Babylonian Isaiah was the first to say that the time of exile was drawing to an end, that the people had atoned for their sins and that the road to Judea, to the land of the fathers, would soon open to them again. Then a fully natural question arose before him in that situation...
Babylonian Isaiah was the first to say that the time of exile was drawing to an end, that the people had atoned for their sins and that the road to Judea, to the land of the fathers, would soon open to them again. Then a fully natural question arose before him in that situation: what is the people of God? That people, that community of Jerusalem residents deported to Babylon, with which the history of exiled Jewry had begun, no longer existed. There was a community, but it was different, new. New both spiritually and religiously. In essence, a new people, a new Jewry. A people that had received the chance to live another, second historical life. What connects it with the former people to which the Jerusalem residents deported to Babylon had belonged? Historical continuity? But is that not an illusion? What is historical memory?
What is a people, any people? Grass that dries up in the dry steppe under the rays of the hot summer sun. Here today, gone tomorrow. But can the people of God be like that? Surely God must have a plan for His people. His people cannot be drying grass in the field of history. So what makes the Jewish people God's people? The answer to the prophet was the vision revealed to him: the glory of God, the shining Presence moving through the wilderness toward Jerusalem.
Once, soon after the Babylonians devastated Jerusalem, another prophet, Ezekiel, in another vision had seen this same shining Presence leaving Jerusalem. Leaving because there was no longer room for God in Jerusalem. Not because of the Babylonian soldiers who destroyed the Temple, but because of those servants of God who had defiled it long before those Babylonian soldiers made the hidden thing visible. And now God was ready to return to the emptied city, to the ruined Temple.
The way had to be prepared for Him. The road had to be made level. And participation in that task alone could make the community born in Babylon the true people of God. Neither national features nor religion make God's people God's people, but active participation in carrying out God's design for the salvation of humanity. And witness to God, who had given His people a new historical life. A witness that all Judea would hear from Zion. And the whole world.
40 The prophet having now foretold the Babylonish captivity, chap.Isa 39:6-7,
does here arm his people against it by the consideration of their certain deliverance out of it, and their blessed condition after it, as in other things so especially in the coming of the Messiah, and the great and glorious privileges conferred upon God's church and people in his days. The preaching of the gospel by John the baptist and the apostles, Isa 40:1-11.
The power and wisdom of God in governing the world, Isa 40:12-17.
The folly of idolatry, Isa 40:18-26.
God knows the state of his people, and both can and will protect them, Isa 40:27-31.
40:3 The voice - An abrupt speech. Methinks I hear a voice.Wilderness - This immediately relates to the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, and smoothing their passage from thence to Judea, which lay through a great wilderness; but principally to their redemption by the Messiah, whose coming was ushered in by the cry of John the baptist, in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way - You to whom this work belongs. He alludes to the custom of princes who send pioneers before them to prepare the way through which they are to pass. The meaning is, God shall by his spirit so dispose mens hearts, and by his providence so order the affairs of the world, as to make way for the accomplishment of his promise. This was eminently fulfilled, when Christ, who was, and is God, blessed for ever, came into the world in a visible manner.