Isaiah 40:1
in Isaiah 40“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
KJV
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
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This verse in Isaiah 40
Commentary
14 notes on this verse(Chapter 40, Verses 1 onwards) Console, console my people, says your God: Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call out to her; for her wickedness is complete, her iniquity is forgiven. She has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. LXX: Console, console my people, says God. O priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem; console her, for her humility is fulfilled. His sin has been forgiven, for he has received from the hand of the Lord double for all his sins.
This site's exposition
Comfort, comfort My people
on Isaiah 40:1-2
The second half of the book opens with a double command, Comfort, comfort My people, given to heralds who are sent to Jerusalem. They proclaim that her forced labor has been completed, and Barnes gives the Hebrew word behind forced labor the sense of hard service now discharged.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers4 voices
Hezekiah offered prayers to God because he had been told that death was imminent, but he failed to pray that evil should be averted from his descendants. Hence Isaiah says, "Comfort, comfort my people, you priests."
A commentator
Apostolic ConstitutionsCONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 2:15 · Written before 380.
proposed
Observe, you who are our beloved sons, how merciful yet righteous the Lord our God is; how gracious and kind to me. And yet most certainly "he will not acquit the guilty," although he welcomes returning sinners and revives them, leaving no room for suspicion to those who wish to judge sternly and reject offenders entirely, refusing to promise exhortations to them that might otherwise bring them to repentance. In contradiction to people like this, Isaiah says to the bishops, "Comfort, comfort my people, you priests. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem." It therefore behooves you, on hearing those words of his, to encourage those who have offended and lead them to repentance. Give them hope that it is not in vain that you enter into their situation of sin, because you love them. Readily receive those who are penitent and rejoice over them. Judge the sinners with mercy and compassion. For if somebody was walking beside the river and ready to stumble, and you pushed him and threw him into the river, instead of offering him your hand to help, you would be guilty of murdering your brother or sister. Instead, you should lend a helping hand when they're ready to fall. Otherwise they will perish without anyone to help. And you do this so that the people watching are warned and so that the offenders may not utterly perish. It is your duty, O bishop, neither to overlook the sins of the people nor to reject those who are penitent so that you may not unskillfully destroy the Lord's flock or dishonor his new name, which he has imposed on his people. And you yourself should also be above reproach as those ancient pastors were of whom God speaks to Jeremiah and others.
Hezekiah was at a loss for a defense. Since he could offer no excuse for his crimes, he said that God's word was good, even though it foretold things that should have made him shed tears. Then he asks for peace in his own days, bidding goodbye, as it were, to those who were to come after him and thereby neglecting his native land, his own city and his own race. But it would have been better for him to be sorry for the things that had been predicted and to ask God for mercy and happiness (not temporary and restricted) on behalf of those to come after him.
God did not approve of Hezekiah's proposal. The fact that he mentioned only himself in his prayer and not the people was blameworthy. That is why the prophet says in what follows, "Comfort my people, says the Lord."
The Medieval Church1 voice
This the second principle part of this book, in which he principally intends the comfort of the people through many promised benefits. And it is divided into two parts: in the first, he leads them to the expectation of promises; in the second, he describes …
7 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
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.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-citation-number+unbalanced-parens
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.
The Nineteenth Century5 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
It is God's covenant relation with His people, and His "word" of promise (Isa 40:8) to their forefathers, which is the ground of His interposition in their behalf, after having for a time chastised them (Isa 54:8).
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 God’s; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens are the Lord’s and he reigneth among the children of men. But he saith of a certain number, “My people.” Of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others. While nations and kindreds are passed by as being simply nations, he says of them “My people.”
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 God’s; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens are the Lord’s and he reigneth among the children of men. But he saith of a certain number, “My people.” Of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others. 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 to teach us that we are the property of God. In some special manner the “Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” All the nations upon earth are his; he taketh up the isles as a very little thing; the whole world is in his power; yet are his people, his chosen, favoured people, more especially his possesion; for he has done more for them than others; he has bought them with his blood; he has brought them nigh to himself; he has set his great heart upon them; he has loved them with an everlasting love, a love which many waters cannot quench, and which the revolutions of time shall never suffice in the least degree to diminish.
Comfort ye, comfort ye - “The whole of this prophecy,” says Kimchi, “belongs to the days of the Messiah.”
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
Console, console My people He returns to his future prophecies; since from here to the end of the Book are words of consolations, this section separated them from the prophecies of retribution. Console, you, My prophets, console My people.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 2 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| נַחֲמ֥וּ | nachamu | comfort | H5162 → | 108 times |
| נַחֲמ֖וּ | nachamu | comfort | H5162 → | 108 times |
| עַמִּ֑י | ʾami | people my | H5971 → | 1873 times |
| יֹאמַ֖ר | yomar | he says | H559 → | 5305 times |
| אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃ | ʾeloheikhem | God your | H430 → | 2601 times |
נַחֲמ֥וּcomfort
nachamuH5162 →108 times
נַחֲמ֖וּcomfort
nachamuH5162 →108 times
עַמִּ֑יpeople my
ʾamiH5971 →1873 times
יֹאמַ֖רhe says
yomarH559 →5305 times
אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃God your
ʾeloheikhemH430 →2601 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
2 Corinthians 1:4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
it leads to
- 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16–17
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who by grace has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope,
- Isaiah 51:12
“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?
- 2 Corinthians 7:6–7
But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the arrival of Titus,
- Psalms 32:7
You are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah
- 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Through
Isaiah 51:12“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?
it leads to
- Psalms 118:6
The LORD is on my side; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
- Isaiah 2:22
Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
- 1 Peter 1:24
For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
- Psalms 118:6
Where this verse is studied
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About Isaiah
This page draws on 13 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Apostolic Constitutions, CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 2:15; Charles Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Sermon No. 221: “Comfort Proclaimed” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Cyril of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 3:4.40:1; Ephrem the Syrian, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 40:1; Eusebius of Caesarea, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 2:15; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.