NOTES for Isa 40:1-11
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. |
2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins. |
3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. |
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: |
5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. |
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: |
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. |
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. |
9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! |
10 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. |
11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. |
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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.
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Readings for 9 December 2025
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