Rabbinic tradition has a concept of two beginnings of the Torah. One is considered to be the first chapter of Genesis, the other the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The reasoning is simple: the first beginning is linked to the poem of creation, the second to the giving of the Torah, whose core is the Decalogue...
Rabbinic tradition has a concept of two beginnings of the Torah. One is considered to be the first chapter of Genesis, the other the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The reasoning is simple: the first beginning is linked to the poem of creation, the second to the giving of the Torah, whose core is the Decalogue.
Such a view might seem somewhat artificial if the poem of creation itself did not point to humanity's special place in creation. God creates all living creatures according to their type or kind—‘according to their kinds’, as the Russian Synodal translation puts it—but human beings alone in God's image and likeness. God's word is therefore addressed to humanity in a special way too. For the rest of the world it is simply power, God's creative energy; for a human being it is God's will addressed to the human heart.
The Torah, the commandments God has given, is precisely this will embodied and expressed in words. That is why God's relationship with a human being—with every human being, and specifically with the individual, not with humanity as a whole—is equal in fullness to His relationship with all the rest of creation, living and non-living. And the prophet understands this perfectly.
He points to God, who created the universe, and asks a rhetorical question: can God, who created heaven and earth, forget the human being made in His own image and likeness (verses 26–27)? But Isaiah understands something else too: for God to remember a person, that person must also remember God. By themselves, human beings are capable of little (verse 30). Human nature, especially after the Fall, is not a very reliable support. Only a deep and enduring relationship with God can support a person, when they are ready to trust Him and place all their hope in Him (verse 31).
Then the one who hopes gains new strength, and their life changes. But without that relationship, a person remains a grain of sand in the universe with nothing to rely on. And this is not God's fault: He is not the one who puts a person in a situation of complete or almost complete absence of communion with Himself. A person chooses that situation for themselves and bears all the consequences of their choice.
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.