“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, 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.”
Isaiah 40:1-2
Isaiah 40 marks a turning point in the prophet’s book and in salvation history. And it turns on the repeated word “comfort.” What an encouraging word for God’s people to hear from their Lord. There will be an end to the warfare, and – more importantly – there will be forgiveness for sin.
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:30-31
This beautiful chapter ends with the promise of strength to those who wait for the Lord. The challenges for Israel were not over. There was great hope and comfort on the other side of the struggles, but Isaiah and the other prophets were preparing God’s people for the exile – the time of purification and discipline as a consequence for their ongoing sin and rebellion.
Moses foretold this discipline hundreds of years earlier:
“But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
Deuteronomy 30:17-20
The promised land of Canaan was a blessing for obedience, and exile was a promised consequence for disobedience. The terms of the covenant were very clear. In spite of many warnings from many prophets, the people of Israel persisted in sin – worshiping other gods – and the Lord was forced to follow through on his warnings.
“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.”
Isaiah 59:2-3
John the Baptist came to fulfill Isaiah 40:3-5, as the voice in the wilderness calling God’s people to repent and prepare for the arrival of the Lord Himself. Any student of Isaiah should have been expecting this forerunner, which explains why so many Jews went out to meet John in the desert by the Jordan River. But what would happen when the Messiah Himself came was less clear. There were joyful promises of hope:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
Isaiah 60:1-3
But at the same time there were promises of judgment:
“I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
Isaiah 63:3,6
And in the middle of this section we find one of the most beautiful chapters in the whole Bible.
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Isaiah 53:4-6