Isaiah 40 explained

Isaiah 40 uses the same two Hebrew verbs three times: the LORD "doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary" (40:28), "the youths faint and get weary" (40:30), and those who wait for the LORD "will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint" (40:31). In between: "He gives power to the weak" (40:29).

The chapter opens with one word said twice: "Comfort, comfort my people" (40:1) (tap comfort). The one who says it is "your God" (40:1). In Hebrew the command is plural: it is spoken to more than one, and the chapter doesn't say to whom. Then: "Speak comfortably to Jerusalem, and call out to her" (40:2), and the verse gives three things to call out: "that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins" (40:2) (tap double). Here is what almost everyone misses: in Hebrew warfare is the word the chapter has again in "who brings out their army by number" (40:26) (tap army). The chapter names no time or event for these words, and these notes add none. Isaiah has comfort before, in "you comfort me" (Isaiah 12:1) and "Don’t labor to comfort me" (Isaiah 22:4), and the book's introduction follows it through the book.

"To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?" (40:18). Later in the chapter the question comes again, and this time the Holy One asks it: "To whom then will you liken me? Who is my equal?" (40:25). The chapter on Isaiah 14 follows the verb liken (Isaiah 14:14).

Isaiah 40:18 · Isaiah 40:25 · Isaiah 14:14

Isaiah 40:3→leads toLuke 3:4-6

Isaiah 40 says, "Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness!" (Isaiah 40:3), and "The LORD’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (Isaiah 40:5). Luke tells how "the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness" (Luke 3:2), and gives these words of him: "As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet" (Luke 3:4), "The voice of one crying in the wilderness" (Luke 3:4), "Make ready the way of the Lord" (Luke 3:4), through to "All flesh will see God’s salvation" (Luke 3:6). When the people wondered whether John "was the Christ" (Luke 3:15), John answered, "he comes who is mightier than I" (Luke 3:16). Luke doesn't name that one in these verses; when his account of John ends (Luke 3:20), the next verse names Jesus (Luke 3:21). The WEB words Isaiah and Luke differently, and where Isaiah 40:5 has the LORD's glory revealed, Luke 3:6 has God's salvation seen. Luke says whose words these are and of whom he gives them; he doesn't say more about Isaiah 40 than that, and these notes don't either.

נָחַםnachamsay na-KHAM

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives, for the form used here, "comfort, console". Strong's: "to pity, console". "Comfort, comfort my people" (40:1): the verb twice in a row. Isaiah has it 17 times in Hebrew, and the WEB gives it as comfort first in "you comfort me" (Isaiah 12:1), then in "Don’t labor to comfort me" (Isaiah 22:4), and here. From here it comes again and again, as in "I, even I, am he who comforts you" (Isaiah 51:12), and the book's introduction follows it through the book.

"Speak comfortably to Jerusalem" (40:2). When have someone's words comforted you, and what made them reach you?