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Please choose a passage in Isaiah 40
Isaiah 40:1-2 announces comfort for Jerusalem because her time of discipline is ending and her guilt has been paid for. Her time of servitude in payment for her violation of the covenant will conclude. God commands His messengers to speak tenderly to His people and proclaim that restoration is coming.
Isaiah 40:3-5 announces that a way must be prepared for the LORD, with every obstacle removed before His coming. This prophesies John the Baptizer, who prepared the way for Jesus. God proclaims that when He appears, His glory will be revealed for all humanity to see, fulfilling His spoken promise. This looks forward to Jesus.
Isaiah 40:6-8 contrasts the frailty of humanity with the eternal existence of God's word. People and their glory fade like grass and flowers, but what God has spoken stands forever. All that God promises will come to pass.
Isaiah 40:9-11 calls Jerusalem to boldly announce that God is coming with power to rule and reward. Yet He will also care tenderly for His people like a shepherd who gathers lambs in His arms and gently leads the weak.
Isaiah 40 opens the second major movement of the book of Isaiah, where the theme changes from the judgment of chapters 1-39 to the comfort and restoration in chapters 40-66. This passage is a prologue in four movements:
- God commissions messengers to comfort His people (vv. 1-2),
- a voice calls for a highway to be prepared for the LORD's arrival (vv. 3-5),
- a second voice grounds the promise in the word of God that outlasts all mortal flesh (vv. 6-8), and
- Zion is sent up a mountain to announce the news to Judah: God Himself is coming, ruling with a mighty arm and shepherding His flock with gentleness (vv. 9-11).
The immediate context is the conclusion of Isaiah 39. Hezekiah, king of Judah, had displayed the royal treasuries to envoys from Merodach-baladan of Babylon, and Isaiah delivered the verdict: "Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left," and "some of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon" (Isaiah 39:6-7). Isaiah spoke those words around 700 BC.
Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and deported its people in 586 BC, roughly a century later. Isaiah 40 opens on the other side of that catastrophe: it addresses a generation whose city lies burned, whose temple is rubble, and whose captivity Isaiah announced before their grandparents were
But the promise is not only of the Jewish people's return to their land, but of the glory of God itself coming to Israel, so that all will see it. This points to the arrival of the Son of God, Jesus, who dwelt among His people and brought salvation for the entire world. Who will one day come again and rule from Israel as the perfect and eternal king.
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