The theme of Isaiah 40:1-11 is the call of the prophet. His call involves a dream of the people of God, now in captivity in Babylon, returning home. Mark 1:1-15 suggests one can understand the ministry of John the Baptist through this passage. In fact, Mark begins here, rather than in a stable. One might understand this segment as a prologue to the whole of II Isaiah in 40-55. Consolation is a dominant theme. It has the form of dialogue, as often in II Isaiah, here the partners are the prophet, the Lord, and two unidentified voices, who are at least messengers of the Lord and likely the heavenly council. In this case, the call of the prophet involves challenging the people of the Lord to leave their present geographical setting in Babylon and heed the call to return to the Holy Land of Israel. By the time of this call, many of the Jewish people had become comfortable with their circumstances. Even if they experienced oppression at times, the circumstances became familiar. Yet, some people, and II Isaiah was among them, sensed that something was wrong. They sensed the need for a new home. In such a situation, the prophet hears the voice of the Lord calling him to challenge the people to embark upon the unfamiliar and surprising path. The year is 539 BC, 48 years after the final destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. Cyrus the Great of Persia had conquered Babylon. He offered his edict that the resettled peoples may return home if they wished and rebuild the temples of their gods.[1] The Lord wanted them to return home. Put more strongly, the Lord desired that they do so. Even if some Jews had become happy in Babylon, even if some had assimilated into society, even if the prospect of returning to a land in ruins was not enticing, II Isaiah says they needed to heed the voice of the Lord. Such a path is not necessarily an easy one. In fact, it may be incredibly long and difficult. Yet, to apply the sense of this passage today, if we have open ears, we may hear the call to wander away from the familiar and embark upon a new path. We might even ponder the many occasions in the Bible and in the history of the people of God when doing something new seems to be the pattern of the ways of God with the people of God. God called a family, that of Abraham, to embark upon a new journey of leaving the clan and finding a new home. God called the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt and promised them a new home. From a Christian perspective, God called the Israelites out of an old covenant involving law, land, city, and king, and into a new covenant established by a suffering servant. God has taken the journey of the Incarnation, becoming one with human beings, and shown a new way to see God and to see what human beings can be. God has shown openness to new ways. Maybe we need to shake ourselves free from our patterns of life and open our eyes to a new road.
The background of this passage involves a theological understanding of what happened in the course of the history of the people of the Lord, especially in Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges Samuel, and Kings. We could add Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah as prophets from this period. In my view, what we have is a steady breaking of the Ten Commandments by these people that takes up a substantial portion of the Old Testament. A cartoon showed a husband and wife driving along at a rapid pace on a desert road. The wife was saying, "I know we're lost, but I didn't want to say anything about it because we were making such good time." I am sure that many kings and spiritual leaders in Israel and Judah thought they were making good time with God. They may not have known where they were going, but they were ahead of schedule. Some prophets warned them this was not the case. Many prophets, which we now know as false, helped convince the people of their generation that they were doing fine. The point of this long theological interpretation of the history of Israel and Judah is that the Lord has demonstrated divine justice in punishing them with exile because of their failure to uphold the covenant the Lord had established with them. However, their primary disobedience was that they did place other gods before the Lord, and they did fashion idols after their image. If we do not know God as the source of our lives, we search for infinite satisfaction from other human beings or material things, something that they cannot give. We can become selfish, tyrannical, and cruel. Only connecting with God will satisfy the last abyss of the human heart. [2] The breaking of the command to honor the Lord as their God led to the breaking of the other commandments, many of which meant lack of respect to fellow Israelites.
The call of the prophet seems to come suddenly. Yet, during this period, some creative theology is taking place. The spiritual leaders gather the Psalter for worship. They construct a history that now involves a theological interpretation of these people that extends from the Patriarchs to the exile, which we find in the Torah, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Having experienced judgment from the hand of their Lord, they knew they needed clarity as to their identity as the people of the Lord. Thus, we must not mistake the apparent unexpected message of II Isaiah as a sign that the people were not seeking for the Lord. In reality, the exile was a time of intense searching for the Lord. To put it a bit philosophically, when we lose our trust in what is finite and temporal, we naturally turn to what is Infinite and Eternal. Such moments can remind us of truths we have long forgotten. God-forgetfulness is strong, even among the people of God.
To convince the Jewish people to return home, the prophet outlines three points.
First, in 40:1-2, God will be faithful in forgiving the people of God. God offers pardon for their sins. Given the perceived harshness of the punishment, it will be challenging to convince the people of this. 1Comfort[plural form], O comfort [plural form] my people, says your [plural form] God. Some scholars would suggest the Hebrew best translates as inviting a group, such as the heavenly council, to give comfort to the people of God. It invites a group to bring comfort to another group. The reference to God suggests one true God who rules over all. Again, 2 Speak [plural form] tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry [plural form] to her. The importance of speech will be evident throughout this passage. Of course, the content of this speech sets the tone. The heavenly council all have the same task: that she has served her term of military service, during which they suffered conscription in the complete control of others, that her (Jerusalem’s) penalty is paid, that she (Jerusalem) has received from the Lord’s hand [Israel’s divine patron] double for all her sins. The passage reflects the view that the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC is punishment for its crimes. The task of the heavenly council, then, is to announce the end of the divine punishment seen in the exile of Judah in Babylon. It is announcing forgiveness of sin. Deuteronomy 28:58-65 and II Kings 17:7-20 say that rejecting the first two commandments of having no other gods and making images, rejecting the Shema, which affirms the oneness of God and exclusive loyalty to this God, will result in the forfeiture of the Hold Land. Yet, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:22-38, and Hosea 14:1-7 suggests that God will forgive them when they repent and return to the ways of the Lord. Deuteronomy 30:1-5 promises that even if exile drives them to the ends of the earth, God will gather them back home. The prophet announces pardon. The exile is not a forever anger and punishment from God. The prophet even seems amazed at the survival of the Jewish people and their return home.
Second, in 40:3-5, a messenger speaks the message that God will lead them. The way home is through a harsh desert. To apply such a thought today, believing in the miraculous road that will return us to our true land and heritage can bridge the distance between God and us. In our prayer and meditation, we do our part to meet God on the road between us that God has prepared, the road on which God will lead us to freedom and salvation. II Isaiah promises that regardless of the difficulties that they find on the road, they will survive the journey. Again, reminding us of the importance of speech again, we learn that 3A voice cries out. The voice could be that of the Lord or the prophet. Our deciphering of this little issue in the text depends upon our interpretation of the rest of the passage. The content of what this voice cries out is “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our [first person plural] God. The point is that the new road on which the exile will travel will find obstacles removed: 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. At that point, they shall receive revelation: 5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. God will meet them on this road. This divine road is one in which the merciful God comes to the rescue of the people of God and leads them back to their home. They can have assurance of all this for a simple reason: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The voice is a prophecy that extends what God has revealed to the prophet into the future. In that sense, revelation became provisional, its truth depending on the future self-demonstration of the truth of God.[3] II Isaiah, in fact, stresses that the future consummation of world history has a connection with the coming of the rule of God that will end all human rule. Such a consummation will mean the judgment of all human injustice, the transformation of the present creation, and the resurrection of the dead, all of which will finally also make the deity of God and divine glory manifest to all people.[4]
Third, in 40:6-11, God will strengthen them when they are weak. They can see their weakness as a people. Reminding us of the importance of speech, 6A voice says ‘Cry out!’ The prophet asks, What shall I cry? The content of the speech is what matters again. All people are grass. Human beings are ephemeral; their constancy is like the flower of the field. Yes, 7The grass withers, the flower fades. In fact, as the breath or wind of the Lord, the hot east wind, will blow upon the grass or flower, in the same way, surely the people are grass. The flesh is weak, the road is long, and the people are temporary.
Most of us can think of many examples of weakness. Here is a brief story. Raynald III, a 14th century duke of what is now Belgium. He was grossly overweight. He ate everything he could put his hands on. This was his great weakness. In fact, he had a Latin nickname, “Crassus,” which simply means, “fat.” He got into a quarrel with his younger brother, Edward. Edward led a revolt against his older brother and was victorious. Rather than killing him, he put Raynald III in a castle and built a room all the way around him. There was a window and a door, which was only slightly smaller than a normal door. Edward told his older brother that all he had to do was be able to get out of the room to have his old title and property back. All he had to do was lose weight. Nevertheless, Edward knew his brother well. He had a variety of delicious foods brought to his room every day. Though people accused him of cruelty, he said his brother could leave whenever he wished. For ten years, he stayed in his room, getting fatter and fatter.[5]
In contrast to such weakness, God is eternal. Reminding us of the importance of speech again, but the word of our God will stand forever. The God of the Bible, who is eternal, stands in contrast to everything on earth.[6]Yet, what I find amazing is that while individual human beings fade quickly, even as quickly as the beauty of a flower, God cares for each one. We may well feel our weakness, finitude, and temporality deeply at times, but we need to remember that the Infinite and Eternal God has taken time for us. God has done sought us specifically in deliverance, reconciliation, and redemption. While I have pointed to the important of speech throughout this prophetic oracle, we have here the most forceful expression of this theme here as the prophet contrasts the transitory nature of human existence with the constancy of the word of God. He contrasts the weakness of people with the power of the Lord. The oracle concludes with the prophet speaking. He refers to Zion and Jerusalem, geographically distinct places. Zion is a hilltop inside the city of Jerusalem. However, theologically and poetically, they are identical. 9 Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear. Zion/Jerusalem are not yet in a position to be such a herald. Human beings are fearful creatures. Our fear may cause us to fail to hear the voice of God. Henry David Thoreau said, "Nothing is so much to be feared as fear." Franklin Roosevelt, some 80 years later, for a new generation, could say, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The Bible gives the command not to fear 365 times, one for each day. They are to speak to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ Some Jews remained around Jerusalem and watch over its ruins. They will only need to look east. 10See, the Lord comes with might and his arm rules for God. A common image in Exodus is the image of the mighty hand or arm of the Lord to describe the saving acts of God (6:1, 13:3, 9, 14, 16, as well as Deuteronomy 6:21 and 7:8, and even Joshua 4:24.) The first exodus was a road out of Egypt and through the wilderness. The second exodus will also be through a desert. This second deliverance will have a distinctive character. It will not come with plagues that judge the enemy. As the Lord approaches Jerusalem, his reward is with him and his recompense before him as company. 11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. They will see that God travels the miraculous highway, leading the exiles like a shepherd leads sheep. Even the weak ones the Lord will carry. God is leading them home and carrying them in the mighty arms of the Lord. The end of this shameful period means the restoration of the favor of God toward the people of God. People will see this in the tender care the Lord provides. Such tender care becomes a sign of divine glory. The prophet is introducing a very different understanding of what God’s glory consists of (compare, for example, Exodus 7:14-12:30, the account of the plagues, or Exodus 19, the theophany accompanying the Ten Commandments) which, while not wholly absent from earlier Israelite traditions, was generally overshadowed by the more violent and destructive manifestations of divine power. The impending end of that shameful period, therefore, would quite naturally be interpreted as the restoration of God’s favor toward his people, demonstrated in the acts of compassion described in verse 11: the feeding of his flock like a shepherd, the gathering of his lambs in his arms, the carrying and gently leading of his sheep. In marked contrast to the brutal acts of exile, which demonstrated beyond doubt the power of Israel’s God to punish, the prophet here describes these acts of mercy as the signs of God’s “glory.”
[1] (II Chronicles 36:23. For a translation of the Edict of Cyrus, see James Pritchard's The Ancient Near East: Volume 1: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973] 206-8, paperback version).
[2] (Oswald Chambers, Shade of His Hand).
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 213.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 246.
[5] Thomas Costain, The Three Edwards.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 374.
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