Isaiah 40 starts with God. The 39 chapters that led up to this chapter record heavy words of God, but the 27 chapters that begin at with Chapter 40 are different. Comfort is the word that God uses at this point. God proclaims consolation to the people of Israel. Let us survey the first 39 chapters by the headings used by the NIV Bible to see the tenor of God in them. There we can see why comfort is of such a help.
Survey of Chapters 1-39
- A Rebellious Nation (Chapter 1)
- The Mountain of the Lord / A Day of the Lord (Chapter 2)
- Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah (Chapter 3)
- The Branch of the Lord (Chapter 4)
- The Song of the Vineyard / Woes and Judgments (Chapter 5)
- Isaiah’s Commission (Chapter 6)
- The Sign of Immanuel (Chapter 7)
- Assyria, the Lord’s Instrument / Fear God (Chapter 8)
- To Us a Child is Born / The Lord’s Anger Against Israel (Chapter 9)
- God’s Judgment on Assyria / Remnant of Israel (Chapter 10)
- The Branch From Jesse (Chapter 11)
- Songs of Praise (Chapter 12)
- A Prophecy Against Babylon (Chapter 13-14)
- A Prophecy Against Assyria / Philistines (Chapter 14)
- A Prophecy Against Moab (Chapter 15-16)
- An Oracle Against Damascus (Chapter 17)
- A Prophecy Against Cush (Chapter 18)
- A Prophecy About Egypt (Chapter 19)
- A Prophecy Against Egypt and Cush (Chapter 20)
- A Prophecy Against Babylon / Edom / Arabia (Chapter 21)
- A Prophecy About Jerusalem (Chapter 22)
- A Prophecy About Tyre (Chapter 23)
- The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth (Chapter 24)
- Praise to the Lord (Chapter 25)
- A Song of Praise (Chapter 26)
- Deliverance of Israel (Chapter 27)
- Woe to Ephraim (Chapter 28)
- Woe to David’s City (Chapter 29)
- Woe to the Obstinate Nation (Chapter 30)
- Woe to those who Rely on Egypt (Chapter 31)
- The Kingdom of Righteousness / The Women of Jerusalem (Chapter 32)
- Distress and Help (Chapter 33)
- Judgment Against the Nations (Chapter 34)
- Joy of the Redeemed (Chapter 35)
- Chapters 36-39 address the Assyrian Sennacherib who threatens Jerusalem, how God fights for Jerusalem and Hezekiah’s illness/response
There are some very bright spots in these headings especially those Christmas passages of Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 9. The tone of these 39 chapters though is the bleak future faced by Jew and Gentile alike. A bleak future was not inevitable from the beginning of God’s world, but became that way as man did not care for God’s world and the people he put on it. They cared for themselves and lived accordingly. A life lived for self produces an experience of judgment from God. That is what we see in these 39 chapters.
A way to look at Isaiah
A couple of the commentators that I read in preparation for Isaiah 40 made an interesting observation. They noted that there are 66 chapters in the Bible and the first 39 tend toward the character of the Old Testament. The chapters do not align with the books, but the theme of the 39 align with the dark days without the Holy Spirit. The second 27 chapters are like the New Testament. Chapter 40 begins with comfort; Jesus is that for those who follow him. Also early in this chapter is a proclamation of preparation. It uses language reminiscent of the preparation that John the Baptist brought. Chapter 66 of Isaiah is similarly reminiscent of the manner in which the book of Revelation closes out with a new heaven and a new earth.
The first 39 chapters are God speaking through Isaiah. The concluding 27 do not use that construction, but are as if God is himself doing the speaking much as he did through the sending of his son, the God with us of Immanuel. To us a son was born and a son given and through that son he spoke to those walking in a dark place giving them the light of life.
Survey of the second part of Isaiah
Let us now do for chapters 40-66 as we did with the first 39
- Comfort of God’s people (Chapter 40)
- The Helper of Israel (Chapter 41)
- The Servant of the Lord / Song of Praise to the Lord / Israel Blind and Deaf (Chapter 42)
- Israel’s only Savior / God’s Mercy and Israel’s Unfaithfulness (Chapter 43)
- Israel the Chosen / The Lord, Not Idols (Chapter 44)
- Jerusalem to be Inhabited (Chapter 44-45)
- Gods of Babylon (Chapter 46)
- The Fall of Babylon (Chapter 47)
- Stubborn Israel / Israel Freed (Chapter 48)
- The Servant of the Lord /Restoration of Israel (Chapter 49)
- Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience (Chapter 50)
- Everlasting Salvation for Zion (Chapter 51)
- The Cup of the Lord’s Wrath (Chapter 51-52)
- The Suffering and Glory of the Servant (Chapter 52-53)
- The Future Glory of Zion (Chapter 54)
- Invitation to the Thirsty (Chapter 55)
- Salvation for Others (Chapter 56)
- God’s Accusation Against the Wicked / Comfort for the Contrite (Chapter 56-57)
- True Fasting (Chapter 58)
- Sin, Confession and Redemption (Chapter 59)
- The Glory of Zion (Chapter 60)
- The Year of the Lord’s Favor (Chapter 61)
- Zion’s New Name (Chapter 62)
- God’s Day of Vengeance and Redemption / Praise and Prayer (Chapter 63-64)
- Judgment and Salvation (Chapter 65)
- New Heavens and a New Earth (Chapter 65)
- Judgment and Hope (Chapter 66)
Comfort for my people
Having brought conviction in the first 39 chapters God switched to comfort for the concluding 27. It was God’s desire that his people should be comforted. Who does Isaiah say were to be comforted? My people; God’s people. This does not mean a blanket of salvation for all the Jews.
In Paul’s New Testament letter to Titus we see that God is making for himself a people that are his very own. Paul said that God’s people are those who are eager to do what is good. God’s people are those who keep his commandments. They act outwardly and inwardly after the character of God. They live godly lifestyles.
When Isaiah wrote these words of God they were words that were tailored to some of the Jews who would end up in Babylon. Some of those who went to Babylon would have been God’s people. Think of Daniel and his friends. Was not Daniel a man of God? We see that he was chosen by the commanders of Babylon to be trained up in the ways of that pagan place. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the rich foods that were offered. He held the things of God as a sacred duty and at risk to himself pursued godliness. There would have been others besides these 4 that were there. These were those who would find a special help in the words of Isaiah.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem
God desired that those who were under his wrath not stay in the anxieties of that wrath. The words were to be comforting words, and the manner was to be gentle and sensitive. God did not desire to punish his people. Wrath is not God’s tendency but a necessity. Evil and wickedness cannot be in his presence, and when his people chose those patterns he brought judgment. This was not happy thing. God does not sit there on a stool in heaven waiting and hoping for bad behavior that he may rush in, say “I told you so,” and dispatch vengeance. God observes from heaven and directs things to channel his people into the right directions, but disciples those he loves. Those who remain obstinate cannot remain under his protection and guidance and eventually are discarded.
Among the discarded were those who had some manner and character of righteousness. While all had sinful tendencies not all were so thoroughly ridden with those detriments that God wished to discard them. Those of this better character were in Babylon and God wished to speak tenderly to those. Think of Matthew 13 where the parable of the wheat and the weeds is recorded. What happened there? The farmer sowed good seed, but in the night an enemy of that farmer came and sowed weeds. Those weeds showed themselves as the plants grew up. The servants asked the master whether they should go and pull up the weeds. What did the master say? He said, “No for you will get the wheat too.” Take that view back to the Babylonian event recorded here in Isaiah 40. The wheat (the Daniels) had been taken up with the weeds. In the second half of Isaiah God is speaking comfort to those. No matter the hurt, no matter the pain God loved them and wanted them comforted. These words were written ahead of time.
Some thing had been completed
The hard service, the warfare, the needful judgment for her pursuits of idols had been concluded. The word “double” is used in verse 2 which was not easy for me to understand. What I found most useful was to consider that those, like Daniel, who were godly when Nebuchadnezzar had come and taken them away had paid with hardship for the things done by others and for themselves. It was a hard service and painful. They lost so much, but now if they would allow it would be given a return that would outweigh all those difficulties. They had endured punishment for the sins of themselves and the those of the ungodly Jews.
God detangled the discomforts wrought by his hand upon the rebellious.
“The Mark of the Lion”
This is an amazing trilogy by Francine Rivers. I am re-reading it now and am toward the end of the first book in the series: A Voice in the Wind. The hero of this book is a young Jewess named Hadassah. She was caught up in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. She was a Christian and she suffered tremendously for the sins of the Jewish nation. She bore it with remarkable strength and the images developed in the mind by seeing how Hadassah responds are very excellent lessons.
Wait in faith
Hard service may fall upon the evil and the good, but God will speak tenderly. God will eventually bring comfort. The when of his comfort will likely be very uncertain, but if one holds on to those promises in the midst of the bleak times when the bleakness lifts and faith is proven great rejoicing will be the result. Remember the ladies who went to the tomb? Remember the cowering of the disciples while the ladies were on their way? Imagine how these women and men might have been different had they remembered the words of Christ and waited upon their happening. It would have been a great victory for them. There, still, was victory, but God’s solutions when faithfully waited for are far more glorious than God’s solutions when you were fretting in the waiting.
This lesson was a waiting in faith
These things I write here are for my Sunday school class and from these things I teach. Our pastors choose the passages and I follow the lead they provide. I wrote none of this lesson until Saturday morning. All the week long, every day of the week, I pondered and read and tried to find something out. There were fragments of the above all through the week, but how to put it together was very troubling. My approach while praying and getting ready to prepare was to wait upon the Lord. There were inklings that came saying, “if there were just a way to have someone else teach.” There were other inklings though that said, “how many times have you faced this uncertainty in lesson preparation? Have these lessons not worked out each of those times?” That latter voice was that of God and I chose mentally to wait upon him. Saturday morning it began to fall into place. It is so much the better to wait in faith that all will work out than to find out after the fact that all worked out and I did not need to get all worked up.
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