Isaiah40chapter 40

Isaiah 40:1-2

The second half of the book opens with a double imperative, comfort ye, comfort ye, addressed to heralds charged with the message rather than to Jerusalem herself. Her warfare is accomplished and her iniquity pardoned, and Barnes notes the courtroom sense of the Hebrew word rendered warfare, a term of hard service now discharged. She has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins, a phrase the older writers read as ample comfort answering ample suffering rather than a strict doubling of payment.

Isaiah 40:3-5

The voice belongs to a herald preparing a king's road, and all four Gospels apply it to John the Baptist, Matt 3:3, Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4 and John 1:23, the only Old Testament verse the four Gospels apply to one man in common. Every valley is exalted and every mountain made low, the language of leveling a highway for a royal procession through open country. Luke's quotation runs on into the promise that follows, all flesh shall see it together, since the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and Delitzsch reads the whole oracle as one unbroken sentence of preparation and unveiling.

Isaiah 40:6-8

A voice commands, cry, and the answer given is a verdict on all human strength, all flesh is grass, its finest bloom no more lasting than a wildflower. The grass withers and the flower fades when the spirit of the Lord blows upon it, the point repeated twice for emphasis, surely the people is grass. Peter quotes the whole saying at 1 Pet 1:24-25 and sets the imperishable word of the gospel against it, the word of our God that shall stand for ever, the two placed side by side as the chapter's own contrast of frailty and permanence.

Isaiah 40:9-11

Zion herself becomes the herald now, told to climb the high mountain and cry to the cities of Judah with the shortest and largest sermon in the book, Behold your God. The vision that follows holds two images in one breath, the Lord God coming with strong hand, his arm ruling for him, the conquering strength of a king bringing his reward. The very next line turns the same arm to gathering lambs and gently leading the nursing ewes, he shall feed his flock like a shepherd, and Henry notes the deliberate placing of sovereign power beside tender care in one figure.

Isaiah 40:12-14

measured the waters in the hollow of his hand: A string of rhetorical questions establishes the wisdom behind creation, who has measured the waters in his hand, meted out the heavens with a span, or weighed the mountains in scales. No one directed the Spirit of the Lord or served him as counsellor, taught him knowledge or showed him understanding, and the questions expect the answer no one, since the Lord took counsel with no one in ordering the world. Clarke reads the whole unit as answering the exiles' despair over whether their God is capable of the deliverance now promised, by returning to the ground of his wisdom in creation itself.

Isaiah 40:15-17

Against that wisdom the nations are set for scale, a drop of a bucket, small dust on the balance, the isles themselves lifted as a very little thing. Even Lebanon's forests are not enough for fuel nor its beasts enough for a single burnt offering worthy of such a God, a deliberate overstatement the commentators read as rhetorical rather than a ritual proposal. All nations before him are as nothing, counted less than nothing and vanity, the same word for emptiness used later of the idols the nations trust.

Isaiah 40:18-20

The question turns from the nations to their gods, to whom will you liken God, since he has no likeness to compare. The answer given is not theology but a workshop scene, a workman melting the image, a goldsmith overlaying it with gold, casting silver chains, and even the poor man who cannot afford that much seeking a skilled craftsman to carve an image that will not topple. Barnes notes the irony pressed here, an object that must be fastened down so it will not fall is offered as a rival to the God who measured the waters in his hand.

Isaiah 40:21-22

The prophet turns from the idol makers to Israel with a fourfold question meant to shame forgetfulness rather than supply new information, have you not known, have you not heard, has it not been told from the beginning, have you not understood from the foundations of the earth. The God being described sits upon the circle of the earth, its inhabitants like grasshoppers beneath him, stretching out the heavens as a curtain and spreading them as a tent to dwell in. Delitzsch notes the geometric term for circle, a word later writers pressed into debates over the earth's shape that this text itself does not enter.

Isaiah 40:23-24

The same hand that measures creation reduces rulers, he brings princes to nothing and makes the judges of the earth as vanity. They are barely planted, barely sown, their stock scarcely rooted, before he blows on them and the whirlwind carries them off like stubble. Henry reads the fourfold negation, not planted, not sown, not taking root, as a picture of political power that never had the permanence it claimed, collapsing at a breath from the God who made it.

Isaiah 40:25-26

The question returns in the mouth of the Holy One himself, to whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal, the challenge now spoken in the first person rather than posed by the prophet. The answer commanded is observation rather than argument, lift up your eyes on high and see who created these things, calling the stars out by number and by name, strong in power so that not one is missing. Gill takes the naming of the stars as proof of both power and personal knowledge, the same God who counts every star numbers Jacob's complaint in the next verse.

Isaiah 40:27-28

Jacob's complaint is quoted directly, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God, the exile's sense that God has stopped watching or stopped caring. The answer repeats the fourfold question of verse 21 in miniature, have you not known, have you not heard, and names God again as everlasting, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who does not faint or grow weary and whose understanding cannot be searched. Barnes reads the answer as aimed less at correcting Jacob's theology than at reaching a weary heart with the one attribute it needed, a God who does not tire the way an exile does.

Isaiah 40:29-31

The chapter's answer to Jacob's despair is power given away rather than merely displayed, he gives power to the faint and increases strength to those who have none. Even youths grow weary and young men utterly fall, the natural strength every generation trusts eventually failing them. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, mounting up with wings as eagles, running and not growing weary, walking and not fainting, and Clarke notes the descending order of the promise, flight, then a run, then simply the ability to keep walking, since ordinary endurance is the harder and more lasting gift.