NOTES for Isa 40:28-29

Reasoning on God's power and powerlessness of man became a common point for every believer. But few are the ones who think that this doesn’t only apply to certain critical situations, when man can really change nothing, but also the human life in general.

Man in this sense is a unique being. God created us "from dust ", as well as all other animals, but our unique and irreplaceable life is what makes us human (in certain translations it is generally called "soul"), we receive with this the " breath of life ", that God breathes to us "in nostrils".

So paradoxical at first sight, is this situation: "breath" is not ours, but life and personality are ours! It turns out that we men since the beginning had been created by God to live our own life, as all other animals, but life, borrowed to God. And He gives us this life in loan, but in such circumstances that we did not feel bound by too much strict conditions, didn’t have too many bans and so that we feel completely free as regards the received instructions.

Such freedom is given to us; reason why and such an idea of the loan of life to God does not even arise, even when we turn back to our Lender. Here is, it turns out difficult to just inhale profoundly, standing back to Him. Well then the breath begins to weaken, and life and forces to leave, even if we do not notice it suddenly. But in the critical situations, their insufficiency becomes immediately noticeable, and then we remember the One Who gave us and life and strength and freedom.

This question is addressed to the people of Israel by the prophet, each of us can refer it to himself, and besides particularly in such form: hast thou not known, hast thou not heard? Certainly, I know that it is God who created the whole world. But why have I decided that after that He "fainted and was weary"? It is said that on the seventh day God rested from all His works, but it is not said that He fainted. And no matter when this "seventh day" will be, the whole Bible speaks about the continuation of God's activities. He is the One who takes care of Adam, He warns Cain, He saves Noah and calls Abraham. Et cetera, et cetera...

And if He continues to act, how can I then be despair? Indeed, He is good, He loves and He is almighty. In any second everything in this world can change in a cardinal way, at any time can come true the Second Advent of the Christ, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Yes, it is impossible to predict clearly when it will be, for “there is no searching of his understanding”, but then it will still be.

What the prophet Isaiah says was once formulated very simply by a four-year-old boy. He reasoned approximately this way: God created the sea, the sky, trees, and the human being. The human being made the car, the house, and the airplane. If God created such things, then He has intelligence and uses it. But what He made is very different from what I make; therefore His intelligence is stronger than mine. And how much stronger, I cannot measure.

The simplicity of children's explanations is something the Lord constantly calls us to learn. Is the text of the prophet Isaiah difficult? Of course it is; and when you are exhausted and weary, you are not thinking about the greatness of God, or about realizing that He has His own ways for you. It is hard to acknowledge that He is smarter, higher, and wiser than a human being, and to accept this fact not only with the head but with the heart. Yet simple and open observation of the world allows us to discern this fact and accept it.

Today we begin reading the second half of the book of the prophet Isaiah, written in the middle of the sixth century BC. The unknown prophet usually called Second Isaiah began writing it while still in the Babylonian captivity and finished it in postexilic Jerusalem. His prophecy begins in Babylon with a word of hope and consolation. Today we read an astonishing hymn to the Creator’s might. The prophet sings this hymn while still in captivity, seeing only the very beginning of the complex historical processes through which God grants freedom to His people. The prophet’s main idea is that nothing can resist the Creator’s will. “His understanding is unsearchable,” and we cannot see all His ways, but His power is irresistible. Therefore, the prophet says, there is a great and inexhaustible hope for all of us: “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary.”

Thus the prophecy about future destinies turns to the consolation of the very people to whom so many rebukes had been addressed. Now the sins have been paid for, twice over, which usually calls to mind the provision of the law that a thief had to repay twice the value of what was stolen. Of course, far from all sinners were thieves in the literal sense, and theft is not the only vice, but that is unimportant at the moment: no one has the right to exalt himself above robbers, for other sins, which often seem “permissible,” are no better. But now forgiveness comes, and with it the hope of a new and qualitatively different life in harmony with the Creator’s will.

Quite naturally, after the promise of hope the prophet begins to speak of the Lord’s greatness, of how He can neither be compared with anything nor imagined. Here Isaiah’s words recall to some extent the final chapters of the Book of Job, where Job’s questions fall away after the Creator reveals His incomprehensibility to him. The situation here is different, of course: unlike Job, the people of Israel did not suffer without cause. Yet even now, when the sinners have apparently repented of their sins and at last “understand everything,” the Lord shows once more that both He Himself and His mercy surpass every degree of our understanding.