Comfort my people: the LORD comes to Zion

Isaiah 40 opens a new section of the book. Chapters 1 to 39 end with Hezekiah being told that his house and treasures will be carried away to Babylon (39:5-7). Chapter 40 begins as though that day has come. The people are in exile, Jerusalem lies in ruins, and the message is comfort. The chapters from 40 to 55 are often called the Book of Comfort.

Two views of the authorship are held. Many scholars, since the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, hold that chapters 40 to 55 come from an anonymous prophet in Babylon around 550 to 540 BC, because the prophet speaks to exiles, names Cyrus as the coming deliverer (44:28; 45:1) and never mentions Isaiah of Jerusalem. He is often called Second Isaiah. Others, in the conservative Jewish and Christian traditions, hold that Isaiah of Jerusalem, in the eighth century, was given a vision of the later exile and its end, much as 39:5-7 itself foretells exile, and they cite the New Testament, which quotes both halves of the book under Isaiah's name (Matthew 3:3; John 12:38-41). The two sides read the same text, and the interpretation of the chapter does not depend on settling the debate.

The hearers are the exiles, who have been in Babylon for decades or are the children of those who were taken. They face two kinds of despair. Their city is gone, and it seems that their God was defeated by the gods of Babylon, whose temples and images were large and impressive. The chapter answers both: the LORD has pardoned them and the LORD is incomparably great.

Isaiah 40 is Hebrew poetry of a high order, with voices that speak in quick succession and without introduction. The first command is in the plural, addressed to an unnamed company (the heavenly council or the prophets). Then a voice calls, another voice says 'Cry out!', the prophet answers, and the text moves to the herald on the mountain. The reader has to follow the voices.

Two interpretive principles help.

• First, the chapter is an overture. It states the themes that fill chapters 41 to 55: the LORD's coming, the nothingness of idols, the LORD as Creator, the exiles' complaint, and the Servant. Reading it in this light, with the chapters after it in mind, shows why it makes the points it does.
• Second, the chapter uses an argument from the greatness of God to the security of his people. The questions in verses 12 to 14 and 18 to 26 are rhetorical and expect the answer 'no one'. They are not an invitation to speculate about God's nature but a response to the complaint of verse 27, that God has overlooked his people.

The setting is also a debate with Babylonian religion. The images, the stars (worshipped as gods in Mesopotamia), and the power of the great empire are all addressed. A reader who knows this sees that the verses on the stars in verse 26 are an answer to astral worship: the host of heaven is created, numbered and called by name by the LORD.

Verses 1–2

'Comfort, comfort My people,' says your God. The doubled imperative (nachamu, nachamu) is urgent and tender. 'My people' and 'your God' restate the covenant bond. The command is to 'speak tenderly to Jerusalem', or literally speak to her heart. Three reasons follow: her time of hard service (the Hebrew word is also used of military service) has ended, her iniquity is pardoned, and she has received from the LORD's hand 'double for all her sins'. The last phrase is much discussed. Interpreters differ. It may mean that the penalty has been paid in full, or that she has received a matching measure, or that the grace now given is doubled. Whichever it is, the effect is that Jerusalem's penalty is over.

Verses 3–5

'A voice of one calling: Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness.' The scene is of a royal procession. In ancient Near Eastern practice, roads were cleared and levelled before a king's arrival. Here the king is God himself, coming through the desert between Babylon and Jerusalem, as in the first exodus. Valleys lifted and mountains lowered are figures for total preparation. The result is that 'the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it', because the LORD has spoken.

Verses 6–8

A second voice commands, 'Cry out!' and the prophet asks, 'What should I cry out?' The answer is a bleak one: all flesh is like grass and its glory like the flowers of the field. They wither when the breath (ruach) of the LORD blows on them. Then the sentence that gives hope: 'the word of our God stands forever.' The contrast is between everything human, including Babylon's power, and the word that has promised the return.

Verses 9–11

The herald is told to go up a high mountain and lift up her voice without fear. The Hebrew participle is feminine, and Zion may be the herald (as the BSB reads) or the one to whom good news is brought; both readings make sense. The message is brief: 'Here is your God!' The Lord GOD comes with might and rules by his arm, and his reward goes before him. Then in verse 11 the picture changes in a single breath from warrior to shepherd: he feeds his flock, gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them close to his heart and gently leads the nursing ewes. The power and the tenderness belong to the same God.

Verses 12–17

Questions begin. Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or weighed the mountains on scales? Who advised the Spirit of the LORD? The expected answer is that no one did. The nations are a drop from a bucket, dust on the scales. Lebanon, with its cedars, is not enough fuel for an offering worthy of him. All the nations are nothing before him.

Verses 18–20

The comparison to idols is satire. A craftsman casts an image, a metalworker overlays it with gold, and a poor man picks wood that will not rot and finds a skilled worker to set up an image that will not fall over. The god depends on human hands to be made and to stay upright.

Verses 21–26

'Do you not know? Have you not heard?' He sits above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He brings rulers to nothing, blowing on them so that they wither. Then comes the word of the Holy One: 'To whom will you liken Me?' And the people are told to lift up their eyes. The stars are not gods but his army, brought out by number and called by name, and none is missing.

Verses 27–31

Now the chapter reaches its target: the complaint of Jacob and Israel that their way is hidden from the LORD. The answer is that the LORD is the everlasting God, Creator of the ends of the earth, who does not grow tired or weary. He gives power to the faint. Even the young grow tired and fall. But those who wait (qavah) for the LORD will renew their strength, and rise on wings like eagles. The Hebrew verb 'wait' carries the sense of hope, and it is related to a word for a cord, so that some see in it a taut expectation fixed on God.

Isaiah 40 gives the Old Testament's most sustained statement of the uniqueness and greatness of the LORD. He is Creator, the one who has no counselor, the ruler of nations and the numberer of the stars. This is the root of the doctrine of creation out of divine freedom, and the foundation of monotheism: there is no one to compare. The same argument runs through Isaiah 44 to 46, and Romans 11:34 quotes verse 13 in praise of God's unsearchable wisdom.

The chapter also unites God's transcendence with his nearness. The One who weighs mountains also carries lambs. The Bible does not make the greatness of God into a barrier for his people but into the reason they may trust him. And it teaches the permanence of the word of God over human power, quoted in 1 Peter 1:24-25 to say that the gospel preached is that same word.

Finally, the chapter introduces the Gospel in Old Testament form. Good news (basar) is announced to Zion, and the message is that God reigns and comes. The New Testament's word for the gospel builds on this, and the theme links with 52:7 and 61:1. Forgiveness precedes restoration: the first word to the exiles is that their iniquity is pardoned.

All four Gospels use Isaiah 40:3 to introduce John the Baptist (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23). Mark begins his Gospel with it, so that the beginning of the good news is bound to this chapter. In Isaiah the voice prepares the way for the LORD himself. In Mark the one for whom the way is prepared is Jesus, and Mark applies to him a text where 'the LORD' (Yahweh) is the one who comes. This is a fulfillment, and it carries a claim about who Jesus is. Luke extends the quotation to verse 5, that all flesh will see the salvation of God (Luke 3:6).

The command 'Here is your God!' (40:9) has the same shape as John the Baptist pointing to Jesus in John 1:29 and 1:36, and the shepherd of verse 11 is taken up by Jesus when he calls himself the good shepherd who lays down his life (John 10:11) and speaks of the shepherd who goes after a lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14). These are echoes, not formal citations, but they use the same picture of God as shepherd. John 1:14, 'we have seen His glory', can be read as the unveiling of the glory promised in verse 5, which is likewise an echo.