident to all the world, of a promise given long before by the Lord. But of course it cannot be doubted that the old figurative meaning given already by John the Baptist is also justified. For in the first place it comports with the universal and everywhere to be assumed principles of the divine pedagogy, that that physical desolation of the way homewards were not possible without an ethical desolation of the ways of the heart. And in the second place, since the language is such that it can mean both, this possibility of doublemeaning makes it a natural conjecture that such was actually intended. In the third place it is to be noticed that this first voice announces the chief matter, redemption and return home, in a general way. The second (Isa_40:6-8) gives explanation respecting the when of its accomplishment. The third (Isa_40:9-11) defines the manner of fulfilment, and contains only in this respect those two points, one after the other, which in Isa_40:3-5 we observe in one another. For what is that “behold your God,” Isa_40:9, but the announcement that the Lord by repentance and faith will come to His people? And what are Isa_40:10-11 but the statement that the Lord Himself as a parental guide will come home with His people?
במדבר Isa_40:3 is referred by the LXX., the Vulg. and the Evangelists (Mat_3:3 : Mar_1:3; Luk_3:4) to what precedes. This is not only contrary to the accents, but to the very sound of the words, since במדכר evidently corresponds to the following בערבה, and must be construed like the latter. John the Baptist, in the application of these words, calling himself a φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ (Joh_1:23), followed the LXX. He found in that sound of words familiar to his hearers, which our passage has in that translation, a fitting expression for what he would say, without meaning to give thereby an authentic interpretation of the original text (comp. Tholuck, The Old Testament in the New, 1868, p. 5). For when Delitzsch says: “One may, indeed ought, as it appears, to represent to himself that the caller, going out into the desert, summons men to make a road in it,” I can find no point of support for this statement in the Hebrew text. The command to make a road in the desert does not of necessity sound out of the desert itself. If the matter itself presents no necessity for this view, I see nothing else in the Hebrew text to indicate that the voice which the Prophet heard sounded out from the desert. Therefore the meaning which the Baptist, following the LXX., gives to the words קול קורא במדבר seems to me to belong to the category of those free citations that occur so often in the New Testament in reference to Old Testament passages, and which constitute one of those departments of biblical hermeneutics that still remain the most obscure. Of course from our point of view no objection arises against the meaning and application given by the Evangelists (especially Luk_4:3-6) to the words that follow במדבר.
The Piel פִנָּה, used elsewhere also of clearing out a house (Gen_24:31; Lev_14:36) occurs again in reference to ways, in the sense of “making clear, light, opening a road;” Isa_57:14; Isa_62:10; Mal_3:1, the last of which passages is likely a reference to the present. The subject of Isa_57:14 and Isa_62:10 is also that road on which the people shall return out of exile to their home. If the customary route from Babylon to Canaan did not pass through the desert, yet the properly nearest one did. And from יַשְׂרוּ and Isa_40:4 it is seen that Israel was to go along, not only the most convenient, but also the directest way home. From Egypt, also, the people had to traverse the desert in order to reach Canaan. The notion “desert” plays an important part in all the pictures of the future that relate to the deliverance out of exile. How consonant to Isaiah’s style it is to represent, that on their return home also from the second exile Israel will wander through the desert, may be seen from Isa_11:15-16. The meaning of יִשַׁר is evidently that the way of the people shall go out straight, and thus be as short as possible. To be such, it must make no deviations either in horizontal or vertical directions. The former appears to be the meaning of Isa_40:3 b; the latter is made prominent Isa_40:4. The valleys (the form נֶּיא only here) shall raise themselves (נִשָׂא used antithetically with שָׁפֵל11, 12; comp. Isa_2:2; Isa_2:13-14; Isa_6:1; Isa_30:25; Isa_33:10; Isa_52:13; Isa_57:7; Isa_57:15), and all mountains and hills shall lower themselves [שׁפל, see Text. and Gr.] the rugged places shall become even and the connection of mountains [רכםBergjoch see Text. and Gram.] shall become valley depths. The Prophet would say, therefore, that the obstacles that would prevent the coming of the Lord into the heart of His people, and thereby hinder the coming of the people into their land, shall be rid away. And should not thereby the glory of Jehovah become manifest to the world? When the nations see how gloriously the people Israel serve their God and how gloriously He serves His people, will they not make efforts to attain the righteousness and salvation of this people and seek the Lord who is the author of both (comp. Isa_2:2 sq.)? The great, glorious promise, which the Prophet has just announced, must be fulfilled, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and the mouth of the Lord does not lie. The expression occurs in Isaiah again Isa_1:20; Isa_58:14. Comp. on Isa_1:2.
4. The voice——stand forever.
Isa_40:6-8. The rhetorical dress of this second call, contains in relation to the first a climax. For there it is simply said: “voice of one crying.” But here: “voice of one saying, cry! And answer: what shall I cry?” Thus a second voice here precedes the voice of the one calling, and summons him to cry. This is indeed primarily rhetorical embellishment. Yet this embellishment has its material reason. In the first place, not only is the importance of the call set in the clearest light, but also its divine source, as we have already seen was also the aim of קול קרא Isa_40:3. In the second place we have this additional, that the caller must be summoned to call. The reason for this seems to me to be, that the second call expresses properly as its immediate thought something unpleasant. It is like a shadow that not only suddenly, but also almost incomprehensibly breaks in on the full light of the foregoing announcement of consolation. For is it not an oppressive thought, that not only all glory of the kingdoms of this world (that alone were indeed consolation for Israel), but also that all merely earthly glory of the elect people is subject to change? Is it not a deep humiliation that comes also on the people of God, that it is said to them, they must be divested of all their own human strength and adornment, and thus first share the fate of the totality of profane flesh, before the divine promise can be fulfilled to them? Behind the caller, therefore, there appears another that commands him to call out what, of himself, he would not have called. The first call is quite spontaneous: the second is by special command. The LXX. and Vulg. take the view, that the summons to call is directed to the Prophet, whence they translate וְאָמַר by καὶ εἶπαet dixi. But this is plainly caprice. The Prophet describes a visionary transaction: he relates only what he has seen and heard. וְאָמַר [see Text. and Gram.] must therefore signify that all that is related here took place simultaneously, and together, and not one after another. This suits capitally the pregnant brevity which the Prophet studiously observes here generally. He marks out the chief features with only a few strong touches of the brush. Hence he leaves unnoted whether we are to regard כל־הבשׂר ונו׳ as the language of the one calling or of the questioner. It could be both. The questioner could have noticed the answer without the Prophet hearing it. Or the caller could answer audibly to the Prophet. It was then unnecessary to make the questioner say again what was heard. In short, the Prophet tells us only once what from the nature of the case must have been spoken twice.
As Isa_40:3-4 are no exhortation to repentance, so too Isa_40:6-8 are not meant to be a sermon on the perishableness of all that is earthly. For what fitness were there in such a sermon here? Israel is to be comforted; the downfall of the world-power at present so flourishing, the end of their period of conflict, and a corresponding period of glory and triumph is to be held up to view. But at the same time Israel is to be warned, in reference to its entrance upon these, not to surrender itself to rash, fleshly hopes. For the promises of that time of glory will not be so quickly fulfilled. Israel thinks, perhaps, that the present generation, that the nation as at present constituted, that the present reigning Davidic dynasty, that the present Jerusalem as now existing is to behold that glory. Just that is false hope. For all these are flesh, and therefore grass and flower of the field, and as such will and must perish. Thereupon, naturally, the fleshly Israel asks: how can then the promises of the Lord be fulfilled? If Jerusalem with the temple is destroyed, and the posterity of David extinct, the nation dissolved as a state and scattered in all lands, where then does there remain room and possibility for the realization of that which God has promised? The word of the Lord standeth forever, replies the Prophet. The perishing of all that is flesh in the people of God is no obstacle to the realization of what God has promised. On the contrary! The Prophet makes us read between the lines, that the word of the Lord, precisely because of its own imperishable nature, finds in what perishes rather a hinderance than a condition of its own fulfilment. Such is in general the sense of our passage. If we have correctly apprehended it, then the Prophet means thereby to prevent erroneous representations in regard to the time and manner of fulfilling what he has before, and especially in Isa_40:5, held in prospect.
Grass as an image of the perishable, Psa_37:2; Psa_90:5 sq.; Psa_103:15; Psa_129:6; Job_8:12. Also flowers: Job_14:2; Psa_103:15. The word חֶסֶד occurs only here in the sense of physical loveliness, agreeableness. Elsewhere it is always used of the ethical friendliness, favor, complacency of persons (men and God). But has not the poet a right to personify things, and to represent lovely, gracious appearance as the favor and friendliness that they show us? Whence the rendering δόξα (LXX.), gloria (Vulg). is inexact (more suitable εὐπρἐπεια, Jam_1:11), but to retain the meaning “piety” would be pedantry. If the loveliness of human things is like the grass and the flower of the field, then it must resemble these not only in blossoming, but also in casting its blossoms. The continuance of bloom here as well as there is short. Indeed grass and flower do not even complete the brief period of bloom appointed them by nature. They wither before their time when the Lord breathes on them with the scorching wind as with a hot breath. The wind is called רוח י׳—not only because it is Jehovah that charges it with its mission, but because, as breath, as life respiration of nature, it has a likeness to the Spirit of God. Thus in other places not only is the Spirit of God that operates like the wind (1Ki_18:12; 2Ki_2:16) designated רוח י׳, but also the wind that operates like the Spirit of God (Hos_13:15; Isa_59:19).
From the antithesis to the concluding words, the word of the Lord shall stand forever, we may infer that the Prophet in Isa_40:6-8 has in mind primarily the people Israel. For would the Prophet thus here in the prologue to his great consolatory discourse comfort the heathen? Does he not begin with the words: “comfort, comfort ye my people?” Thus we must understand by “the word that stands” primarily that word of promise given to Israel. The continuance of this is made prominent in contrast with the perishing of all flesh; thus, also, of the outward, fleshly Israel. From the general statement, “all flesh is grass,” Isa_40:6, the Prophet draws the conclusion, Isa_40:7 : therefore, verily, the people is grass, and to this is joined the further consequence that therefore the people as grass and flower must wither and fade (Isa_40:8). Hence the literal repetition of “the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.” From what has been said already, it results of course that we must understand by העם, Isa_40:7, Israel and not human kind (Isa_42:5). At the same time it is made clear that there is nothing superfluous in the text, but rather that the Prophet employs only what is needful to express his thought. He would say that, even if in the remote future all that is earthly, and even what is earthly in the holy people, will have perished, still the word of the Lord will remain and demonstrate its truth by the fulfilment of its contents.
5. O Zion——that are with young.
Isa_40:9-11. The third call begins also with a solemn summons to let the call sound forth, and this third formula of summons is the most copious of all, so that in this respect a gradation occurs. The Prophet so far had heard the summons to call and the contents of the call from above, so that he only cited to his readers things heard; but here it is himself that emits the summons to call, and defines the contents of what is to be called. As a man he turns to, an ideal person, it is true, yet one conceived as human, to Zion or Jerusalem personified, and commissions it to assemble all its children, that they may rally about the newly appearing, strong Saviour, and commit themselves to His faithful guidance into their home. The relation of this call therefore to the two that precede, is that it points to the gathering for the journey and the guidance and providence during the journey, after that the first call had treated of the inward and outward preparation of the way, and the second had dealt with the period of the journey. The first announcement of a call, Isa_40:3, contained one member; the second, which at the same time is a summons to call, Isa_40:6, contained two members; the last, Isa_40:9, that contains two summons, has three members. Thus we see the inward emotion of the Prophet grows more intense and seeks its expression in a climax. For this purpose the personification of the central point of the nation is distributed, that is to say, the function is assigned to a twofold personification, Zion and Jerusalem, although each of these two and both together represent only one subject, viz., the ideal centre of the nation that must now again become active and head the cities of Judah. This distribution of the role of representation among the two notions Zion and Jerusalem is frequent in both parts of our book: Isa_2:3; Isa_4:3-4; Isa_10:12; Isa_10:32; Isa_24:23; Isa_31:9; Isa_33:20; Isa_37:22; Isa_37:32; Isa_41:27; Isa_46:13; Isa_52:1-2; Isa_62:1; Isa_64:10. It is worthy of notice, that this form of expression is by no means found in all the prophets. First we find it in Joel 3:5; 4:16, 17; next in Amo_1:2; then in Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah: Mic_3:10; Mic_3:12; Mic_4:2. It is remarkable that Jeremiah uses the expression only in two places: Jer_26:18, as a citation from Mic_3:12, and Jer_51:35. In Lamentations the expression occurs three times: Lam_1:17; Lam_2:10; Lam_2:13. It is found beside Zep_3:14; Zep_3:16 and Zec_1:14; Zec_1:17; Zec_8:3; Zec_9:9.
Zion must ascend a high mountain in order to be heard afar (comp. Isa_42:11; the expression הר נבה again Isa_30:25; Isa_57:7). Zion and Jerusalem are addressed as מְבַשֶׂרֶת. This word therefore has not the genitive relation to Zion and Jerusalem=“Zion’s herald of joy.” Such it is taken to be by the LXX., Vulg., Targ., and after these by Gesenius, Hitzig, Knobel, Hahn, etc. It is the attribute of Zion and Jerusalem, as the following reasons show: 1) According to the view of those that assume the genitive relation, מבשׂרת is to be construed collectively, and designate the messengers of salvation as a totality, so that it stands for מְבַשְׂרִים and means the “embassy of salvation” (Heilsbotenschaft, Knobel). But even if grammatically this is allowable, still such a collective designation of messengers or of prophets is quite contrary to the usus loquendi. In this sense the sing. masc. מְבַשֵׂר is used Isa_52:7; Nah_2:1. Moreover one would expect, in order to obviate indistinctness, that the verbs would be in the plural (הָרִימוּ ,עֲלוּ, etc.). קֹהֶלֶת, which is quoted as analogous, means, according to Ecc_1:1, not a plurality, but a single person. 2) Hahn says it were “inadmissible to use Jerusalem antithetically to the cities of Judah, seeing it belongs itself to them.” But it is just the constant usus loquendi with Isaiah to distinguish Jerusalem and Judah (meaning the cities of Judah): Isa_1:1; Isa_2:1; Isa_3:1; Isa_3:8; Isa_5:23; Isa_22:21; Isa_36:7; Isa_44:26. This finds, too, its echo in later books: Jer_4:5; Jer_9:10; Jer_11:12; Jer_25:18; Zec_1:12; Psa_69:36. Precisely this prominent part, which we thus see Jerusalem play, justifies us in maintaining that the Prophet means not to rank Jerusalem with the cities of Judah, but would summon it to exercise its primacy over them. It is even a very important point in salvation, that at once, still in the exile, the old domestic constitutional organism should have effect. Jerusalem must at once exercise her maternal right over her daughters (comp. e. g. Eze_16:48; Eze_16:55). She must gather them like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and require them to receive well their Lord and rally under His leadership for the return home. Involuntarily we are reminded here of the fact, that a great part of the Israelites, when they received the permission or rather summons to return home to Palestine, preferred to remain in the land of exile. These did not recognize the visitation of their God in that altered sentiment of the world-power toward the kingdom of God, in that wonderful summons to return home, as also later, when the Lord came in person to His own, His own did not receive Him (Joh_1:11). [See Lange on Joh_1:11, which he refers to the theocratic advent in the Old Testament, and thus exactly to the present subject as included.—Tr.] By Behold your God, the Lord is, as it were, presented to His people. What the Lord, who has thus appeared in the midst of His people, would now further reveal, how especially He would show Himself toward the people, this is now described by a series of imperfects only, because these were still purely latent facts. First, it is said the Lord comes as a strong one. Not only will the Lordbe strong, but He will also show Himself strong. His arm will so rule that it shall benefit Him, not others, as is the case under a weak regent. As there lies in the for him the idea that He undertakes for Himself, so the following clause expresses that, opposed to others, He knows also how to preserve the suum cuique. He has for friend and foe the reward prepared that becomes each. One will not err in taking שָׂכָר, which is never used in malam partem, in a good sense. On the other hand, פְעֻלָּה which occurs also of retributive punishment (Psa_109:20; Isa_65:7), may be understood in a bad sense. פעלה is primarily labore partum, that which is wrought out, then, generally, what is acquired, effected, retribution (Lev_19:13; Isa_49:4; comp. Job_7:2; Jer_22:13). The words הנה שׂכרו ונו occur literally again Isa_62:11. זְרֹעַ occurs in the symbolical sense also Isa_33:2, yet much oftener in part second: Isa_40:10; Isa_48:14; Isa_51:5; Isa_51:9; Isa_52:10; Isa_53:1; Isa_59:16; Isa_63:5; Isa_63:12. The passages Isa_59:16; Isa_63:5 are especially worthy of notice, because the form of expression וַתּוֹשַׁע לוֹ זְרֹעוֹ occurs there reminding us of משׁלה לו. Verse 11 makes the impression as if thereby the prophet would obviate the dread of the hardships of the return journey, especially in reference to the delicate women and children. Hence it is said that the Lord will lead His people as a good shepherd leads his flock. The tender lambs that cannot walk, the good shepherd gathers in his strong arm and carries them in his bosom—that is, in the bosom of his garment.
Footnotes:
[2]Heb. to the heart.
[3]Or, appointed time.
[4]her guilt has been enjoyed.
[5]that.
[6]prepare in the wilderness.
[7]Or, a straight place.
[8]the connecting ridges become valley bottoms.
[9]Or, a plain place.
[10]Hark! there speaks, “cry! And there replies: “what” etc.
[11]the breath of Jehovah blew on it.
[12]Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.
[13]Or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem.
[14]Or, against the strong.
[15]as a strong one.
[16]Or, recompense for his work.
[17]Or, that give suck.
2. JEHOVAH’S INFINITUDE AND INCOMPARABLENESS THE OBJECTIVE BASIS OF THE REDEMPTION
Isa_40:12-26
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
And 18meted out heaven with the span,
And 19comprehended the dust of the earth in a 20measure,
And weighed the mountains in scales,
And the hills in a balance?
13 Who hath adirected the Spirit of the Lord,
Or being 21his counsellor hath taught him?
14 With whom took he counsel, and who 22instructed him,
And taught him in the path of judgment,
And taught him knowledge,
And showed to him the way of 23 24understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust of the balance:
Behold, he taketh up the isles as 25a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before him are as nothing;
And they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
18 To whom then will ye liken God?
Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
19 The workman 26melteth a graven image,
And the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold,
And casteth silver chains.
20 He that 27is so impoverished that he hath no oblation
Chooseth a tree that will not rot;
He seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not 28be moved.
21 29Have ye not known? have ye not heard?
Hath it not been told you from the beginning?
Have ye not understood 30from the foundations of the earth?
22 31 32It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,
And the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers;
That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,
And spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That bringeth the princes to nothing;
He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they 33shall not be planted;
Yea, they jshall not be sown:
Yea, their stock 34shall not take root in the earth:
And 35he shall also blow upon them, and they 36shall wither,
And the whirlwind 37shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will ye liken me,
Or shall I be equal?
Saith the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold
Who hath created these things,38
That bringeth out their host by number:
He calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power;
Not one faileth.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See the List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_40:12. מֹאזֲניִם–פֶּלֶס–שָׁלִישׁ–תִּכֵּן–זֶרֶת–שֹׁעַל–מָדַד. Isa_40:13. הוֹדִיעַ–עֵצָה. Isa_40:14. הֵבִין–נוֹעַץ. Isa_40:15. –הֵן נָטַל–דַּק–שַׁחַק–דְּלִי–מַדאִיִּיס–גוֹים. Isa_40:16. דֵּי. Isa_40:17. תּהֹוּ–אֶפֶס–נֶגֶד–אַיִן. Isa_40:18. דְּמוּת–עָרַךְ. Isa_40:19. רְתוּקָה–רָקַע–צרֵֹף–חָרָש–נָסַךְ–פֶּסֶל. Isa_40:20. לֹא–יִמּוֹט–רָקַב–תִּרוּמָה. Isa_40:21. מוֹסָדוֹת–מֵרֹאשׁ. Isa_40:22. מָתַח–דּק–נָטָה–חוּג. Isa_40:23. שׁוֹפֵט–רוֹזֵן. Isa_40:24. קַשׁ–סְעָרָה–נָשַׁף–בַּל–אַף. Isa_40:26. אוֹנִים–מֵרֹב–בָּרָא–מָרוֹם.
Isa_40:12. The perfects שׁקל ,תכן ,מדד do not mean: Who can or will measure, etc.? But: who has measured, etc. The fact that no one has been able can (poetically) serve for proof that it is on the whole impossible. מדד, which occurs only twice in Isaiah, is used by Ezekiel thirty-six times; a proof that the use of a word often depends, not on the subjectivity of the author, but also on the objectivity of the contents.—–תָּכַן, related to תָּקַן on the one hand, and to כּוּן on the other, involves the fundamental meaning “to establish.” In this sense it is used in various relations wherein it concerns determining a level, evenness, likeness. Piel תִּכֵּן is used Psa_75:4 of setting up pillars according to the balance; also of raising and leveling a road (Eze_18:25; Eze_18:29; Eze_33:17; Eze_33:20), then of weighing itself (Job_28:25), then of testing by means of weighing (Pro_16:2; Pro_21:2; Pro_24:12), and also of weighing out money (1Ki_12:2). But when “determining the level,” has once acquired the meaning “to test,” it may stand for all kinds of making trial, even such as occurs without using the scales. Thus it stands here for a testing by measurement by means of the span, and in the same sense Isa_40:13 of testing and examining the divine spirit. Hence I have in both places translated תכן by “comprehend,” because the former (spanning) is a physical, and the latter (examining) is a spiritual comprehending.—Notice that also כל־עפר ו׳ depends as object on תכן. On the insertion of בשׁלישׁ after כל see Isa_38:16. [Gesenius construed כָּל as “the whole” in his Lehrgebäude. But having afterwards observed that the Hebrew text has כָּֽל with a conjunctive accent, he corrected the error in his Lexicon and Commentary, and referred the word to the root כּוּל, which does not occur elsewhere in Kal, but the essential idea of which, as appears from the Chaldee and Arabic analogy, as well as from its own derivations in Hebrew, is that of measuring, or rather that of holding and containing, which agrees with the common English Version (comprehended).”—J. A. A. See Fuerst, Lex. s. v.—TR.].
Isa_40:13. The clause ואישׁ עצתו יודיענו is dependent on the interrogation מי תכן ו׳. The imperf. is to be construed as jussive, and the paratactic Vav. copul. is to be translated in our syntactical way with “that,” as also afterwards in the last clause of Isa_40:14.
Isa_40:14. I think that משׁפט is to be taken in the wide sense meaning the norm that governs the life of every thing, thus in a certain sense, the natural law and right of everything (comp. e. g. מִשְׁפַּט אַרְמוֹן Jer_30:18; comp. Exo_26:30 : 2Ki_1:7; Jdg_13:12).—לִמַּד stands with בְּ only here; more frequently הוֹרָה is so construed: 1Sa_12:23; Psa_25:8; Psa_25:12; Psa_32:8, etc.—דַּעַת and תְּבוּנָה conjoined also Isa_44:19 (comp. Exo_31:3; Exo_35:31; Pro_2:6).
Isa_40:15. יִטּוֹל is imperf. Kal from נָטַל= “tellere, to lift up.”
Isa_40:18. דּמָּה Piel occurs in Isa., meaning “to think, combine, meditari” Isa_10:7; Isa_14:24 : meaning “to make like,” it occurs reflexively Isa_14:14 in Hithpael; in part second Isa_40:25; Isa_46:5. דמה is joined here with אֵל as is נִמְשַׁל Isa_14:10; elsewhere it is used with לְ: Isa_46:5; Lam_2:13; Son_1:9.
Isa_40:19. הפסל (used Exo_20:4; Deu_5:8; in Isa. see List) stands first emphatically as the chief notion.—רָקַע “to pound, beat” (Eze_6:11; 2Sa_22:43) then “to beat flat,” with the hammer, to extend (Isa_42:5; Isa_44:24, also Piel has this meaning Exo_39:3; Num_17:4), acquires in our text the meaning “to cover with something beaten out flat,” so that רִקַּע means “to plate over.”—צֹרֵף stands last epanaleptically.—On the frequent omission of the pronominal subject by Isaiah comp. Isa_2:6; Isa_24:2; Isa_29:8; Isa_32:12, etc.
Isa_40:20. [“לו may either be reflexive (for himself), as some consider it in Isa_40:11, and as all admit לָךְ to be in Isa_40:9, or it may be referred to עֵץ. Having secured the stuff, he seeks for it a skilful workman. As עֵץ is an obvious antecedent, and as the reflexive use of the pronouns is comparatively rare, this last construction seems entitled to preference.”—J. A. A.].
Isa_40:22-23 are without predicate. הנותן ,הנטה ,הישב are exclamations whose predicate must be supplied. The contents of the verses and what precedes (Isa_40:19-21) show that this must be “has made the earth.”—According to Hebrew usage, the secondary forms (inf. and partic.) return to the principal forms (וימתחם verse 22 and עשׂה Isa_40:23). Comp. Isa_5:8; Isa_5:23; Isa_31:1; Isa_32:6.
Isa_40:26. מרב אונים is nearer definition; אמיץ (Isa_28:2) is in apposition with המוציא and with the subject of יקרא.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The exceeding comforting introduction Isa_40:1-11 does not at once cheer up Israel. Doubts arise. Is the Lord in earnest when He promises? And can He do it too? Shall He that did not uphold us when we stood, lift us up again when we have fallen down? To these doubts, which he utters in express words Isa_40:27, the Prophet replies in the present section. He amplifies here the incomparableness, the aloneness and infinite sublimity of God. This idea underlies the whole passage.
2. Who hath measured——understanding.
Isa_40:12-14. First a standard is given by which one may estimate God’s elevation above all human ability to comprehend Him. The hollow hand, the span, the measure, the scales are human measures. Who does not instantly see the impossibility of measuring the divine works of creation with those measures? It is not meant that God has done this, as many expositors would explain. For even if appeal is made to the suffix in שׁעלו as referring to the divine hand, and though the suffix may be supplied to זרת and thus the divine span be understood, still this cannot be done in reference to the measures that follow, which are of human devising and make. Does the Prophet mean to say that there is a divine “measure, scales, balance” of which God made use at the creation? Certainly not. But he would say: what man is able to measure the divine works with his human measures, i. e., to submit them to supplementary inspection and test their correctness? This is confirmed by Isa_40:13-14 where it is expressly said that no man before the creation influenced the divine creative thoughts in the way of counseling and guiding (so Gesenius, Hahn, etc.). The immeasurableness of God is expressed by Jer_10:6-7 in this way, which passage especially in Isa_40:8 sq., unmistakably looks back to our text (see below). שָׁלִישׁ is probably the third part of an Epha, and thus like the סְאָה “seah, measure” (σάτον), of which the Epha contained three, according to the Rabbis, whence the LXX. often translated אֵיפָה “ephah” by τρία μέτρα (Exo_16:36; Isa_5:10). Comp. Herz. R.-Encycl. 9 p. 149. Dust of the earth is an expression of the Pentateuch, Gen_13:16; Gen_28:14; Exo_8:12-13. Beside these comp. Job_14:19; 2Sa_22:43. פֶּלֶס distinguished from מאזנים, and certainly the Schnellwage [an apparatus like the steelyard], occurs Pro_16:11. On הרים and גבעות occurring together, see on Isa_40:4.
As there underlies Isa_40:12 the thought that no one is in a position to inspect and test the Creator’s work after its completion, so Isa_40:13-14 would declare that no one could inspire and direct the Creator before He worked. Thus the Prophet asks: Who comprehended the Spirit of Jehovah? The context shows that the Spirit as the Spirit of Creation (Gen_1:2) is meant. To comprehend the Spirit of God, according to Isa_40:12, means nothing else than to grasp it, so that he that grasps is greater than the Spirit of God; he spans and from all sides influences it. This passage is cited Rom_11:34; 1Co_2:16. At first sight Isa_40:14 appears to be only an amplification of Isa_40:13 b. But from with whom took he counsel it appears that the Prophet makes a distinction. There are counsellors who are consulted as authority and experts, whose word is law to be followed. In this sense, which corresponds also to תכן, Isa_40:12 seems intended. But there are also counsellors with whom one consults on an equality, but who, still, though equals, in one or other respect, by instruction, correction, defining, influence the determination that is to be made. This seems intended by Isa_40:14. The Prophet would say that neither in the one nor in the other sense did the Lord have counsellors. The last clause of Isa_40:14. and shewed to him the way of understanding signifies the consequence of the three preceding verbs of teaching: so that He taught him to know the way of judicious conduct.
3. Behold—and vanity.
Isa_40:15-17. The absolute sublimity of God that has been revealed in the creation, is revealed also in history. In the former the Spirit of God showed itself to be conditioned by no one. In the latter the absolute dependence of men on God appears. Not merely single men, but whole nations count for no more before the almighty God than the small drop of a bucket that the bearer does not notice, or than the little crumb in the scale that does not influence the weight. Isa_40:16 must be regarded as a parenthesis. For it stands between Isa_40:14-15 on the one hand, and Isa_40:17 on the other, all which compare the greatness of God with earthly greatness, without itself presenting any comparison. Rather Isa_40:16 draws a conclusion from that incomparable sublimity of God: because He is so great, all the forests of Lebanon do not suffice for a worthy sacrificial fire, nor all the beasts of those forests for a worthy burnt-offering. Of course this very conclusion serves for a measure of the greatness of God, and it seems to me that the Prophet, along with “the nations” and “the isles,” the most widely extended and the furthest, (comp. Isa_66:19; Jer_31:10), would apply as a measure also the earthly highest. But would He also make prominent again the weighty mass of the mountain? He would then for the fourth time have made use of the same figure. Hence, not the ponderous mass of the mountain itself, but as much of its riches in vegetation and animal life as is suitable for the service of the Lord, must serve Him for a figure. דַּי is “sufficientia, copia;” thus דֵּי עוֹלָח ,דַּי בָעֵר=sufficientia, copia sufficiens, i. e., satis incendii, sacrificii. The construction is like Lev_5:7 “if his hand cannot reach the sufficiency of a lamb,” i. e., if he cannot bring enough to buy a lamb. Comp. Lev_12:8; Deu_25:8. Isa_40:17 with all the nations joins close with “nations” Isa_40:15, and recapitulates and intensifies the contents of it. Modern expositors for the most part construe מאפם ו׳ in a partitive sense, because it is nonsense to say: less than nothing, and because מאפם would properly mean “more than no thing.” But those are strange scruples. אפם is “the ceasing to be, where there is nothing more, the not being:” תֹּהוּ is “inanitas, emptiness, void.” Now one may say that absolute nihilism, the horror of an absolute emptiness, void is still more impressive than a being that by its miserable nothingness makes not even an impression. And of course מאפם ו׳=more than, viz.: in a negative sense. The Prophet, who indeed is governed here wholly by the idea of comparison, compares the nations and the nothing, and finds that the nations in respect to insignificance weigh down more than אֶפֶם and תֹּהוּ.
4. To whom then——not one faileth.
Isa_40:18-26. Having shown that no finite spirit may compare with God (Isa_40:12-18), the Prophet shows in these verses that it is also impossible to make any image or likeness of God. Because God has not His like, therefore there is no creature form that is like Him, and under whose image one may represent Him visibly. If this thought, coming in the middle between the promise Isa_40:1-11, and the inquiry Isa_40:27, would serve, on the one hand, to assure Israel that Jehovah has the power to keep what He has promised, so, on the other, this painting up the manufacture of idols appears intended to represent to Israel in glaring light, the folly and wrong of such a degradation of divinity to the sphere of common creatures. It is to be noted moreover that this warning in the first Ennead of our book appears in the form of an ascending and descending climax; the Prophet beginning with the more refined form of image worship, ascends to the coarser Isa_44:8 sqq., and Isa_45:16, and closes again with the more refined Isa_46:5-7. Let it be noted, too, that the Exile any way brought about the great crisis that had for its result an entire breaking with idolatry on Israel’s part. Before the Exile they were Jews, and yet at the same time served idols. After the Exile, all that was called Jew renounced idolatry. Whoever still worshipped idols ceased also to be a Jew and disappeared among the heathen. Our passage, as all others of like contents in the second part of Isaiah, attacks still with vigor the coarse idolatry, such as it was in the time of Isaiah. At the close of the Exile such a polemic was no more in place. For then Israel was beyond this sin of its youth. To the overcoming of it the word of the redoubtable Prophet no doubt mightily contributed.
That in general no one is like the Lord either in heaven or in earth, either among the gods or among the rest of creatures, is the constant teaching of the Old Testament, on the ground of Exo_15:11; Deu_3:24 (comp. Psa_35:10; Psa_71:19; Psa_86:8; Psa_89:9; Mic_7:18 and Caspari, Micha der Morastite, p. 16). But from this doctrine must be distinguished the other, of course closely connected with it, that one can and must make no visible image or likeness of God, because with that is given the more refined form of idolatry, that worships Jehovah Himself under an image (comp. on Isa_46:5). This is emphatically enjoined in the Decalogue (Exo_20:4; Deu_5:8), and in Deu_4:12 sqq., the reason is given, that on Mount Sinai, Israel observed nothing corporeal of God except the voice. The Prophet here joins on to these propositions of the Law. He shows, by describing the genesis of such idols, how senseless it is to regard images of men’s make as adequate representations of the divinity. He shows how all their parts are brought together in succession, by human labor, just as any other product of industry. How disgraceful is the origin of such an idol! Men are its creators. The exterior is gold, but the interior vulgar metal. To keep it from, falling, it must be fastened to the wall with chains. When the idol is of wood, especial care must be taken against the wood rotting. And still how often it does rot! To keep the idol from falling it must be rightly proportioned and well fastened. Thus a god concerning which extreme care must be taken to keep it (inwardly) from rotting, and (outworldly) from falling down! מְסֻכָּן is “the reduced, impoverished.” For סָכַן, related to שָׁכַן, is “sedere, desidere,” מסכן, therefore, is “desidere factus,” i. e., one that from standing is made to sit, thus brought down. Also the Arabic meskin=one brought to sit still, i. e., to inactivity, powerlessness (comp. Fleischer in Delitzsch, in loc). This meaning appears in מִסְכֵּן “poor” (Pro_4:13; Pro_9:15 sq.), and מִסְכֵנוֹת “poverty” (Deu_8:9). תְּרוּמָה is the consecrated gift, the voluntary offering presented for the service of the sanctuary; frequent in the Pentateuch after Gen., it occurs only here in Isaiah, הָכִין is erigere, statuere, stabilire; see List. It is incomprehensible how there can be people among the Israelites to give to idols the honor that becomes divinity. Rightly the Prophet turns to such with the inquiry; are you not in a position to know better? This question he propounds in four clauses. When a man acquires a knowledge of anything, there must first be made to him the suitable communication, and he must corporeally hear it, and spiritually understand it. Hence the Prophet asks if all this has not occurred, only he asks in a reversed order. The spiritual understanding is the decisive and chief concern; hence he puts this first, making the two conditions of hearing and communicating follow. Notice that the Imperfect is used for the subjective transaction of hearing and understanding, while for the objective transaction of communicating the Perfect is used. In these three members the Prophet has, as yet, named no object. This follows in the fourth with the foundations of the earth. Here, too, he uses the Perfect, because he no longer distinguishes the subjective and objective transactions, but would only learn whether the knowledge in question is an actual fact or not. With Gesenius, Stier, Hahn, I prefer to translate מוסדותfundatio rather than by fundamentum, for which there is adequate justification grammatically. For the word, like מַלְאָךְ ,מִשְׁלוֹחַ ,מוֹדַעַת ,מִשְׁמַעַת, etc., can have primarily an abstract meaning (comp. Ewald § 160 b). This abstract meaning better suits the context, for it concerns, not the make up of the foundations themselves, but the way in which they originated. The Prophet manifestly refers back to Isa_40:12-13. How the foundations of the earth were laid, and who laid them, respecting this we have, of course, received intelligence (מֵרֹאשׁ) from the beginning. It is that which has been transmitted from Adam on down, and which we have in its purest form in the Mosaic account of the creation. The Prophet certainly means this latter information, because for him it was the authentic one, divinely attested.
[Respecting the different tenses of the verbs in the first clause of Isa_40:21; J. A. A., says: “The most satisfactory, because the safest and most regular construction, is the strict one given in the LXX. (οὐ λνώσεσθἐ; οὐκ ἀκούσεσθε;) revived by Lowth (will you not know? will you not hear) and approved by Ewald. The clause is then an expression of concern or indignation at their being unwilling to know. There is no inconsistency between this explanation of the first two questions and the obvious meaning of the third, because the proof of their unwillingness to hear and know was the fact of their having been informed from the beginning.” The argument, he adds, is to show that they were without excuse, like that of Paul in Rom_1:20; comp. Act_14:17; Act_17:24.—Tr.].
In Isa_40:22-23 (which are without a predicate, see Text. and Gram.), the Prophet would say: not the idols (Isa_40:19-20) are the originators of the earth, but He that sits above the circle of the earth, spreads out the heavens and abandons the rulers to nothing. חָגָב “locust,” is chosen here on account of likeness in sound to חוּג; it occurs again only Lev_11:12; Num_13:33; 2Ch_7:13; Ecc_12:5. דּק according to the context “a thin fabric, cloth” (comp. דַק Isa_40:15, “thin dust”) see List. Isa_40:24. In order to make still more impressive the nothingness of men of might as compared with the Almighty, a series of drastic images is used to paint the completeness and thoroughness of that bringing them to nought of which Isa_40:23 speaks. אַף בַּל occurs only here; but אַף אֵין occurs Isa_41:26. Both, in the repetition, are the negative אַף–אַף (Isa_46:11). As the latter=et-et, so the former=neque-neque, or more correctly=et non—et non. For the sense is: both their planting and the scattering of their seed, and their taking root is not yet completed, when He has already blown on them, etc. Or more plainly: they are hardly planted, hardly sown, hardly rooted, but, etc. שֹׁרֵשׁ, “radices agree,” only here and Jer_12:2; the passage in Jer. seems to rest on our text. Like the Simoon of the desert (comp. Isa_40:7) causes the young green herb to wither suddenly, so the Almighty suddenly withers the mighty ones and the wind-storm carries them off.
To the first inquiry “to whom will ye liken me” (Isa_40:18) the Prophet has replied by referring to the power of God over the earth and its inhabitants (Isa_40:21-24). Now he asks the question again, Isa_40:25, and replies by a reference to God’s power over the heavenly constellations Isa_40:26. The Prophet uses the verb שָׁוָה in a precisely similar connection Isa_46:5. He has used this word before in various significations (see List). In the sense of “like, adequate, fitting” it occurs chiefly in Job (Job_33:27) and in Prov. (Pro_3:15; Pro_8:11; Pro_26:4). קדושׁ, poetically without article, occurs only here as abbreviation of the Isaianic קדושׁ ישׂראל, which on its part rests on Isa_6:3, which see. It appears to me suitable to the context to take that bringeth out their host, etc., as the answer to the question “who hath created,” etc. For it is verily a very fitting demonstratio ad occulos to say: the same who day by day calls them all by name and without one of them failing, even He made them. He that can do the one, can do the other. He that leads out “their host” (צבאם comp. Isa_24:21; Isa_34:4) according to their number by name, that is just the Lord of hosts, Jehovah Sabaoth. The expression אַמִּיץ כֹּחַ occurs Job_9:4. אישׁ לא נעדר comp. Isa_34:16.
Footnotes:
[18]comprehended.
[19]all
[20]Heb. a tierce.
[21]Heb. man of his counsel.
[22]Heb. made him understand.
[23]Heb. understandings?
[24]judicious conduct.
[25]fine dust.
[26]has moulded.
[27]Heb. is poor of oblations.
[28]totter.
[29]know ye not t hear ye not?
[30]omit from.
[31]Or, Him that sitteth, etc.
[32]he that sitteth.
[33]were not.
[34]did not.
[35]he just blew.
[36]withered.
[37]took.
[38]?
3. TRUST IN JEHOVAH THE SUBJECTIVE BASIS OF REDEMPTION
Isa_40:27-31
27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel,
My way is hid from the Lord,
And my judgment is passed over from my God?
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard,
39That the everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Fainteth not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint;
And to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall 40renew their strength
They 41shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They 42shall run, and 43not be weary;
And they shall walk, and not faint.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See the List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_40:28. תבונה–חֵקֶר–יגע–יעף–קצות הארצ. Isa_40:29. יָעֵף הִרְבָּה–עָצְמָה–אוֹנִים–. Isa_40:30. כָּשַׁל–בַּחוּרִים Isa_40:31.חָלַף–קוה.
Isa_40:27. אָמַר and דִּבֵּר in parallelism as here does not again occur; but Isa_29:4 affords an analogy. עָבַר with מִן in the sense of “to depart unobserved, escape,” occurs only here. Yet comp. in a physical sense עָבַר with מֵעַל Gen_18:3.
Isa_40:28, On the partic. pro verbo fin. compare on verse 19 (צֹרֵף).
Isa_40:30. The verb in the first clause put first shows, as Delitzsch well remarks, that the clause is to be construed as a sort of adversative clause, that is, as concessive: and though young men grow weary. The second clause returns from this potential construction to the simple, conformably to Hebrew usage, that demands the prompt return from all intensive discourse and verbal forms to the simple chief form.
Isa_40:31. The expression קוי י׳ occurs again only Psa_37:9. In our text it is, according to the punctuation, to be spoken Koje, whereas in the Psalms it is to be spoken Kove (comp. Delitzsch on our text). חָלַף (comp. חֵלֶף, ἀντί, Num_18:21; חֲלִיפוֹת “the change of clothing”) is “to change,” and is used partly of changing place (transire, Isa_8:8; Isa_21:1; Isa_24:5), partly of change of condition in pejus (perire, pass away, Isa_2:18) or in melius (hence revirescere, Isa_9:9; Isa_41:1).
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Why sayest——not faint.
Isa_40:27-31. One sees here plainly the purpose intended by the preceding discussion concerning the incomparableness of God. The Prophet sees that the long chastisement of the Exile would call up doubts in the spirits of the Israelites. Carried off into a heathen land, they will suppose that God’s eyes do not penetrate to them, and that the wrong they suffer escapes His notice (Isa_40:27). On the parallelism of Jacob and Israel see Isa_9:7, and the List. This parallelism is a characteristic of Isaianic language, for it occurs in no other prophet so often. It is manifest that it is the people in exile that speak. Just because of their remoteness from the Holy land, the territory of Jehovah (comp. the prophet Jonah) they think their way, i. e., the course of their life is hidden from the Lord, and their right, i. e., the wrong done them by their oppressors, passes unnoticed by their God. This doubt of little faith the Prophet reproves by referring to the infinitude and incomparableness of God set forth in Isa_40:12-26. The words, Isa_40:28, hast thou not known, etc., are an echo of Isa_40:21. Jehovah is an eternal God, therefore He had no beginning as the idols had, which before the workmen made them (Isa_40:19-20) were not. Jehovah also made the ends of the earth; therefore they must be known to Him, and wherever Israel may dwell in exile, it cannot say that its way is hidden from God (Isa_40:27). Just as little may one say of God, who created all things, that it is too great a labor for Him, or that His power is not adequate to help banished Israel. For He does not get tired. Nor can it be said that He wants the necessary penetration, the necessary knowledge of the measures to be adopted; for His discernment is infinite, unsearchable. תבונה occurs Deu_32:28, and often in Prov. (Pro_2:2-3; Pro_2:6; Pro_3:13, etc.) and in Job (Job_12:12-13; Job_26:12; Job_32:11).
Isa_40:29 : Jehovah is so far from exposure to inability to do more, that He is rather the one who out of His inexhaustible treasure gives strength to all that are weary. Isa_40:30 : Merely natural force does not hold out in the long run. Of this the youth are examples. But those that hope in the Lord receive new strength, etc. Therefore Jehovah is the dispenser of power, but only on the condition that one by trust makes it possible for Him to bestow His treasures of grace. They feather themselves afresh as eagles, Isa_40:31. Since the LXX. and Jerome, etc., very many expositors, influenced by “they renew their strength,” understand these words of the annual moulting of eagles; on which seems to be based the opinions of the ancients that this bird periodically renewed its youth. Comp. Psa_103:5 and Bochart, Hieroz. II., p. 745 sqq., ed. Lips., who enumerates the fabulous representations of the ancients on this point. Hitzig objects to this exposition that הֶֽעֱלָה as causative of עָלָה as used Isa_5:6, does not occur elsewhere, and that it must read נוֹצָה instead of אֵבֶר. But הֶֽעֱלָה, though not in that sense, occurs often in another much more nearly related to our passage. For not to mention where it is used of putting on sackcloth (Amo_8:10) and of coating over with gold (1Ki_10:17), it also stands for covering the bones with flesh and skin (Eze_37:6). And this may the more be taken as analogous to covering the naked bird-body with feathers, seeing that the foliage of trees is called עָלֶה “the mounting up, growing up over” (comp. redeunt jam gramina campis, arboribusque comae). Regarding the second remark of Hitzig’s, it is true that one might rather expect נוֹצָה, since it appears undoubted from Eze_17:3; Eze_17:7 that אבר is the pinion, נוצה the feathers in general. But our passage does not deal in zoological exactness. Moreover the context has more especially to do with pinions as the chief organ for flying. The second clause describes the intended effect: rapid, untiring forward effort. The first clause says what makes this effect possible: ever new power, ever new, eagle-like rejuvenescence. That the rejuvenescence of the eagle extended to the entire body Bochart, l. c, expressly shows to have been a view of the Hebrews in distinction from the Greeks. For he says in reference to Mic_1:16 : “Tam Graeci, quam Hebraei calvitium avibus tribuunt. Ita, ut hoc solo differant, quod, cum avium calvitium juxta Graccos pertineat ad solum caput, id Hebraei calvitium extendunt ad totum corpus.” Thus we may assume (that the Prophet, whether correct or not according to natural history is immaterial, referred the renewal to the pinions. Now as “they feather themselves afresh” says figuratively the same that “they shall renew their strength” says literally, we need not wonder that the second half of the verse does not carry out the figure and say: they shall run, etc., they shall fly, etc. The Prophet emphasizes the promise of unwearied power to run and walk, doubtless, because he has in mind primarily the people returning from the Exile and the toilsome journey through the desert. Thus the conclusion of the discourse corresponds quite exactly to the conclusion of the Prologue Isa_40:11.
Footnotes:
[39]eternal divinity is Jehovah that created. He does not tire, etc.
[40]Heb. change.
[41]feather themselves anew.
[42]omit shall.
[43]do not weary.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. “Quia haec posterior pars (prophetiarum Jesajae) prophetia est de Christo et evangelio, pertinet ad nostra quoque tempora, immo est proprie nostra. Quare nobis commendatior esse debet.” Luther.
2. On Isa_40:1. “Est mandatum ad apostolos, quibus novum praedicationis genus mandatur. Quasi dicat: lex praedicavit hactenus terrores, vos consolamini, mutate doctrinam, praedicate gratiam, misericordiam et remissionem peccatorum.” Luther.
3. On Isa_40:2. “Non auribus tantum, sed cordi potius concionandum est, hoc nempe sibi vult Jehova, dum ait: Dicite ad cor Hierosolymae. Et huc quoque pertinet illud tritum,: nisi intus sit, qui praedicat, frustra docentis lingua laborat.” Foerster.
4. On Isa_40:3 sqq. “John the Baptist was the first of those messengers and heralds of our redemption of whom the redemption from Babylon was only a type. But the latter comprehends all other ministers of the word that God has sent and will send to the end of the world to conduct wretched souls out of this miserable desert, and out of the prison of the law to the heavenly city of God. The way is prepared for the Lord when we cast away the great stones and immoveable idols, viz., pride and trust in works, and acknowledge our sin. For they utterly bar the entrance of grace.” Heim and Hoffmann.
5. On Isa_40:3 sqq. “When we attentively observe the quiet, yet mighty movement of the Lord through the world’s history, we see how before His going the vallies elevate themselves and the mountains sink down, how steep declivities become a plane, and cliffs become flats. Let us not fear to pass through the deserts of life if God be with us! It is a walk along lovely, level paths.” Umbreit.
6. On Isa_40:3. [“Applied to the Messiah, it means that God was about to come to His people to redeem them. This language naturally and obviously implies, that He whose way was thus to be prepared was Jehovah, the true God. That John the Baptist had such a view of Him is apparent from what is said of him. Joh_1:34,:comp. Joh_1:15; Joh_1:18; Joh_3:31; Joh_10:30; Joh_10:33; Joh_10:36. Thought his is not one of the most direct and certain proof-texts of the divinity of the Messiah, yet it is one which may be applied to Him when that divinity is demonstrated from other places.” Barnes.]
7. On Isa_40:8 b. By the word of the Lord was he world made (Genesis 1; Joh_1:3; Psa_33:6), and He upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb_1:3). By His word, too, heaven and earth are kept for the day of judgment (2Pe_3:7). For heaven and earth shall pass away, but His word will not with that also pass away (Isa_51:6; Psa_102:27; Mat_5:18; Luk_21:33). Rather the word of the Lord will not return empty to Him, but it shall accomplish that which He pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it (Isa_55:11). And when all earthly forms, in which the word of the Lord invests itself, grow old and pass away like a garment, still the eternal truth concealed in these forms will issue forth only the more glorious from their demolished shapes, and all that have lived themselves into the word of God and have trusted in Him shall rise with Him to new life.
8. On Isa_40:8 b. “Verbum Dei nostri manet in aeternum. Insignis sententia, quam omnibus parietibus inscribi oportuit … Hic institue catalogum omnium operum, quae sine verbo Dei in papatu, fiunt: ordo monachorum, missa, cucullus, satisfactio, peregrenationes, indulgentiae, etc. Non sunt verbum Dei, ergo peribunt, verbum autem Domini et omnes, qui verbo credunt, manebunt in aeternum.” Luther.
9. On Isa_40:10-11. What a huge contrast between these two verses! In Isa_40:10 we see the Lord coming as the almighty Ruler and stern Judge; but Isa_40:11 He appears as the true Shepherd that carries the lambs in His bosom, and leads softly the sheep giving suck. Sinai and Golgotha! The tempest that rends the mountains and cleaves the rock, the earthquake and the fire, and then afterwards the quiet, gentle murmuring (1Ki_19:11 sqq.)! For His deepest being is—love (Luk_9:55 sq.; 1Jn_4:8).
10. On Isa_40:11. “Christus oves suas redimit pretiose, pascit laute, ducit sollicite, collocat secure.” Bernhard of Clairvaux.
11. On Isa_40:16. “Fancy never invented a mightier sacrifice. Magnificent Lebanon the altar in the boundless temple of nature—all its glorious cedars the wood for the fire—and the beasts of its forest the sacrifice.” Umbreit.
12. On Isa_40:16. The reading of this place in Church, Christmas A. D. 814 moved the Emperor Leo v. the Armenian to take severe measures against the friends of images. The passage moves Foerster to propose the question whether it is permitted to make pictures of God and to possess paintings representing divinity. He distinguishes in respect to this between οὐσια and ἐπιφάνεια or revelatio, and says, no one can picture God κατ̓ οὐσίαν, but κατ̓ ἐπιφάνειαν, i. e. iis in rebus, quibus se revelavit one can and may picture Him. This reply is manifestly unsatisfactory. For it is not about res, quibus Deus se revelavit that one inquires. That one may picture things by which, or in which God has revealed Himself, thus certainly created things, cannot be contested from the standpoint of Christian consciousness. But the question is: is it allowable to picture the person of God, or more exactly, the person of God the Father? For it has long been settled that it is allowable to picture Christ the man. But though there are many paintings of God the Father, still it is no wonder that not only strict Reformed, but that earnest Christians of fine feeling generally take offence at them. It seems to me to depend on whether this offence is absolute or relative. Is it not allowable to represent in colors what the prophet Daniel represented in words in that vision of the four beasts, Isa_7:9 sqq.? May one not paint the “Ancient of days”? And if it be God the Father that appears here under this name, which is certainly most probable, may one not paint Him in this form that He gives Himself as allowably as one may paint the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and with that paint the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove? But who is able to do that? Who is able to worthily represent the Ancient of days? I regard that as the most difficult task of art. To him that can do it, it is allowable also. He that attempts it and cannot do it need not wonder if men take offence at his picture. So far no one has been able to do it, and hardly will any one ever be able. Hence the best thing is to let it alone.
13. On Isa_40:26. [“It is proof of man’s elevated nature that he can thus look upward and trace the evidences of the power and wisdom of God in the heavens, that he can fix his attention on the works of God in distant worlds. This thought was most beautifully expressed by one of the ancient poets:
Pronaque cum spectent animalia caetera terram;
Os homini sublime dedit; coelumque tueri,
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Ovid Met. Lib. I. 84–86.
In the Scriptures, God not unfrequently appeals to the starry heavens in proof of His existence and perfections, and as the most sublime exhibition of His greatness and power, Psa_19:1-6. And it may be remarked that this argument is one that increases in strength, in the view of men, from age to age, just in proportion to the advances which are made in the science of astronomy. It is now far more striking than it was in the times of Isaiah.” Barnes.]
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_40:1-5. “Why is the advent of Jesus on earth to-day still a ground of comfort and joy? 1) By Him the season of bondage ends (Isa_40:2); 2) the curse of sin is removed (Isa_40:2-3): 3) the promised new creation is introduced (Isa_40:4); 4) the mouth of the Lord has revealed the glory.” Advent sermon by E. Bauer, in Manch. G. u. Ein G. Jahrg. III. p. 35.
2. On Isa_40:1-5. “The precious commission of God to the ministers of the word: Comfort ye, comfort ye My people! We inquire: 1) To whom, according to God’s word, shall the comfort be brought? 2) What sort of comfort is it that according to God’s word should be brought?” Luger. Christus unser Leben. Götting, 1870.
3. On Isa_40:1-9. “What preparation does God demand of us that we may become partakers of the comfort in Christ? 1) Prepare the way of the Lord. 2) Learn to know your nothingness.” Haenchen. Manch. G. u. Ein G. 1868 p. 39. [“It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us if we find God’s grace preparing us for it. Psa_10:17. To prepare the way of the Lord we must be convinced. 1) Of the vanity of the creature. 2) Of the validity of the promise of God.” M. Henry.]
4. On Isa_40:6-8. “What shall I preach? 1) So I asked with the Prophet, and looked into the face of this motley, multi-formed time. 2) So again I asked, and looked into the depths of my own poor, weak soul. 3) So I asked once more, and looked to thee, my charge that the Lord of the Church has given me to lead.” Kliefoth. Installation sermon at Ludwigslust, printed in Zeugniss der Seele, Parchim und Ludwigslust, 1845.
5. On Isa_40:11. [“God is the Shepherd of Israel (Psa_80:1); Christ is the good Shepherd, Joh_10:11. 1) He takes care of all His flock. 2) He takes particular care of those that most need it: of lambs, those that cannot help themselves, young children, young converts, weak believers, sorrowful spirits. [1] He will gather them in the arms of His power. [2] He will carry them in the bosom of His love and cherish them there. [3] He will gently lead them. After M. Henry.]
6. On Isa_40:12-17. To what the contemplation of the sublimity of God admonishes us. 1) The consideration of His infinite greatness admonishes us to be humble. 2) The consideration of His infinite power admonishes us to trust Him. 3) The consideration of His infinite wisdom admonishes us to be obedient.
7. On Isa_40:22-24. When might takes precedence of right and the unrighteousness of the powerful gets the upper hand, then we ought 1) To consider that our cause is no other than that of God; 2) that even the mightiest are before Him only like locusts, or like the trees that the wind sweeps away; 3) wait patiently till the hour comes for the Lord to show His power.
8. On Isa_40:25-31. “Jubilate! 1) Holy is the Lord our God in His ways (Isa_40:25). 2) Almighty is the Lord our God in His works (Isa_40:26-28). 3) Rich is the Lord our God in His gifts of grace (Isa_40:29-31).” Scheerer. Manch. G. u. Ein G., 1868.
9. On Isa_40:27-31. [Reproof of dejection and despondency under afflictions. I. The ill words of despair under present calamity (Isa_40:27). II. The titles God gives His people are enough to shame them out of their distrusts. O Jacob—O Israel. Let them consider whence they took these names, and why they bore them. III. He reminds them of that which, if duly considered, was sufficient to silence all their fears and distrusts (Isa_40:28). He communicates what He is Himself to others, choosing especially the weak for the display of this heaven-imparted strength (Isa_40:29). Comp. 1Co_1:27-29. V. The glorious effect: strength perfected in weakness, comp. 2Co_12:9-10; and enhanced by the failures of those naturally strong (Isa_40:29-31). After M. Henry.]
10. On Isa_40:31. [I. “Religion is often expressed in the Scriptures by “waiting on Jehovah,” i. e., by looking to Him for help, expecting deliverance through His aid, putting trust in Him. See Psa_25:3; Psa_25:5; Psa_25:21; Psa_27:14; Psa_37:7; Psa_37:9; Psa_37:34; Psa_69:3; Isa_8:17; Isa_30:18.” II. “It does not imply inactivity or want of personal exertion.” III. “They only wait on Him in a proper manner who expect His blessing in the common modes in which He imparts it to men—in the use of those means and efforts which He has appointed, and which He is accustomed to bless.” The farmer does not wait for God to plow and sow his field; but having plowed and sown he waits for the blessing. After Barnes, in loc.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.
comfortably--literally, "to the heart"; not merely to the intellect.
Jerusalem--Jerusalem though then in ruins, regarded by God as about to be rebuilt; her people are chiefly meant, but the city is personified.
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cry--publicly and emphatically as a herald cries aloud (Isa 40:3).
warfare--or, the appointed time of her misery (Job 7:1, Margin; Job 14:14; Dan 10:1). The ulterior and Messianic reference probably is the definite time when the legal economy of burdensome rites is at an end (Gal 4:3-4).
pardoned--The Hebrew expresses that her iniquity is so expiated that God now delights in restoring her.
double for all her sins--This can only, in a very restricted sense, hold good of Judah's restoration after the first captivity. For how can it be said her "warfare was accomplished," when as yet the galling yoke of Antiochus and also of Rome was before them? The "double for her sins" must refer to the twofold captivity, the Assyrian and the Roman; at the coming close of this latter dispersion, and then only, can her "iniquity" be said to be "pardoned," or fully expiated [HOUBIGANT]. It does not mean double as much as she deserved, but ample punishment in her twofold captivity. Messiah is the antitypical Israel (compare Mat 2:15, with Hos 11:1). He indeed has "received" of sufferings amply more than enough to expiate "for our sins" (Rom 5:15, Rom 5:17). Otherwise (cry unto her) "that she shall receive (blessings) of the Lord's hand double to the punishment of all her sins" (so "sin" is used, Zac 14:19, Margin) [LOWTH]. The English Version is simpler.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. Comfort ye — This chapter proleptically opens the…
1. Comfort ye — This chapter proleptically opens the scene, as it was laid in Babylon during the exile, of God’s coming deliverance to his people. The interminable ring of “a remnant shall be saved,” still sounds loud and clear. The voice is to the prophet and his partners and successors, — “Comfort ye.” The charge to “comfort” is re-doubled, denoting no cessation, no letting up, of this duty, for God is in earnest, and his promise means continuance of consolation till the exile is over.
My people — The humble remnant, who are to be purified wholly of every idolatrous taint, and who shall be worthy of complete deliverance.
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Your God — Emphatic of “your;” because the humbled people are, and shall be accounted worthy to be, his — a people to whom he twice commands to announce a perpetual consolation.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1, 2. The term of Jerusalem’s servitude is accomplished;…
1, 2. The term of Jerusalem’s servitude is accomplished; she has suffered the full penalty of her transgressions.
Comfort ye] The repetition of an emphatic opening word is characteristic of the writer’s style; cf. ch. Isa_43:11; Isa_43:25, Isa_48:11; Isa_48:15, Isa_51:9; Isa_51:12; Isa_51:17, Isa_52:1; Isa_52:11 etc. (see Introd. p. xlv). It is rather idle to enquire who are the persons addressed; they might no doubt be prophets (as the clause is paraphrased by the Targ.) or the prophetically minded among the people, but certainly not the priests, as is suggested by the Sept. addition of ἱερεῖς at the beginning of Isa_40:2.
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saith your God] The verb differs in tense from the usual prophetic formula, being an impf. either of continued or of incipient action (see Introd. p. xlvii, and Driver, Tenses, § 33 (a) Obs.). To translate it by a future and take this as a proof that the words were written by Isaiah 150 years before is quite unwarranted.
Ch. Isa_40:1-11. The Prologue
This first proclamation of glad tidings to Zion (see ch. Isa_41:27) is a passage of singular beauty, breathing the spirit of new-born hope and enthusiasm with which the prophet enters on his work. The announcement of a miraculous restoration of the exiles to their own land is the central theme of his prophecy, and the point around which all the ideas of the book crystallize. As yet the historical fact is but dimly outlined, the writer’s mind being occupied with its ideal significance as a revelation of the glory and the gracious character of Jehovah (Isa_40:5; Isa_40:10 f.). His state of mind borders on ecstasy; his ears are filled with the music of heavenly voices telling him that the night is far spent and the day is at hand; and although his home is with the exiles in Babylon, his gaze is fixed throughout on Jerusalem and the great Divine event which is the consummation of Israel’s redemption.—The prologue consists of two parts:
i. Isa_40:1-2.—Proclamation of forgiveness and promise of deliverance to the exiled nation.
ii. Isa_40:3-11. An imaginative description of the process by which the promise is to be fulfilled,—Jehovah’s return with His people to their ancient abode. This second division contains three sections:—
(1) Isa_40:3-5. A voice is heard calling on un seen agencies to prepare a way for Jehovah through the desert. The idea expressed is that already the spiritual and supernatural forces are in motion which will bring about the return of the captives and a revelation of the Divine glory to all the world.
(2) Isa_40:6-8. A second voice calls on the prophet to proclaim the fundamental truth on which the realisation of his hope depends,—the perishableness of all human power, and the enduring stability of the word of the Lord.
(3) Isa_40:9-11. The prophet himself now takes up the strain; he summons a company of ideal messengers to announce to Zion and the cities of Judah the advent of Jehovah with His ransomed people.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) Comfort ye . . .—I start with the…
XL.
(1) Comfort ye . . .—I start with the assumption that the great prophetic poem that follows is the work of Isaiah himself, referring to the Introduction for the discussion of all questions connected with its authorship and arrangement. It has a link, as has been noticed, with the earlier collection of his writings in Isa_35:9-10. The prophet’s mind is obviously projected at the outset into the future, which it had been given him to see, when the time of punishment and discipline was to be succeeded, having done its work, by blessedness and peace. The key-note is struck in the opening words. The phrase “my people” is a distinct echo of Hos. ii. 1. Lo Ammi (i.e. “not my people,”) has been brought back to his true position as Ammi (i.e. “my people”).
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Saith your God.—Noticeable as a formula which is at once peculiar to Isaiah and common to both his volumes (Isa_1:11; Isa_1:18; Isa_33:10; Isa_41:21; Isa_66:9).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 THE Assyrian struggle is over. The prophet has accepted…
THE Assyrian struggle is over. The prophet has accepted into the depths of his spirit God"s announcement that the true spoiler, "the rod of his anger, and the staff of his indignation," is not Assyria, but Babylon. He has accepted the sentence that his people is to go into captivity. Into this future of his nation he throws himself with a faith, a fervour, and a power of realization, which are all his own. "The familiar scenes and faces, among which he has hitherto lived and laboured, have grown dim and disappeared. All sounds and voices of the present are hushed, and move him no more. The present has died out of the horizon of his soul"s vision.... The voices in his cars are those of men unborn, and he lives a second life among events and persons, sins and suffering, and fears and hopes, photographed sometimes with the minutest accuracy on the sensitive and sympathetic medium of his own spirit; and he becomes the denouncer of the special sins of a distant generation, and the spokesman of the faith and hope and passionate yearning of an exiled nation, the descendants of men living, when he wrote, in the profound peace of a renewed prosperity" (Stanley, quoted by Mr. Cheyne, "Prophecies of Isaiah," vol. 2. p. 213). The primary idea which occurs to him is that of "comfort." He will "comfort his people" in their affliction, so far as in him lies; and he will do this by preaching
(1) the recovery of Israel from sin by faith and waiting upon God; and
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(2) their recovery from the bondage to Babylon, which was the consequence of sin. In the present chapter it is the former topic especially which he urges.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. The key-note is struck at once. With that iteration which is his favourite mode of emphasizing what is important, (see the comment on Isa_38:11) the prophet declares that he and his brethren have a direct mission from God to "comfort" Israel. Note the encouragement contained in the expressions, "my people," and "your God." Israel is not cast off, even when most deeply afflicted.
Vers. 1, 2. Comfort after trouble.
God "has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth;" it is no satisfaction to him to punish. As soon as ever those whom he is forced to punish will submit to the chastening rod in a proper spirit, and allow the staff of the Divine indignation to have its due effect upon them, God is ready to comfort. God the Holy Ghost is the One True Comforter. He and he alone can pour balm into the heart, quiet the conscience, enable the stricken soul to feel that it is once more at one with God. A few words may be said on
(1) the conditions of comfort;
(2) the methods of comfort; and
(3) the proper results of comfort.
I THE CONDITIONS OF COMFORT. As trouble comes upon us to punish sin, the first condition of our receiving comfort is that sin be put away. The next is that we implore God"s pardon for our past transgressions, and acknowledge the justice of his chastisement. The third is that we pray to him of his great goodness to remit his anger, and speak comfort to our souls, and pour his peace into our hearts. If we neglect any of these conditions, we have no right to expect that God will bless us with the great blessing of his comforting grace, which is not, like the rain and sunshine, an ordinary blessing of his providence, but is a special boon reserved for those who have prepared themselves to receive it.
II THE METHODS OF COMFORT. God sometimes comforts us through the instrumentality of our fellow-men. Job"s friends were "miserable comforters, all of them"; (Job_16:2) but it is not always so with the afflicted. The kind sympathy of friends, the wise counsel of spiritual guides, is often blessed by God to the relief and solace of those who are in trouble. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," was his address to the prophets of Israel (ver. 1); and we may be assured that his Spirit went with the month of his prophets, and made the comfort which they strove to We effectual. Again, sometimes he comforts us by his Word. Many a time has the despairing soul found peace and joy in the promises of the gospel, which are indeed potent to raise up hope in the most despondent, and to comfort the most unhappy. But frequently perhaps we may say mostly God gives his comfort himself, without intermediary. The stricken soul strays itself" upon him, leans on him, makes its moan to him; and he "comes to it," and with his blessed presence puts an end to the soul"s trouble, dispels the darkness, drives away despair and fear, infuses hope, breathes peace, imparts comfort. (see Psa_71:2 Isa_51:3 Isa_66:13 2Co_1:3, 4 2Th_2:17, etc.)
III THE RESULTS OF COMFORT. The immediate result of comfort is peace and happiness. The soul comforted by God is at least contented, blissful. The further results should be
(1) gratitude for the great mercy and loving-kindness showed to us;
(2) perseverance in well-doing, the fruit and necessary result of gratitude, the chief means which creatures have of showing forth their thankfulness to God for any and every mercy vouchsafed to them;
(3) praise and thanksgiving, the natural utterance of the mouth, when the heart is really touched with gratitude, and sensible of God"s goodness. As David says, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord... in the presence of all his people... I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the Name of the Lord". (Psa_116:12-17)
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-11. The prophet"s commission.
He is to unfold a theme of consolation, which runs through the whole of the book, introduced by this chapter. He speaks to the prophets: "Ye prophets, prophesy consolation concerning my people" (Targum of Jonathan); or, "O priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem," according to the LXX The former is probably correct. The prophets were numerous both in Isaiah"s time (Isa_3:1 Isa_29:10, Isa_29:20) and during the Babylonian. (Jer_29:1) Jehovah is now reconciled to his erring people, and calls them no longer by names expressive of rejection or contempt, (as Hos_1:9 Isa_6:9) but as my people. "Israel, my people, and I their God," is the great word on which both Judaism and Christianity rest. Now the prophets are to "speak to the heart of Jerusalem." It is to be in a voice clear and distinct and penetrating. "Heart," in Hebrew use, is a comprehensive word; it stands for" intelligence, conscience, feeling," in one. (cf. Gen_34:3 Gen_50:21, where the Hebrew is, "to their hearts Perhaps chiefly the latter here. The vocation of the prophet is now especially to comfort and encourage. And so ever with the preacher. We may compare with these words the scene in the synagogue at Nazareth. Christ announces himself as the Bearer of consolation to the heart of his people, to the heart of mankind, especially to the poor and the distressed and dejected. And surely the burden of every ministry may well be the "Christ of consolation.
I THE MESSAGE TO JERUSALEM.
1. "Her warfare is fulfilled." "Warfare" standing for "enforced hardships." The metaphor "very suggestive of the peculiar troubles of military service in ancient times:" "Hath not man a warfare hard service on the earth?". (Job_7:1) The idea of an appointed time of service enters into the word the discharge of a duty for which a man has been enlisted, or solemnly engaged, as that of the Levites in the tabernacle. (Num_4:23 Num_8:24, Num_8:25) Life as a period of enforced service. It means for most of us, perhaps for all of us, toil, danger, suffering. From this enlistment the only discharge is by death. (Job_14:14 Dan_10:1) Our times are in the hand of God. A period is fixed to all suffering and trial. It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound has been set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us. "Let them rave; thou art quiet in thy grave.
2. "Her guilt is paid off." For punishment is viewed as the payment of a debt, and so as the satisfaction of the demands of Divine justice. In the Law, the sword and dispersion among the heathen are threatened against the disobedient and the unreformed; but never does Jehovah forget the covenant between him and the people; he is ever ready to suspend punishment when they suspend sin. Here the people are represented "as having suffered what God had appointed them endured the natural punishment he saw to be necessary. They had served out the long term he had appointed. Now he is satisfied, has pleasure in releasing them and restoring them to their own land." Happy that moment in the personal life when the soul can be assured that suffering has done its work, and that it may be self-forgiven, because God-forgiven. "At the last, do as the heavens have done: Forget your evil; with them, forgive yourself.
3. hath received double for all her sins." The expression seems to denote what is amply sufficient" (cf. Jer_17:18 Rev_18:6) (Cheyne); "As much as God judged to be sufficient" (Grotius); "Double to be received for large and abundant" (Calvin). The great law of compensation running through life, we must believe, is exact in its operation. God makes no mistakes in his reckonings. Suffering may continue long after sin has been forgiven. If the memory of guilt be still poignant, if the consequences of sin seem still "ever before us," it is as if God were saying, "Not enough hast thou suffered yet to know how precious is the peace of forgiveness." And when that blessed sense of forgiveness steals into the soul, it is the symptom that the hand of God is removed, that the cup of sorrow has been drained, that the medicine has done its work. The justice of our God will exact sufficient from us in the way of suffering; his clemency and mercy will never add a superfluous stroke from the scourge; rather he will stop short of the full exaction thirty-nine rather than the full forty stripes.
II THE MYSTERIOUS CALL. From what is to be believed of Jehovah, we pass to what is to be done for Jehovah. So ever does faith push on to practice. The internal act of the mind realizes itself and is made perfect in the external act of the life.
1. Mysteriously a voice bids the listening heart prepare for Jehovah. It is a "non-Divine, yet supernatural voice." The poetic effect is heightened by the mystery. (cf. Isa_51:9 Isa_52:1 Isa_57:14 Isa_62:10) Similar voices are spoken of in the Book of Revelation. (Rev_1:10, 12 4:1 10:4, 8) There are times when the breath of coming change is felt stirring, and voices are heard calling to men to welcome it in and to help it on. Whence come they? Who knows? A spiritual world is all about us. It has music, and words; but while "this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear." But at times they pierce through our sensuality and break up our lethargic indolence. "Clear ye Jehovah"s way in the desert." The Divine monarch is about to make a progress. Let the heart of the nation be as a highway for their God. (Psa_84:5) So the Gospels understand the cry. (Mat_3:3 Mar_1:3 Luk_3:4) From another point of view, the way of Jehovah through the desert is symbolic of his people"s destinies. Babylon, as the scene of captivity, reminds us of the scene of captivity of yore in Egypt. When the temple was destroyed and Israel went forth, it was as if Jehovah had departed perhaps to his sacred seat in the north, where Ezekiel (Eze_1:4) sees the cherubic chariot. His coming back is the people"s coming back under his leadership. The imagery of clearing the way may be illustrated from the practice of Oriental princes. Diodorus tells of Semiramis that, in her march to Ecbatana, she had precipices digged down, and hollows filled up, so as to leave an everlasting memorial of herself the "road of Semiramis". (cf. RAPC Bar 5:7) Then the glory of Jehovah, eclipsed or hidden through his people"s suffering and exile, will shine forth in its splendour, and all mankind shall look on.
2. Again the voice is heard saying, "Call!" And the prophet answers, "What shall I call?" The burden of the cry is the frailty of man, and the eternity of the truth. Homer compares the race of man to the successive generations of the leaves of the wood; the prophet to the grass and the flowers. (of. Psa_90:5, Psa_90:6) Israel and Assyria are both politically extinct, and Babylon is hurrying to its end. The thought is suggested, though not expressed, that if Israel is to rise again from its ashes, it can only be by abstaining from all attempts at secular aggrandizement. The new Israel will be, in all the circumstances of its growth, supernatural. And what is true of one people is true of all. Princes, nobles, and monarchs, armies and magistrates, are feeble like grass and will soon pass away. On the one hand, they would not be able to accomplish what was needed for the deliverance of the people; on the other, their oppressors had no power to continue their bondage, since they were like grass and must pass away. But Jehovah had all power, and was ever-enduring, and able to fulfil all his promises, especially those concerning Israel. (Isa_44:26 Isa_45:19 Isa_52:6 Jer_44:28, Jer_44:29) And the healing results are to be known by all mankind.
III THE INSPIRING VISION The prophet is carried away in spirit to Palestine, and sees the fulfilment of the promise drawing near. He personifies Zion and Jerusalem, and calls upon them to lift up their voices and announce to the cities of Judah the approach of God. Perhaps he idealizes the city, or is thinking of the city out of sight the spiritual commonwealth of which the earthly and visible one was the type. Lo! he comes! the God and Leader of the people returning to the city, the temple, the land. He will come in his might; the arm is the very symbol of his almightiness; and it rules for him, i.e. for the peculiar people, the people of his possession. He comes to recompense his friends and to execute vengeance on his foes. The ruler of a people is fitly imaged as a shepherd, and they as his flock. And now he has sought and found his sheep again, and will once more lead them to green pastures, (Jer_31:10 Jer_50:19 Eze_34:11-16) and, as a good shepherd, will not overdrive the suckling ewes. (Gen_33:13) In the Syrian plains the frequent removal to fresh pastures is very destructive to the young, and shepherds may now be seen in the Orient carrying, on such occasions, the lambs in their bosoms. We need, by any means in our power, travel, and observation, to realize strongly the grave responsibility, the constant anxiety, the patient and unwearied tendance, connected with the shepherd"s life in the East. Compare such a life with that of the hunter, who, from watching, pursuing, outwitting wild beasts, comes to partake of their fierce and cunning nature. The life of the shepherd draws upon the fund of love and tenderness in his heart; it is a humanizing life, full of a fine education; elevating by means of condescension. Then how rich a symbol is the pastoral character of the nature of the redeeming God! And how do the numerous passages in the New Testament, in which Jesus is so described, start into life and beauty, when these things are considered! (Joh 10 Heb_13:20 1Pe_2:25 1Pe_5:4) There is an ineffable union of might with tenderness in the character of the Redeemer-God, which should in some sort be reflected in the pastoral character of Christ"s servants. J. (Joh_16:15-17)
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM Vers. 1, 2. Divine consolations.
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem." Here, after prophetic revelation of danger and warning against the Nemesis of sin, we come upon the evangel of love. For God delights not in denunciation or death. All his universe testifies that he loves life, that he "has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
I HERE IS REITERATION. "Comfort ye, comfort ye." It is an inspiration of earnestness in conveying the heavenly message. For God is the God of comfort. Not comfort in sin, but comfort to all who seek to be delivered from it. This is like the "Verily, verily." It gives emphasis to hope. For love deals not in cold aphorisms, but repeats itself, that the heart may be sure of the message. To convince of sin is not enough. To expose evil may be the work of the moral dramatist. To scorn it may be the work of the satirist. But God is more than a Judge; he is a Saviour. The Son of man came (as his great work), "not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
II HERE IS REST. "Her warfare is accomplished." The weapons to be put into the hands of the faithful suffice to secure victory, and therefore the warfare is spoken of as accomplished. Looking forward to the Redeemer"s days, Isaiah reminds us that his sacrifice is to be complete, as we read in Hebrews, "Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Thus Christ spake of his own death, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." This is the spirit of the New Testament. "Iniquity is pardoned." All who believe have full and free remission of sins. And the warfare within them must end in holy conquest every rebel flag on every province of the nature will be hauled down, and every worldly enemy will be laid low. "This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.
III HERE IS DEPENDENCE. We receive double from "the Lord"s hand." This is the theme of all the true Churches of Christ. Whether we express our gratitude for redemption in the words of Lyte or Watts, Keble or Doddridge, Faber or Wesley, it is still the same, and antedates the great Church worship of heaven: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us kern our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God,... be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 2. Pardon and penalty.
Israel is to be comforted by her teachers and pastors, because the time of her exile, which is the period of the Divine sentence, has nearly expired, and the hour of her redemption is consequently nigh. If we ask what ground of comfort we find here for the Christian Church, or for the chastened human soul, we have to reply
I THAT COMFORT IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE SUPPOSED LENIENCY OF GOD. No thought can be more perilously false than the imagination that God is too great to concern himself with our misdeeds, or too "good" to take offence with our shortcoming. Scripture, providence, and a sound philosophy alike protest against that ruinous doctrine. Sin is clearly a most serious thing, a heinous and terrible departure in the sight of God. Let no man comfort his soul with the hope that "le bon Dieu" will overlook his life of impiety or his various acts of iniquity. God does, indeed, pardon sin on man"s penitence and faith; but even then pardon does not absolutely exclude penalty. We may not press into our service here the word "pardoned" (ver. 2), as it may perhaps there signify expiated; but elsewhere the redemption of Israel is treated as an act of Divine mercy. Yet here we have judgment and mercy blended. The guilty nation is not to be restored until "her warfare" (the time of her service) has been "accomplished," until she has received at the Lord"s hand "double" (full and ample chastisement) for all her sins. And the fact is, as we find in our daily experience, that when God now pardons and restores, he lets his reconciled children feel the effects of their past folly and sin. The consequences of a vicious youth go far on into even Christian manhood. The penalties of an unwise and irreverent fatherhood follow the parent to the very foot of the grave. God"s mercy does not immediately arrest the tide of suffering and sorrow which flows from a long course of wrongdoing. The man "bears his penalty until his warfare" (his time of servitude) "is accomplished;" and that is often a long time, covering many years, extending over whole periods of human life.
II THAT COMFORT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE FACT OF A REAL RESTORATION to the love and favour of God. In a very true sense, when a man repents and seeks the Divine mercy in Christ Jesus, he is one of God"s "people" (ver. 1); God is his God, as he was not before (ver. 1). And the ills that he now suffers lose their stern aspect; penalty becomes discipline it is no longer the sentence of the Judge, it is the correction of the Father.
III THAT COMFORT IS TO BE FOUND IN THE RELEASE OF DEATH and the free( loin of the heavenly country. When the end of life"s hard service comes, and the note of the soul"s return shall be sounded, then shall there be a glorious deliverance from evil, and entrance on the highest good. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. The comfort of God"s restored favour.
The question of the authorship of the latter half of Isaiah resolves itself into a discussion of its claim to be prophetical. If it is descriptive, it must have been written by some "great unknown." If it is prophetical, and a vision of historical events covering long centuries, but grouped for effective representation, then it may have been written by Isaiah, and it fittingly completes a work which, revealing Divine judgments, also reveals "mercy rejoicing over judgment." Isaiah seems to be among the wearied, burdened, disheartened exiles in Babylon, towards the close of the Captivity. They are "hanging their harps on the willows," and refusing to sing. They have waited so long, that it seems quite plain "God has forgotten to be gracious." To them Isaiah has a message from God. He is to "comfort them;" and this is to be the comforting God"s time of judgment is almost over, God"s restoring mercies are close at hand. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound". (Rom_5:20) "Having, in Isa_39:6, Isa_39:7, predicted the Captivity, Isaiah, with a view to console his nation, delivers the prophetic discoveries which, in perspective vision, he obtained of the remarkable interposition of Divine providence for their deliverance." We notice that the comfortable and comforting message is to give assurance of three things.
I WARFARE ENDED. The warfare meant is that struggle to bear and keep heart which had been so trying all through the long years of captivity. Or it may mean God"s warfare with their idolatry and iniquity, the Captivity being regarded as God"s fighting with the national sins, in order to destroy them and root them out. There can be no comfort, no rest, for us until sin is resisted and mastered. Heaven is only a rest-time, because, then and there, the people are all holy. We must keep the warfare so long as we keep the sin. The discipline will be ended, the pressure of our military service, only when the victory of righteousness is won.
II GUILT PAID OFF. This seems to be the idea of the original, which we have as, "her iniquity is pardoned." Reference is rather to the penalty of iniquity being effectively removed. There can be no comfort while we are compelled to look this way and that, asking, "Where shall iniquity be laid?" On Israel it lay as a burden of so many years of national humiliation and captivity. To us the mystery of the "Sin-bearer" has been revealed; and we know that God has "laid on him the iniquity of as all." This knowledge is comfort indeed.
III FAVOUR AT THE DOUBLE. The sentence is variously explained. Some refer it to the sufficiency of the sufferings endured. Others think it suggests abundance of restored grace and favour. Treated meditatively, we may take the "double" to suggest the temporal restorations under Cyrus and the spiritual restoration under Messiah. When God restores, he does it in such a gracious, fall, superabounding way, as to be an infinite consolation and joy to us. The comfort unspeakable is God"s restored smile. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
Isa_40:1
Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
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The great prophecy of Israels restoration
In passing from chaps, 36-39, to chap. 40. we find ourselves introduced into a new world. The persons whom the prophet addresses, the people amongst whom he lives and moves, whose feelings he portrays, whose doubts he dispels, whose faith he confirms, are not the inhabitants of Jerusalem under Ahaz, or Hezekiah, or Manasseh, but the Jewish exiles in Babylonia. Jerusalem and the Temple are in ruins (Isa_44:10), and have been so for long Isa_58:12; Isa_61:4 --the old waste places): the proud and imposing Babylonian empire is to all appearance as secure as ever; the exiles are in despair or indifferent; they think that God has forgotten them, and have ceased to expect, or desire, their release (Isa_40:27; Isa_49:14; Isa_49:24). Toarouse the indifferent, to reassure the wavering, to expostulate with the doubting, to announce with triumphant confidence the certainty of the approaching restoration, is the aim of the great prophecy which now occupies the last twenty-seven chapters of the Book of Isaiah. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
The Gospel of Isaiah
Here beginneth the Gospel of the prophet Isaiah, and holdeth on to the end of the book. (J. Trapp.)
Does Isa_40:1-31. treat of the return from Babylon?
The specific application of this chapter to the return from Babylon is without the least foundation in the text itself. The promise is a general one of consolation, protection, and change for the better, to be wrought by the power and wisdom of Jehovah, which are contrasted, first, with those of men, of nations, and of rulers, then with the utter impotence of idols. That the ultimate fulfilment of the promise was still distant, is implied in the exhortation to faith and patience. The reference to idolatry proves nothing with respect to the date of the prediction, although more appropriate in the writings of Isaiah than of a prophet in the Babylonish Exile. It is evidently meant, however, to condemn idolatry in general, and more particularly all the idolatrous defections of the Israelites under the old economy. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
A comforting message
There is evident allusion to the threatening in Isa_39:7. Having there predicted the captivity in Babylon, as one of the successive strokes by which the fate of Israel as a nation and the total loss of its peculiar privileges should be brought about, the prophet is now sent to assure the spiritual Israel, the true people of Jehovah, that although the Jewish nation should not cease to be externally identified with the Church, the Church itself should not only continue to exist, but in a far more glorious state than ever. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
Gods return to a pardoned people
The beginning of the good tidings is Israel s pardon; yet it seems not to be the peoples return to Palestine which is announced in consequence of this, so much as their Gods return to them. Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway for our God. Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
My people; your God
All the prophecy we are about to study may be said to hang from these pronouns. They are the hinges on which the door of this new temple of revelation swings open before the long-expectant people. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
A storehouse of Divine promise
This portion (chaps. 40-66.) of the great prophets writings may well be regarded as the Old Testament Store house and Repertory of exceeding great and precious promises, in which Jehovah would seem to anticipate His own special Gospel name as the God of all comfort. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Jehovah and His Church
1. A glorious change awaits the Church, consisting in a new and gracious manifestation of Jehovahs presence, for which His people are exhorted to prepare (Isa_40:1-5).
2. Though one generation perish after another, this promise shall eventually be fulfilled, because it rests not upon human but Divine authority (Isa_40:6-8).
3. Zion may even now see Him approaching as the conqueror of His enemies, and at the same time as the Shepherd of His people (Isa_40:9-11).
4. The fulfilment of these pledges is insured by His infinite wisdom, His almighty power, and His independence both of individuals and nations (Isa_40:12-17).
5. How much more is He superior to material images, by which men represent Him or supply His place (Isa_40:18-25).
6. The same power which sustains the heavens is pledged for the support of Israel (Isa_40:26-31). (J. A. Alexander.)
Comfort ye, comfort ye
The double utterance of the Comfort ye, is the well-known Hebrew expression of emphasis, abundance, intensity;--Great comfort, saith your God. (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
Gods great comfort
At the close of the prophecy, the prophet tells us what the strength and abundance of that comfort is. Earths best picture of strong consolation is that of the mother bending over the couch of her suffering and sorrowing child (Isa_66:13). (J. R. Macduff, D. D.)
A Divine art
When the soul is in the period of its exile and bitter pain, it should do three things.
I. LOOK OUT FOR COMFORT.
1. It will come certainly. Wherever the nettle grows, beside it grows the dock-leaf; and wherever there is severe trial, there is, somewhere at hand, a sufficient store of comfort, though our eyes, like Hagars, are often holden that we cannot see it. It is as sure as the faithfulness of God. I never had, says Bunyan, writing of his twelve years imprisonment, in all my life, so great an insight into the Word of God as now; insomuch that I have often said, Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comforts sake. God cannot forget His child.
2. It will come proportionately. Thy Father holds a pair of scales. This on the right is called As, and is for thine afflictions; this on the left is called So, and is for thy comforts. And the beam is always kept level The more thy trial, the more thy comfort. As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth through Christ.
3. It will come Divinely. God reserves to Himself the prerogative of comfort. It is a Divine art.
4. It will come mediately. What the prophet was as the spokesman of Jehovah, uttering to the people in human tones the inspirations that came to him from God, so to us is the great prophet, whose shoe-latchet the noblest of the prophetic band was not worthy to unloose; and our comfort is the sweeter because it reaches us through Him.
5. It will come variously. Sometimes by the coming of a beloved Titus; a bouquet; a bunch of grapes; a letter; a message; a card. There are many strings in the dulcimer of consolation. In sore sorrow it is not what a friend says, but what he is, that helps us. He comforts best who says least, but simply draws near, takes the sufferers hand, and sits silent in his sympathy. This is Gods method.
II. STORE UP COMFORT. This was the prophets mission. He had to receive before he could impart. Thy own life becomes the hospital ward where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort. Thou art wounded, that in the binding up of thy wounds by the Great Physician thou mayest learn how to render first-aid to the wounded everywhere.
III. PASS ON COMFORT. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Divine ministry of comfort
There are ministries in the world.
1. There is the Divine ministry of instruction. In this ministry nature, history, and the Bible are constantly employed.
2. There is the Divine ministry of Justice. Nemesis is always and everywhere at work, treading on the heels of wrong, and inflicting penalties.
3. In the text we have the Divine ministry of comfort. The words suggest three thoughts concerning this ministry.
I. It implies the existence of DISTRESS. Bright and fair as the material world often appears, a sea of sorrow rolls through human souls The distress is of various kinds.
1. Physical suffering.
2. Social bereavement.
3. Secular anxieties.
4. Moral compunction.
II. It implies the existence of SPECIAL MEANS. All this distress is an abnormal state of things. Misery is not an institution of nature, and the creation of God, but the production of the creature. To meet this abnormal state something more than natural instrumentality is required.
1. There must be special provisions. Those provisions are to be found in the Gospel. To the physically afflicted there are presented considerations fitted to energise the soul, endow it with magnanimity, fill it with sentiments and hopes that will raise it, if not above the sense of physical suffering, above its depressing influence. To the socially, bereaved it brings the glorious doctrine of a future life. To the secularly distressed it unfolds the doctrine of eternal providence. In secular disappointments and anxieties it says, Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
2. There must be special agency. A physician may know the disease of his patient, but if he does not know the precise mode of application he will not succeed. So it is with the Gospel. A man to give comfort to another requires a special qualification. The comforting elements must be administered--
(1) Not officially, but humanly.
(2) Not verbosely, but sympathetically.
III. It implies a LIMITED SPHERE. My people. The whole human family is in distress, but there is only a certain class qualified to receive comfort, those who are here called Gods people, and who are they? Those who have surrendered themselves to His will, yielded to His claims, and dedicated themselves to His service. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Comfort for Gods people
I. THE SPEAKER. It is the God of comfort, the God of all comfort that here speaks comfortably to His people. There is a danger of our thinking too much of comfort, and one may only value the word preached as it administers comfort; this is a great error, because all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, and reproof, as well as for comfort. One great end which even the Scriptures have in view, is not only to lead us to patience in suffering, but to comfort us under suffering. It is one thing for man to speak comfort, it is another thing for God to speak comfort.
II. THE PERSONS THAT ARE HERE SPOKEN TO. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.
1. The Lord has a people upon earth--He has never been without a people.
2. The Lord has a people; and if He has a people He will try them, and they shall not be found summer flies just resting on the surface of things, but they shall be found to be those that know the truth in the power of it, and they shall be made to feel and experience the worth of it. It shall not be enough for them to say, I am a sinner, but they shall feel the wretchedness of being a sinner, they shall not only confess that Christ is precious, but they shall be placed where they shall know Him to be precious.
3. The Lord has a people; and it is a most blessed consideration to reflect that while He has a people, He is their God. Talk not of your wretchedness and your poverty and your disease, of your weakness; if God be your God, not only heaven is your home, but you have that without which heaven would not be worth the having.
4. God has a people; no wonder then He comforts them--His eye is upon them from the beginning to the end of the year. They are the salt of the earth to Him, and he that touches them touches the apple of His eye.
III. THE LORDS MESSAGE UNTO HIS MINISTERS. Comfort ye, etc. The-great cause of comfort to a child of God may be summed up in a little sentence--through eternity he never shall come to the close of it. Let me point out some few of those great mercies that flow to a child of God in consequence of his having Christ as his portion.
1. He has that which made David glad (Psa_32:1-2). The great contest Satan has with our consciences is about the pardon of our sins. Well might the people of God then be comforted by this truth, that their sins have all been blotted out as a cloud.
2. Do you ask for another ground of comfort? See it in a covenant, ordered in all things (2Sa_23:5).
3. But the Psalmist found another source of comfort. It is good for me to draw near to God (Psa_73:1-28.). There is no mercy on earth greater than to have a God in heaven, to have an Intercessor at the right hand; to have the heart of God; to have the promise of God: to have Jehovah Himself as my portion.
4. One comfort more is the bright prospect that is before the child of God. (J. H.Evans, M. A.)
Comfort for Zion
It was once said by Vinet, that the three great objects of the preacher were the illumination, consolation, and regeneration of men. The work of comforting is surely an important one, but it is Gods people whom we are to comfort. We are not to say, Peace, peace! where there is no peace. Stoical indifference is not real comfort, but peace alone is found in God.
I. Notice what a discovery is made in the text of GODS NATURE. He has not hidden away from men; He is not asleep or tied down by law, but His tender mercies are over all His works. He is near to every one of us, seeking our love and confidence.
II. HUMAN SOULS NEED COMFORT. Constitutional characteristics render us susceptible to consolatory truths. Even those hardened in sin have been melted by a womans tears, or have yielded to the persuasiveness of a child.
III. Look at the GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS COMFORT IS ADMINISTERED. Not those of philosophy. When the Greeks, under Xenophon, caught sight of the Euxine, they jubilantly cried, The sea, the sea! The discoveries of Divine grace--a sea without a bottom or a shore--elicit profounder joy. (G. Norcross, D. D.)
Comfort ye, comfort ye My people
The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God had breathed for them in His word. I venture to think that they were laden with a richer consolation in that they came down a vista of nearly two hundred years. Old words are precious to mourners. That which is spoken at the moment is apt to be coloured by the thoughts and the doubts of the moment; an old word spoken out of the region of these present sorrows has double force. It seems to bring that which is absolute and universal to bear on that which is present and passing. This is why the Scripture is so precious to mourners. It belongs to all time. And these words rule all its declarations. It is comfort throughout and to the end. The mercies of judgment is a subject we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Stern, hard, unfaltering to the eye, but full of rich mercy to the heart. It was in tender mercy that man, the sinner, was sent forth to labour. In society we see on a large scale how Gods judgments are blessings in disguise. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunderstorms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere.
Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world. May we pray, then, in calamities for deliverance, when they are so likely to be blessings? Yes, for prayer is the blessed refuge of our ignorance and dread. But Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak o| comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs--Emmanuel, God with us. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Divine comfort
1. Living in the midst of sorrow, and himself personally its victim, the Christian has need of comfort. Whatever form the affliction may take, it is hard for flesh and blood to bear; it runs contrary to all the tastes and desires of the natural man. Often under its pressure, especially when long continued and severe, is he tempted to faint and despond; it may be, even to repine and murmur; to doubt the faith fulness of God; to ask, in bitterness of heart, why such woe is appointed to man?
2. With what power, then, do words like these reach him in the midst of his sorrow, coming from God Himself, Comfort ye, comfort ye My people! No sooner are they heard than hope revives, and the assurance of Divine sympathy at once soothes his trouble, and allays his fears.
(1) Here is the first light from heaven which breaks upon human sorrow, and which removes from it, for the Christian, its keenest sting. God knows your suffering and thinks of it, and seeks to comfort you under it. You are not the sport of inexorable fate, or blind and reckless chance; still less are your afflictions proof that God has abandoned you in wrath.
(2) How sweet is the solace of human sympathy! But here we have Divine sympathy; sympathy from One both able and willing to deliver,--from the God of all comfort.
(3) Not afar off, does the voice of God reach us, from an inaccessible heaven, telling us we are His people and that He cares for us. He has come and made us His people, by taking our nature, and being born and living as a man. (J. N. Bennie, LL. B.)
I. GOD HAS A PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
The Lords people comforted
II. I proceed TO COMPLY WITH THE INJUNCTION IN THE TEXT. To this end, I will endeavour to obviate some few of the most common causes of that want of comfort to which the people of God are liable.
1. One cause is their misunderstanding the nature and extent of that pardon of sin, which the Gospel provides.
2. Another cause arises from their seeking comfort where it is not to be found. You can never find it from poring into your own hearts. Look in faith to Jesus Christ--His glorious person and gracious offices, etc.
3. Another cause arises from their mistaking the proofs and marks of a really religious state. They suppose that it consists in warm and rapturous feelings. Your salvation is grounded on the faithfulness of Him who cannot lie. (E. Cooper.)
The trials of business men
These words came to the prophet in the olden time, but they come just as forcibly to any man who stands to-day in any one of the pulpits of our great cities. A preacher has no more right to ignore commercial sorrows than any other kind of sorrow.
I. A great many of our business men feel ruinous trials and temptations coming to them FROM SMALL AND LIMITED CAPITAL IN BUSINESS. This temptation of limited capital has ruined men in two ways. Despondency has blasted them. Others have said, Here I have been trudging along. I have been trying, to be honest all these years. I find it is of no use. Now it is make or break.
II. A great many of our business men are tempted to OVER-ANXIETY AND CARE. God manages all the affairs of your life, and He manages them for the best.
III. Many of our business men are tempted TO NEGLECT THEIR HOME DUTIES. How often it is that the store and the home seem to clash, but there ought not to be any collision. If you want to keep your children away from places of sin, you can only do it by making your home attractive. We need more happy, consecrated, cheerful Christian homes.
IV. A great many of our business men are tempted to PUT THE ATTAINMENT OF MONEY ABOVE THE VALUE OF THE SOUL. The more money you get, the better if it come honestly and go usefully. But money cannot satisfy a mans soul; it cannot glitter in the dark valley; it cannot pay our fare across the Jordan of death; it cannot unlock the gate of heaven.
Treasures in heaven are the only uncorruptible treasures. Have you ever ciphered out in the rule of Loss and Gain the sum, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? Seek after God; find His righteousness, and all shall be well here and hereafter. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
Religious comfort
I. SHOW WHAT THE COMFORT IS which the Gospel of our Lord conveys to mankind. Whenever we speak of comforting another, the very expression implies that he is in tribulation and distress. Without the Gospel of Christ the condition of men must be wretched.
II. DESCRIBE THE PERSONS WHO ARE AUTHORISED TO TAKE THAT COMFORT TO THEMSELVES. Evangelical obedience is to be the foundation of evangelical comfort. (T. Gisborne.)
Comfort for Gods people
Comfort ye My people--
1. By reminding them that I am their God.
2. By reminding them that their captivity in this world is nearly over, and that they will soon be home.
3. The Saviour is coming to this world, and is on His way to show His glory here. He will come and fill the world with His victories. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Comfort proclaimed
What a sweet title: My people! What a cheering revelation: Your God! How much of meaning is couched in those two words, My people! Here is speciality. The whole world is Gods. But He saith of a certain number, My people. While nations and kindreds are passed by as being simply nations, He says of them. My people. In this word there is the idea of proprietorship. In some special manner the Lords portion Is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He has done more for them than others; He has brought them nigh to Himself. How careful God is of His people; mark how anxious He is concerning them, not only for their life, but for their comfort. He would not only have us His living people, His preserved people, but He would have us be His happy people too. He likes His people to be fed, but what is more, He likes to give them wines on the lees well refined, to make glad their hearts.
I. TO WHOM IS THIS COMMAND ADDRESSED? The Holy Spirit is the great Comforter, and He it is who alone can solace the saints; but He uses instruments to relieve His children in their distress and to lift up their hearts from desperation. To whom, then, is this command addressed?
1. To angels, first of all. You often talk about the insinuations of the devil. Allow me to remind you that there is another side of that question, for if evil spirits assault us, doubtless good spirits guard us. It is my firm belief that angels are often employed by God to throw into the hearts of His people comforting thoughts.
2. But on earth this is more especially addressed to the Lords ministers. The minister should ask of God the Spirit, that he may be filled with His influence as a comforter.
3. But do not support your ministers as an excuse for the discharge of your own duties; many do so. When God said, Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, He spake to all His people to comfort one another.
II. WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR THIS COMMAND?
1. Because God loves to see His people look happy. The Roman Catholic supposes that God is pleased with a man if he whips himself, walks barefooted for many miles, and torments his body. When I am by the seaside, and the tide is coming in, I see what appears to be a little fringe, looking almost like a mist; and I ask a fisherman what it is. He tells me there is no mist there; and that what I see are all little shrimps dancing in ecstasy, throwing themselves in convulsions and contortions of delight. I think within myself, Does God make those creatures happy, and did He make me to be miserable? Can it ever be a religious thing to be unhappy? No; true religion is in harmony with the whole world; it is in harmony with the whole sun and moon and stars, and the sun shines and the stars twinkle; the world has flowers in it and leaping hills and carolling birds; it has joys in it; and I hold it to be an irreligious thing to go moping miserably through Gods creation.
2. Because uncomfortable Christians dishonour religion.
3. Because a Christian in an uncomfortable state cannot work for God much. It is when the mind is happy that it can be laborious.
4. Again, Comfort ye Gods people, because ye profess to love them.
III. God never gives His children a duty without giving them THE MEANS TO DO IT. Let me just hint at those things in the everlasting Gospel which have a tendency to comfort the saints. Whisper in the mourners ear electing grace, and redeeming mercy, and dying love. Tell him that God watcheth the furnace as the goldsmith the refining pot. If that does not suffice, tell him of his present mercies; tell him that he has much left, though much is gone. Tell him that Jesus is above, wearing the breast-plate, or pleading his cause. Tell him that though earths pillars shake, God is a refuge for us; tell the mourner that the everlasting God faileth not, neither is weary. Let present facts suffice thee to cheer him. But if this is not enough, tell him of the future; whisper to him that there is a heaven with pearly gates and golden streets. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Comfort for England
I will make one little change in the translation, taking the words of Dr. George Adam Smith, Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God! Speak ye to the heart of England, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. Had the Hebrew prophets no other claim upon our regard we ought to hold them in everlasting respect for their patriotism. For Israel the prophet thought a man might well die. Israel was also Gods people. The strength of Israel in every time of trouble was the Lord of hosts. And the prophets interest was not confined to the sacrifices of the temple, nor to the coteries of pious people, but swept into its heart everything that concerned the welfare of the community.
1. Why should not our faith go farther afield and have a more generous range? We also carry in our hearts, not only as citizens, but also as Christians, this England which God gave to our fathers, and has continued in its glory unto their children. Why should we not take our courage in both our hands and, looking at the history of the past and comparing it with the history of the present, recognise in our own people another Israel called of God in a special manner, set apart by God for a special mission, and gather into our soul all the promises of God, and also make our boast in Him as the prophets did? What did they depend on, the Hebrew prophets, for this great conception that God had called the nation, and had a great work for that nation to do? They depended on the facts of history behind them creating in their soul an irresistible conviction. And I ask you whether the right arm of the Most High has not been as conspicuous in English history? From what perils in past centuries has He not delivered this country when the whole world was against us and was put to confusion! Have not we been surrounded by the sea, our national character formed, for purposes that we can recognise? What nation has ever planted so many colonies, explored so many unknown lands, made such practical contributions to civilisation, set such an illustrious example of liberty?
Within our blood is the genius for government, the passion for justice, the love of adventure, and the intelligence of pure faith. Our Lord came of the Jewish stock, and therefore that people must have a lonely place, but when it comes to the carrying out of those great blessings, physical, political, social, and religious, which have been conferred upon the world by the Cross and the pierced hand of the Lord, I challenge anyone to say whether any nation has so extended them within her own borders, or been so willing to give them to the ends of the earth as Gods England.
2. I do not forget Englands sins, for we have sinned in our own generation by inordinate love of material possessions, by discord between the classes of the commonwealth, by a certain insolence which has offended foreign peoples, and also by hideous sins of the flesh. Our sins have been great, and it becomes us to acknowledge them. Does our sin destroy our calling? Does our sin break the Covenant which the Eternal made with our fathers? No people ever sinned against God like Israel. And between the sin of Israel and the sin of England, Gods chosen people of ancient and modern times, there has been the similarity which arises from the sin of people in the same position. Both boasted themselves over-much against other peoples. Both were intoxicated with prosperity. Both depended upon it instead of utilising and conserving the favour of the Most High. When we desire to confess our sins where do we go? We go to the confessions of the Hebrew prophets. And when we ask mercy for our sins, what are the promises we plead? The great promise of mercy declared by the evangelical prophet and now sealed by the life and death and resurrection of our Lord! Because the Hebrew prophet believed that his people were Gods people, he had the courage to speak plainly to them. He is not a traitor to his country who on occasions points out his countrys sins. When Israel sinned there was no voice so loud as that of Isaiah or Amos, but they delighted not in the work, any more than their God delighted in judgment. If God sent them with a rod they took the rod and gave the stroke, but the stroke fell also on the prophets own heart, and he suffered most of all the people. When the people repented and turned again to God, when they brought forth works meet for repentance and showed humility, there was no man so glad as the prophet.
3. When the prophet takes up the work of consolation he has no bounds, he makes the comfort of God to run down the streets like a river. It is not enough to say it once, but twice must he sound it, till the comfort of God shall run like lightning through Jerusalem. And when he takes to comforting he is not to be bound by theories of theology or arguments of the schools. He is not going to ask questions--whether a man can expiate his sins, or whether a nation can win repentance. He flings all this kind of argument to the wind, for he has come out from the presence of the Eternal, who does not keep accounts like that, and he cries, Speak ye home to Jerusalem; her warfare is accomplished. Accomplished! More than that! God hath now repented! It was His people repented first, now He is repenting. They repented of their sins; behold, God has begun to repent of His judgment! I have, he makes the Eternal say--I have been over-hard with these people, and I have punished them more than they have deserved. Go and comfort them. Comfort them royally. Give it out with a lavish hand--they have received double for all their sins. When the prophet speaks in this fashion he is not referring to material prosperity, for the words were spoken to the exiles in Babylon. He comforted the exiles because they had repented and been reconciled unto God. The comfort I preach is not based on arms. It is based on the nobler spirit which God has given England during the progress of the war in South Africa. We sinned, and according to our sin was our punishment. We have repented. Through our churches and through our homes, and individually, we have laid the lessons of the Eternal to heart; and according to our repentance shall be the blessing of God. (J. Watson, M. A.)
Comfort ye My people
This command is adapted to the needs of the country in which we live. There is a good deal of weariness and depression in modem life. If the blessings of an advanced civilisation can make people happy, there are multitudes who ought to be enraptured, for they are surrounded by material comfort. The gospel of recreation is preached to them. Outward nature is enjoyed and reverenced. Music and painting are filling them with sensibility; literature is contributing to their intellectual gratification; and church privileges abound. Worship to-day gratifies the artistic faculty, without putting a very great strain on the spiritual nature of man. There never was so much ingenuity displayed as now in the manufacture of forms of enjoyment. People never waged such a successful war as to-day against physical and social discomfort. And yet, if you watch them closely, you can see that they are not really satisfied. Affection to-day is not at rest, intellect is not at rest, conscience is not at rest, faith is not at rest. Thank God, there is sweet satisfaction of soul to be found. Comfort ye, etc.
I. There is a message in this text for ALL WHO ARE UNDER DISCIPLINE ON ACCOUNT OF SIN. The connection between sin and punishment is never really broken. Men were never so clever as they are to-day in the efforts they have put forth to evade the penalties of wrong-doing, and they very often succeed so far as outward effects are concerned, But the inward penalty is always sure. Loss of self-respect, loss of faculty, and deterioration of nature itself. Thy warfare is accomplished, thy discipline may come to an end. It is the spirit of rebellion which lengthens the period of discipline. Lay down your weapons, give up fighting against God, and He will forgive you now, and the consequences of your wrongdoing shall inwardly be done away. Further, your pardon will tell at once on the outward consequences of your wrong-doing. You forfeited the confidence of your friends by your sin; that will come back to you. You damaged your health; that will improve. You injured your social position; that will be retrieved. Just as there is no decree in Gods mind as to the length of time during which a mans discipline shall be continued, so there is no decree as to the amount of suffering man can endure. The suffering, like the time, may be relieved by speedy submission and penitence.
II. There is a message in this text for ALL WHO IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE HAVE NEVER GOT BEYOND CONVICTION. Beyond conviction there is the forgiveness of God. Beyond the sin there is purity. Beyond doubt there is faith; and beyond all this miserable weariness of spirit there is rest.
III. There is a message here, also, for ALL TIMID CHRISTIANS. They feel it would be presumption to expect conscious pardon and Christian perfection. Cultivate your capacity to take in the comfort of God.
IV. There is a message here for ALL DISCONSOLATE CHRISTIANS. You want new ideas, the old ones are about worn out. Thy warfare with weariness is accomplished.
V. There is a message here for DISCONSOLATE CHURCHES. The Jewish Church was disconsolate at the time of the captivity, and there are Churches to-day which are in a sort of captivity. They have made exceptional provision for the needs of the people, yet they are declining. The declension of Churches in great populations is due to many causes, but due to one cause that is a great deal overlooked, and that is the very peculiar temperament of the generation in which your lot has been east. Competition, in particular, has led to a vast amount of advertising. But disconsolate Churches may be comforted. We are coming out of the captivity of those habits and conditions which have come down from the restrictive ages of society. Modern evangelism has grown steadily in the elements of truth and spiritual intelligence. It is resulting to-day in the deepening of spiritual life, and in the expansion of the kingdom of God.
VI. There is a message here for THE NATION AND THE EMPIRE. The return from captivity was the beginning of a new spiritual movement, which was destined to extend over many countries. The classical period of human history was about to begin. My text is the new strain with which the prophet greets the expanding prospect. As one has said, It is the keynote of the revived and purified Israel, and the reason of the hold of Christendom on Europe and on modern times. There is a wonderful correspondence between that period and ours. England is the centre to-day. Judaism at the time referred to was rational-ised by being brought into contact with forms of Roman and Greek thought. Christianity is being rationalised by contact with natural religion. But who is the leader of the improvement of the modern world? Who is this that cometh from Edom? etc. (chap. 63:1). Was it some king ruling the nations with a rod of iron? No. Some soldier with a two-edged sword? No. Some philosopher ruling the intellect of the race? No. Jehovah s righteous servant and witness it was: that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. And the Lord Christ, the Son of God, never spoke to the race as He is speaking to-day, and He needs His messengers to prepare His way. (T. Allen, D. D.)
Conviction and comfort
A quaint Scotch preacher said that the needle of the law opens the way for and carries the thread of the Gospel. I once quoted this saying in a tent-meeting, and a hearer remarked to me afterwards: Yes, youre right; but the needle should be pulled out and not left behind. (H. G. Guinness, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 THE problem of the date of Isa 40-66 is…
CHAPTER I
THE DATE OF ISAIAH 40-66
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THE problem of the date of Isa 40-66 is this: In a book called by the name of the prophet Isaiah, who flourished between 740 and 700 B.C., the last twenty-seven chapters deal with the captivity suffered by the Jews in Babylonia from 598 to 538, and more particularly with the advent, about 550, of Cyrus, whom they name. Are we to take for granted that Isaiah himself prophetically wrote these chapters, or must we assign them to a nameless author or authors of the period of which they treat?
Till the end of the last century it was the almost universally accepted tradition, and even still is an opinion retained by many, that Isaiah was carried forward by the Spirit, out of his own age to the standpoint of one hundred and fifty years later; that he was inspired to utter the warning and comfort required by a generation so very different from his own, and was even enabled to hail by name their redeemer, Cyrus. This theory, involving as it does a phenomenon without parallel in the history of Holy Scripture, is based on these two grounds: first, that the chapters in question form a considerable part-nearly nine-twentieths-of the Book of Isaiah; and second, that portions of them are quoted in the New Testament by the prophets name. The theory is also supported by arguments drawn from resemblances of style and vocabulary between these twenty-seven chapters and the undisputed oracles of Isaiah but, as the opponents of the Isaian authorship also appeal to vocabulary and style, it will be better to leave this kind of evidence aside for the present, and to discuss the problem upon other and less ambiguous grounds.
The first argument, then, for the Isaian authorship of chapters 40-66 is that they form part of a book called by Isaiahs name. But, to be worth anything, this argument must rest on the following facts: that everything in a book called by a prophets name is necessarily by that prophet, and that the compilers of the book intended to hand it down as altogether from his pen. Now there is no evidence for either of these conclusions. On the contrary, there is considerable testimony in the opposite direction. The Book of Isaiah is not one continuous prophecy. It consists of a number of separate orations, with a few intervening pieces of narrative. Some of these orations claim to be Isaiahs own: they possess such titles as "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz." But such titles describe only the individual prophecies they head, and other portions of the book, upon other subjects and in very different styles, do not possess titles at all. It seems to me that those who maintain the Isaian authorship of the whole book have the responsibility cast upon them of explaining why some chapters in it should be distinctly said to be by Isaiah, while others should not be so entitled. Surely this difference affords us sufficient ground for understanding that the whole book is not necessarily by Isaiah, nor intentionally handed down by its compilers as the work of that prophet.
Now, when we come to chapters 40-66, we find that, occurring in a book which we have just seen no reason for supposing to be in every part of it by Isaiah, these chapters nowhere claim to be his. They are separated from that portion of the book, in which his undisputed oracles are placed, by a historical narrative of considerable length. And there is not anywhere upon them nor in them a title nor other statement that they are by the prophet, nor any allusion which could give the faintest support to the opinion, that they offer themselves to posterity as dating from his time. It is safe to say, that, if they had come to us by themselves, no one would have dreamt for an instant of ascribing them to Isaiah; for the alleged resemblances, which their language and style bear to his language and style, are far more than overborne by the undoubted differences, and have never been employed, even by the defenders of the Isaian authorship, except in additional and confessedly slight support of their main argument, viz., that the chapters must be Isaiahs because they are included in a book called by his name.
Let us understand, therefore, at this very outset, that in discussing the question of the authorship of "Second Isaiah," we are not discussing a question upon which the text itself makes any statement, or into which the credibility of the text enters. No claim is made by the Book of Isaiah itself for the Isaian authorship of chapters 40-66.
A second fact in Scripture, which seems at first sight to make strongly for the unity of the Book of Isaiah, is that in the New Testament, portions of the disputed chapters are quoted by Isaiahs name, just as are portions of his admitted prophecies. These citations are nine in number. {Mat_3:3, Mat_8:17, Mat_12:17, Luk_3:4, Luk_4:17, Joh_1:23, Joh_12:38, Act_8:28, Rom_10:16-20} None is by our Lord Himself. They occur in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul. Now if any of these quotations were given in answer to the question, Did Isaiah write chapters 40-66 of the book called by his name? or if the use of his name along with them were involved in the arguments which they are borrowed to illustrate as, for instance, is the case with Davids name in the quotation made by our Lord from Psalms 110, then those who deny the unity of the Book of Isaiah would be face to face with a very serious problem indeed. But in none of the nine cases is the authorship of the Book of Isaiah in question. In none of the nine cases is there anything in the argument, for the purpose of which the quotation has been made, that depends on the quoted words being by Isaiah. For the purposes for which the Evangelists and Paul borrow the texts, these might as well be unnamed, or attributed to any other canonical writer. Nothing in them requires us to suppose that Isaiahs name is mentioned with them for any other end than that of reference, viz., to point out that they lie in the part of prophecy usually known by his name. But if there is nothing in these citations to prove that Isaiahs name is being used for any other purpose than that of reference, then it is plain-and this is all that we ask assent to at the present time-that they do not offer the authority of Scripture as a bar to our examining the evidence of the chapters in question.
It is hardly necessary to add that neither is there any other question of doctrine in our way. There is none about the nature of prophecy, for, to take an example, chapter 53, as a prophecy of Jesus Christ, is surely as great a marvel if yon date it from the Exile as if you date it from the age of Isaiah. And, in particular, let us understand that no question need be started about the ability of Gods Spirit to inspire a prophet to mention Cyrus by name one hundred and fifty years before Cyrus appeared. The question is not, Could a prophet have been so inspired?-to which question, were it put, our answer might only be, God is great!-but the question is, Was our prophet so inspired? does he himself offer evidence of the fact? Or, on the contrary, in naming Cyrus does he give himself out as a contemporary of Cyrus, who already saw the great Persian above the horizon? To this question only the writings under discussion can give us an answer. Let us see what they have to say.
Apart from the question of the date, no chapters in the Bible are interpreted with such complete unanimity as Isaiah 40-48. They plainly set forth certain things as having already taken place-the Exile and Captivity, the ruin of Jerusalem, and the devastation of the Holy Land. Israel is addressed as having exhausted the time of her penalty, and is proclaimed to be ready for deliverance. Some of the people are comforted as being in despair because redemption does not draw near; others are exhorted to leave the city of their bondage, as if they were growing too familiar with its idolatrous life. Cyrus is named as their deliverer, and is pointed out as already called upon his career, and as blessed with success by Jehovah. It is also promised that he will immediately add Babylon to his conquests, and so set Gods people free.
Now all this is not predicted, as if from the standpoint of a previous century. It is nowhere said-as we should expect it to be said, if the prophecy had been uttered by Isaiah-that Assyria, the dominant world-power of Isaiahs day, was to disappear and Babylon to take her place; that then the Babylonians should lead the Jews into an exile which they had escaped at the hands of Assyria; and that after nearly seventy years of suffering God would raise up Cyrus as a deliverer.
There is none of this prediction, which we might fairly have expected had the prophecy been Isaiahs; because, however far Isaiah carries us into the future, he never fails to start from the circumstances of his own day. Still more significant, however-there is not even the kind of prediction that we find in Jeremiahs prophecies of the Exile, with which indeed it is most instructive to compare Isaiah 40-66 Jeremiah also spoke of exile and deliverance, but it was always with the grammar of the future. He fairly and openly predicted both; and, let us especially remember, he did so with a meagreness of description, a reserve and reticence about details, which are simply unintelligible if Isaiah 40-66 was written before his day, and by so well-known a prophet as Isaiah.
No: in the statements which our chapters make concerning the Exile and the condition of Israel under it, there is no prediction, not the slightest trace of that grammar of the future in which Jeremiahs prophecies are constantly uttered. But there is a direct appeal to the conscience of a people already long under the discipline of God; their circumstance of exile is taken for granted; there is a most vivid and delicate appreciation of their present fears and doubts, and to these the deliverer Cyrus is not only named, but introduced as an actual and notorious personage already upon the midway of his irresistible career.
These facts are more broadly based than just at first sight appears. You cannot turn their flank by the argument that Hebrew prophets were in the habit of employing in their predictions what is called "the prophetic perfect"-that is, that in the ardour of their conviction that certain things would take place they talked of these, as the flexibility of the Hebrew tenses allowed them to do, in the past or perfect as if the things had actually taken place. No such argument is possible in the case of the introduction of Cyrus. For it is not only that the prophesy, with what might be the mere ardour of vision, represents the Persian as already above the horizon and upon the flowing tide of victory; but that, in the course of a sober argument for the unique divinity of the God of Israel, which takes place throughout chapters 41-48, Cyrus, alive and irresistible, already accredited by success, and with Babylonia at his feet, is pointed out as the unmistakable proof that former prophecies for a deliverance for Israel are at last coming to pass. Cyrus, in short, is not presented as a prediction, but as the proof that a prediction is being fulfilled. Unless he had already appeared in flesh and blood, and was on the point of striking at Babylon, with all the prestige of unbroken victory, a great part of Isaiah 41-Isaiah 48 would be utterly unintelligible.
This argument is so conclusive for the date of Second Isaiah, that it may be well to state it a little more in detail, even at the risk of anticipating some of the exposition of the text.
Among the Jews at the close of the Exile there appear to have been two classes. One class was hopeless of deliverance, and to their hearts is addressed such a prophecy as chapter 40: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people." But there was another class, of opposite temperament, who had only too strong opinions on the subject of deliverance. In bondage to the letter of Scripture and to the great precedents of their history, these Jews appear to have insisted that the Deliverer to come must be a Jew, and a descendant of David. And the bent of much of the prophets urgency in chapter 45 is to persuade those pedants, that the Gentile Cyrus, who had appeared to be not only the biggest man of his age, but the very likely means of Israels redemption, was of Jehovahs own creation and calling. Does not such an argument necessarily imply that Cyrus was already present, an object of doubt and debate to earnest minds in Israel? Or are we to suppose that all this doubt and debate were foreseen, rehearsed, and answered one hundred and fifty years before the time by so famous a prophet as Isaiah, and that, in spite of his prediction and answer, the doubt and debate nevertheless took place in the minds of the very Israelites, who were most earnest students of ancient prophecy? The thing has only to be stated to be felt to be impossible.
But besides the pedants in Israel, there is apparent through these prophecies another body of men, against whom also Jehovah claims the actual Cyrus for His own. They are the priests and worshippers of the heathen idols. It is well known that the advent of Cyrus cast the Gentile religions of the time and their counsellors into confusion. The wisest priests were perplexed; the oracles of Greece and Asia Minor either were dumb when consulted about the Persian, or gave more than usually ambiguous answers. Over against this perplexity and despair of the heathen religions, our prophet confidently claims Cyrus for Jehovahs own. In a debate in chapter 41, in which he seeks to establish Jehovahs righteousness-that is, Jehovahs faithfulness to His word, and power to carry out His predictions - the prophet speaks of ancient prophecies which have come from Jehovah, and points to Cyrus as their fulfilment. It does not matter to us in the meantime what those prophecies were. They may have been certain of Jeremiahs predictions; we may be sure that they cannot have contained anything so definite as Cyrus name, or such a proof of Divine foresight must certainly have formed part of the prophets plea. It is enough that they could be quoted; our business is rather with the evidence which the prophet offers of their fulfilment. That evidence is Cyrus. Would it have been possible to refer the heathen to Cyrus as proof that those ancient prophecies were being fulfilled, unless Cyrus had been visible to the heathen, -unless the heathen had been beginning already to feel this Persian "from the sunrise" in all his weight of war? It is no esoteric doctrine which the prophet is unfolding to initiated Israelites about Cyrus. He is making an appeal to men of the world to face facts. Could he possibly have made such an appeal unless the facts had been there, unless Cyrus had been within the ken of "the natural man"? Unless Cyrus and his conquests were already historically present, the argument in 41-48 is unintelligible.
If this evidence for the exilic date of Isaiah 40-48-for all these chapters hang together-required any additional support, it would find it in the fact that the prophet does not wholly treat of what is past and over, but makes some predictions as well. Cyrus is on the way of triumph, but Babylon has still to fall by his hand. Babylon has still to fall, before the exiles can go free. Now, if our prophet were predicting from the standpoint of one hundred and forty years before, why did he make this sharp distinction between two events which appeared so closely together? If he had both the advent of Cyrus and the fall of Babylon in his long perspective, why did he not use "the prophetic perfect" for both? That he speaks of the first as past and of the second as still to come, would most surely, if there had been no tradition the other way, have been accepted by all as sufficient evidence, that the advent of Cyrus was behind him and the fall of Babylon still in front of him, when he wrote these chapters.
Thus the earlier part, at least, of Isaiah 40-66-that is, chapters 40-48-compels us to date it between 555, Cyruss advent, and 538, Babylons fall. But some think that we may still further narrow the limits. In Isa_41:25, Cyrus, whose own kingdom lay east of Babylonia, is described as invading Babylonia from the north. This, it has been thought, must refer to his union with the Medes in 549, and his threatened descent upon Mesopotamia from their quarter of the prophets horizon. If it be so, the possible years of our prophecy are reduced to eleven, 549-538. But even if we take the wider and more certain limit, 555 to 538, we may well say that there are very few chapters in the whole of the Old Testament whose date can be fixed so precisely as the date of chapters 40-48.
If what has been unfolded in the preceding paragraphs is recognised as the statement of the chapters themselves, it will be felt that further evidence of an exilic date is scarcely needed. And those, who are acquainted with the controversy upon the evidence furnished by the style and language of the prophecies, will admit how far short in decisiveness it falls of the arguments offered above. But we may fairly ask whether there is anything opposed to the conclusion we have reached, either, first, in the local colour of the prophecies: or, second, in their language; or, third, in their thought - anything which shows that they are more likely to have been Isaiahs than of exilic origin.
1. It has often been urged against the exilic date of these prophecies, that they wear so very little local colour, and one of the greatest of critics, Ewald, has felt himself, therefore, permitted to place their home, not in Babylonia, but in Egypt, while he maintains the exilic date. But, as we shall see in surveying the condition of the exiles, it was natural for the best among them, their psalmists and prophets, to have no eyes for the colours of Babylon. They lived inwardly; they were much more the inhabitants of their own broken hearts than of that gorgeous foreign land; when their thoughts rose out of themselves it was to seek immediately the far-away Zion. How little local colour is there in the writings of Ezekiel! Isaiah 40-66 has even more to show; for indeed the absence of local colour from our prophecy has been greatly exaggerated. We shall find as we follow the exposition, break after break of Babylonian light and shadow falling across our path, -the temples, the idol-manufactories, the processions of images, the diviners and astrologers, the gods and altars especially cultivated by the characteristic mercantile spirit of the place; the shipping of that mart of nations, the crowds of her merchants; the glitter of many waters, and even that intolerable glare, which so frequently curses the skies of Mesopotamia. {Isa_49:10} The prophet speaks of the hills of his native land with just the same longing, that Ezekiel and a probable psalmist of the Exile {Psalms 121} betray, -the homesickness of a highland-born man whose prison is on a flat, monotonous plain. The beasts he mentions have for the most part been recognised as familiar in Babylonia; and while the same cannot be said of the trees and plants he names, it has been observed that the passages, into which he brings them, are passages where his thoughts are fixed on the restoration to Palestine. Besides these, there are many delicate symptoms of the presence, before the prophet, of a people in a foreign land, engaged in commerce, but without political responsibilities, each of which, taken by itself, may be insufficient to convince, but the reiterated expression of which has even betrayed commentators, who lived too early for the theory of a second Isaiah, into the involuntary admission of an exilic authorship. It will perhaps startle some to hear John Calvin quoted on behalf of the exilic date of these prophecies. But let us read and consider this statement of his: "Some regard must be had to the time when this prophecy was uttered; for since the rank of the kingdom had been obliterated, and the name of the royal family had become mean and contemptible, during the captivity in Babylon, it might seem as if through the ruin of that family the truth of God had fallen into decay; and therefore he bids them contemplate by faith the throne of David, which had been cast down."
2. What we have seen to be true of the local colour of our prophecy holds good also of its style and language. There is nothing in either of these to commit us to an Isaiah authorship, or to make an exilic date improbable; on the contrary, the language and style, while containing no stronger nor more frequent resemblances to the language and style of Isaiah than may be accounted for by the natural influence of so great a prophet upon his successors, are signalised by differences from his undisputed oracles, too constant, too subtle, and sometimes too sharp, to make it at all probable that the whole book came from the same man. On this point it is enough to refer our readers to the recent exhaustive and very able reviews of the evidence by Canon Cheyne in the second volume of his Commentary, and by Canon Driver in the last chapter of "Isaiah: His Life and Times," and to quote the following words of so great an authority as Professor A. B. Davidson. After remarking on the difference in vocabulary of the two parts of the Book of Isaiah, he adds that it is not so much words in themselves as the peculiar uses and combinations of them, and especially "the peculiar articulation of sentences and the movement of the whole discourse, by which an impression is produced so unlike the impression produced by the earlier parts of the book."
3. It is the same with the thought and doctrine of our prophecy. In this there is nothing to make the Isaian authorship probable, or an exilic date impossible. But, on the contrary, whether we regard the needs of the people or the analogies of the development of their religion, we find that, while everything suits the Exile, nearly everything is foreign both to the subjects and to the methods of Isaiah. We shall observe the items of this as we go along, but one of them may be mentioned here (it will afterwards require a chapter to itself), our prophets use of the terms righteous and righteousness. No one, who has carefully studied the meaning which these terms bear in the authentic oracles of Isaiah, and the use to which they are put in the prophecies under discussion, can fail to find in the difference a striking corroboration of our argument-that the latter were composed by a different mind than Isaiahs, speaking to a different generation.
To sum up this whole argument. We have seen that there is no evidence in the Book of Isaiah to prove that it was all by himself, but much testimony which points to a plurality of authors; that chapters 40-66 nowhere assert themselves to be by Isaiah; and that there is no other well-grounded claim of Scripture or doctrine on behalf of his authorship. We have then shown that chapters 40-48 do not only present the Exile as if nearly finished and Cyrus as if already come, while the fall of Babylon is still future; but that it is essential to one of their main arguments that Cyrus should be standing before Israel and the world, as a successful warrior, on his way to attack Babylon. That led us to date these chapters between 555 and 538. Turning then to other evidence, -the local colour they show, their language and style, and their theology, -we have found nothing which conflicts with that date, but, on the contrary, a very great deal, which much more agrees with it than with the date, or with the authorship, of Isaiah.
It will be observed, however, that the question has been limited to the earlier chapters of the twenty-seven under discussion, viz., to 40-48 Does the same conclusion hold good of 49 to 66? This can be properly discovered only as we closely follow their exposition; it is enough in the meantime to have got firm footing on the Exile. We can feel our way bit by bit from this standpoint onwards. Let us now merely anticipate the main features of the rest of the prophecy.
A new section has been marked by many as beginning with chapter 49. This is because chapter 48, concludes with a refrain: "There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked," which occurs again at the end of chapter 57, and because with chapter 48. Babylon and Cyrus drop out of sight. But the circumstances are still those of exile, and, as Professor Davidson remarks, chapter 49 is parallel in thought to chapter 42, and also takes for granted the restoration of Israel in chapter 48, proceeding naturally from that to the statement of Israels world-mission. Apart from the alternation of passages dealing with the Servant of the Lord, and passages whose subject is Zion - an alternation which begins pretty early in the prophecy, and has suggested to some its composition out of two different writings-the first real break in the sequence occurs at Isa_52:13, where the prophecy of the sin-bearing Servant is introduced. By most critics this is held to be an insertion, for Isa_54:1 follows naturally upon Isa_52:12, though it is undeniable that there is also some association between Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53, and chapter 54. In chapters 54-55, we are evidently still in exile. It is in commenting on a verse of these chapters that Calvin makes the admission of exilic origin which has been quoted above.
A number of short prophecies now follow, till the end of chapter 59 is reached. These, as we shall see, make it extremely difficult to believe in the original unity of "Second Isaiah." Some of them, it is true, lie in evident circumstance of exile; but others are undoubtedly of earlier date, reflecting the scenery of Palestine, and the habits of the people in their political independence, with Jehovahs judgment-cloud still unburst, but lowering. Such is Isaiah 56:9-Isaiah 57, which regards the Exile as still to come, quotes the natural features of Palestine, and charges the Jews with unbelieving diplomacy-a charge not possible against them when they were in captivity. But others of these short prophecies are, in the opinion of some critics, post-exilic. Cheyne assigns chapter 56 to after the Return, when the temple was standing, and the duty of holding fasts and sabbaths could be enforced, as it was enforced by Nehemiah. I shall give, when we reach the passage, my reasons for doubting his conclusion. The chapter seems to me as likely to have been written upon the eve of the Return as after the Return had taken place.
Chapter 57, the eighteenth of our twenty-seven chapters, closes with the same refrain as chapter 48, the ninth of the series: "There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked." Chapter 58, has, therefore, been regarded, as beginning the third great division of the prophecy. But here again, while there is certainly an advance in the treatment of the subject, and the prophet talks less of the redemption of the Jews and more of the glory of the restoration of Zion, the point of transition is very difficult to mark. Some critics regard chapter 58, as post-exilic; but when we come to it we shall find a number of reasons for supposing it to belong, just as much as Ezekiel, to the Exile. Chapter 59 is perhaps the most difficult portion of all, because it makes the Jews responsible for civic justice in a way they could hardly be conceived to be in exile, and yet speaks, in the language of other portions of "Second Isaiah," of a deliverance that cannot well be other than the deliverance from exile. We shall find in this chapter likely marks of the fusion of two distinct addresses, making the conclusion probable that it is Israels earlier conscience which we catch here, following her into the days of exile, and reciting her former guilt just before pardon is assured. Chapters 60, 61, and 62 are certainly exilic. The inimitable prophecy, Isa_63:1-6, complete within itself, and unique in its beauty, is either a promise given just before the deliverance from a long captivity of Israel under heathen nations (Isa_63:4), or an exultant song of triumph immediately after such a deliverance has taken place. Isaiah 63:7-Isaiah 64 implies a ruined temple (Isa_63:10), but bears no traces of the writer being in exile. It has been assigned to the period of the first attempts to rebuild Jerusalem after the Return. Chapter 65 has been assigned to the same date, and its local colour interpreted as that of Palestine. But we shall find the colour to be just as probably that of Babylon, and again I do not see any certain proofs of a post-exilic date. Chapter 66, however, betrays more evidence of being written after the Return. It divides into two parts. In Isa_66:1-4 the temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun. In Isa_66:5-24, the arrival of the Jews in Palestine, the resumption of the life of the sacred community, and the disappointments of the returned at the first meagre results, seem to be implied. And the music of the book dies out in tones of warning, that sin still hinders the Lords work with His people.
This rapid survey has made two things sufficiently clear. First, that while the bulk of chapters 40-66 was composed in Babylonia during the Exile of the Jews, there are considerable portions which date from before the Exile, and betray a Palestinian origin; and one or two smaller pieces that seem-rather less evidently, however-to take for granted the Return from the Exile. But, secondly, all these pieces, which it seems necessary to assign to different epochs and authors, have been arranged so as to exhibit a certain order and progress-an order, more or less observed, of date, and a progress very apparent (as we shall see in the course of exposition) of thought and of clearness in definition. The largest portion, of whose unity we are assured and whose date we can fix, is found at the beginning. Chapters 40-48 are certainly by one hand, and may be dated, as we have seen, between 555 and 538-the period of Cyrus approach to take Babylon. There the interest in Cyrus ceases, and the thought of the redemption from Babylon is mainly replaced by that of the subsequent Return. Along with these lines, we shall discover a development in the prophecys great doctrine of the Servant of Jehovah. But even this dies away, as if the experience of suffering and discipline were being replaced by that of return and restoration; and it is Zion in her glory, and the spiritual mission of the people, and the vengeance of the Lord, and the building of the temple, and a number of practical details in the life and worship of the restored community, which fill up the remainder of the book, along with a few echoes from pre-exilic times. Can we escape feeling in all this a definite design and arrangement, which fails to be absolutely perfect, probably, from the nature of the materials at the arrangers disposal?
We are, therefore, justified in coming to the provisional conclusion, that Second Isaiah is not a unity, in so far as it consists of a number of pieces by different men, whom God raised up at various times before, during, and after the Exile, to comfort and exhort amid the shifting circumstance and tempers of His people; but that it is a unity, in so far as these pieces have been gathered together by an editor very soon after the Return from the Exile, in an order as regular both in point of time and subject as the somewhat mixed material would permit. It is in this sense that throughout this volume we shall talk of "our prophet," or "the prophet"; up to chapter 49, at least, we shall feel that the expression is literally true; after that it is rather an editorial than an original unity which is apparent. In this question of unity the dramatic style of the prophecy forms, no doubt, the greatest difficulty. Who shall dare to determine of the many soliloquies, apostrophes, lyrics, and other pieces that are here gathered, often in want of any connection save that of dramatic grouping and a certain sympathy of temper, whether they are by the same author or have been collected from several origins? We must be content to leave the matter uncertain. One great reason, which we have not yet quoted, for supposing that the whole prophecy is not by one man, is that if it had been his name would certainly have come down with it. Do not let it be thought that such a conclusion, as we have been led to, is merely a dogma of modern criticism. Here, if anywhere, the critic is but the patient student of Scripture, searching for the testimony of the sacred text about itself, and formulating that. If it be found that such a testimony conflicts with ecclesiastical tradition, however ancient and universal, so much the worse for tradition. In Protestant circles, at least, we have no choice. Litera Scripta manet. When we know that the only evidence for the Isaiah authorship of chapters 40-66 is tradition, supported by an unthinking interpretation of New Testament citations, while the whole testimony of these Scriptures themselves denies them to be Isaiahs, we cannot help making our choice, and accepting the testimony of Scripture. Do we find them any the less wonderful or Divine? Do they comfort less? Do they speak with less power to conscience? Do they testify with more uncertain voice to our Lord and Saviour? It will be the task of the following pages to show that, interpreted in connection with the history out of which they themselves say that Gods Spirit drew them, these twenty-seven chapters become only more prophetic of Christ, and more comforting and instructive to men, than they were before.
But the remarkable fact is that anciently tradition itself appears to have agreed with the results of modern scholarship. The original place of the Book of Isaiah in the Jewish canon seems to have been after both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, a fact which goes to prove that it did not reach completion till a later date than the works of these two prophets of the Exile.
If now it be asked, Why should a series of prophecies written in the Exile be attached to the authentic works of Isaiah? that is a fair question, and one which the supporters of the exilic authorship have the duty laid upon them of endeavouring to answer. Fortunately they are not under the necessity of falling back, for want of other reasons, on the supposition that this attachment was due to the error of some scribe, or to the custom which ancient writers practised of filling up any part of a volume, that remained blank when one book is finished, with the writing of any other that would fit the place. The first of these reasons is too accidental, the second too artificial, in face of the undoubted sympathy which exists among all parts of the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah himself plainly prophesied of an exile longer than his own generation experienced, and prophesied of a return from it (chapter 11). We saw no reason to dispute his claims to the predictions about Babylon in chapters 21 and 39 Isaiahs, too, more than any other prophets, were those great and final hopes of the Old Testament - the survival of Israel and the gathering of the Gentiles to the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem. But it is for the express purpose of emphasising the immediate fulfilment of such ancient predictions, that Isaiah 40-66 were published. Although our prophet has "new things to publish," his first business is to show that the "former things have come to pass," especially the Exile, the survival of a Remnant, the sending of a Deliverer, the doom of Babylon. What more natural than to attach to his utterances those prophecies, of which the events he pointed to were the vindication and fulfilment? The attachment was the more easy to arrange that the authentic prophecies had not passed from Isaiahs hand in a fixed form. They do not bear those marks of their authors own editing, which are borne by the prophecies both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It is impossible to be dogmatic on the point. But these facts-that our chapters are concerned, as no other Scriptures are, with the fulfilment of previous prophecies; that it is the prophecies of Isaiah which are the original and fullest prediction of the events they are busy with; and that the form, in which Isaiahs prophecies are handed down, did not preclude additions of this kind to them-contribute very evident reasons why Isaiah 40-66, though written in the Exile, should be attached to Isaiah 1-39.
Thus we present a theory of the exilic authorship of Isaiah 40-66 within itself complete and consistent, suited to all parts of the evidence, and not opposed by the authority of any part of Scripture. In consequence of its conclusion, our duty, before proceeding to the exposition of the chapters, is twofold: first, to connect the time of Isaiah with the period of the Captivity, and then to sketch the condition of Israel in Exile. This we shall undertake in the next three chapters.
NOTE TO CHAPTER I
Readers may wish to have a reference to other passages of this part, in which the questions of the date, authorship and structure of Isaiah 40-66, are discussed. See: Introduction to Book III; opening paragraphs of chapter 18, and of chapter 19, etc.
CHAPTER V
THE PROLOGUE: THE FOUR HERALD VOICES
Isa_40:1-11
IT is only Voices which we hear in this Prologue. No forms can be discerned, whether of men or angels, and it is even difficult to make out the direction from which the Voices come. Only one thing is certain-that they break the night, that they proclaim the end of a long but fixed period, during which God has punished and forsaken His people. At first, the persons addressed are the prophets, that they may speak to the people (Isa_40:1-2); but afterwards Jerusalem as a whole is summoned to publish the good tidings. {Isa_40:9} This interchange between a part of the people and the whole-this commission to prophesy, made with one breath to some of the nation for the sake of the rest, and with the next breath to the entire nation-is a habit of our prophet to which we shall soon get accustomed. How natural and characteristic it is, is proved by its appearance in these very first verses.
The beginning of the good tidings is Israels pardon; yet it seems not to be the peoples return to Palestine which is announced in consequence of this, so much as their Gods return to them. "Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight a highway for our God. Behold the Lord Jehovah will come." We may, however, take "the way of Jehovah in the wilderness" to mean what it means in the sixty-eighth Psalm, -His going forth before His people and leading of them back; while the promise that He will come to "shepherd His flock" {Isa_40:11} is, of course, the promise that He will resume the government of Israel upon their own land. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this chapter was meant for the people at the close of their captivity in Babylon. But do not let us miss the pathetic fact that Israel is addressed not in her actual shape of a captive people in a foreign land, but under the name and aspect of her far-away desolate country. In these verses Israel is "Jerusalem, Zion, the cities of Judah" Such designations do not prove, as a few critics have rather pedantically supposed, that the writer of the verses lived in Judah and addressed himself to what was under his eyes. It is not the vision of a Jew at home that has determined the choice of these names, but the desire and the dream of a Jew abroad: that extraordinary passion, which, however distant might be the land of his exile, ever filled the Jews eyes with Zion, caused him to feel the ruin and forsakenness of his Mother more than his own servitude, and swept his patriotic hopes, across his own deliverance and return, to the greater glory of her restoration. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent us taking for granted, as we did in the previous chapter, that the speaker or speakers of these verses stood among the exiles themselves; but who they were-men or angels, prophets or scribes-is lost in the darkness out of which their music breaks.
Nevertheless the prophecy is not anonymous. By these impersonal voices a personal revelation is made. The prophets may be nameless, but the Deity who speaks through them speaks as already known and acknowledged: "My people, saith your God."
This is a point, which, though it takes for its expression no more than these two little pronouns, we must not hurriedly pass over. All the prophecy we are about to study may be said to hang from these pronouns. They are the hinges, on which the door of this new temple of revelation swings open before the long-expectant people. And, in fact, such a conscience and sympathy as these little words express form the necessary premise of all revelation. Revelation implies a previous knowledge of God, and cannot work upon men, except there already exist in them the sense that they and God somehow belong to each other. This sense need be neither pure, nor strong, nor articulate. It may be the most selfish and cowardly of guilty fears, -Jacobs dread as he drew near Esau, whom he had treacherously supplanted, -the vaguest of ignorant desires, the Athenians worship of the Unknown God. But, whatever it is, the angel comes to wrestle with it, the apostle is sent to declare it; revelation in some form takes it as its premise and starting-point. This previous sense of God may also be fuller than in the cases just cited. Take our Lords own illustration. Upon the prodigal in the strange country there surged again the far-ebbed memory of his home and childhood, of his years of familiarity with a Father; and it was this tide which carried back his penitent heart within the hearing of his Fathers voice, and the revelation of the love that became his new life. Now Israel, also in a far-off land, were borne upon the recollection of home: and of life in the favour of their God. We have: seen with what knowledge of Him and from what relations with Him they were banished.
To the men of the Exile God was already a Name and an Experience, and because that Name was The Righteous, and that Experience was all grace and promise, these men waited for His Word more than they that wait for the morning; and when at length the Word broke from the long darkness and silence, they received it, though its bearers might be unseen and unaccredited, because they recognised and acknowledged in it Himself. He who spoke was their God, and they were His people. This conscience and sympathy was all the title or credential which the revelation required. It is, therefore, not too much to say, as we have said, that the two pronouns in Isa_40:1, are the necessary premise of the whole prophecy which that verse introduces.
With this introduction we may now take up the four herald voices of the Prologue. Whatever may have been their original relation to one another, whether or not they came to Israel by different messengers, they are arranged (as we saw at the close of the previous chapter) in manifest order and progress of thought, and they meet in due succession the experiences of Israel at the close of the Exile. For the first of them (Isa_40:1-2) gives the "subjective assurance" of the coming redemption: it is the Voice of Grace. The second (Isa_40:3-5) proclaims the "objective reality" of that redemption: it may be called the Voice of Providence, or-to use the name by which our prophecy loves to entitle the just and victorious providence of God-the Voice of Righteousness. The third (Isa_40:6-8) uncovers the pledge and earnest of the redemption: in the weakness of men this shall be the Word of God. While the fourth (Isa_40:9-11) is the Proclamation of Jehovahs restored kingdom, when He cometh as a shepherd to shepherd His people. To this progress and climax the music of the passage forms a perfect accompaniment. It would be difficult to find in any language lips that first more softly woo the heart, and then take to themselves so brave a trumpet of challenge and assurance. The opening is upon a few short pulses of music, which steal from heaven as gently as the first ripples of light in a cloudless dawn-
Nahamu, nahamu ammi:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people:
Dabberu al-lev Yerushalaim.
Speak upon the heart of Jerusalem.
But then the trumpet-tone breaks forth, "Call unto her"; and on that high key the music stays, sweeping with the second voice across hill and dale like a company of swift horsemen, stooping with the third for a while to the elegy upon the withered grass, but then recovering itself, braced by all the strength of the Word of God, to peal from tower to tower with the fourth, upon the cry, "Behold, the Lord cometh," till it sinks almost from sound to sight, and yields us, as from the surface of still waters, that sweet reflection of the twenty-third Psalm with which the Prologue concludes.
1. Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God
Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her,
That accomplished is her warfare, that absolved is her iniquity;
That she hath received of Jehovahs hand double for all her sins.
This first voice, with the music of which our hearts have been thrilled ever since we can remember, speaks twice: first in a whisper, then in a call-the whisper of the Lover and the call of the Lord. "Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem, and call unto her."
Now Jerusalem lay in ruins, a city through whose breached walls all the winds of heaven blew mournfully across her forsaken floors. And the "heart of Jerusalem," which was with her people in exile, was like the city-broken and defenceless. In that far-off, unsympathetic land it lay open to the alien; tyrants forced their idols upon it, the peoples tortured it with their jests.
For they that led us captive required of us songs,
And they that wasted us required of us mirth.
But observe how gently the Divine Beleaguerer approaches, how softly He bids His heralds plead by the gaps, through which the oppressor has forced his idols and his insults. Of all human language they might use, God bids His messengers take and plead with the words with which a man will plead at a maidens heart, knowing that he has nothing but love to offer as right of entrance, and waiting until love and trust come out to welcome him. "Speak ye," says the original literally, "on to," or "up against" or "up round the heart of Jerusalem,"-a forcible expression, like the German "An das Herz," or the sweet Scottish, "It cam up roond my heart," and perhaps best rendered into English by the phrase, "Speak home to the heart." It is the ordinary Hebrew expression for wooing. As from man to woman when he wins her, the Old Testament uses it several times. To "speak home to the heart" is to use language in which authority and argument are both ignored, and love works her own inspiration. While the haughty Babylonian planted by force his idols, while the folly and temptations of heathendom surged recklessly in, God Himself, the Creator of this broken heart, its Husband and Inhabitant of old, stood lowly by its breaches, pleading in love the right to enter. But when entrance has been granted, see how He bids His heralds change their voice and disposition. The suppliant lover, being received, assumes possession and defence, and they, who were first bid whisper as beggars by each unguarded breach, now leap upon the walls to call from the accepted Lord of the city: "Fulfilled is thy time of service, absolved thine iniquity, received hast thou of Jehovahs hand double for all thy sins."
Now this is no mere rhetorical figure. This is the abiding attitude and aim of the Almighty towards men. Gods target is our heart. His revelation, whatever of law or threat it send before, is, in its own superlative clearness and urgency, Grace. It comes to man by way of the heart; not at first by argument addressed to the intellect, nor by appeal to experience, but by the sheer strength of a love laid "on to the heart." It is, to begin with, a subjective thing. Is revelation, then, entirely a subjective assurance? Do the pardon and peace which it proclaims remain only feelings of the heart, without anything to correspond to them in real fact? By no means; for these Jews the revelation now whispered to their heart will actually take shape in providences of the most concrete kind. A voice will immediately call, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," and the way will be prepared. Babylon will fall; Cyrus will let Israel go; their release will appear-most concrete of things!-in "black and white" on a Persian state-parchment. Yet, before these events happen and become part of His peoples experience, God desires first to convince His people by the sheer urgency of His love. Before He displays His Providence, He will speak in the power and evidence of His Grace. Afterwards, His prophets shall appeal to outward facts; we shall find them in succeeding chapters arguing both with Israel and the heathen on grounds of reason and the facts of history. But, in the meantime, let them only feel that in His Grace they have something for the heart of men, which, striking home, shall be its own evidence and force.
Thus God adventures His Word forth by nameless and unaccredited men upon no other authority than the Grace, with which it is fraught for the heart of His people. The illustration, which this affords of the method and evidence of Divine revelation, is obvious. Let us, with all the strength of which we are capable, emphasise the fact that our prophecy-which is full of the materials for an elaborate theology, which contains the most detailed apologetic in the whole Bible, and displays the most glorious prospect of mans service and destiny-takes its source and origin from a simple revelation of Grace and the subjective assurance of this in the heart of those to whom it is addressed. This proclamation of Grace is as characteristic and dominant in Second Isaiah as we saw the proclamation of conscience in Isaiah 1 to be characteristic of the First Isaiah.
Before we pass on, let us look for a moment at the contents of this Grace, in the three clauses of the prophets cry: "Fulfilled is her warfare, absolved her guilt, received hath she of Jehovahs hand double for all her sins." The very grammar here is eloquent of grace. The emphasis lies on the three predicates, which ought to stand in translation, as they do in the original, at the beginning of each clause. Prominence is given, not to the warfare, nor to the guilt, nor to the sins, but to this, that "accomplished" is the warfare, "absolved" the guilt, "sufficiently expiated" the sins. It is a great AT LAST which these clauses peal forth; but an At Last whose tone is not so much inevitableness as undeserved grace. The term translated warfare means "period of military service, appointed term of conscription"; and the application is apparent when we remember that the Exile had been fixed, by the Word of God through Jeremiah, to a definite number of years. "Absolved" is the passive of a verb meaning to "pay off what is due." {Leviticus 27} But the third clause is especially gracious. It declares that Israel has suffered of punishment more than double enough to atone for her sins. This is not a way of regarding either sin or atonement, which, theologically speaking, is accurate. What of its relation to our Articles, that man cannot give satisfaction for his sins by the work of his hands or the pains of his flesh? No: it would scarcely pass some of our creeds today. But all the more, that it thus bursts forth from strict terms of dealing, does it reveal the generosity of Him who utters it. How full of pity God is, to take so much account of the sufferings sinners have brought upon themselves! How full of grace to reckon those sufferings "double the sins" that had earned them! It is as when we have seem gracious men make us a free gift, and in their courtesy insist that we have worked for it. It is grace masked by grace. As the height of art is to conceal art, so the height of grace is to conceal grace, which it does in this verse.
Such is the Voice of Grace. But,
2. Hark, One calling!
In the wilderness prepare the way of Jehovah!
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be exalted,
And every mountain and hill be made low:
And the crooked grow straight,
And rough places a plain:
And the glory of Jehovah be revealed,
And see it shall all flesh together;
For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.
The relation of this Voice to the previous one has already been indicated. This is the witness of Providence following upon the witness of Grace. Religion is a matter in the first place between God and the heart; but religion does not, as many mock, remain an inward feeling. The secret relation between God and His people issues into substantial fact, visible to all men. History vindicates faith; Providence executes Promise; Righteousness follows Grace. So, as the first Voice was spoken "to the heart," this second is for the hands and feet and active will. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." If you, poor captives as you are, begin to act upon the grace whispered in your trembling hearts, the world will show the result. All things will come round to your side. A levelled empire, an altered world-across those your way shall lie clear to Jerusalem. You shall go forth in the sight of all men, and future generations looking back shall praise this manifest wonder of your God. "The glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and see it shall all flesh together."
On which words, how can our hearts help rising from the comfort of grace to the sense of mastery over this world, to the assurance of heaven itself? History must come round to the side of faith-as it has come round not in the case of Jewish exiles only, but wheresoever such a faith as theirs has been repeated. History must come round to the side of faith, if men will only obey the second as well as the first of these herald voices. But we are too ready to listen to the Word of the Lord, without seeking to prepare His way. We are satisfied with the personal comfort of our God; we are contented to be forgiven and-oh mockery!-left alone. But the word of God will not leave us alone, and not for comfort only is it spoken. On the back of the voice, which sets our heart right with God, comes the voice to set the world right, and no man is godly who has not heard both. Are we timid and afraid that facts will not correspond to our faith? Nay, but as God reigneth they shall, if only we put to our hands and make them; "all flesh shall see it," if we will but "prepare the way of the Lord."
Have we only ancient proofs of this? On the contrary, God has done like wonders within the lives of those of us who are yet young. During our generation, a people has appealed from the convictions of her heart to the arbitrament of history, and appealed not in vain. When the citizens of the Northern States of the American Republic, not content as they might have been with their protests against slavery, rose to vindicate these by the sword, they faced, humanly speaking, a risk as great as that to which Jew was ever called by the word of God. Their own brethren were against them; the world stood aloof. But even so, unaided by united patriotism and as much dismayed as encouraged by the opinions of civilisation, they rose to the issue on the strength of conscience and their hearts. They rose and they conquered. Slavery was abolished. What had been but the conviction of a few men became the surprise, the admiration, the consent of the whole world. "The glory of the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw it together."
3. But the shadow of death falls on everything, even on the way of the Lord. By 550 B.C.-that is, after thirty-eight years of exile-nearly all the strong men of Israels days of independence must have been taken away. Death had been busy with the exiles for more than a generation. There was no longer any human representative of Jehovah to rally the peoples trust; the monarchy, each possible Messiah who in turn held it, the priesthood, and the prophethood-whose great personalities so often took the place of Israels official leaders-had all alike disappeared. It was little wonder, then, that a nation accustomed to be led, not by ideas like us Westerns, but by personages, who were to it the embodiment of Jehovahs will and guidance, should have been cast into despair by the call, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." What sort of a call was this for a people whose strong men were like things uprooted and withered! How could one be, with any heart, a herald of the Lord to such a people!
Hark one saying "Call."
And I said:
"What can I call?
All flesh is grass,
And all its beauty like a wild-flower!
Withers grass, fades flower,
When the breath of Jehovah blows on it.
Surely grass is the people."
Back comes a voice like the east winds for pitilessness to the flowers, but of the east winds own strength and clearness, to proclaim Israels everlasting hope.
Withers grass, fades flower,
But the word of our God endureth for ever,
Everything human may perish; the day may be past of the great prophets, of the priests-of the King in his beauty, who was vicegerent of God. But the people have Gods word; when all their leaders have fallen, and every visible authority for God is taken away, this shall be their rally and their confidence.
All this is too like the actual experience of Israel in Exile not to be the true interpretation of this third, stern Voice. Their political and religious institutions, which had so often proved the initiative of a new movement, or served as a bridge to carry the nation across disaster to a larger future, were not in existence. Nor does any Moses, as in Egypt of old, rise to visibleness from among his obscure people, impose his authority upon them, marshal them, and lead them out behind him to freedom. But what we see is a scattered and a leaderless people, stirred in their shadow, as a ripe cornfield is stirred by the breeze before dawn-stirred in their shadow by the ancient promises of God, and everywhere breaking out at the touch of these into psalms and prophecies of hope. We see them expectant of redemption, we see them resolved to return, we see them carried across the desert to Zion, and from first to last it is the word of God that is their inspiration and assurance.
They, who formerly had rallied round the Ark or the Temple, or who had risen to the hope of a glorious Messiah, do not now speak of all these, but their "hope," they tell us, "is in His word"; it is the instrument of their salvation, and their destiny is to be its evangelists.
4. To this high destiny the fourth Voice now summons them, by a vivid figure
Up on a high mountain, get thee up,
Heraldess of good news, O Zion!
Lift up with strength thy voice,
Heraldess of good news, Jerusalem!
Lift up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah:-
Behold, your God.
Behold, my Lord Jehovah, with power He cometh,
And His arm rules for Him.
Behold, His reward with Him,
And His recompense before Him.
As a shepherd His flock He shepherds;
With His right arm gathers the lambs,
And in His bosom bears them.
Ewe-mothers He tenderly leads.
The title which I have somewhat awkwardly translated "heraldess"-but in English there is really no better word for it-is the feminine participle of a verb meaning to "thrill," or "give joy, by means of good news." It is used generally to tell such happy news as the birth of a child, but mostly in the special sense of carrying tidings of victory or peace home from the field to the people. The feminine participle would seem from Psalms 68 "the women who publish victory to the great host," to have been the usual term for the members of those female choirs, who, like Miriam and her maidens, celebrated a triumph in face of the army, or came forth from the city to hail the returning conqueror, as the daughters of Jerusalem hailed Saul and David. As such a chorister, Zion is now summoned to proclaim Jehovahs arrival at the gates of the cities of Judah.
The verses from "Behold, your God," to the end of the Prologue are the song of the heraldess. Do not their mingled martial and pastoral strains exactly suit the case of the Return? For this is an expedition, on which the nations champion has gone forth, not to lead His enemies captives to His gates, but that He may gather His people home. Not mailed men, in the pride of a victory they have helped to win, march in behind Him.-"armour and tumult and the garment rolled in blood,"-but a herd of mixed and feeble folk, with babes and women, in need of carriage and gentle leading, wander wearily back. And, therefore, in the mouth of the heraldess the figure changes from a warrior-king to the Good Shepherd. "With His right arm He gathers the lambs, and in His bosom bears them. Ewe-mothers He gently leads." How true a picture, and how much it recalls! Fifty years before, the exiles left their home (as we can see to this day upon Assyrian sculptures) in closely-driven companies, fettered, and with the urgency upon them of grim soldiers, who marched at intervals in their ranks to keep up the pace, and who tossed the weaklings impatiently aside. But now, see the slow and loosely-gathered bands wander back, just as quickly as the weakest feel strength to travel, and without any force or any guidance save that of their Almighty, Unseen Shepherd.
We are now able to appreciate the dramatic unity of this Prologue. How perfectly it gathers into its four Voices the whole course of Israels redemption: the first assurance of Grace whispered to the heart, cooperation with Providence, confidence in Gods bare Word, the full Return, and the Restoration of the City.
But its climax is undoubtedly the honour it lays upon the whole people to be publishers of the good news of God. Of this it speaks with trumpet tones. All Jerusalem must be a herald-people. And how could Israel help owning the constraint and inspiration to so high an office, after so heartfelt an experience of grace, so evident a redemption, so glorious a proof of the power of the Word of God? To have the heart thus filled with grace, to have the will enlisted in so Divine a work, to have known the almightiness of the Divine Word when everything else failed-after such an experience, who would not be able to preach the good news of God, to foretell, as our prophet bids Israel foretell, the coming of the Kingdom and Presence of God-the day when the Lords flock shall be perfect and none wanting, when society, though still weary and weak and mortal, shall have no stragglers nor outcasts nor reprobates.
O God, so fill us with Thy grace and enlist us in Thy work, so manifest the might of Thy word to us, that the ideal of Thy perfect kingdom may shine as bright and near to us as to Thy prophet of old, and that we may become its inspired preachers and ever labour in its hope. Amen.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Isa_40:1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your…
THE LORD’S PEOPLE COMFORTED
Isa_40:1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
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I. God has a people in the world. In one sense, all whom the Lord designs to create anew by His Holy Spirit, and who, though at present afar off, will at length be brought nigh unto Him, are His people (Act_18:10). But these are not the persons referred to in our text, for they cannot at present be known or addressed as God’s people; neither at present are they capable of being comforted, according to the direction here given. The “people” to whom the text refers are those who have fled to Christ for refuge from the wrath to come, and who are earnestly desiring to walk in newness of life.
II. It is the will of God that His people should enjoy the comforts of religion. The very nature of the religion He has given is to inspire comfort, as it is the very nature of the sun to diffuse light and heat. If His people are sorrowful or dejected, it is not because of their religion, but because they have too little religion, or because they do not know how to use the religion which they have. But it is desirable that they should be comforted—
1. For their own sakes. While they lack peace and joy they can never be as diligent as they ought to be in the duties of religion (H. E. I. 306–308).
2. For the honour of religion. The despondency and gloom of professors affords a handle to those who speak evil of the Christian life, and misrepresent it as a life of melancholy (H. E. I. 756–762). For these reasons God’s people should lay aside all unreasonable fears, and preachers of the Gospel should consider it an essential part of their office to minister to the people of God that consolation which belongs to them, and which they are capable of receiving. “Comfort ye,” &c.
III. Let us examine a few of the most common causes of that want of comfort of which God’s people frequently complain.
1. Their misunderstanding the nature and extent of that pardon of sin which the Gospel provides. Reclaimed from a worldly course, the recollection of their former sins is very painful to them. It often overspreads their minds like a thick cloud, and fills them with darkness and alarm. They are not indeed without a hope that they shall obtain forgiveness at last for Christ’s sake; but still they ask themselves, “What if God should not pardon me at last?” (H. E. I. 1268). But God does not offer to pardon you at some distant day. He offers, in the Gospel, to forgive you now; nay, He tells you, that if you have in your heart come to Christ and believed in Him, your sins are already forgiven (Rom_8:1; Luk_7:47; Col_2:13; 1Jn_2:12; Isa_44:22). The pardon vouchsafed is a present pardon (H. E. I. 2332–2339). When the prodigal returned to his father’s house a penitent, were not his offences fully and instantly forgiven and his self-reproaches stopped? Was he told, amid all the pleasures of the feast provided for him, that he must not enjoy himself too much, because perhaps his father might some years afterwards remember his past misconduct and visit it upon him? An apprehension of this kind would doubtless have much diminished his comfort; but would it not have been groundless and unreasonable? Equally groundless and unreasonable are your apprehensions, if you have indeed come to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Put them away and rejoice in a present salvation (2Co_4:17; Joh_5:24).
2. Their seeking comfort where it is not to be found. It is one of their privileges that they are renewed in the spirit of their minds, but this renewal is not, and cannot be, at present perfect. But they forget this, and when they look within themselves they find so many imperfections that they are greatly distressed. If you are never to partake of the peace and consolations of Christianity so long as you fall short of the spiritual standard of obedience, you must go mourning all your days: for the more spiritually-minded you grow, the more spiritual will that standard become in your estimation, and consequently the more unholy you will appear in your own eyes. You can never find comfort by poring into your own heart. Peace and joy come by believing. Christ is the only source of consolation to the soul. If you wanted light, would you expect to find it by looking downwards on the ground, or upwards to the sun? Would the Israelite, when bitten by the serpents, have found relief by meditating on his wounds and lamenting the violence and deadly nature of his disease? No; it was by looking on the serpent of brass that he found a cure, and had his heart filled with hope and joy. Look unto Jesus, rejoice in the sufficiency of His grace to redeem you from all evil (Jud_1:24; H. E. I. 4470–4474).
3. Their mistaking the proofs and marks of a really religious state. They say, “If we were the Lord’s people, we should feel it in our hearts.” But who has told you that warm and rapturous feelings are sure proofs of a truly religious state?
(1.) As a matter of fact, they are really reasons for suspicion when they are experienced at the outset of a religious life (Mat_13:5). There is a religion that is like a bundle of thorns on fire; for a little time there is noise and light and some measure of heat, but presently the flame subsides, the fire goes out, and all is dark and chill.
(2.) Even when feelings are real, it is not possible for them to be long wound up to one high pitch (H. E. I. 2073, 2074).
(3.) The Bible never bids you judge of your religious state by your own feelings. You are there told that you are to walk, not by sight, but by faith; and if by faith, not by feelings. The promises are not made to feeling, but to faith. St. Paul did not say to the jailer who asked what he must do to be saved, “Feel that you have Christ in your heart, and you shall be saved;” but, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,” &c. Are you humbly believing in Jesus Christ as your only Saviour? Are you living in dependence on the Divine promises, and in a faithful use of the means of grace? Are you doing the duties of your station in dependence on God, and with a desire to please, serve, and honour Him? Are you walking in Christian holiness? Then the comforts of Christianity belong to you. Receive them in faith. Be not discouraged because you cannot find in yourself this or that feeling. Rejoice in the Lord; believe His promises, because they are His. Abraham against hope believed in hope. He had nothing but the bare word of the Almighty on which he could confide. But what other ground of confidence could he desire? You have the same word; confide in that. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” You believe on Him, therefore you have everlasting life. What you may feel is nothing to the purpose. Your salvation is grounded, not on the changeable feelings of a frail and mutable creature, but on the faithfulness of Him who cannot lie (H. E. I. 2064–2067).—Edward Cooper: Practical and Familiar Sermons, vol. vii 345–362.
THE CURE FOR ANXIETY
Isa_40:1-2. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, &c.
The skill of a physician is shown—
1. In detecting the disease under which his patient suffers; and,
2. In choosing the best remedy.
There is as great variety in the diseases of the soul as in those of the body: there is the moral palsy, fever, consumption, answering in their symptoms to the corporeal maladies similarly designated; and some souls require quite a different regimen from all others.
I. A PREVALENT SICKNESS.
1. This is pointed out in the words, “Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,” &c. The condition of Jerusalem is one of distress, anxiety, and distraction; and this so well accords with a passage in the Psalms that it may be connected with it: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul.” The disease is here more clearly described—a “multitude of thoughts.” An old translation has it, “In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul;” and Bishop Austin’s version is, “In the multitude of my anxieties within me;” whilst the representation in the original Hebrew would seem that of a man involved in a labyrinth from whose intricacies there was no way of escape. All this agrees precisely with the case of Jerusalem in the text; and what cause of distressing anxiety would there be whilst there was warfare unfinished and sin unforgiven! The case of sickness, then, so emphatically prescribed for, is that under which the righteous may be labouring from the difficulties which encompass him.
2. Who labour most under this disease? The persons supposed are they who strive to walk according to the precepts of religion. A man may be “a man after God’s own heart,” and yet subject to the invasion of a crowd of anxieties; and it is never a part of our business to lessen the extent of what is blameworthy, nor to endeavour to persuade the righteous that freedom from anxiety is not a privilege to be sought after. The Christian may rise superior to all intruders, and prove that they do but heighten the blessedness of the blessing (H. E. I. 2053, 4054–4056).
II. IS THE PRESCRIPTION SUFFICIENT? The disease incapacitates for any process of argument; it were of little use to prescribe dark sayings, mysterious dogmas, as though God, in His dealings with His distracted people, did but prescribe the application of “things hard to be understood.” With David, recourse was not had to the mysteries of God, but only to His comfort—and with these the Psalmist found that he could delight his soul. Of what does this comfort consist? Of the rich assurances of His forgiving and accepting love; of the gracious declarations of His everlasting purpose to preserve to the end those chosen in Christ; the multiplied promises of spiritual guidance, protection, victory; the foretastes of immortality; the glimpses of things “within the veil.” It is the part of a righteous man, in his season of anxiety and distraction, to confine himself to those comforts, regarding them as a sick man does the medicines given him, as the cordial specially adapted to his state.
Observe that the comforting message is to be delivered to Jerusalem, and that annexed is a statement of “her warfare” being “accomplished.” Connect with the exclamation of Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.” It is no farfetched application of the text to affirm it as specially appropriate on the approach of the last enemy—death. It is here that the power of all mere human resources must eventually fail; for when a man thinks on what it is to die; when he reflects that die he must, so inevitable is the doom; and yet, that die he cannot, so certain is his immortality,—in vain does the world offer its richest possessions, or philosophy its conclusions. It can only be what emanates from another world, what comes with authority from another world, that can have a solacing power, when it is the loosening of our connection with this world which causes the confused tumult in the soul; and Christianity furnishes an abundance of what is needed for allaying the fear of death and soothing man’s passage to the tomb.
The anxious believer has then only to give himself meekly over into the Good Shepherd’s hands. Let him not argue, let him not debate, let him not sit in judgment; let him simply have recourse to the comforts of God. “None,” says Christ, “can pluck them out of my hands.” Christ holds His sheep; it is not the sheep that hold Christ, and God has caused it to be said of him, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my servant, and tell him that his warfare is accomplished.”—Henry Melvill, B.D.; Golden Lectures, 1851, pp. 737–744.
THE DIVINE GLORY REVEALED IN CHRIST
(Preached on Christmas Day.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of Him that crieth in the wilderness, &c. [1309]
[1309] Many have admired this prophecy as an ancient poem who have not arrived at the proper interpretation. The poet seizes on one point in the national theology—the coming of a great Deliverer. In his imagination he gives him the character of a conqueror, coming to save and deliver. He represents him as marching along in Eastern pomp, issuing messengers before him to prepare the way; sending out pioneers to raise the valleys, to level the mountains, to make “the crooked places straight, and the rough places plain.” And some have seen no more than this in it; they have lost all the character of the prophecy in their admiration of the poem. We are to remember that the prophetic dispensation was a Divine dispensation, and that the prophets were holy men of God. There is the richest poetry, yet there is no mere adornment that is, there is nothing designed only to please the imagination; but with every circumstance of figure and ornament some new revelation is communicated, or some old revelation placed in a new aspect, and shown with fresh vigour. Hence, therefore, in the interpretation of this text, we are really to expect a person crying, a voice preparing the way; we are really to expect the removing of difficulties, similar to the levelling of mountains, the raising of valleys, &c.; and we are really to expect, not merely some great deliverer indefinitely, but such a Deliverer, such a Saviour, as shall answer the description given of him in the text, “The glory of the Lord.”—Watson.
I take the text to be prophecy, in the first and lowest sense, of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon; then of the appearance of Christ in the flesh; of the manifestation, also, of Christ in the believer’s soul; and of the manner in which He will set up His spiritual kingdom in the world [1312]
[1312] We cannot understand the Scriptures aright unless we know that God has established an instructive set of types, making one thing the figure of another. All Nature is full of types of the most blessed things; and happy is the man who can read the book of Nature in the light of the Lord. Everything around him shall give him instruction. But one event is often made the type of another. The deliverance of the children of Israel was a type of the deliverance of the people of God. Their journey through the wilderness, their supplies, their deliverances, their entrance into Canaan, are a type of the true Joshua bringing His “many sons to glory.” The Babylonish captivity is a type of the present state of the Jews; and their restoration, probably alluded to in the text, is the best type of their being brought again into the Church; and the whole together is a type of the deliverance which God works out for His people and for the whole Church. The language, too, which is suited to these outward events is often employed by the Spirit to denote other events. For instance, the language which refers to the deliverance of His people out of the Babylonish captivity, and their restoration to their own land, is employed to set forth His plan of working in the hearts of men and in the world at large.
These things must be remembered in reference to prophecy. What appears to be human skill is absolutely heavenly wisdom. It must not be interpreted by the common canons of criticism, or we shall lose all its force, and beauty, and meaning.—Watson.
I. ITS LITERAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.
This prophecy was literally accomplished,—
1. In the appearance of John the Baptist.
2. Following the footsteps of the servant comes the Master. Here the glory of God was manifested, and all flesh living at that time in Judea saw it together. Jesus Christ was the visible image of the power, the truth, the holiness of God.
II. ITS SPIRITUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT. This is seen in the work of God in the human soul. In this there is both preparation and manifestation. For Christ no more bursts upon the soul at once than He did upon the world; He sends His messenger to prepare the way before Him. That preparing herald, figured by John the Baptist, is repentance. Consider what repentance is, and you will see how it prepares the soul for Christ, for pardon, happiness, and purity.
1. The first element in repentance is a deep and serious conviction of the fact of our sin.
2. The second is a conviction of the extreme danger of sin and its infinite desert.
3. The third is a burdened and disquieted spirit. When these convictions and feelings have been produced in the soul, it is prepared for the coming of Christ into it. And when He comes into it, in its deliverance from the guilt, misery, and dominion of sin there is a glorious manifestation of the mercy and power of God.
III. ITS ALLEGORICAL ACCOMPLISHMENT. It is seen in the establishment of Christ’s kingdom upon earth. He sends forth His heralds, and by them the world is being prepared for that fuller manifestation of God which will constitute the latter-day glory.—Richard Watson: Works, vol. iv. pp. 307–318.
PREPARING FOR THE COMING OF THE KING
(For Advent Sunday.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of him that crieth, &c.
The Spirit of Christ, which spake by the prophets, thus describes the preparatory work assigned to the heralds and forerunners of His advent. The application to John the Baptist is made by all the Evangelists, by John himself, and is confirmed by our Lord. One great point is thereby determined,—the whole passage has a spiritual meaning. It is, in fact, a parable or sacred allegory, by which alone we can be prepared to behold the glory of God revealed in the person of the Son. The “wilderness” represents the whole race of mankind alienated from God and abandoned to the impulses of a corrupt nature. Just so far as men are influenced by worldly principles the call is addressed to them. His way has yet to be prepared in their hearts. This saying applies in the full sense to the unconverted, but in a very true and practical sense it reaches all.
1. In order that the highway shall be made straight, the first injunction is that every valley shall be exalted. In mountainous districts many a deep ravine is found, scarcely visited by the sun’s light, filled with noxious vapours, producing scanty and unwholesome food for its squalid inhabitants. How many dark places of our common humanity may be described in these very terms! Man bridges the chasms, and makes a way by which he pusses triumphantly to the accomplishment of his objects; but as for the places themselves, he leaves them for the most part unchanged, or, if changed, but sadder and darker than before, the rushing sounds which tell of his onward progress being no solace to the startled mind of the dweller in the gloomy hollow. Far different is God’s way; not thus does He bid us prepare our brethren’s hearts, our own hearts, for His coming. He wills that the valley itself shall be exalted—the ignorant raised into the clear light of heaven, the gloomy and despondent spirit raised out of its state of hopeless foreboding and brooding sorrow.
2. “Every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Self-exaltation is the surest hindrance to the favour of the great King.
3. “The crooked shall be made straight.” Crookedness, dishonesty, the absence of candour, of sincerity, of straightforwardness, is a hateful thing and must be put away. In our temporal and spiritual things alike there must be an integrity that will bear the scrutiny of our Lord (H. E. I. 3000, 3010). When He finds a heart open to receive Him, an humble spirit, and guileless simplicity, He will never withhold the full disclosure of His love.
4. “And the rough places plain.” Such rough places were ever common in the East—rugged passes beset by dense thickets, lairs of wild beasts, intricate fastnesses, in which robbers find covert, which obstruct the progress of the sovereign into the remote parts of his dominions. In this we recognise a lively image of the evil passions, the corrupt affections, the unregulated desires which overrun the unregenerate heart, and which are extirpated slowly, with much effort, and very imperfectly from the heart when regenerate. We cannot say that the Saviour will not come to us, nor even that He will not dwell with us, until those hindrances are cleared away. That assertion would paralyse all hope; it is both contrary to experience and to plain texts of Holy Writ. But this we must say, He will not abide in us if things so evil are indulged and tolerated. The rough places must be made plain, at whatever cost; for until that work is accomplished, we cannot know the deep peace of the redeemed and sanctified child of grace (H. E. I. 1466–1468).
The work of preparation must be done. Are we dismayed at its extent? Then remember that it is a work of grace. What is low in us must be exalted by the action of grace upon our consenting hearts; what is haughty must be thus abased, the crooked be made straight, and the rough be made plain (H. E. I. 1071, 2376).—.F. C. Cook, M.A.: Sermons Preached in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, pp. 279–291.
The charge to “prepare the way of the Lord” implies that there are obstacles in the way.
His way is to be made through the desert and the wilderness, i.e., where hitherto there was no way. The reference may be, first, to the state of the Jewish Church in the time of John; but the words contain a true and clear description of the Gentile nations. And what is applied generally to the nations is equally applicable to every human heart:—
1. There is the pride and self-righteousness of man. The thoughts of men rise like mountains to impede the truth. At the very time when man is diseased and dying, he imagines himself whole, and without need of a physician.
2. The heart is by nature hard, impenitent, blinded to its own defects, and, even after confession of them, unwilling to have them condemned or to give them up. Men hear the righteous law denouncing them, but go on to break it; they can stand unmoved before the cross of Jesus and trample upon His blood (H. E. I. 2669–2279).
3. The state of human desires and affections presents other and formidable obstacles to the claims of the Lord. Their desires are low, their affections carnal (Luk_14:18-20).
4. In some there exists a mass of prejudice, and the truth of Christ is viewed under a false light, or through a perverting medium. They will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and they cannot enter therein. Some are prejudiced against the authority of revelation,—some against the doctrine of grace, or salvation by the merit of another; and many dislike the holiness, the self-denial, the separation from the world which Christianity inculcates.
CONCLUSION.—
1. Repentance is necessary to prepare the way,—humility, to receive and learn the doctrine,—prayer, to give it success in the heart,—and watchfulness, to carry it out into practice.
2. Every Christian has something to do in preparing the way of Christ in the earth.—George Redford, D.D., LL. D.: Weekly Christian Teacher, vol. ii. pp. 105–108.
This chapter opens the great evangelic poem, the work of Isaiah’s last years. It is among the most conspicuous of the heralds of the Advent. It contains three distinctly marked features which indicate definite stages of preparation for it.
1. It marks the period of Jewish history in which the temporal power and splendour of Judaism began visibly to wane. The mission of Judah as a kingdom was accomplished. But something in it did not wither. Faded and fallen as a nation, the Jews became at once more powerful than ever as a Church. 2. A very marked prophecy of a universal Church. The first promise (Gen_12:1-3) was hidden for ages. Here it does not flash,—it shines, the calling of the Gentiles being the great burden of it (Isa_49:5-6; Isa_49:22-23; Isa_9:1-6). The words were spoken on which the King, when He came, could rest His appeal (Luk_4:18-19).
3. There was a clear vision set before the Jews of a great Sufferer for man who should yet be a great Conqueror. From the day when Isaiah wrote, the form of the Messiah was set clearly before mankind.
How far did this preparation fall in with larger movements which made the world ready for the actual Advent?
How the heralds prepared the way of the Lord.
I. THE JEWISH THEOCRACY. Some suppose Christ to have grown out of His age. But Christ and Christianity cannot be accounted for by natural evolution, with the Jewish theocracy standing in the way. Gen_12:1-3 struck a keynote which runs through Jewish history.
II. THE JEWISH DISPERSION. The witnesses charged with the promise and the prophecy were scattered through the civilised world. Up to the captivity the Jews kept themselves sternly and sullenly isolated (Act_10:28); afterwards they dispersed with facility. The significance of this is to be found in estimating the confusion of religious beliefs among mankind; and especially that neither Oriental nor Western thought became victorious. Jewish communities, with a firm belief in revelation, sacred books containing credible history, and a definite system of Divine legislation, the purity, righteousness, and charity of which were self-evident, settled among them.
III. THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PROGRESS OF THE AGES PRECEDING THE ADVENT IN THE DIRECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. There was progress between Socrates and Seneca; from the citizen of a state, almost domestic in its character, man became the subject of a great empire, and developed individuality and responsibility. Alexander led the Greek into a world too big for him; he became oppressed, distracted, and broke away from his traditions in a world of ceaseless conflict and change. Between Alexander’s conquests and Roman supremacy the thinker was thrown back upon himself, and compelled to ask ultimate questions: What am I? Whence came I? &c. There was a tendency towards the Christian question of salvation. But there was no response to the question forcing itself forward, What must I do to be saved? All was waiting for the proclamation (Isa_61:1).
IV. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. This was by far the most important secular herald of the Advent (Luk_2:1).
1. Modern European society is but the fully-developed Empire of Rome.
2. Amid a universal peace, and with a universal language, preachers could go almost everywhere.
3. The fundamental question opened by the Roman Empire is also that of Christianity—the relation of men to each other. Is it enmity or brotherhood?
(1.) Political amity gave rise to the idea of human brotherhood.
(2.) Still men were at sea about the reality, grounds, and claims of this brotherhood.
(3.) Thus the way was prepared till the time came when there were “shepherds abiding in the field,” &c. (Luk_2:8-14). Thus the Lord entered into this world and took possession of His throne.—J. Baldwin Brown: Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii. p. 40.
THE MORAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD
(Missionary Sermon.)
Isa_40:3-5. The voice of Him that crieth, &c.
We are authorised by the four Evangelists to understand these verses as a prophecy of the ministry of John the Baptist, who appeared as the forerunner of the Messiah; and they may be properly applied to all missionaries and religious workers who go out to uncivilised, heathen, and superstitious countries, to prepare the inhabitants for the reception of pure Christianity. The language is figurative, and is borrowed from an ancient Eastern custom. When monarchs went out to visit distant parts of their dominions or to invade neighbouring kingdoms, they sent heralds or pioneers before them to clear the way and remove obstructions. In allusion to this custom, John the Baptist and all his successors in similar work are represented as going out before the Messiah to clear away obstructions and prepare the way for the establishment of His kingdom in the world. Let us notice—
I. THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD IN ITS SINFUL AND UNREFORMED STATE.
It is here represented as a wild, pathless, and dreary wilderness. This figurative description suggests—
1. That it is unproductive of anything good. The earth when left uncultivated will produce nothing valuable and useful; and so men in their sinful state will bear no fruit to the glory of God and the good of their fellow-creatures.
2. That it is productive of things worthless, noxious, and injurious. A wilderness produces briars, thorns, and worthless weeds, and forms hiding-places for ravenous beasts and poisonous reptiles. This is a proper description of the heathen and uncivilised world. Men there rob, deceive, and devour each other. “The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.”
II. THE NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT PREPARATION FOR ITS MORAL TRANSFORMATION.
1. Religious teachers must be employed to combat with the ignorance and thick darkness which cover the people. To preach the Gospel to people without any kind of elementary education would be like throwing grain-seed among thorns or over hard rocks uncovered with any soil. This preparatory work is carried on most effectively in the present day. Eleven Protestant missionaries and assistants are now employed on the wide field of the heathen and superstitious world for every one so employed fifty years ago.
2. The Word of God must be made accessible to the rations in their respective languages and dialects. Eighty years ago the Bible had not been translated into more than forty of the languages of the world; now the whole book, or portions of it, is translated into more than two hundred and fifty languages. We thus see that the Christian Church has done six times more to prepare the way of the Lord in the last eighty years than it had done in the previous eighteen hundred years.
3. The international communications which are rapidly opening in every direction are promoted by men of the world simply for mercantile and scientific purposes, but they are evidently overruled by Divine Providence to prepare the way of the Lord. Many are running to and fro, and knowledge is increasing. Pure Christianity will ultimately reap all the advantages of this, for every form of false religion can only thrive in the darkness of ignorance and thoughtlessness.
III. THE GLORIOUS TRANSFORMATION WHICH SHALL BE EFFECTED.
“Every valley shall be exalted,” &c., i.e., all the malarious morasses of immorality shall be drained and converted into healthy and productive land; all high hills and barren mountains of false systems of religion shall be levelled down and disappear; and all crooked and uneven dealings in the diplomacies of nations and commercial transactions shall be straightened and made conformable to the golden rule of the Gospel (Mat_7:12). When this blessed change is realised, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”—
1. In the number of converts to the true religion. The true followers of Christ in every age hitherto have been only a “little flock” in comparison with all the inhabitants of the world, but the time is coming “when they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.”
2. In the beauty of their holy and consistent characters. “Holiness unto the Lord” shall be stamped upon every person and thing then; “and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.” The good works of God’s people will so shine before men that they shall be led to glorify our Father which is in heaven.
3. In the temporal and spiritual happiness of the world. All the sources of misery and unhappiness shall be dried up entirely. Wars and bloody contentions between nations shall cease unto the ends of the earth. All tyranny, oppression, and every form of injustice shall be removed, and kindness, charity, and justice will occupy their place. Men who used to be likened to bears, wolves, lions, leopards, and poisonous serpents, shall be changed and become tame and as harmless as the lamb, the kid, and the weaned child (chap. Isa_11:6-8). The whole earth will become the holy mountain of the Lord. The spiritual condition of the Church will then be indescribably happy and glorious. There will be no lifeless religious service, and no worshipper groaning and downcast under the hidings of the Lord’s face, for “the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defence.”
IV. THE CERTAINTY OF THE REALISATION OF THIS TRANSFORMATION.
“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
1. The Lord has ample power to fulfil all His promises. The opponents and obstructors of the promised transformation are described in the next three verses as grass and withering flowers. And what is grass to withstand Almighty power?
2. The Lord is omniscient, and no unforeseen contingencies can derange His plans, as it is often with us (chap. Isa_46:9).
3. The Lord is the God of truth, and it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of His law and promises to fail (Num_23:19).—Thomas Rees, D.D.
THE LEVELLING FORCE OF CHRISTIANITY
Isa_40:4. Every valley shall be exalted, &c.
The primary reference of these words is to the clearing of the way for the captive Jews in Babylon to return to their own land. Between Babylon and Jerusalem there was an immense tract of country, which was an untrodden and mountainous desert. The prophet hears in vision the voice of a herald demanding that a highway should be made, that the valleys be filled up, the mountains levelled, and the crooked way made straight. The Evangelists give the passage another and a moral application. They regard John the Baptist as the herald who in his wakening ministry prepared the way in men’s hearts for the mission of Him who was the spiritual Deliverer of mankind.
The words illustrate the socially levelling force of Christianity. There are and ever have been in the soul of society opinions, prejudices, feelings, conventional notions, which, like mountains and valleys, have separated men into classes, and prevented the free and loving interchange of soul. How does Christianity remove those mountains, fill up the valleys, and give a straight pathway into souls?
In two ways:—
I. By the levelling truths which it reveals.
1. A common God. A plurality of deities divides heathen society into sections. Christianity reveals one God, the Father of all, by whom are all things, and to whom are all things. It denounces all other deities as vanities and lies. A common God wakens a community of love, purpose, and worship.
2. A common nature. In heathen mythology men are represented as the offspring of different deities. In India one caste claims a nobler origin than another; and even in Christendom there are those who impiously claim a higher blood (Act_17:26).
3. A common obligation. Different codes of duty divide men. The Gospel reveals one law for all—to love the one God with all our hearts, and our neighbours as ourselves.
4. A common depravity. Pharisaic sentiment divides (Rom_3:23; Isa_53:6).
5. A common salvation. All are diseased, and there is but one Physician. All are captives, and there is but one Deliverer. All are lost, and there is but one Saviour.
II. By the levelling spirit which it generates. It generates a spirit which raises a man above the prejudices of heart and conventionalities that divide men. It is a spirit which has supreme regard to three things—
1. The spiritual in man. The true Christian spirit sees no dignity where there is meanness of soul, no degradation where there is a true nobility of heart.
2. The right in conduct. The true spirit judges not by custom and policy, but by principles of everlasting right; and it inspires a man to attempt the removal of all social mountains and hills that stand in the way of the right
3. The eternal in destiny. The human race is regarded not in its merely visible and temporal relation, but in its unseen and eternal.
Its levelling, however, does not involve spoliation. Distinctions arising from varieties in intellectual power, mental tastes, physical capacity, and individual circumstances, it recognises and respects. These do not necessarily involve social separations. Rightly used they are a blessed media of intercourse. It is the mountains arising from individual vanity, religious bigotry, national pride, worldly pretensions, and spiritual ignorance that Christianity levels to the dust.—David Thomas, D.D.: Homilist, Third Series, vol. viii. p. 95.
THE UNIVERSAL REVELATION OF THE GLORY OF THE LORD
Isa_40:5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, &c.
The chapter of which the text is a part forms the commencement of a series of addresses, distinguished not only for their elegance and sublimity, but for the manner in which they point to a future and far-distant period, when a display should be given of Divine splendour infinitely superior to any previously exhibited in our world. The institutions of the kingdom and Church of Judea, even in the days of Isaiah, were glory itself as compared with those of the nations around, and yet even their glory was as darkness when compared with those to which these predictions pointed as constituting the New Testament Church, and what has been emphatically characterised as “the glory of the latter days.” The former was but the dawn of a lengthened day; the latter was to be the brightness of meridian splendour; the former illumined a very limited sphere, the latter was to irradiate every part of the world, and to send its brilliancy through the universe.
I. The glory to be revealed—“the glory of the Lord.” The word glory is a figurative expression, signifying lustre, effulgence, splendour, magnificence. The glory of the Lord means the bright shining forth of the consummate excellences or perfections of His nature. Never was such an exhibition given of that glory as in the mission and mediation of the Son of God for the redemption of sinful men. It is to this that the declaration in the text unquestionably refers (cf. Isa_40:3-4; Joh_1:28; Mat_3:3). No event had ever given such a demonstrative display of the glory of the Lord as this (Luk_2:13-14). That the redemption of a ruined world was the object of the Messiah’s mission is undoubted (Gal_4:4-5); in this the glory of the Lord appeared (Isa_44:23). He displays His glory in all His works (Psa_19:1-2; Rom_1:20); but the brightest display of that glory by far is given, and is to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Note particularly that the glory of every Divine perfection was manifested in the mission and work of Christ.
1. Wisdom (1Ti_3:16; 1Co_2:7; Col_1:26-27; Eph_1:8; Eph_3:10).
2. Power (1Co_1:24); all the resources of earth and hell were laid under requisition to hinder the execution of His undertaking (Isa_63:1-6; Col_2:15).
3. Holiness and justice (Isa_53:5; Isa_53:10-12; Psa_22:1-3). How the glory of Divine grace now triumphed! Though the “Holy One,” He yet provided for the happiness of sinners; He showed Himself to be at once “the just God and the Saviour” (Rom_3:23-26; Eph_2:4-8). Like Him who accomplished it, redemption was not only “full of grace,” it was also “full of truth;” through Him all the promises of God were made “yea and amen to the glory of God by us;” the significance of the ancient sacrifices and ceremonies was disclosed; feeble glimmerings of light were swallowed up by a full blaze of glory (Mic_7:20; Joh_1:29).
The glory of the Lord was further demonstrated in the manner in which His various attributes were thus made to harmonise. There was no clashing; while the honour of each was advanced, the whole were glorified together (Psa_85:10-11).
II. The means that were to be employed in revealing this glory of the Lord.
1. The personal ministry of our Lord Himself (Heb_1:1-3). The manner in which Christ proved the truth of His mission and doctrines emphatically declared His glory (Joh_3:2; Luk_24:19); and all this was substantiated by His sufferings and death, His resurrection and ascension (Php_2:8-11).
2. The written Word of Christ (Joh_5:39; Col_3:16; 2Ti_3:15). All, therefore, who wish the glory of the Lord to be more and more revealed shall strive and “pray that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified.”
3. The preaching of the Gospel (Mar_16:15-16; Mar_16:20). Whenever the preaching of evangelical truth is rightly conducted, the glory of the Lord will be more and more revealed (1Co_1:18-24); but the members of the Church generally are to be instrumental by their prayers, instructions, and example (Mat_6:10; Isa_2:5; Mat_5:16; Php_1:9-11).
III. The extent to which the glory of the Lord shall be exhibited—“All flesh shall see it together.” When Isaiah spoke thus, the very existence of Jehovah was unknown to every nation under heaven but one. Innumerable multitudes are yet sitting in darkness. This great promise has still, therefore, to receive its full accomplishment (Isa_12:3; Mat_9:37-38; Rom_10:13; Rom_10:15); then shall come to pass the saying that is written (Hab_2:14; Isa_35:1-2).
IV. The great purpose for which the exhibition of the Divine glory is to be made. What this must be is clearly implied, though, in our version at least, not expressed. It is, that the Lord may so be made known as to be universally and exclusively honoured and obeyed (Isa_2:11). And the next grand object in view is, to promote the best interests of men (Isa_45:22; Isa_52:10).
V. The certainty of the whole, as intimated by the assertion—“For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Heb_10:23; Heb_11:11; 1Sa_15:29). What the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, the power of the Lord will accomplish (Jer_32:27).
APPLICATION.—
1. Let us rejoice that our God is the God of glory, and in this character the God of salvation.
2. Let us individually seek to have saving manifestations of His glory (Exo_30:3; Exo_30:18).
3. Let us recognise our infinite obligations for the means we enjoy for this purpose.
4. Let us seek to advance His glory far and wide (Isa_62:1).—Adam Thomson, D.D.: Outlines, pp. 108–114.
We believe that Jesus Christ was that image of God whom prophets had been desiring to behold. Is that enough for us? Are we content that the world should go on as it is,—the Christian world, or the world that is not Christian?
If not, what is it we wish for? Is Jesus the One that shall come, or do we look for another?
There is a disposition among religious men to look for something else than the manifestation of Christ. Christ is, according to them, a means to an end, but not the end; the sight of Him is not itself what they covet; the loss of Him is not itself what they dread. Again, there are not a few who say that the Gospel has failed of its object. Has it set the world right? Has misery ceased? Has wrong ceased? Has the reign of peace begun? The last of these opinions ought not to be rejected till men have cleared their minds of the first.
I. In the Old Testament the misery of the Jewish people, though produced by the most different instruments, has but one cause. Whoever are the tyrants—Pharaoh, Jabin, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar—tyranny is the cause of their groaning. A Deliverer is their one infinite necessity. Men appear as their deliverers; but they appear in the name of the Lord. Idolatry is the worship of some tyrant force. These thoughts and experiences were the school of the prophets. Through the prevalence of idolatry in the world, they were forced to rely upon the might of God and to expect the revelation of His glory. God cannot be disappointed. His purpose is to reveal Himself, and He will reveal Himself.
II. Isaiah is rightly called “The Evangelical Prophet,” because he saw more clearly than any one that only One who perfectly revealed God, who perfectly revealed Him as a Deliverer, could be the Person whom Israelites and all nations desired. Every event was a partial Epiphany. He hungered for one which should be for “all flesh.” The mouth of the Lord had as much spoken this as He had spoken the commands against adultery, or murder, or false witness.
III. Apostles, while they claimed the words of this prophet as pointing to Christ, forbade a contentment with what disciples had heard, or seen, or felt, or believed. They said, “We are saved by hope” (Rom_11:33; Eph_3:18-19).
IV. Of such teaching the consequence must be, that whatever calamities come upon the world will be stimulants and encouragements to this hope. There will be no shame in indulging it; because it is a hope for the world and not only for ourselves. There will be no uncertainty about it; because it does not depend upon our faith or virtue, but upon the eternal Word of God. The mouth of the Lord had spoken it.
LESSONS.—
1. Let us have no doubt that, however we may classify men’s oppressions, as individual or social, as political or intellectual, as animal or spiritual, God Himself has awakened the cry for freedom.
2. Let us have no doubt that that cry is, when truly understood and interpreted, a cry that God will appear as the Deliverer, that His glory may be revealed.
3. Let us therefore be most eager to meet all these cries, however discordant they be, with a true sympathy and recognition.
4. Let us, without precipitation—rather by acts than by words—show that we believe we can give God’s answer to them.
It is an old commonplace of divinity which we are strangely forgetting, that despair is the only utter perdition, because despair binds a man in the prison of his evil nature, and fastens the chain of the evil spirit upon him; because all hope points upwards to God, and is the response of our spirit to His Spirit. The promise of this final Epiphany stands not on the decrees of lawgivers, or the expectations of holy men, or the confidence of seers. It comes from Him who said, “Let there be light, and there was light.”—F. D. Maurice: Lincoln’s Inn Sermons, vol. i. pp. 175–289.
COMFORT FOR THE SUFFERING
Isa_40:1-5. Comfort ye, &c.
IT is generally agreed that these last twenty-six chapters relate to the restoration of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon. They are the Gospel of the Old Testament. This is their value to us.
Put into the briefest words, the ideas contained in the first five verses of this chapter are—That a glorious change awaits the exiles, consisting of a new and generous manifestation of Jehovah’s presence, for which His people are exhorted to prepare.
The prophet is commanded to speak words of comfort to those captives from Jerusalem—to assure them that her warfare, her time of slavery, is about to end; that her sins are pardoned, abundantly expiated by her sufferings; that her God is coming to deliver her from the oppressor; and that she must prepare the way for His coming, as heralds ride before a conquering king.
The comforting announcement which the prophet was to make to Jerusalem was—
1. That her affliction had become full, and had therefore come to an end.
2. Her iniquity is atoned for and the justice of God is satisfied.
3. The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone.
The double punishment which she had endured is not to be taken in a judicial sense, in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust. The compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant.
But this is only the negative side of the consolation. What positive salvation is to be expected? “Hark, the voice of one crying!” The summons proceeds in a commanding tone: “Let every valley be exalted,” &c. Spiritually interpreted, the command points to the encouragement of those that are cast down, the humiliation of the self-righteous and self-secure, the changing of dishonesty into simplicity, and of haughtiness into submission. Israel is to take care that God shall find them in such an inward and outward state as shall enable Him to fulfil His purpose. “And the glory of Jehovah,” &c. When the way is prepared for the coming One, the glory of the God of salvation will be unveiled; and this revelation is made for the sake of Israel, but not secretly or exclusively, for “all flesh” will come to see the salvation of God. “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,” is the confirmation of the foregoing prophecy.
Suffering endured through a long period, comfort promised, the elements of that comfort and the preparation for receiving it—these are the chief thoughts and main topics of the passage.
I. We all have to suffer, and to suffer for our own sins and for the sins of one another, in one way or another, and in a greater or less degree. It is part of the mystery of the world that some lives, even in the morning of their days, are overhung with dark clouds of sorrow. With how many is life a continual struggle with feeble health; in others, mental cares, cares of business, anxieties; in others, pangs suffered over sins committed and things left undone.
II. The Old and New Testaments say that there is Divine comfort for the sorrowful sufferers. This teaching casts a new light upon human grief. It puts to shame all ancient and modern philosophy. The Divine Physician uses suffering as a medicine (Psa_119:67; Psa_119:71).
1. We feel ourselves drawn into the true path of life.
2. Then the comfort of another message begins to be felt—that our iniquity is pardoned.
3. Then His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
III. God is coming over the desert of our lives to reveal His glory to us (Isa_40:5).
IV. But, for coming into the possession of this privilege, we must prepare the way of the Lord (Isa_40:4; Mat_3:2). The conditions of comfort are here laid down. Christian comfort comes by raising up the whole soul of a man; by bringing down every proud thought; by straightening every crooked course; by chastening and refining all that is rugged in character or conduct. It is thus we prepare ourselves for the incoming of God.—Charles Short: Sermons, pp. 255–269.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. In our text there is a specification of…
Isa 40:1
I. In our text there is a specification of one large class of medicine for spiritual disease; and therefore, by inference, one large class of sickness. "Comfort" is the staple of the prescription, and what was the condition of the patients? "Cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord’s hands double for all her sins." Here evidently the condition of Jerusalem is one of distress, anxiety, and distraction, and this accords most exactly with a passage of the Psalms: "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul." We conclude that the case of sickness so emphatically prescribed for in our text is that under which the righteous may be labouring from the difficulties which may encompass him. Our text contains a prescription, but not a prescription which will serve in all cases wherever there is a throng of anxious thoughts, but only in cases in which the party strives to walk according to the precepts of religion, and may therefore be classed among the people of God.
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II. Consider the faithfulness and efficacy of the medicine prescribed. The case is that of a righteous man, on whom cares and sorrows press with great weight, and whose mind is torn with anxieties, and thronged by a crowd of restless intruders, distracting him even in his communings with God. Now the very disease under which this man labours incapacitates him in a great measure for any process of argument. The comforts of God are the rich assurances of His forgiving and accepting love; the gracious declarations of His everlasting purpose of preserving to the end those whom He has chosen in Christ; the multiplied promises of spiritual guidance, protection, and victory, which make to the eye of faith the page of Scripture one sheet of burning brightness, always presenting most radiantly what is most suited to the necessity. There are the foretastes of immortality, the glimpses of things within the veil, the communications of the Spirit, the anticipations of glory, which if the cold and the worldly resolve into a dream of enthusiasm, the faithful know by experience belong to the realities of their portion. Here then are comforts, and it is the part of the righteous man in his season of anxiety and distraction to confine himself to these comforts, regarding them as a sick man the cordials which are specially adapted to his state.
III. We make no far-fetched application of the text, if we affirm it as specially appropriate on the approach of the last enemy, death. What has the believer to do when conscious that the time of his departure is at hand, but seize the consolations of Christianity, and give himself meekly over into the Good Shepherd’s hands? Let him not argue; let him not debate; let him not sit in judgment,—let him simply have recourse to the comforts of God.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1712.
I. With these words Isaiah opens his gospel; God’s good word to man. The earlier chapters are burdens; in view of the sins and wrongs around him, he lifts up his voice and denounces doom. But mercy rejoices against judgment, so he breaks forth before the burden is ended into the most sublime strains of consolation and hope which God’s prophets have ever been commissioned to utter to the world. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but I am thy Saviour," is the real text of his prophecy. It is the theme of his poem wrought out with consummate art through a hundred suggestive variations. A people self-destroyed, God-redeemed, is the thought which meets us everywhere; and it is this which makes these closing chapters the great evangelic poems, not of Israel only, but of the world.
II. The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God has breathed for them in His Word. These words look on through all the ages of human history. It is comfort throughout and comfort to the end. The mercy of judgment is a subject which we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunder-storms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere. Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world.
III. Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak of comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 1.
I. In the first place, let us identify the people spoken of. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people." There was a first reference to the people of the Jews, who we know all through were a people that shadowed forth other people. The people spoken of in these words who are to be comforted are preeminently the people of God. They are those who have Christ for their righteousness, and the Spirit for their strength, grace for their life, God for their Father, heaven for their home.
II. Notice next those messengers through whom this comfort is to be given. There seems to have been no plurality at first, for this is the writing of the prophet Isaiah; but as it was written it was not done with, and as the secretary of the Holy Spirit entered the minute in this book the All-wise Spirit said, "I shall want it for the future; for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul,—for all My servants through all ages. I shall be saying through all time through them, ’Comfort ye, comfort ye My people."
III. Consider the comfort we are to convey. "Comfort ye My people." (1) By reminding them that I am their God. All this chapter is a remembrance that God is the Father of His people. (2) By reminding them that their captivity in this world is nearly over, and that they will soon be home. There is a glorious world beyond this. We know that there is such a world. Let us cherish the thought, and push through the difficulties of this world. We shall not see it until we reach the throne of glory, and see God as He is. (3) The Saviour is coming to this world, and is on His way to show His glory here. Comfort the people who feel amazed and disquieted by the sight of the strong things that are arrayed against Christ. Tell them that Christ will overcome these things. He will come and fill the world with His victories.
C. Stanford, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 9.
References: Isa 40:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 221; Ibid. Old Testament Outlines, p. 197; C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 168. Isa 40:1, Isa 40:2.—H. Christopherson, Penny Pulpit, No. 440; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 110; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 117. Isa 40:3.—J. Service, Sermons, p. 1; A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 380; J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 40. Isa 40:3, Isa 40:4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 129.
Isa 40:3-5
I. The text teaches us that there are certain things which hinder the spread of the Redeemer’s kingdom, spoken of here as valleys, hills, mountains, rough places, and crooked ways. The obstacles to the spread of the Redeemer’s kingdom are so numerous, that I must not even attempt to name them, but refer, as an illustration, to heathenism and idolatry abroad, and to ignorance and vice at home. The heathenism we are trying to remove; and that yawning valley of ignorance we are, by God’s grace, as a nation, trying to fill up; but our national vices, which are like mountains, we are also commanded by God to level and to remove. Take the vice of intemperance. (1) Intemperance hinders the progress of God’s kingdom at home. (2) It is also a hindrance to the spread of the Gospel abroad. How is it that though eighteen hundred years have passed since the Redeemer made His great provision, and gave us the command to carry the glad tidings to all, midnight darkness rests upon most of the human family? (a) There is a want of means.(b) There is a want of men. (c) There is a want of success on the part of those who are already in the field. With all those reasons strong drink has something to do.
II. It is the duty of the Christian Church to sweep this mountain away. (1) The Church must, if she would hold her own. There is no neutrality in this war. (2) The Church must, if she would please her Master.
III. The text puts before us the glorious result. "Thy kingdom come "is our cry. Here is God’s answer: "Set to work; lift up the valley, bring down the mountain, make the rough places plain and the crooked places straight, and then I will come." God waits for man. As soon as the Church is prepared to do the Lord’s bidding, the world shall be filled with His glory.
C. Garrett, Loving Counsels, p. 142.
The imagery of the text appears to be drawn from the journey-ings of Israel to Canaan. That great event in their national history was constantly before the mind of Isaiah, and is presented in his writings with ever-varying illustration. Let us
I. Compare this prophecy with the history of the Exodus. The prophecies of God’s Word shine both before and behind. They not only illumine the darkness of futurity, but they reflect a radiance back on the page of history. So here. In the desert the Gospel was preached to Israel (as St. Paul says) in types and ordinances, and especially by that great act of their redemption out of Egypt. In this was a perpetual type of the Redeemer’s work of salvation, a foreshadowing of the inspired song, "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God." In the ordinances given by the dispensation of angels might be heard "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way for our God."
II. Isaiah used the message as an illustration of his own ministry. He too, living now probably in the idolatrous reign of Manasseh, felt himself in a spiritual desert. Led by faith he sees afar off, and the seer is himself transported into that bright future. Just as heralds announced the coming of an Oriental king, and pioneers prepared his march across hill and vale and desert plains, so would Divine Providence lead His exiles home, removing all obstacles from their path, and overruling the designs of their enemies.
III. The words of Isaiah certainly point on to Gospel times; for John the Baptist distinctly announced himself as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." This preparation, in a spiritual sense, he accomplished by his personal ministry.
IV. But even in John’s day the words had a wider signification. Not only the land of Israel, but the Gentile world, even all flesh, was then being prepared to see the salvation of God. Providential agencies were even then at work preparing Christ’s way among the Gentiles, as it were constructing a road for the march of Christianity through the desolate regions of heathendom. The two most powerful agencies were Greek literature and Roman dominion.
V. The prophecy sheds a lustre on the world’s future. The Christ has indeed come to earth, but it was to suffer and to die. Once more in this wide desert the "glory of the Lord shall be revealed," and not one but "all lands shall see it together."
S. P. Jose, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, May 13th, 1880.
References: Isa 40:3-5.—A. Rowland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 323; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 200.
Isa 40:4
I. Rough places. (1) In general human history. (2) In individual human life.
II. Rough places made plain. (1) The supreme power of Jesus Christ. (2) The supreme power of Jesus Christ used for the advantage of mankind. (3) The advantage of mankind identified with the coming kingdom of Jesus Christ.
III. The tranquil and blessed future of the world. Christianity is good news. Inequalities are to be rectified. Relations are to be adjusted.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 59.
Isa 40:5
Has this revelation of God’s glory respect only to the past and to the present? Has it nothing to do with the future? We believe that Jesus Christ was that image of God whom prophets had been desiring to behold. He took flesh, and through His flesh showed forth the fulness of that glory which the previous ages had only seen in scattered glimpses. Is that enough for us? If not, what is it we wish for? Is it something else than the manifestation of Christ? Is Jesus the One that shall come, or do we look for another?
I. If you read the Old Testament, you will perceive that there is a striking uniformity amidst the variety of its records. The misery of the Jewish people in the different ages of their commonwealth is produced by the most different instruments, but the cause of it is always the same. Tyranny is the cause of their groaning. And as the disease is the same, the remedy is the same. A deliverer is their one infinite necessity. Men appear as their deliverers, but they appear in the name of the Lord. He is the enemy of tyrants. He is the Deliverer.
II. Isaiah saw more clearly than any one that only One who perfectly revealed God—who perfectly revealed Him as a Deliverer—could be the Person whom Israelites and all nations desired, whom He Himself was teaching them to desire. He saw, indeed, in every event which took place in his own day a partial epiphany—a manifestation of God the righteous Judge, of God the Deliverer. But the more he recognised these revelations of the glory of God, the more he craved for One that should be perfect, that should be in the strictest and fullest sense for all flesh. Less than that it was treason against God to expect.
III. Let us have no doubt that, however we may classify men’s oppressions as individual or as social, as political or intellectual, as animal or spiritual, God Himself has awakened the cry for freedom. Let us have no doubt that that cry is, when truly understood and interpreted, a cry that God will appear as the Deliverer, that His glory may be revealed. We ought to stir up hope in every human being,—hope for present help from God to overcome the sin that most easily besets him; hope that he shall be able to say to the mountains which now stand in his way, "Remove, and be cast into the sea;" hope for the future, that the glory of God the Deliverer shall be fully revealed; and that we, being included in the "all flesh" of which the prophet writes, bearing that nature in and for which Christ died, shall be able to see it and rejoice in it.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i., p. 175.
References: Isa 40:5.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 327; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 361.
Isa 40:6
I. The text is an assertion of the shortness and uncertainty of life. And we may naturally be surprised that there should be so sublime and startling a machinery for the delivery to us of so commonplace a truth. Here is a voice from the firmament. An invisible agency is brought to bear, as though for the announcement of something altogether startling and unexpected. The amazed prophet asks what the message can be for the delivery of which he is summoned by so awful a call. And then he is merely called to publish what every one knew before: "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Truths, which we never think of disputing, may be practically those which we are most in the habit of forgetting. It is of well-known truths that a voice from heaven must speak to us, if it would speak of what it is important that we know.
II. It is but needful that the shortness and uncertainty of life should be actually felt, and there must pass a great moral revolution over the world; and numbers who persist in sinning because they believe themselves sure of an opportunity for repentance would be almost driven to an immediate attention to religion, feeling that if not an immediate there would probably be none. And the effect wrought on the unconverted, if we could penetrate them with a consciousness of the uncertainty of life, would not be without its parallel in the righteous on whom we cannot charge the habitual disregard of the dread things of the future. The same feeling is at work, if not in the same measure, in the righteous and the unrighteous—the feeling that the day of death is not near. It could not be that men professing religion would so entangle themselves with the affairs of earth, be so loth to make sacrifices in the cause of God, and apply themselves with so little earnestness and self-denial to the discipline of the heart, were they fraught with the persuasion that "the Judge standeth at the door."
III. If the exhibitions of human frailty may not teach men how frail they are, it may be that these exhibitions will dispose men to prayer. They cannot produce the consciousness, that "in the midst of life we are in death;" but they may excite the feeling, that there ought to be this consciousness, and this feeling may issue in an earnest cry that God would implant it.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1827.
References: Isa 40:6-8.—A. Boyd,Penny Pulpit, No. 498; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 999; J. G. Wood, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 114.
Isa 40:8
The immediate, the historical purpose of these words is undoubtedly to reassure the Jews of the captivity. It was to men whose eyes were resting on the magnificence and power of Bablyon that Isaiah spoke, but of another land and out of an earlier age, the solemn words: "All flesh is grass, and all the beauty thereof is as the flower of the field." In contrast with the perishing life of the great empire city and its vast populations, Isaiah points to the "word of our God." That word, he says, "will stand for ever."
I. By the word of our God—of Jehovah, the God of His people—Isaiah means, beyond doubt, in the first instance, the word of promise uttered in the desert by the inspired voice. The promise of the return from Babylon, the promise of the after-presence of Israel’s great Redeemer, would be verified. St. Peter detaches this text for us Christians from its immediate historical setting. He widens it; he gives it a strictly universal application.
II. Isaiah refers to the grass as an emblem of the perishable and the perishing. In looking at it, we look at that which is at best a vanishing form, ready almost ere it is matured to be resolved into its elements, to sink back into the earth from which it sprang. As soon as we are born, says the wise man, we begin to draw to our end. That is true of the highest and of the lowest forms of natural life. Whatever else human life is, whatever else it may imply, it is soon over. It fades away suddenly like the grass. The frontiers of life do not change with the generations of men, as do its attendant circumstances.
III. The word of the Lord endureth for ever. How do we know that? Certainly not in the same way as we know and are sure of the universality of death. We know it to be true if we believe two things: first, that God the perfect moral being exists; secondly, that He has spoken to man. If He is eternal then that which He proclaims as His truth and will, will bear on it the mark of His eternity. The word of God, speaking in conscience, speaking in revelation, is like God Himself above the waterfloods of change; it lasts. While men differ from each other about His word, it remains what it was, hidden, it may be, like our December sun,—hidden behind the clouds of speculation, or behind the clouds of controversy, but in itself unchanged, unchangeable. "Thy word, O Lord, endureth for ever in heaven."
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 706.
"Hast thou not known?" This is not a new revelation. It is an appeal to memory, and that is a strong point in all the Divine pleading. Our memory is to be as the prophet of the Lord in our life. Recollection is to be inspiration; the forty years gone are a pledge of the forty years to come. Let a man be faithful to his own recollections, and it is impossible he can long be despondent, weary and slow of heart, to lay hold of the great work and discipline of life.
I. Is God almighty? (1) Then do not fear for the stability of His works. (2) Have no fear about the realisation of His promises. (3) Do not imagine you can escape His judgments. (4) Be assured that the throne of right shall stand upon the ruins of all wrong.
II. God is not only powerful, but all wise. There is no searching of His understanding. Infinite strength would terrify us, but infinite strength under the dominion of infinite mind recovers us from the tremendous shock which comes of. abstract, immeasurable, unwasting strength. Is God all-wise? (1) Then the darkest providences have meaning. (2) His plan of salvation is complete and final, and we shall waste our strength and show how great is our folly by all attempts to improve the method of redemption and recovery of the world. (3) Our individual life is all understood by Him. That life is but dimly known to ourselves. We catch glimpses of it here and there, but its scope and meaning are still unrevealed to us. It is enough that God knows our life, and that His wisdom is pledged as our defence. (4) We have a guarantee of endless variety in our future studies and services. God is ever extending our knowledge of His works, in reward of the endeavours we are making to acquaint ourselves with the wonders by which we are enclosed.
III. The subject forces upon us the solemn enquiry: What is our relation to this dread Being, whose power is infinite, and whose wisdom is past finding out? We must sustain some relation to Him. We are the loyal subjects of His crown, or rebels in His empire. Pause and determine the answer. Everything depends upon our relation to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Parker, City Temple, 1870, p. 349.
References: Isa 40:8.—G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 17; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 73. Isa 40:9.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 275; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 362; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 101; W. Young, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 330; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 330. Isa 40:11.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xi., No. 652, vol. xiv., No. 794, vol. ix., No. 540, vol. xxiii., No. 1381; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 177; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 44; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 135, 293. Isa 40:20.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 244.
Isa 40:27
I. Isaiah here reaches and rests upon the very foundations of the faith, trust, and hope of mankind—the living God. Creation rests on His hand; man, the child of the higher creation, rests on His heart. What His power is to the material universe His moral nature and character are to the spiritual universe. This is the one ultimate answer of the Bible to all the questions which perplex and bewilder the intellect of man, the one solution of the mysteries which baffle his heart. "Have faith in God." Creation lives by faith unconsciously, and all her voices to our intelligent ear iterate and reiterate, "Have faith in God."
II. Have faith in God. What do we know of God that we should trust Him? what aspects does He present to us? We have two sources of knowledge—what He has said to, and what He has done for, man. (1) There is something unspeakably sublime in the appeal in Isa 40:26. It is heaven’s protest against man’s despair. Nor is Isaiah the only sacred writer who utters it. There is something very strikingly parallel in Job. And in both cases God’s appeal is to the grand and steadfast order of the vast universe, which He sustains and assures (read Job xxxviii.). God tells us, if words can tell, that all the hosts of heaven are attendant on the fortunes of mankind. They all live that God’s deep purpose concerning man may be accomplished. (2) God declares here that we are not only involved inextricably in the fulfilment of His deepest and most cherished counsels, but that we are needed to satisfy the yearnings of His Father’s heart.
III. We may apply these principles to the seasons of our experience when faith in the living God is the one thing which stands between us and the most blank despair. (1) The deep waters of personal affliction. (2) The weary search of the intellect for truth, the struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, to know the inscrutable, to see the invisible, which is part, and not the least heavy part, of the discipline of a man and of mankind. (3) Dark crises of human history, when truth, virtue, and manhood seem perishing from the world.
J. Baldwin Brown, Aids to the Development of the Divine Life, No. 9.
References: Isa 40:27-29.—E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 81. Isa 40:27-31.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 136. Isa 40:28.—Parker, Cavendish Pulpit, p. 269.
Isa 40:27-29
Notice:—
I. Isaiah’s despondency. It arose from a twofold source. (1) The sense of a Divine desertion: "My way is hid from the Lord." (2) The absence of Divine recompense: "My judgment is passed over from my God."
II. The truth that removed Isaiah’s despondency. (1) The greatness of God in nature. (2) The tenderness of the revealed will.
III. The results of its removal. (1) Strength in weakness. (2) Immortal youth.
E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 94.
Isa 40:28-31
I. We have, first, the prophet’s appeal to the familiar thought of an unchangeable God as the antidote to all despondency and the foundation of all hope. The life of men and of creatures is like a river, with its source and its course and its end. The life of God is like the ocean, with joyous movement of tides and currents of life and energy and purpose, but ever the same and ever returning upon itself. Jehovah, the unchanged, unchangeable, inexhaustible Being, spends and is unspent; gives and is none the poorer; works and is never wearied; lives and with no tendency to death in His life; flames—with no tendency to extinction in the blaze.
II. Notice, next, the unwearied God giving strength to wearied men. The more sad and pathetic the condition of feeble humanity by contrast with the strength, the immortal strength, of God, the more wondrous is that grace and power of His which are not contented with hanging there in the heavens above us, but bend right down to bless us and to turn us into their own likeness. It is much to preserve the stars from wrong; it is more to restore and to bring power to feeble men. It is much to uphold all those that are falling so that they may not fall; but it is more to raise up all those that have fallen and are bowed down.
III. The last thing in these words is, the wearied man lifted to the level of the unwearied God and to His likeness. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." That phrase means, of course, the continuous bestowment in unintermitting sequence of fresh gifts of power; as each former gift is exhausted, more is required. Grace abhors a vacuum, as nature does; and just as the endless procession of the waves rises on the beach, or as the restless network of the moonlight irradiation of the billows stretches all across the darkness of the sea, so that unbroken continuity of strength after strength gives grace for grace according to our need, and as each former supply is expended and used up God pours Himself into our hearts anew. That continuous communication leads to the perpetual youth of the Christian soul.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 2nd series, p. 293.
References: Isa 40:28-31.—H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 263. Isa 40:29.—Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 444. Isa 40:30, Isa 40:31.—J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 308.
Isa 40:31
I. Consider, first, what it is to wait upon the Lord. Three things make it: service, expectation, patience. "Wait on the Lord." We must be as those Eastern maidens who, as they ply their needle or their distaff, look to the eye and wait upon the hand of their mistress, as their guide which is to teach them, or their model which they are to copy. Our best lessons are always found in a Father’s eye. Therefore, if you would "wait upon the Lord," you must be always looking out for voices— those still small voices of the soul,—and you must expect them, and you must command them. But service, however devoted, or expectation, however intense, will not be waiting without patience. Here is where so many fail. The waiting times are so long: the interval between the prayer and the answer, between the repentance and the peace, between the work and the result, between sowing-time and reaping-time, and we are such impatient, impetuous creatures. We could not "tarry the Lord’s leisure."
II. Consider, next, the action: elevation, rapid progress, a steady course—soar, run, walk. Is it not just what we want—to get higher, to go faster, and to be more calmly consistent? (1) Elevation. What are the wings? Beyond a doubt, faith, prayer; or, if you will, humility and confidence in a beautiful equipoise, balancing one another on either side, so that the soul sustains itself in mid-air and flies upward. (2) "They shall run." Have you ever noticed how the servants of God in the Bible—from Abraham and David to Philip in the Acts—whenever they were told to do anything, always ran. It is the only way to do anything well. A thousand irksome duties become easy and pleasant if we do them runningly, that is, with a ready mind, an affectionate zeal, and a happy alacrity. (3) But there is something beyond this. It is more difficult to walk than to run. To maintain a quiet sustained walk, day by day, in the common things of life, in the house and out of the house, not impulsive, not capricious, not changeable,—that is the hardest thing to do. Let me give four rules for this walk: (a) Start from Christ; (b) walk with Christ; (c) walk leaning on Christ; (d) walk to Christ.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 279.
Isa 40:31
I. This is the gospel of the exile, the "gospel before the gospel," the good news of the swift accession of power and deliverance to the Jewish people, humiliated, dispirited, and tired out by monotonously waiting in their Babylonian captivity for a long-expected, long-delayed good.
II. Like all gospels, this gospel of the exile is God’s. God, in His loving care for a constant education of souls, is the Alpha and Omega of this whole gospel for captive Israel.
III. Like all Divine evangels, this good news for the captives of Babylon is addressed immediately to a special need, and adapted by its form to effect a particular result, viz., that of patient endurance of acute affliction, steadfast resistance to cowardly fears and weakening apprehension, brave battling with anxiety and carewornness, a resolute and determined climb towards the sunny heights and clear expanses of cheerfulness and joy. "Wait for God" is the ever-recurring and all-luminous word of the exile-gospel.
IV. Like all gospels from the heavens, this one for the Hebrew exiles obtained its full and complete verification from the uncontradicted facts of human experience. The sevenfold blessing of the exile stands written in the chronicles of Israel and of the world. (1) First, and most distinctive of the gains of the Jews from their captivity, stands their advanced and perfected knowledge of God. (2) Next comes up out of the exile the more definitely shaped and clearly conceived image of the Anointed of the Lord, the Daysman or Mediator, the Lord our Righteousness, the Herald of a new covenant, the suffering and conquering servant of God, who is to realise the ideal Jerusalem, and bring a new heaven and a new earth. (3) Fired by this hope of a personal Redeemer, and controlled by a spiritual conception of Jehovah, the worship of God entered on that final spiritual phase which has never been wholly eclipsed, though it has suffered, and still suffers, many painful obscurations. (4) Bound up with this we see the generation of a higher ethic, the birth of a nobler conception of life, as the sphere for rightness of aim and righteousness of character. (5) The temporary limitations and restrictions of Israel being removed, it is forthwith lifted into the stream of universal history, never to be taken out again as long as sun and moon endure. (6) The missionary spirit, as well as the missionary idea, glows and throbs in the oracles and songs which represent the highest thought and the purest emotion of this time. (7) This was completed by the enlargement and recension of that unique and marvellous missionary agent, the Old Testament literature.
V. This gospel, like all its fellows, never dies. It endures for ever and ever as a living message, not effete though old, not wasted though abundantly used, but partaking of the unwearied energy and eternal reproductiveness of its Infinite Source.
J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 241.
Isa 40:31
I. Physical weariness is the least part of the weariness of our world. The extent and the depth of heart-weariness is greater than complaint ever utters. There is a hidden, dull, weary, aching weariness in souls everywhere, which never reveals itself.
II. Hope in God is a quenchless hope for our essential, enduring nature, if we can come home to it—a hope that is capable of being re-born and newborn after every disappointment and death. It is a childlike confidence that we are heirs of our Father’s estate, and as a matter of birthright entitled to His friendship.
III. Those who wait upon God, and daily lay open their souls to His Spirit and working, know that a new nature is forming in them, and to that nature, in the proper sphere of God’s kingdom, all our hopes will be fulfilled. They that wait on God do mount up, they do leave earth’s weariness and despair far beneath them.
IV. A new will against all base earthborn inclinations, and a piercing intelligence beyond anything that the natural mind knows, are direct results of intercourse with God. They are virtues of the Divine Breath in man. "They shall mount up with wings as eagles." They are practising little daily ascensions before the day of the great ascension comes. They will come to life’s full cup, for they taste it already. God means Human Blessedness; and as often as they mount up into the fine air of His presence, the blessedness meets them and creates new assurance in their breast.
J. Pulsford, Our Deathless Hope, p. 126.
References: Isa 40:31.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 270; F. Tucker, Penny Pulpit, No. 439; Short Sermons for Family Reading, p. 425; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 876, vol. xxix., No. 1756; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 219; J. H. Anderson, Ibid., vol. iii., p. 84; J. Vaughan, Children’s Sermons, 6th series, p. 49.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Israel's Restoration from Exile in Babylon
Israel's Restoration from Exile in Babylon
On the authorship and date of these chapters see Intro. According to their subject matter, they fall naturally into three divisions of almost equal length (Isaiah 40-48, 49-57, , 58-66), the close of each division being marked by an intimation that the wicked shall not share in the blessings promised to God's people.
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The hope of return is grounded by the prophet upon the fact that Jehovah is the only God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, the Disposer of the fate of nations, who guides the course of history according to His will. The tone of this section is argumentative, the respective claims of Jehovah and of the heathen gods being discussed as in a court of justice. The object of the argument is to encourage the Jews in their exile by showing that, since Jehovah is thus supreme, no obstacles will be able to interfere with the restoration to their own land which He has promised. With fine irony the prophet exhibits the infatuation of idol-makers and idol-worshippers; proving that, while the idols are senseless blocks and less than nothing (Isa_40:17), Jehovah is Lord of the world and controls all things. The Israelites can testify to His power, because through His prophets He has told them of things be fore they came to pass. Jehovah is, therefore, set forth as the deliverer of His people. But in the carrying out of His purposes He employs agents: (a) Cyrus, who is commissioned as His shepherd (Isa_44:28), His anointed (Isa_45:1), to perform all His pleasure in the overthrow of Babylon and deliverance of the Israelites from their exile; (b) the nation of Israel, which has its own work to do in the furthering of Jehovah's purposes. The title 'servant of Jehovah,' hitherto applied to individuals, is in these chapters (Isa_41:8; Isa_44:1-2, Isa_44:21; Isa_48:20) applied to the nation in its corporate capacity: perhaps also, though less directly, to the faithful Jews within the nation (Isa_42:1-7, Isa_42:18; Isa_43:8, Isa_43:10) on whom would devolve the fulfilment of God's will. The name implies, in the first place, the fact of the nation's election by Jehovah (Isa_48:8), and further the truth that Israel has a mission in the world, viz. to bring the knowledge of true religion to the Gentiles, and be a means of universal blessing (Isa_42:1 f).
The Proclamation of Deliverance
1, 2. The theme of the prophecies following: the period of Zion's trouble and affliction is over.
3-26. Celestial voices give the message of restoration to God's people, who are encouraged by the thought of His infinite power.
27-31. Trust in Jehovah is, therefore, the source of true strength.
2. Warfare] RM 'time of service,' i.e. enforced service and hardship: cp. Job_7:1. Double] i.e. double (ample) penalty (Jer_17:18), in the sufferings of the exile.
3-5. A first voice enjoins preparation for the progress of the great King, who will bring back His people from exile.
3. Crieth, etc.] RV 'crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness.' The passage was understood by the Baptist as prophetic of his own mission (Joh_1:23), and is so taken by thé Evangelists (Mat_3:3 and parallels).
4. This imagery is from the practice of Eastem monarchs, who thus made roads for the passage of their armies.
5. Shall see] shall see Jehovah's glorious deeds for His people, and acknowledge Him.
6-8. The message of the second voice. Human things must decay: Israel's oppressors are mortal, but Jehovah's promiseissure.
6. He said] i.e. the prophet himself; then in the words following, in reply to his question, a message is put into his mouth. 7. Spirit] RV 'breath,' or wind.
9-11. The third voice—the good tidings brought to Zion that Jehovah is approaching in triumph, bringing back His people.
9. Read, 'O thou that teilest good tidings to Zion.. O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem.' 'Thou that teilest'is fem. in Heb. The prophet in spirit sees a maiden, or a company of women (Psa_68:11) bringing the news.
10. His reward, etc.] The figure is that of a conqueror bringing the spoils of war. His work] RV 'recompense,' his redeemed people regarded as the prize of war.
11. The v. indicates in a figure the tender care with which God will support His people on their journey home. Are with young] RV 'give suck.'
12-26. The prophet's object is to show the power of Jehovah to deliver the people from captivity. He emphasises two thoughts: (a) the wonderful order and proportion in the universe show His infinite power and wisdom (Isa_40:12-17), and (b) no representation can be made of Him. How futile are the idols that men make! (Isa_40:18-20).
20. RV 'He that is too impoverished for such an oblation,' etc.
24. Shall not] read the tenses as past (RV). The v. expresses the transitory character of earthly powers in the sight of Jehovah.
26. Faileth] is missing.
27. The foregoing argument is addressed to a people who had suffered so long, that they thought God had forgotten them, and were despondent.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 The first two verses of Isaiah 40. give the…
Comfort
The first two verses of Isaiah 40. give the key-note of the second part of the prophecy of Isaiah. The great theme of this section is Jesus Christ in His sufferings, and the glory that shall follow in the Davidic kingdom. (See "Christ in O.T.," sufferings,) Gen 4:4; Heb 10:18 glory,; 2Sa 7:8-15; Zec 12:8 Since Israel is to be regathered, converted, and made the centre of the new social order when the kingdom is set up, this part of Isaiah appropriately contains glowing prophecies concerning these events. The full view of the redemptive sufferings of Christ (e.g. Isaiah 53) leads to the evangelic strain so prominent in this part of Isaiah. (e.g. Isa 44:22-23; Isa 55:1-3).
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The change in style, about which so much has been said, is no more remarkable than the change of theme. A prophet who was also a patriot would not write of the sins and coming captivity of his people in the same exultant and joyous style which he would use to describe their redemption, blessing, and power. In Joh 12:37-44 quotations from Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6 are both ascribed to Isaiah.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Like the first part this second part of Isaiah…
II. THE LATER PROPHECIES OF COMFORT AND GLORY (40-66)
Like the first part this second part of Isaiah has three sections. The three sections of the first part revealed the judgments to come upon the Jewish people, Jerusalem, the nations and the earth. The three sections of the second part reveal the great blessings in store for the people of Israel, Jerusalem, the nations and the earth, after the judgments are passed. These sections give the past, present, and the future history of the Jewish people.
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In the first section (40-48) they are seen prophetically in Babylon, but about to be delivered and brought back to the land. Cyrus is predicted as the chosen instrument. However, this section looks also beyond the return of the remnant from Babylon. Their present dispersion and coming restoration is predicted as well.
In the second section (49-57) we find this period of their history more fully brought forward. In this section the servant of Jehovah is more fully revealed. He came to His own and they received Him not. They hid their faces from Him and esteemed Him not. In consequence of this rejection Israel is not gathered (Isa 49:5), while those who are afar Off, the Gentiles and the isles of the sea, hear of the salvation of God. It is the present age which can be traced in this section. Israel not gathered and the rejected One is given for a light to the nations. The great central figure in this section is the suffering servant of Jehovah (chapter 53).
In the third section we discover their future history. Here we see Him, who suffered, as the victorious King. A remnant is seen back in the land and the glories and blessings of the future burst forth in marvelous splendor.
1. In Babylon: Deliverance Promised Through Cyrus (40-48)
CHAPTER 40
The Opening Message: Key and Introduction to this Section
1. Comfort for His people (Isa 40:1-2) 2. The voice in the wilderness (Isa 40:3-5) 3. The prophet’s message (Isa 40:6-8) 4. The message to Zion (Isa 40:9-11) 5. The supremacy of Jehovah (Isa 40:12-26) 6. Comfort for Jacob and Israel (Isa 40:27-31)The first verses of this chapter are the key and introduction to the entire section. The Lord now speaks in comfort to Jerusalem and announces the pardoning of her iniquity and that in blessing she will receive double for her sins. In verses 3-11 the first and second coming of Christ are again blended together. John the Baptist was that voice crying in the wilderness John 1:233). Not in Matthew, but in Luke,Isa 40:3-31 is quoted with the exception of verse 5. In its place the Holy Spirit saith, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The glory of the Lord will be revealed with the second Advent. When that glory appears Israel is saved, in the meantime the salvation of God is offered to the Gentiles. Jehovah speaks in this chapter of Himself and the evidences that He is God. This is the peculiar feature of the entire section. All is spoken to encourage the faith of His people. Blessed lessons we find here. Verses 27-31, however, will only be fully realized in the future kingdom.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Word of Comfort and the God of Comfort.
The Word of Comfort and the God of Comfort.
The last part of the book of the prophet Isaiah has fitly been called the Book of Comfort, for in its beautiful language and in its exalted visions the Gospel of salvation is so clearly taught that it often seems as though John himself were speaking. The preacher and the prophet are combined in the message brought out by Isaiah to such an extent as to make us feel that voices from the world beyond are singing a glorious hymn of praise.
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The Gospel of Comfort
v. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Note the repetition of the charge, with the emphasis implied, the significance of the address in the plural as including the Gospel-messengers of all times, and the inviting designations "My" people and "your" God. In the very charge of Jehovah there is contained a tender call to the believers of all times to find true comfort and consolation in the message of salvation.
v. 2. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, literally, "to the heart of Jerusalem," addressing words of consolation to all members of the spiritual Zion, the Church of God, and cry unto her, in a sermon of sweetest assurance, that her warfare is accomplished, that the tribulation to which His people are subjected would soon be ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, namely, in and through the Messiah, whose coming is so clearly foretold in this series of prophecies; for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins, that is, the severe punishment which the Lord’s people had to endure for their sins was to be replaced in richest measure by evidences of His grace and mercy. That is the strange and wonderful manner in which the Lord deals with His children always—He substitutes acts of love and mercy for the well-merited condemnation. The prophet now shows in what way his threefold message would be realized.
v. 3. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, of the herald of the great King Messiah, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, in the very midst of the spiritual wilderness in which men find themselves by nature, they should make ready a road on which their King might come into their hearts, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
v. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, the hearts that have been humbled by the hammer-blows of the Law being lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, the proud and self-righteous spirits being taught to despair of their own virtue; and the crooked shall be made straight, the hindrances laid flat, and the rough places plain, all obstructions due to sin and objection to the Lord and His Word being removed by the message of the New Testament;
v. 5. and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, namely, chiefly in the coming of His only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth, Joh 1:14, and all flesh shall see it together, all men having an opportunity to become acquainted with the Gospel of salvation, Mat 24:14; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The paragraph deals with the call to repentance with which the Messianic era opened, particularly in the preaching of John the Baptist, Mat 3:1-3; Mar 1:2-3; Luk 3:2-6; Joh 1:23, but finds its application also in all true preaching of the New Testament, which is essentially a proclamation of sin and grace. The prophet now introduces a dialog between a heavenly voice and that of the ideal prophet concerning the proclamation which is to be made.
v. 6. The voice, some one with authority speaking from heaven, said, Cry, call out, announce! And he, a voice on earth representing all true preachers of righteousness, said, What shall I cry? What are to be the contents of his preaching? And the answer comes down from heaven, All flesh is grass, all human beings are mortal, transitory, perishable, subject to death and decay, and all the goodliness thereof, all the outward show and pomp of men, is as the flower of the field, barely reaching an early maturity before it withers.
v. 7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, for it is He who gives them their being, and it is He who causes their decay; surely the people is grass, even the covenant nation. Cf Psa 104:29-30; Ecc 8:8; Rom 6:23; Psalms 90.
v. 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, the repetition being made for the sake of impressing this great truth upon all minds; but the Word of our God shall stand forever, in the midst of the death and decay of this world, in the midst even of the final great cataclysm which will usher in the end of the present earth, the Word of the Lord abides without change and modification, throughout eternity. The prophet, therefore, urges Zion, the Church of the Lord, to make known this Word with rejoicing,
v. 9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, the congregation of the Lord being regarded as an evangelist proclaiming the message of the Gospel, get thee up into the high mountain, from where her voice could be heard far and wide. O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, the parallelism bringing out the urgency of the call, lift up thy voice with strength, in triumphant strains, in a cheerful announcement; lift it up, be not afraid, faint-hearted on account of the feeling of unworthiness; say unto the cities of Judah, to all those who have experienced tribulation similar to that of the mother, Behold your God! The picture is that of the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity, but its application throughout presupposes New Testament conditions.
v. 10. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, the almighty Ruler making use of His omnipotence, and His arm shall rule for Him, in triumphing over all enemies. Behold, His reward is with Him, namely, that which He gained in the severe battle which He undertook, and His work before Him, the spoils which He has brought back, with which He intends to bless His people. One of these blessings is now described.
v. 11. He shall feed His flock, take the proper care of all His children in the faith, like a shepherd, in His capacity as the one true Shepherd of their souls; He shall gather the lambs, the young, weak, and inexperienced, with His arm, picking them up since they are unable to walk, and carry them in His bosom, with the most tender care, and shall gently lead those that are with young, lest the ewes be harmed by being overdriven. This entire introductory section, with its four strophes outlining the last part of the book, pictures the coming of the Messiah in all the beauty of its comfort, calls to repentance, emphasizes the certainty of His salvation, and proclaims the victory of the Lord and the glorification of the believers.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 Comfort, comfort
Comfort, comfort
The word "comfort" is repeated for emphasis.
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says your God
Here "your" is plural and refers to those whom the prophet tells to comfort God's people. (See: Forms of You)
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem
The prophet speaks of Jerusalem as if it were a woman whom Yahweh has forgiven. As such, Jerusalem represents the people who live in that city. AT: Speak tenderly to the people of Jerusalem" (See: Personification and Metonymy)
proclaim to her ... her warfare ... her iniquity ... she has received ... her sins
These pronouns refer to Jerusalem but may be changed if "the people of Jerusalem" is adopted as a translation. AT: "proclaim to them ... their warfare ... their iniquity ... they have received ... their sins" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
her warfare
Possible meanings are that the word "warfare" refers 1) to military battle or 2) to forced labor.
her iniquity is pardoned
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Yahweh has pardoned her iniquity" (See: Active or Passive)
from Yahweh's hand
Here the word "hand" represents Yahweh himself. AT: "from Yahweh" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
comfort
people of God
God
Jerusalem
preach
iniquity
forgive
receive
Yahweh
hand
sin
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 40:1–66:24 The rest of Isaiah provides a message of…
40:1–66:24 The rest of Isaiah provides a message of comfort and a revelation of God’s character and his purposes for Israel. As 39:6-7 predicted, Judah would experience judgment and exile after the time of Isaiah. Throughout chs 40–66, Isaiah prophesied from the vantage point of the Exile having already become a reality. Therefore, the Babylonian exile provides the background for understanding these chapters.
40:1–55:13 This section announces the good news of God’s coming salvation. The Lord is coming to vindicate his own and to judge his enemies. Salvation would be accomplished through the arrival, suffering, and exaltation of the Lord’s servant—the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
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40:1-31 This chapter introduces chs 40–66. In this section, comfort refers to the result of God’s merciful way of dealing with people in the age to come. It includes encouragement, strength, and acceptance. God wants to rescue his people (40:1-11) and is more than able to do so (40:12-26). The exiles needed to believe God’s promises and wait on him for their rescue (40:27-31; see also 30:15-18).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.