A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 37: The Comfort in Judgement

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 37: The Comfort in Judgement

As we had explained in our last presentation of Isaiah, which was titled Pride and Humility in reference to the character and experiences of king Hezekiah of Judah, this 40th chapter of Isaiah concludes the mainly historical portion of his prophesy, which is the portion that coincides with events that had occurred during Isaiah’s own lifetime. But only because at this time, Jerusalem still stands, and its inhabitants are destined to continue for another hundred and fifteen or so years, and therefore the prophecy of this chapter has an immediate or near-vision fulfillment as well as an over-arching far-vision fulfillment, would I even count the message of comfort in this chapter with that historical aspect of Isaiah which we have seen thus far. 

In that manner, this chapter also serves as a bridge to the prophetic portion of Isaiah which we shall encounter in the final twenty-six chapters of the book. While there are many far-vision prophecies interspersed among the historic events of these first forty chapters of Isaiah, the last twenty-six chapters are entirely prophetic of from Isaiah’s future, addressing Israel and Judah in captivity as well as containing many promises of their preservation, and their future redemption and reconciliation to Yahweh their God. So while there are also references to things which had already occurred, there are no further descriptions of any other historical events subsequent to what we have already seen here at this point in Isaiah. There are no further mentions of Isaiah himself, or of Hezekiah, or any other historical figure of Judah who had lived in that time, which is now about 700 BC. So if Azariah, or Uzziah, the first king under whom Isaiah had prophesied, had lived until 743 BC, since Isaiah began prophesying while Uzziah was still king, as he attested in the opening verses of this book, then the prophet has already been prophesying for at least 43 years at this point, and he could easily be as old as seventy-five or eighty years.

However, since there are not any further mentions of contemporary historical figures and events, there is no way by which we could know precisely when the last twenty-six chapters of Isaiah were written, or how long Isaiah himself had lived. We can only know that they are presented as having been written after the failed siege of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian embassy for which Hezekiah had been chastised by the prophet. However we can and should be confident, that in spite of the academic theory of two different prophets named Isaiah, the only reason for the change in scope and perspective here is the difference in the subject material of the prophet. The first forty chapters deal with Israel, Judah and Jerusalem mainly in Palestine, with some of the historical events of that time, and the last twenty-six chapters deal with Israel and Judah in captivity. 

After he had been informed, at the end of Isaiah chapter 39, that his rather naive interaction with the embassy from Babylon would cause his sons to be punished, and that both they and all his wealth would end up in the hands of the Babylonians, accepting the judgment of God Hezekiah had only expressed with seeming relief that “there shall be peace and truth in my days”, which are the final words of that chapter. So with the assurance that the last fifteen years of king Hezekiah would be a time of peace, the scope and perspective of the prophet was set on the future of Israel in captivity, rather than the immediate and mundane events in Palestine. Much later, in their many citations of Isaiah from both portions of his book of prophecy, in the words of Yahshua Christ and His apostles there is no distinction made that the latter chapters of Isaiah had belonged to some other Isaiah, and to make such assertions, which many supposed scholars have made, are plainly unfounded conjecture. 

Now it also may be fitting to state here, that upon having examined the many footnotes which I had made in my written notes in the first thirty-six presentations of Isaiah which we have thus far made in this commentary, I counted a hundred and twenty-two citations from ancient Assyrian inscriptions or from ancient histories written in the Classical and Hellenistic periods, all of which serve to illustrate the historicity of the events which are described here in these first forty chapters of Isaiah. Every one of the significant historical descriptions of the interactions between the Assyrians and Judah during the time of Isaiah has been corroborated here with information from those ancient sources. So there should be no doubt in the mind of the Christian, that Isaiah is true, and that the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah existed precisely as the Scriptures had recorded their existence. Even the struggle between Israel and Assyria in the days of the prophet Jonah and Jeroboam II king of Israel has been corroborated here, from those same inscriptions. When these things were written, over twenty-seven hundred years ago, little did the authors know that men today would have dug the Assyrian records out from under the sands of time that had accumulated in the Mesopotamian desert, from which we have verification for the events that they recorded. However the true Author, Yahweh God Himself, certainly did foresee that day.

This is evident, as our friend Clifton Emahiser had once illustrated in a paper which asked Who are the Hunters?, in a passage from Jeremiah chapter 16 where the Word of Yahweh says “16 Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” As Clifton had correctly asserted, the fishers were the apostles of the Gospel message which had been sent by Christ. In Mark chapter 1, where He had been selecting His apostles, we read: “17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” But the hunters, who were to come after, could only have been the archaeologists who had found those Assyrian records in the holes of the rocks, and many other discoveries which point the way to the descendants of the children of Israel in their ancient migrations into modern Europe. These archaeologists dug up the ancient records which vindicate many of the words of Isaiah, and which help us to identify the children of Israel in captivity. 

Therefore, seeing that Isaiah’s historical descriptions are accurate, and seeing that all of his near-vision prophecies had been fulfilled just as he had described them, Christians should also be confident that all of his far-vision prophecies shall also be fulfilled. Now, as we proceed through the next few chapters of Isaiah, we shall see a description of the ultimate test which proves that God is true, and that Isaiah is His prophet, where we read a challenge issued by God Himself, in Isaiah chapter 41, which was spoken in reference to the idolatry of Israel which says: “23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.” 

In this very manner Isaiah was vindicated many times in his own lifetime, as each of his near-vision prophecies had come to pass, beginning with the promise that the kings of Damascus and Samaria would be cut off within a year, from which king Ahaz of Judah had relief from their oppression, and through the time that the Egyptians would prove useless as a help against the Assyrians, and then the destruction of the armies of the Assyrians before the gates of Jerusalem, and then ending with the healing of Hezekiah and the movement of the dial of Ahaz described in Isaiah chapters 38 and 39. Of course there were other near-vision prophecies which were also fulfilled, but these are some of the more significant examples. 

However in history subsequent to his own time, Isaiah also has much vindication in his far-vision prophecies, and within a few centuries after his passing, the destruction of ancient Assyria, the destruction of Tyre, the captivity of Judah by the Babylonians, the rise and fall of Babylon as an empire, all of which things were prophesied in his first forty chapters, had all come to fruition, and in the same manner in which he had written. But they were all fulfilled long after Isaiah himself must have died, from about 612 BC down to about 330 BC. There have long been scoffers who have claimed that the Bible is a mere collection of stories, or that it was invented for strictly political reasons in the second temple period, or even that it was fabricated by either Jews or Romans in the 1st century AD, but authentic ancient records prove it to be true, and that it certainly is a factual account of the history of Israel in the distant past, as well as having many elements of ancient history which had been rather uncannily described long before they actually happened. 

Now, before we begin with Isaiah chapter 40, I must once again point out the fact that there is a ten-year discrepancy between the Biblical chronology, and the popular chronologies garnered from the records of the Assyrians and the other surrounding nations, and that this discrepancy can be seen from another perspective. The popular date for the failed siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians is 701 BC. The popular date for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is 585 BC. From this point, that leaves about 115 years left in the history of the kingdom of Judah. In that 115 years we must have the final 15 years of the rule of Hezekiah, the 55 years of the rule of his son Manasseh, the 2 years of Amon, the 31 years of the good king Josiah, a few months for Jehoahaz, 11 years for Jehoiakim, a few months for Jehoiachin, and the final 11 years of the rule of Zedekiah. So that adds up to about 123.5 years, and with a couple of extra months in each of the reigns of these last eight kings, that same ten year discrepancy is once again evident. We cannot resolve it at this time, and we cannot be confident that we can ever resolve it, even if I make an earnest attempt in the future, something which I hope to do. 

So with this, we shall commence with Isaiah chapter 40, and the comfort in judgment which the people of Jerusalem would now enjoy, at least until the rule of the wicked king Manasseh:

1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins. 

The Septuagint has the first clause of verse 2 to read, as Brenton had translated it: “Speak, ye priests, to the heart of Jerusalem…” however the reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible supports the Masoretic Text, as well as the variant readings found in Origen’s Hexapla. [1]

Here it is evident that the people of Jerusalem have a fresh start, so to speak. In the early days of Hezekiah, about fifteen years before this time, there was already a revival of the worship of Yahweh, along with a reconstitution of the sacrifices and other duties of the priests, and the keeping of the law in Judah and Jerusalem, at least to the extent that the king could persuade the people to do so. This is described in both 2 Kings chapter 18 and, at greater length, in 2 Chronicles chapter 29. All of those things had apparently been neglected in the time of his fathers, Ahaz and Jotham. In spite of the fact that Jotham had done “2 … that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah did” as we read in 2 Chronicles chapter 27, it also informs us that among other faults, where we read that “… he entered not into the temple of the LORD. And the people did yet corruptly.” Evidently Ahaz followed his father in his apostasy. But now, with the taking of most of Judah into captivity and the mercy granted the people with the failed Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, Yahweh God had determined that their suffering was sufficient. So here He is said to have pardoned the iniquities of the people which remained in Jerusalem. This is a fresh start, because once Yahweh God chastises and then pardons men for their sins, we should not imagine that He would punish them again for those same sins, at least so long as they remained repentant.

This is the comfort in judgment, that Yahweh God offers men peace upon repentance, as he had also done for Hezekiah at the end of chapter 39. Hezekiah had peace, so the people of Jerusalem must have also had peace or the king would not have had peace. Hezekiah had because he acknowledged the words of the prophet and agreed that the judgment of God is just. In the final chapter of his second epistle, the apostle Peter had written of the day of judgment and he said, in part: “10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation [conduct] and godliness”, and a little further on, “14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” So true peace comes only when men are at peace with God, which means that men must be obedient to God.

Paul of Tarsus had written likewise, in Philippians chapter 4, explaining that obedience to God brings peace to men, he wrote: “5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” So evidently, there is also an even greater comfort in judgment for those who are obedient to God.

However if the people, after having received this forgiveness, and after they had enjoyed the resulting peace, then they return to those same sins, then there is no longer a sacrifice for their sins. This Paul of Tarsus had explained in Hebrews chapter 10, where he wrote in part: “26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins”. Earlier, in the final verse of chapter 39, Hezekiah had professed that he would have peace and truth. Here in this chapter Isaiah had announced to the people their forgiveness. Then when they fell back into sin under the subsequent kings of Judah, and there being nothing left but chastisement, their destruction and captivity became inevitable. So Paul wrote later in Hebrews, in chapter 12, “6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” As Christ had said, “by their fruits you shall know them”, in Matthew chapter 7, and if the behavior of men is not corrected by the chastisement of God, then it is evident that they are not of Him, as Christ professed that “ 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”, as it is recorded in John chapter 10.

So now there is a Messianic prophecy which also explains in the far vision how the sins of Judah would ultimately be forgiven for their continual backsliding:

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 

This verse is cited as having a fulfillment in John the Baptist in all four of the Gospel accounts, in Matthew chapter 3 (3:3), Mark chapter 1 (1:2), Luke chapter 3 (3:4) and John chapter 1 (1:23). So in Matthew chapter 3, where it is speaking of John the Baptist, we read: “3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The citation is also linked to Isaiah in Luke, and in the Gospel of John, John the baptist himself is recorded as having referenced Isaiah, where we read, in part: “19 And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? 20 And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. 21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. 22 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? 23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. 24 And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.”

Another prophecy, found in Malachi chapter 3, also foretells of John the Baptist, where we read in part: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.” So John prepared the way for the ministry of Yahshua Christ. The Messianic prophecy continues in the verses which follow:

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. 

This portion of Isaiah’s prophecy is not repeated in the accounts of Matthew, Mark or John, but it is repeated in Luke, where there is a fuller account of John, and Luke dated the event to the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberias Caesar, where he also described the names of the local governors of Judaea, and had further written, in part: “2 Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; 6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” In that last phrase, Luke had only paraphrased what we have read here in verse 5 of this chapter of Isaiah, however the summary is sufficient as it reflects the intended meaning of Isaiah’s words here.

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. 

The Septuagint is wanting the text found in verse 7 here, but according to the Hexapla, the translations of Symmachus and Theodotion have a clause similar to the later portion of the verse which I would translate to read: “because the spirit of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people is grass.” The Old Latin reading which is found in the Hexapla is very similar, where I would translate Isaiah 40:7-8 to read “because the Spirit of Yahweh blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower withers. But the word of our God will stand forever.” [Quia spiritus Jovae flavit in cum; profecto gramen est populus. Exarescit gramen, emarcescit flos. Verbum autem Dei nostri stabit in aeternum.] However the text of Aquila of Sinope in verse 7 is attested to have said, as I would translate it, “… the people is herbs, parched herbs, a fading flower.” [2] There, rather than the word χόρτος, which is grass, Aquila used another word, πράσον, which is more specifically a leek, although the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon translates the Hebrew word חציר or chatsiyr (# 2682) as green grass or herbage. [3]

For that passage there is also a note in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, in relation to the Hebrew text of Isaiah as it is in the scrolls, which states that:

The original scribe either wrote an early short form of Isaiah 40:7-8 or skipped some original text; the early short form is more likely, since it makes sense by itself and the Septuagint has the identical short form. In either case a later scribe filled in the longer form, repeating “but the word of our God,” which the original scribe had already written. That later scribe is the same one who copied the Rule of the Community (1QS) from Cave 1, and he used four dots as a substitute for the divine name YHWH.

It is odd that the scribes of the sectarian literature found among the Dead Sea Scrolls would obey the regulation which Flavius Josephus had described, that it was no longer lawful for him to utter the name of Yahweh. [4] But regardless of the perceived piety of the scribe, or lack thereof, it is possible to identify manuscripts made by a particular scribe from the peculiar style of handwriting, or from peculiarities in the writing. However we do not find direct support for this thesis, because the editions of Symmachus, Aquila of Sinope, Theodotian and the Old Latin all reflect a text which is not wanting the entirety of verse 7, but each of them are lacking only the first clause in the verse as it is here in the King James Version, which I am led to believe is an interpolation. 

The concept found here in verses 6 through 8, that the flesh or life of man is not any greater than grass, had been expressed even earlier in the 103rd Psalm, which is attributed to David: “13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. 14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. 17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; 18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.” 

In both places where the concept is expressed, in that psalm by David and here in Isaiah, there is also an expression which indicates that the Word of God stands forever, which means that the covenants and promises which Yahweh God had made to the fathers also stand forever. Christians should not expect the covenants and promises to mean anything different to Yahshua Christ or the apostles, than they had meant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they received those words, or to Moses and the prophets once the words had been recorded. In fact Paul of Tarsus insisted that they would be fulfilled “as it is written”, writing in reference to the promises to Abraham in Romans chapter 4. 

Much later, in chapter 1 of his first epistle, the apostle Peter had cited these verses, which we shall read from the Christogenea New Testament: “22 Your souls having been purified in the obedience of the truth for brotherly love without hypocrisy, from of a pure heart you should love one another earnestly, 23 being engendered from above not from corruptible parentage, but from incorruptible, by the Word of Yahweh who lives and abides, 24 since ‘All flesh is as grass and all of its glory as a flower of grass; the grass withers and the flower falls off, 25 but that which is spoken by Yahweh abides for eternity.’ Now this is that which is spoken, which is announced to you.” 

The reasoning for our translation is found not only the fact that it agrees with a literal definition of each Greek word, but in the words of Christ Himself, who had told His adversaries “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” Yet if Christ is the second, or last Adam, as Paul had attested in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and if Adam was the son of God, as Luke attested in chapter 3 of his Gospel account, and if the children of Israel are also the children of God, as the Word of Yahweh attests in the opening verse of Deuteronomy chapter 14, then there is indeed an entire race of men who are born from above, as opposed to men who were not. 

Now, this prophecy in Isaiah forebodes the future coming of a messenger who would exhort the people to “Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” So that messenger was telling the people to be prepared for the coming of Yahweh God Himself, who would walk the desert highways. That coming was in the person of Yahshua Christ, and therefore He must be esteemed as having been the incarnation of the Living God. He was that God, Yahweh, for whom the people had been told to prepare the way. So now, on account of this promised coming of a messenger who would prepare a way for Yahweh Himself, there is a word of encouragement for Zion and Jerusalem, which makes another announcement describing that very same phenomenon, but in a somewhat different manner: 

9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! 10 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. 

Here both the Septuagint and The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible interpret verse 9 in a way in which Zion and Jerusalem are receiving, that rather than bringing good tidings. The meaning of the phrase “good tidings” is reflected in the old English word gospel, which in turn is translated from a Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, which according to Liddell & Scott is either “the reward of good tidings, given to the messenger”, or “a thankoffering for good tidings”, or even the good message itself, as it is used throughout the New Testament. 

So verse 9 as it is in the Septuagint, according to Brenton, reads: “9 O thou that bringest glad tidings to Zion, go up on the high mountain; lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest glad tidings to Jerusalem; lift it up, fear not; say unto the cities of Juda, Behold your God!” In The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, it reads: “9 Climb up a high mountain, messenger to Zion! Raise your voice powerfully, messenger to Jerusalem! Raise it; do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’” At this point Judah had only one remaining city, Jerusalem, and all the rest were in Assyrian captivity, so this prophecy must be for the far vision, some time off in Isaiah’s distant future.

Therefore, as I would have to agree, having examined the Hebrew text, Isaiah prophecied here that good tidings would be brought to Zion and Jerusalem, and that this is a prophecy of the Gospel of Christ. When Christ had come, He was the incarnation of Yahweh God, who had come with a strong hand, although He had not yet come to judge, as He Himself had professed, but rather, He had come to to feed His sheep, as we next read here in Isaiah:

11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. 

In several ways, this passage of Isaiah evokes the words of the 95th Psalm, which, as Paul of Tarsus had explained in several ways in chapters 3 and 4 of his epistle to the Hebrews, also relates to the Gospel of Christ. So in the 95th Psalm we read: “1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. 5 The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. 6 O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. 7 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.”

So the children of Israel are the sheep of Yahweh’s pasture, as Isaiah also describes them here, and the children of Israel have, for the most part, now been taken into captivity, as Isaiah offers a message of comfort to Jerusalem. Now here, within that message of comfort, there is a promise that Yahweh God shall come to feed His sheep, like a shepherd, and in a very similar prophecy found in Ezekiel chapter 34, where Yahweh spoke of how the shepherds of Israel had destroyed and scattered His flock, we read in part:

5 And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. 7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 8 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. 11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.”

So just like Isaiah does here, Ezekiel also assures us that Yahweh God Himself is the Shepherd of the Sheep, where, once again, Yahshua Christ must be Yahweh God incarnate, as Paul of Tarsus had described him in chapter 2 of his epistle to the Colossians, “”9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Divinity bodily.” This feeding of the sheep was accomplished in the person of Christ, and according to what He had commanded them, it was continued by His apostles. On the three occasions recorded in the final chapter of the Gospel of John, Christ did not tell Peter to feed God’s sheep, but to “feed My sheep”, referring to Himself.

Now Isaiah continues to describe the God of the sheep, as the sole God of Creation, by asking a rhetorical question:

12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 

In Hebrews chapter 11 we read: “3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” But the same author, Paul of Tarsus wrote in Colossians chapter 1 speaking of Christ: “15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Then in Ephesians chapter 3 Paul said: “8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the [Nations] the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”

So it is Yahshua Christ through whom all things had been created, and here Isaiah describes the God who is prophesied to come to Jerusalem, which is a prophecy of Christ, but in the Creation account in Genesis it is by the Word of God which all things had been created. These seemingly discordant assertions are all rectified in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, where he first wrote that “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then a little further on, speaking in reference to Yahshua Christ, he wrote: “14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John also referred to Christ where he wrote in that same chapter and said “ 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Christ Himself had said, later on in John chapter 9, “5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” This is the Light of Genesis chapter 1, where before anything was created we read: “ 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” That Light was created before the sun, moon and stars, and it was the light which was then described as having been divided from darkness. So the Light, as well as the Word made flesh, which are representative of the presence of God in His Creation, are both manifest in the person of Christ, and are both representative of the physical being of God as an aspect of His Creation.

Now there are further rhetorical questions:

13 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? 

Paul of Tarsus cited verse 13 in Romans chapter 11, where he had been speaking of the divisions in Judaea in a discourse which began in Romans chapter 9, and after attesting that all of Israel would be saved, and that it was the purpose of God to “turn away ungodliness from Jacob” in verse 26, he exclaimed a little further on: “ 33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? 35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

That last line answers the rhetorical questions not only in the citation which Paul made from this passage of Isaiah, but also his own question in verse 35, since no man could claim to counsel God, and no man could claim to have given anything to God which he may demand to receive back again. So Isaiah informs us that no man can counsel Yahweh, no man can instruct Him, or teach Him judgment, or knowledge or understanding. This prophecy forebodes the ministry of Christ, where His adversaries had consistently attempted to trap Him in His Word, or had imagined that they could school Him in the law, and on every occasion they had failed. When men attempt to interpret the Word of God contrary to things which God had actually said, then men attempt to make themselves counselors of God, rather than humbling themselves to be pupils of God. As Isaiah now implies, in the eyes of God such men are as nothing:

15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 

But even the children of Israel are treated likewise, in their punishment for apostasy, where we read:

16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 

This seems to indicate that in Isaiah’s time, Lebanon must have been quite desolate, and that if any of the children of Israel had remained, they were not even sufficient to chastise. There were not even sufficient beasts to have a proper sacrifice. Therefore, even considering apostate Israelites:

17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. 18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? 

The children of Israel are portrayed as not having considered God when they turned to sin, so they must have counted Him as nothing, since He is informing them that they, and all nations, are nothing to Him. For this reason, all men are as grass, but the Word of Yahweh abides forever. From this we may infer, that if men desire to abide in Him, then they must obey His Word. This is precisely what Christ had told His disciples in different terms in John chapter 15:

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

However it seems that just like today, the men of Isaiah’s time had also preferred gods which they could see and touch and feel, and to which they could assign a worldly value:

19 The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. 

But if men cannot afford silver or gold, they will settle even for wood:

20 He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. 

In Daniel chapter 5 the prophet wrote of the Babylonians, that “4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.” However earlier, in Deuteronomy chapter 38, the children of Israel were told of the punishment for disobedience where we read in part: “36 The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.” Then, a little further on in that same chapter: “64 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” Therefore it is evident that men may be punished for idolatry, but they are also punished by being trapped in idolatry. So idolatry may also be a punishment from God, just as Paul had explained in Romans chapter 1 that Sodomy is a punishment from God.

Now the prophet makes another appeal to the people, where he asserts that the authority of Yahweh God is legitimate, since it is He that created and rules over the earth:

21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: 23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. 

I must say, that the allegories here should not be taken as dissertations on geophysics, or astrophysics, or however one wants to perceive the heavens and the earth. The phrase “circle of the earth” is simply an allegorical reference to the fact that Yahweh God is greater than the aforementioned nations, which were likened to a “drop of a bucket” here in verse 15. The Hebrew word is חוג or chuwg (# 2329) which Strong’s only defines as a circle, and related forms of the word are used in that same simple sense, of a circle or a compass. So from a matter of perspective, whether one thinks the earth is a globe or a pancake (or even a latke), looking at it from one direction it would only appear to be a circle. The curtain of the heavens is also an allegory, as are the heavens as the tent wherein Yahweh dwells. These allegories are indeed descriptive, from the perspective of man, but not necessarily from the much greater perspective of God.

Now, concerning the princes and judges of the earth:

24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. 

This is the Lake of Fire, or the goats in the parable of the sheep and the goats .

This seems to be a reference to those men who are accustomed to set themselves up as princes and judges of the earth, in opposition to God. Christ had later referred to His adversaries, as it is recorded in John chapter 12, and said: “12:31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” Later, in chapter 2 of his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul of Tarsus had written advising Christians “5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

Now once again there is a rhetorical question similar to those which have already been asked here:

25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth. 

In his long discourse on the beginnings of idolatry, in chapter 14 of his Wisdom, Solomon had written in part: “21 And this became as a trap in life, that in the circumstances in which tyranny enslaves men that the Incommunicable Name is bestowed upon stones and wood.” To put the name of Yahweh on a piece of wood, is basically to liken Yahweh to the wood. But the God of Creation is greater that the elements of His Creation, and therefore He cannot be justly represented by any of its elements, even if, at diverse times, He had used such elements as representations of His presence, such as the burning in the bush or the pillars of fire and smoke, or even the rock in the desert in the days of Moses.

So Paul of Tarsus had accused the Romans of this same thing, in Romans chapter 1, where he chastised them because they had “23 … changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things”, and “25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever….” The Romans put the name of Yahweh, or Jove, on statues of wood, and therefore even that is worship of the Creature rather than the Creator. So all along, and long before the time of Isaiah, the children of Israel had been doing such things.

Critics of our faith attempt to disprove it by claiming that there were no “Jews” in other lands in ancient times, but they are too ignorant to understand that the children of Israel were never Jews, and in ancient times they were pagans, worshipping golden calves, bulls symbolizing Baal, Asherah phalluses, and other mean creatures. Yet all of these things were vanity, while Yahweh is the God of Creation, and therefore He alone should be worshiped and esteemed as God, having no equals.

Of course, the children of Israel had been guilty of all of these sins, this discourse is directed at them, regardless of any other nations, and now they are addressed explicitly:

27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 

In the Septuagint, the last clause as it was translated by Brenton reads: “… and my God has taken away my judgement, and has departed?” The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is closer to the meaning of the King James Version where it has “… my case is passed over by my God.” In any event, this describes the children of Israel as having been bereaved and left in the wilderness by Yahweh, and that is precisely the punishment for their sins which had been forewarned, so when they suffered the fruits of their own doings, they really had no right to complain.

The taking away of one’s judgment was apparently an idiom expressed when one understands that he himself has been judged. This is evident in Job chapter 27, where Job had lamented and said “ 2 As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; 3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; 4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.” Job felt as though the disasters which he had suffered were a judgment from God, so he thought that God took away his judgment. Here we see the children of Israel had been punished by God, and they expressed that same thought, and they would have been correct because they were chastised by God.

Having been judged, where they are answered they are told that they should have known why they were in such a predicament:

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 

Ostensibly, “there is no searching of his understanding” only because the people were not searching, they were evidently self-reflective.

29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 

Verse 29 is a ray of hope for their despair, that they should look to Him alone for strength. This is relevant to the children of Israel in captivity as well as to the people who remained in Jerusalem. But if they do not return to God in obedience, even the young men shall fall, having been sapped of the strength which is provided them by their God, who is their only true strength.

So now the prophet gives the conclusion of the comfort in judgment, and tells the people how they may regain their strength:

31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. 

We shall see another, more general plea which assures us that the people would renew their strength, in relation to the children of Israel in captivity in Isaiah chapter 41. That is a prophecy that ultimately, they would indeed repent and turn back to Yahweh their God, which they did in their acceptance of the Gospel of Christ. 

So we would assert that the sum of the matter here is the fact that comfort in judgment is only found in repentance and obedience to God. This concludes our commentary on Isaiah through chapter 40. 

Footnotes:

1 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 508.

2 ibid., p. 509. 

3 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, p. 348.

4 Antiquities of the Judaeans, Flavius Josephus, Book 2, paragraph 276.