Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
After thirty-nine chapters of warning and judgment, the tone changes: the God who has been judging now speaks comfort. That raises three questions: who must do the comforting, why a guilty city gets any comfort at all, and how God can still say "My people."
The chapters before this one have been full of sin and judgment. What follows should sound like a funeral. It does not.
We might therefore have expected that chapter 40 would begin on a mournful note, calling for misery and tears rather than comfort. But no — "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." He says this in view of the main theme, which the remaining chapters develop. In the earlier part, Isaiah 1-35, the main theme has been the sinful state of Israel and of the surrounding nations, and God's judgments on them all... God's controversy with Israel still continues, both over their idolatry and over their rejection of their Messiah. But now the main theme is His coming, both in suffering and in glory.
Two small words carry the weight here: "my" and "your". God owns this people again, and He shows them who the God speaking to them is.
Surely to the people these words will come with unusual sweetness: "Comfort, comfort." He had known their trouble and distress then, and now He would comfort them. "My people" is what He calls them here. So He has restored them to His favour, after having to disown them for their sins. When their God speaks to them like this, He also sets before them who He is: the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who does not faint or grow weary, and whose understanding no one can search out. How different He is from all the idols people invent!
The next line tells the messengers how to speak. Older translations read "speak comfortably" there, where the ESV has "speak tenderly".
These opening verses plainly display God's disposition towards His earthly people Israel. The marginal reading of "comfortably" is "speak to the heart," and this is the correct rendering. It is a call designed to stir the affections of God's people in view of the coming of their Messiah.
A command to comfort means little unless something has changed. One commentator finds the answer further on in the book.
The twenty-seven chapters begin with, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." After the first thirty-nine chapters, with their many condemnations and woes, we might wonder where the comfort is. Isaiah 53 points it out in full. If we believe the report and discover the mighty "arm of the LORD" in the suffering "Servant," the comfort will flow into our hearts in abundant measure.
Commentators differ over the timing. Some tie the call to the coming of the Messiah. Others say the nation's comfort is still future, while believers today already hold it.
God's words need carriers. He speaks first to the people He will send, and He tells them what to say.
God is here found addressing those whom He would use in this blessed service. Then we read three messages that they are to speak for His people's comfort. "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem" (the margin reads: to the heart of Jerusalem — He cares for our affections), "and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins." Here we have the first drop in the cup of comfort: the testimony from God Himself that every question between Himself and them is eternally and divinely settled. To that nation this is doubtless future; to us it is present.
The chapter goes on to describe the God who gives this comfort. It sets human weakness beside His greatness.
Chapter 40 stresses two important points in this ministry of comfort. One is the complete inability and weakness of the flesh (vv. 6-8). The other is the glory and majesty of God: a pardoning God (v. 2); a God of glory (v. 5); a God whose word lasts for ever (v. 8); a God of power (v. 16); affectionate and full of tenderness (v. 11).
- Cause — Comfort comes not because the sin was small. It comes because the warfare is ended and the iniquity is pardoned.
- Ground — Chapter 40 gives the command; chapter 53 gives the reason. The suffering Servant is where the comfort comes from.
- Ownership — "My people... your God" names a bond He once had to break. The restored relationship is itself the comfort.
- Address — "Speak to the heart" is the true rendering. God aims this message at the affections of His people.
- Commission — God sends messengers with the news, and the news is that every question between Him and His people is settled.
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her time of suffering is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins.
Isaiah 40 opens a new section, where God turns from warning and judgment to comfort His people. Three questions follow: what "warfare" means, how Jerusalem received "double," and why her iniquity can be called pardoned.
Darby reads the opening of the chapter as a display of how God acts. The comfort comes after the discipline, not instead of it.
The first eight verses of chapter 40 show in a remarkable way the principles on which God acts. His grace flows from His own heart, once His chastisements have been fully inflicted. God would comfort His people. He speaks to the heart of Jerusalem, telling her that her warfare is accomplished.
Where the ESV has "speak tenderly," older translations read "speak to the heart" of Jerusalem. The prophet who once thundered at her enemies now aims his message at her feelings.
In his earlier messages he repeated warning and threat to the enemy, as in Isaiah 8:9-10. Now he speaks with no less force, but with deep tenderness to the people, after painful affliction and shame for their sins. His heart goes with God's message of comfort.
The word behind "warfare" points to a set term of hard service, not just a battle. Darby follows it through Job.
Job 7:1 seems to give an entrance into the force of the word: "Is there not an appointed time to man? His days also as the days of a hired worker?" So also chapter 14:14, and Isaiah 40:2 — from which I gather that its force is "an appointed time" of subjection to evil.
Pardon and the end of the suffering arrive together. Hole is careful to say what that pardon does not mean.
It is not that their iniquity is excused or made light of. Rather, its "double," or fitting punishment, has been exacted, and so it has been pardoned. The time of "warfare," or suffering, is over. The verse does not state how this "double" from the Lord's hand has been received.
"Double" is not a strict arithmetic total. Kelly points to other places where the same word appears.
That "double" was used for something indefinitely great, in good or in evil, one sees in Matthew 23, Revelation 18:6, as in Isaiah 40:2.
The reckoning is God's own, and He makes it while looking at His Son. Kelly then carries it forward to Israel's future.
Bad as Jerusalem's sins were, she had, in His reckoning of love, suffered double what her sins deserved under His government. He is not looking at the sins of Jerusalem apart from Christ, but as it were through Him. If no suffering Messiah were connected with Jerusalem, only one thing would remain: the judgment of her sins, to her everlasting shame and ruin. But God always looks at Christ on her behalf, and can therefore say, "Comfort, comfort." He disowned Israel as not His people, and that holds good through the times of the Gentiles, which have not yet ended. But He will acknowledge them once more, and for ever, under Messiah and the new covenant.
Hole separates two reckonings. One Israel bears in her own history. The other her Messiah bore in her place.
As to the government of God working in this world, they receive it to the full in heavy chastisement, as indicated in Isaiah 57, 58 and 59. As to the more serious matter of God's eternal judgment on sin, they receive it in the sufferings of their Messiah and Saviour, who suffered in their place. They once rejected Him. We see this in Isaiah 53, where they say in prophecy, "Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace," since "The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
Kelly sets the verse beside an unpayable debt and a prison. Only one payment can cover what Israel owes.
The day is coming when the Lord will say that Jerusalem has received from His hand double for all her sins. He will apply to them the blood of Christ, which can outweigh the ten thousand talents, and more. But the unbelieving generation of Israel is cast into prison and will never come out. The remnant will come out, by the grace of God, and the Lord will make of the remnant a strong nation.
- One hand. The hand that measured out Jerusalem's suffering is the hand that ends it. The chastening is finished; then grace flows from God's own heart.
- Hand that appoints. "Warfare" means an appointed term of subjection to evil. God set the term, and it ends.
- Hand that reckons. "Double" means an amount beyond measuring. God counts it in love, weighing her sins while He looks at Christ.
- Hand that pardons. Sin is not excused. God's chastening in this world falls on the nation. His eternal judgment on sin fell on the Messiah, on whom the LORD laid the iniquity of us all.
- Hand that comforts. God aims the message at the heart. The remnant comes out of prison, because the blood of Christ outweighs the debt.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God!
Isaiah's book turns here from warning to comfort. The first sound in that comfort is one voice in empty country, telling a nation to clear a road for its God. Two questions follow. Who is the traveller? And why does the herald stand in a desert instead of the capital?
The verse never names the speaker. It names only a sound. When men pressed John the Baptist to say who he was, that sound was his whole answer.
They were determined to have an answer, and he gives them one. They would compel him to speak of himself, and he does so. But look at his answer! Who or what was he? Nobody. He was only "a voice." This is morally lovely. The self-emptiness of this most honoured servant is beautiful… Here was a man of real power and dignity, one of Christ's most outstanding servants, in the very highest position. His preaching had stirred the hearts of thousands. Angels had announced his birth. Prophets had foretold his ministry. He was the herald of the kingdom, the friend of the King. Yet when this remarkable man was forced to speak of himself, all he would say was, "I am a voice." Not even a man, but only a voice.
Another writer traces that emptiness back to its cause, and then to the words themselves.
What makes him morally great is that he is less than nothing in his own eyes. This is not because he tries to hide himself, but because for him Christ fills heaven, earth, eternity, and his own heart… He might have said, "I am the mouthpiece of God"; but no, an instrument might even think itself something. "I am the voice of one crying" — that, so to speak, takes away his personality. "Crying in the wilderness" — a voice that wakes an echo, worth nothing in the hearing of men.
The New Testament reads the line as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." That desert is not just where John lived. It describes the state of the people, and it changes what he could preach.
This is why John the Baptist does not appeal to the people as a whole, like the prophets who came before him. He says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Israel was a wilderness for God. From now on his appeal rests on their ruin beyond repair. The older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to Jehovah… Like them, John the Baptist had preached repentance, but a repentance founded on ruin without remedy.
The road is prepared for "the LORD" — Jehovah, God's own name in the Old Testament. The New Testament applies two prophecies about that road to Jesus.
Jehovah's word to Malachi is, "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me." The Spirit applies these words to Christ… Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The second quotation from Isaiah speaks of preparing the way of the LORD. So again it is Jehovah whose way is prepared — for Jesus is Jehovah.
The same reasoning is used elsewhere as direct evidence for the deity of Christ, alongside passages such as Micah 5:2 and Zechariah 13:7:
All Scripture confirms the truth that Jesus is Jehovah. John the Baptist was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord" — that is, Jehovah (Isa. 40).
The road-building language is moral, not literal. Straightening the path means dealing honestly with what is crooked.
Repentance was certainly a first necessity in this preparation. It meant facing honestly the sin that had dishonoured God. The Lord's paths had to be made straight. He would allow no twisting deceit in men's minds. They could not come to Him while they were dishonest.
John's ministry fulfilled the verse. But the road was never finished, because Israel refused the message.
It was not the person nor the work of Israel's hope in power. For Israel as a whole was blind and deaf; the testimony was interrupted, the Messiah refused. So there was only a partial application… The way of Jehovah was not yet prepared. There was no straight highway in the desert for God. God put man on his own responsibility, and man heard the cry only to sin the more. But in time God will make it all good in grace by His own power.
The Gospel writers do not all quote this passage to the same length.
Only the Spirit of God in Luke takes care to give it the fullest breadth… We do not have this anywhere else. In Matthew, Mark, and John the quotation stops short of it. But Luke, though he begins with the Jew, does not end with him; he clearly goes out to all the nations. So the Spirit adds expressions here that give largeness and breadth.
- Voice — The herald keeps no name of his own. Asked who he was, he said only, "I am a voice."
- Wilderness — The desert pictures the nation's state, so the call is repentance that owns ruin beyond repair.
- The LORD — The road is prepared for Jehovah, and the New Testament gives that name to Jesus.
- Straight — The preparing is moral: face sin honestly, with nothing crooked left in the way you come to God.
- Glory — The herald came and was refused, so the highway still waits. God will yet make it good by His own power, and His reach goes out to all the nations.
Every valley shall be raised up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places a plain.
Isaiah 40 opens with comfort for Jerusalem, and this verse pictures the road-work that comes before the LORD arrives — valleys raised, heights flattened, rough ground made smooth. So is this a landscape or a picture of people, and did John the Baptist finish it, or is it still ahead?
The levelling prepares for a Person, not just for a message. One writer sets the verse inside Jehovah's own announcement that He has come to comfort His people:
In this chapter Jehovah steps in and announces that He has come to comfort His people... Verse 3 opens the warning that prepares the way, but it is about Jehovah showing Himself... The Eternal presents Himself to His people, and this is how the remnant becomes known.
The uneven ground stands for the way human society works now. Each clause of the verse answers a specific wrong. Older translations read the third clause as "the crooked shall be made straight," and writers often quote it that way:
The world as we see it today is only a barren wilderness. Nothing in it satisfies the heart of God or meets the need of man. In it the lowly are oppressed, the proud are lifted up, and unrighteousness prevails... When the glory of the LORD is revealed, He will deliver His downtrodden people, for He will lift up those of humble position — "every valley shall be lifted up." He will humble all the pride of man — He will bring down the mighty from their thrones — "every mountain and hill be made low." He will rebuke unrighteousness, for "the uneven ground shall become level." And He will end the time of suffering, for He will feed the hungry with good things, and so make "the rough places a plain."
Another writer reads the same figures and adds what the rough ways stand for:
The crooked (perverted principles commonly accepted) would be made straight, and rough ways (the paths in which sin has caused trouble and sorrow) would be made smooth, for sin would be judged.
John the Baptist started this levelling with words. Three groups came to him with the same question. His three answers match the three clauses of Isaiah's road-work:
The people asked him, "What shall we do then?" He answered, "Whoever has two coats must share with him who has none, and whoever has food must do the same." So the mountain and the hill were made low and the valley lifted up. Next, tax collectors came and asked the same question. He said, "Collect no more than you are authorised to." Here we see how the crooked were to be made straight. Then the soldiers asked too, and he said, "Do not use violence or false accusation against anyone, and be content with your wages." So we see the rough places made smooth.
But the work stopped short. One writer explains why, and why nothing is finally lost:
John's testimony was a call to repentance, because the Messiah was coming... But Israel as a whole was blind and deaf. The testimony was interrupted and the Messiah refused. So there was only a partial application. The people's unbelief cut off the thread of God's ways, while His purposes stand unbreakable... God left man under his own responsibility, and man heard the cry only to sin the more. But in time God will make it all good in grace by His own power.
The flattening comes first, then the glory. One writer gives the reason:
The everlasting kingdom of Christ can only be established when all evil has been judged. To set up this kingdom, unrighteousness must disappear. Everything that lifts itself up against the Ruler of the whole earth must be cast down and brought low. The way of the Lord can only be prepared by bringing low every high mountain. Then the whole world will know the glory of the Lord and be filled with it.
If hills are going to be flattened, the safe place to stand is low. One writer draws the lesson from Christ's own path:
These were words of encouragement to everyone to take a low place now. Those who exalt themselves now will be brought low in the day of judgement. The Bible is full of this sentiment. The Lord Jesus "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:8,9). Paul says to us all: "Have this mind among yourselves." The lesson from the valley is humility.
- Level. The road-work is moral, not physical. Proud heights come down. The oppressed are lifted. Crooked dealing is straightened, and hard roads are made smooth.
- Low. The valley is the safe place. God raises those who take the low place now. Those who lift themselves up are the hills marked for flattening.
- Voice. John the Baptist began the levelling with plain instructions. Share your coat. Stop overcharging. Stop bullying. He gave one answer for each clause of the verse.
- Delayed. The nation refused God's messenger and the Messiah too. So the levelling was only partly applied. God's purpose was not cancelled, only postponed.
- Glory. The flattening exists for an arrival. Every rival height must fall before the glory of the LORD is revealed and the whole world is filled with it.
And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see [it] together for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.
Isaiah 40 opens with God comforting Jerusalem. A voice calls for a road through the desert, and verse 5 says what that road leads to. Two questions follow: when is this glory revealed, and how far does "all flesh" reach?
John the Baptist was the voice in the wilderness. But verse 5 looks past him. One writer separates the two comings:
The reference to John is plain. Yet verse 5 carries us on to what Christ will fulfil at His second coming. The glory of the Lord was indeed revealed at His first coming. It proved to be "glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:14). But the same verse says, "we have seen his glory." The context shows that most of the people did not see it. The disciples were the exception to the rule. Not until His second coming will "all flesh" see it. Revelation 1:7 declares how public that coming will be. So the prophecy here, as often in the Old Testament, has both comings in view... A single star shines in our night sky, but through a telescope it proves to be two. In the clearer light of the New Testament, this promised coming of Jehovah in the person of the Messiah proves to be two comings.
(Hole quoted an older translation here: "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.")
This promise is for the earth, and for people still alive on it. It cannot mean the final judgment of the dead:
Every difficulty — depths, heights, rough or crooked — must disappear, for God still means to make this earth the scene of His glory. It is a most blessed prospect. The sin, misery, and weakness of man, the groaning of all creation around, the schemes and power and presence of Satan must all vanish. They do not give place to the grace of God revealed in Christ, which has already shone (we know) in the despised man from Nazareth. They give place to the revealed glory of Jehovah, when all flesh shall see it together. It cannot refer to the day when the dead are judged. Then it will not be "all flesh," nor any flesh at all, but the dead raised before the great white throne. Here it is a question of man living in his natural body on the earth.
This glory does more than shine. It overturns the way things now stand:
When the glory of the LORD is revealed, He will deliver His down-trodden people, for He will lift up the lowly. He will humble all the pride of man. He will rebuke unrighteousness, and He will bring the time of suffering to an end... The pride and unrighteousness of man are not going to triumph for ever. The godly will not always be a downtrodden and suffering people. Humility ends in exaltation, and suffering leads to glory.
Luke quotes more of this passage than Matthew does. The extra line is about reach:
In Luke you will find the prophecy carried further... "and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." The range of Luke is wider... His task was to show the grace of God that brings salvation, and that has appeared to all men. So the Holy Spirit leads him to fasten on the words that show how wide God's goodness to man reaches.
Commentators differ on the source of that closing line. One traces it not to verse 5 but further on in Isaiah:
Luke connects the testimony with the moral preparation for the way of the Lord, which Isaiah had foretold as the object of John's mission, adding, as suited to the character of the Gospel, from a later passage in the prophet (Isa. 52:10), "All flesh shall see the salvation of God."
The verse does not end with the glory but with the speaker. That closing clause is where the certainty rests:
But how do we know this? What guarantee do we have that it will come to pass? "The mouth of the LORD has spoken." We rest in the unchangeable word of God. Here is our comfort and hope. "The word of our God will stand forever." Not the smallest part of His word will fail. God will be faithful to His spoken word, and we who believe wait patiently for it to be fulfilled. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." How do we do that? By turning them again to the word of God, which is completely reliable.
The verses just after this one call all flesh grass. One writer draws a principle from that order:
Before God begins, He must cause it to be understood that all flesh is as grass.
- Levelled. The glory does not come into the world as it stands. First He brings pride down, lifts the lowly, and rebukes wrongdoing.
- Withered. Before God begins, He makes one thing clear: all flesh is grass. Nothing in man survives to share the credit.
- Revealed. The glory was there at Christ's first coming, but only the disciples saw it. The public showing waits for His return.
- Seen. "All flesh" means people alive on earth, not the dead before the great white throne. Luke widens the same words: salvation reaches everyone.
- Spoken. The mouth of the LORD has said it. That is the guarantee, and the comfort we pass on to others.
A voice saith, Cry. And he saith, What shall I cry? -- All flesh is grass, and all the comeliness thereof as the flower of the field.
Isaiah 40 opens with God telling His servants to comfort His people. The first thing He tells them to shout is that human life fades like grass. Why does comfort start with a word that flattens every human hope?
One writer explains why comfort has to start with such a word.
If God will comfort His people, what does the Lord say? "All flesh is grass," and so on. It must begin there. The grass is withered, because the Spirit of the Lord has blown upon it. But the word of God will stand for ever. That was the foundation of hope. If anyone could have gained anything, it would have been the Jews, who had everything. But they were no more than the grass of the field — the grass that withers.
This cry was not for Isaiah's day alone. Its subject is man as such.
Here follows the substance of John the Baptist's testimony, though it may be seen still more clearly at the end of this age. "All flesh is grass"; it is man morally and universally. "And all its beauty is like the flower of the field" (v. 6). Could a man use this to think well of himself? Verse 7 cuts down all boasting — "The grass withers, the flower fades: because the Spirit (or, breath) of Jehovah blows upon it." God is pointing to its frailty, not its beauty. The moment God tests what it is, even by the breath of His nostrils, all flesh comes to nothing.
The verse compares our beauty to a blossom, and a blossom fades before the grass does. Progress changes nothing.
The question between God and every soul is this: is man as bad as God's testimony says he is? The starting point in preaching the gospel is God's declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man in every state of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" (the flower is a much more fleeting thing than the grass itself).
Does this leave out Israel, the nation with the promises? One writer answers, and shows what still secures its future.
God has chastised Jerusalem enough, and the Lord speaks to her heart. But with that comes this solemn truth — "All flesh is grass." The people, God's own people according to the flesh, come under this description — "the people are grass." That withers, but it does not stop their full blessing. Only they must know that "God's word abides for ever," and that is what secures the promises and their fulfilment.
"What shall I cry?" is a servant's question. The answer still sets what God's servants must say today.
This is the first part of the message that leads to lasting comfort. If the servants of God obey His commands and stay true to their commission, they will lift up their voices and "cry" this solemn truth. They will not play the devil's gospel of evolution to the people, or join in that deceptive talk about the natural goodness in man… They will tell the truth: the very best that man can produce is like the poppy in a summer cornfield, bright and attractive for a day, and then — withered and gone.
Peter quotes this word again in the New Testament. Taken to heart, it does not crush a person; it turns him.
We must remember that the word of God covers more than the gospel that saves men. It also includes the solemn truth Peter quotes from Isaiah 40:6 (in chapter 1:24), a word that declares the condition of men. When this word about himself comes home to a man, it produces repentance towards God in him, and he is ready to put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The lesson is not learned once. It returns every time we lean on our own plans.
We must truly be brought to the end of everything that self has anything to do with. Until then, God cannot show Himself. But we can never get to the end of our plans until we are brought to the end of ourselves. We must see that "all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field."
- Cry — The comfort of Isaiah 40 opens with a command to shout an unwelcome truth; God levels before He builds.
- Grass — "All flesh" covers man as he is, everywhere. The picture is frailty, not beauty: one breath from the Lord ends him.
- Flower — Our finest work fades first. Improve a man morally or mentally, and he is still grass.
- People — Israel holds the promises, and Israel is grass too. Its blessing still stands, because God's word outlasts the grass.
- Comfort — God's servants must still cry this, not flatter. Taken to heart, it produces repentance, faith in Christ, and an end to trusting our own plans.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, for the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it surely the people is grass.
Isaiah 40 opens with God telling His prophet to comfort His people. Then, before any comfort arrives, God passes sentence on everything human. The verse says that grass and flower fail for one reason: God Himself breathes on them. Older translations render the phrase "the Spirit of the LORD blows upon it," where the ESV has "the breath of the LORD."
The picture is not just that people die in time. Something acts on the grass, and that something is God:
Verse 7 cuts down all boasting — "The grass withers, the flower fades: because the Spirit (or, breath) of Jehovah blows upon it." God is pointing at its frailty, not its beauty. The moment God tests what it is, all flesh comes to nothing — even if He tests it only by the breath of His nostrils. And God says this sentence over and over. The first repetition seems to be there to underline the judgement on "the people," that is, the Jews.
The flower catches the eye, and it is the first part to go. Gospel preaching has to start where God starts:
The question between God and every soul is this: is man as bad as God's testimony says he is? The starting-point in preaching the gospel is God's declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man in every state of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" (the flower is a much more fleeting thing than the grass itself).
The second half of the verse names God's own people, and that closes the last exit:
Put to the test "all flesh is grass," and any natural "goodliness" that man has is but a flower that fades. This is true not only of the Gentiles – "all flesh" – but of the people God favoured most, the Jews, for the prophet adds "the people is grass." The Jew has lost his kingdom. The nation is scattered. The Gentiles have failed completely in government. Still, "the word of our God shall stand for ever."
One writer ties these words to the preaching of John the Baptist, who came just before Jesus. John's message stood on different ground from the prophets before him:
From now on the prophet's appeal rests on their ruin beyond recovery. The appeal of the older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to Jehovah… Like them, John the Baptist did preach repentance. But it was a repentance founded on ruin without remedy… What remains of man? Nothing. The wrath of the Lord has blown upon him. From then on, repentance meant admitting that a man must judge himself in God's presence.
This verse sits inside a chapter of comfort. God does not soothe first and expose later. He takes away every false support before giving the true one:
If God will comfort His people, what does the Lord say? "All flesh is grass"… It must begin there… That is why there is such confusion in the heart of a newly converted man, and even of a Christian, if he does not pay attention to it. The word comes to tell him the grass has withered, and that the flesh cannot produce anything good. But he does not yet rest on this: that the word of the Lord endures for ever, and that the blessing therefore cannot fail to His own. Two things must come first. We must stop trying to get good out of the flesh, and we must be sure that the word of the Lord endures for ever. Until then we shall always be troubled and weak under the enemy's attacks.
The verse also settles what to expect from human leadership and human plans:
Men cannot do it; the best of men will fail. In the past there were great men whom the people trusted. They were only the flower of the summer cornfield. Their influence did not last. They came and went, and left the world no better than they found it… "The grass withers, the flower fades." Nothing men achieve lasts, because they leave God out of their plans.
- Breath — The grass does not just die of old age. God breathes on it. That breath shows frailty, not beauty, and it is enough to bring all flesh to nothing.
- All — "All flesh" leaves no category outside. Then "the people are grass" removes the last claim, the one made by God's own nation.
- Nothing — Ask what remains of man after that breath: nothing. This is why John's call to repentance rested on ruin with no remedy in man.
- First — God says this before He comforts. Any confidence left in the flesh keeps a believer weak and unsettled.
- Stands — Set what withers against what does not. The word of God outlasts every leader, movement and achievement men trust in.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God abideth for ever.
Isaiah 40 opens with God comforting His people, and the first thing the voice announces is a verdict: everything human is grass. Verse 8 turns that verdict into hope, because one thing is left standing after the withering.
Writers note the order here. God comforts His people by first telling them their own strength has run out. That is not cruelty. It lays the foundation.
If God will comfort His people, what does the Lord say? "All flesh is grass," and so on. It must begin there... But the word of God will stand forever. That was the foundation of hope... We must stop trying to get good out of the flesh. We must be sure that the word of the Lord lasts forever. Until then, we will always be troubled and weak when the enemy attacks.
Verse 7 gives the reason the grass fails, and that reason reaches Israel as well as the nations.
Verse 7 cuts down all boasting — "The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows on it." God is not pointing to its beauty but to its frailty. The moment God tests its character, even if He only breathes on it, all flesh comes to nothing. This is true in Israel too, not only among the nations: "surely the people are grass."
If God's own people are grass, what happens to everything He promised them? The answer is that the promises never rested on the people in the first place.
The people, God's own people according to the flesh, come under this description — "the people are grass." That withers, but it does not stop their full blessing. We only have to know that "God's word abides forever." That is what secures the promises and brings them to pass.
Commentators apply the verse to the ordinary sense that nothing lasts. W. T. Turpin presses the question on anyone with nothing solid to stand on.
What are you resting on? Everything is fast breaking up. People in the world know that well. The feeling everywhere today is one of general insecurity. People trust nothing. How blessed then is this truth of God: the word of our God will stand forever. I commend that word to you tonight. That word will show you what your poor heart is looking for. It reveals Christ, salvation, everything your soul needs.
Kelly reads the same verse forward into a future where human achievement and satanic display reach heights never yet seen, and asks the same question:
Even now the men of the world are making great strides in material things; but they will yet do greater things. And the devil will develop and display his plans as they have never been seen in the world before. What then will be the security of faith? "The word of our God shall stand for ever."
Writers connect that lasting word to the message believers have already received. The link decides how firm a Christian's peace is.
The word that has reached us as good news is the word of the Lord which lasts forever. So our salvation and our peace are as stable as the word they rest on. If all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, then what are the arguments of unbelievers worth? They are as worthless as withered grass or a faded flower.
One writer takes the verse into new birth. What a person is born of decides how long they last.
The word of God is the instrument used, that is the seed of God, and it is the only thing that lasts forever. This passage comes from Isaiah 40, and everything there is grass... Israel grass, the nations grass, all of us grass; all perishable, none lasting at all. Is there anything on earth that will last? Yes, the word of God will last, that will stand; if you are born of that, you will last forever.
History has tested the claim. Writers point to how often people have tried to destroy the Bible and failed.
People have burned the Bible a thousand times over! ... His word lives on. And now the devil, disguised as an angel of light, under the name of "devout scholarship" and "reverent criticism," tries it again. His word lives on! Emperors and popes, philosophers and unbelievers attacked the Bible. They are gone. The Bible is still with us.
- Withers first. God's comfort begins by blowing on the grass. Until you admit your own strength is gone, your heart stays troubled and weak.
- Withers everyone. The verdict falls on God's own people as much as on the nations; no family line and no good quality survives the test.
- Stands instead. What withers never carried the promises. God's lasting word secures them and brings them to pass.
- Stands for you. That same lasting word came as good news. A believer's salvation and peace are as stable as the word they rest on.
- Stands in you. Born of seed that cannot perish, a believer lasts as long as the word that gave them life.
O Zion, that bringest glad tidings, get thee up into a high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest glad tidings, lift up thy voice with strength lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
Isaiah 40 opens with comfort for God's people, and this verse hands that comfort to a herald: climb high ground and shout to the towns of Judah. The message is three words — Behold your God — and everything turns on who this God is, when He comes, and why the herald must not be afraid.
Seeing the glory of God shows man exactly what he is. The comfort comes with that exposure, not instead of it.
The revelation of the glory of the Lord brings to light, as nothing else does, the sinfulness and frailty of man. Yet "good tidings" are also brought, and this is what supplies the "comfort" for "My people." Zion and Jerusalem are pictured as lifting up the voice and saying to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"
Zion is named for a reason. So is the One she is told to point out.
Here we turn to the special earthly object of God's affection — Zion. It is the symbol of the grace of God working in Israel, and also the centre of the royal glory that is about to be revealed here below… The person who came of old, and who will come in the future, is Christ. In a word, the same Jesus is not only Christ but Jehovah. He is spoken of here as the God of Israel, Jehovah, whose reward is with Him and His work before Him.
Some treat the promise as already fulfilled by the small return of Jews to their land. Kelly holds that return up against the words.
Is it really so that they regard that little and feeble return as fulfilling, "Behold, your God!" and all that follows? It was the king of Persia who took the initiative… Ezra, an inspired man, saw no such way prepared through the wilderness as matched the bright promise.
The promise looks on to the kingdom. Yet the good tidings once came in Person, and started in Galilee.
This prophecy, it is true, includes the coming of the King of Israel in power, for deliverance and blessing. It includes the setting up of the kingdom in glory. But even so, Jehovah Jesus was there. He brought to Zion, in His own person, the good tidings of His presence, and He began to announce them in Galilee of the Gentiles.
The next two verses say what the herald's shout contains. Power and tenderness stand together in it.
Faith looks on to the time when the good tidings will go out from Zion, God's earthly centre. The cry to the cities of Judah will be "Behold your God." And when He comes it will be with a "strong hand" to put down the mighty from their seats. With "His arm" He will make the crooked straight, by His "rule" in righteousness. Then He will reward the meek. Every hard circumstance of life will be met, for "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom."
One writer sets this cry beside three others, one for each of the four Gospels.
In Matthew we are reminded of the word, Behold your King (Zech. 9:9); in Mark, Behold My Servant (Isa. 42:1); in Luke, Behold the Man; but with John it is, Behold your God (Isa. 40:9).
Jerusalem has already heard a man point to this Person — and it answered him.
About the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion Pilate brought Jesus out and said to the crowd in Jerusalem, "Behold your King!" (John 19:14). This provoked the violent cry, "Away with Him, crucify Him." In our Scripture the prophet sees the same wonderful Person, but coming in the splendour of Deity with a "strong hand." This will be good tidings indeed, after the painful display of sin and utter weakness on the part of men.
- Behold, after frailty. The message lands on people shown their own sinfulness and frailty. The comfort is not in them but in the God they must look at.
- Behold, from height. The herald climbs high and shouts without fear, because the good tidings themselves are the comfort God sends.
- Behold your God. The One who comes is Christ and Jehovah at once — the same Jesus is both.
- Behold the Shepherd. The strong hand that puts down the mighty is the arm that gathers lambs and carries them.
- Behold, and be answered. Jerusalem once heard "Behold your King!" and cried out for His death. The day comes when that same city lifts the cry to the towns of Judah.
Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come with might, and his arm shall rule for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompence before him.
The herald of this chapter has just received his message for the cities of Judah: "Behold your God!" This verse answers the question that follows — what is this God like when He comes?
One writer reads verses 9 to 11 together, names the God who is coming, then marks the two sides of His arrival:
There can be no doubt about it: the person who came long ago and will come again is Christ. In a word, the same Jesus is not only Christ but Jehovah. Here He is called the God of Israel, Jehovah, whose reward is with Him and His work before Him. First comes His coming in power. Next comes His tenderness of heart, as One who has compassion on them because they are defenceless and exposed.
Isaiah comes back to "His arm" again and again. One writer sets that title beside another title Isaiah gives the same person:
It is the Lord Jehovah who is coming with might, but it is "His Arm" who will rule for Him. Isaiah's later chapters present the Lord Jesus as the Arm of Jehovah some ten or twelve times. Under this title He is the One who carries out in power all the will and purpose of Jehovah. Isaiah also presents Him as the "Servant," who does the even more wonderful work of bearing sin and suffering. The passages that call Him the Servant look ahead to His first coming in grace. The passages that call Him the "Arm" carry our thoughts on to His second coming in glory.
One reference work starts from what an arm does in an ordinary body:
The arm is the part of the body that can lift burdens and defend the person. It stands as a symbol for the power and strength of God on behalf of His saints… The Old Testament speaks often of the arm of Jehovah. It redeemed, Exodus 6:6; gathers His own, Isaiah 40:11; and rules for Him, Isaiah 40:10, as in the kingdom.
The arm rules for Him, not for itself. One writer holds that up against the way people reach for power today:
The Arm is going to rule for Jehovah rather than suffer for Him. He will give reward and recompense to others in the day of His glory… As we look around the earth today, we see how badly a strong hand is needed to rule, and men want to grasp that power so they can rule in their own interests. The Arm of Jehovah will rule "for Him." What a day that will be, when the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven!
The second half of the verse says what that rule brings. One writer reads it as the answer to crooked circumstances:
When He comes it will be with a "strong hand" to pull the mighty down from their seats. With "His arm" He will make the crooked straight, by His "rule" in righteousness. Then He will reward the meek, and He will deal with all the hard circumstances of life.
Yet the same arm reaches in two directions at once:
For the wicked the reward will come as judgment. But the same "Arm" will be gracious, acting with the tenderness of a shepherd toward the smallest and weakest of the Lord's true sheep.
The next verse keeps the same subject. It shows the other side of the same arm:
In Isaiah 40:10 we see the Arm of the Lord in its governmental authority. In verse 11 we see it in its loving activity, gathering the lambs and folding them to His bosom. There He carries them safely, and there they know the warmth of His love.
Some say this promise came true when a small group of Jews returned home from exile in Babylon. One writer tests that reading against the words of the verse and against Ezra's own account:
Do they really think that small, weak return fulfilled the words, "Behold your God!… behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him"? The king of Persia was the one who began it… Ezra was an inspired man, and he saw no road prepared through the wilderness to match that bright promise. He would have called it blasphemy to say that the remnant's return in his day was the triumphal march of Israel's king.
- Behold — a Person answers the herald's cry: the Jehovah who comes here is the same Jesus who came before.
- Arm — "the Arm of the Lord" is a title for Christ, the One who carries out God's will; as Servant He suffers, as Arm He rules.
- For Him — He rules for God, not for His own interest. Human power-seeking never does that.
- Reward — He arrives already carrying it. The wicked meet judgment; the meek see crooked things made straight.
- Bosom — the arm that rules in verse 10 gathers lambs in verse 11. Power and tenderness belong to one Shepherd.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd he will gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom; he will gently lead those that give suck.
Isaiah 40 comforts a broken people by pointing them to God Himself — the One who measures the oceans in His hand. The surprise of verse 11 is that this same God stoops to carry lambs in His arms.
The verse sits inside a message announcing the coming of the Lord in power, and the Shepherd here is not a lesser rescuer.
"Say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come with might, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him" (vv. 9-10). There can be no doubt that the One who came long ago and will come again is Christ. In a word, the same Jesus is not only Christ but Jehovah. First comes His coming in power. Next comes His full tenderness of heart, as One who takes pity on them because they are defenceless and exposed.
So a second question follows: could Jesus of Nazareth be this Shepherd?
It is clear from those Old Testament Scriptures which speak of the Shepherd that He is God the Creator. Take Isaiah 40 as an example... Can the lowly Nazarene, whom the people despised, really be this Shepherd? Can He be so great beyond measure, and yet so good and gentle, as this glorious Scripture describes? Well, in our chapter twice over He says, "I am the good Shepherd," and in so saying He declared that He was God.
Verse 11 and verse 12 stand side by side on purpose. The same God does both.
The sea lies in the hollow of God's hand, and His power restrains all its fierce rage. In the same way He held us and restrained us in those days... His hand upholds creation, but His bosom is the place of rest for His lambs. All creation must acknowledge His power. His bosom is open for the weakest of His lambs, and they know His love. And if He has restrained us by His mighty hand, it is that we might know the rest and the safety and joy of His bosom.
In Scripture the word "bosom" carries a settled sense, and it also comes from an everyday sight.
Used symbolically for the seat of deep affection. John speaks of the Lord Jesus as the only begotten Son "in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18)... With a loose robe and a belt, people regularly carry many things in the bosom, even a lamb. Isa. 40:11.
The verse singles out the young of the flock, and the two clauses about them are not saying the same thing twice.
The prophet Isaiah likens God's people to a flock that God delights to feed. The lambs of the flock are the ones the enemy can scatter most easily. He gathers them with His arms of power and holds them close in His heart of love... The wolf may seek to scatter the lambs, but the great Shepherd of the sheep will gather them with His protecting arm. The enemy may seek to bring about their fall, but the Shepherd will carry them, and bring them home to glory at last.
This care for the slowest is not new. It showed when God brought Israel out of Egypt.
The royal Shepherd of Israel cares for the lambs of His flock... He cared for the weakest of the flock when He led His people Israel out of Egypt and through the sea. "Not a hoof was left behind." He gave food to them all, around their tents each morning, as they travelled through the empty, howling desert.
Commentators note that the shepherd care promised here was afterwards outdone by the Shepherd Himself.
In Isaiah 40:11 it is said of the Lord Jehovah that He feeds His flock like a shepherd and carries the lambs in His bosom. Here He Himself goes much further. He proves Himself the Good Shepherd by laying down His life for the sheep. No one else would do it. And if you could imagine another doing it, it would not count with God or for man.
- Behold your God. The Shepherd of verse 11 is the Lord who comes with might. He is the Creator, and He is the same Jesus who said, "I am the good Shepherd."
- The same hand. The hand that holds the seas in check is the arm that gathers lambs. His power restrains creation; His bosom gives rest to the weakest.
- Arm and heart. Lambs scatter most easily, so they get His arm of power to gather them and His heart of love to carry them home.
- Pace set by the weakest. He sets the pace by the slowest, those with young. The same care left not one hoof of Israel behind.
- Further than carrying. The Shepherd who carries went on to lay down His life for the sheep. No one else would give that care, and no other could count with God or for man.