Isaiah 40: 1 – 31
Fly Eagles Fly
“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God. 2 “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.” 3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare 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 brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; 5 The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” 6 The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” 9 O Zion, You who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” 10 Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. 11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young. 12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? 13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has taught Him? 14 With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding? 15 Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless. 18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? 19 The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains. 20 Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot; He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter. 21 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. 23 He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless. 24 Scarcely shall they be planted, scarcely shall they be sown, scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, when He will also blow on them, and they will wither, and the whirlwind will take them away like stubble. 25 “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; Not one is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God”? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
In our previous studies we saw that the last ditch deliverance of Jerusalem had brought home to Isaiah that again Yahweh was active. Assyria was not to be allowed to have its free way with God’s people, and it was as a result of this action that El Shaddai – God Almighty - revealed to him the future that was to come.
As he looked into the future he saw the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham being brought about in terms of the coming Servant who would bring His blessing to the world, and thus he saw the opposition to the Servant in terms of ‘Babylon’, who had been the great anti-God from the beginning. That is why in chapter 40-55 we have a continuous picture of the rise of the Servant and the need for the destruction of Babylon.
So in chapter 40 we have an exalted description of the universal and triumphant power of God, which is followed in 41.1-44.23 by a description of how through Abraham, the man whom He called from the east, He has raised up His people, the seed of Abraham, as His servant to do His bidding. This is to result in the establishing of Yahweh’s righteous rule over the nations under His chosen King, the putting to flight of the rulers of Babylon, the final rejection of idolatry and the praising of Yahweh by the whole of creation.
So as we move into these next chapters of Isaiah we can understand the feeling of exaltation and certainty that gripped him as he looked ahead, an exaltation that was, however, held in tension with the black cloud that hung over the house of David. On the one hand his expectations were positive, on the other there yet remained much that was to happen. We have here the same dichotomy between imminence and delay which characterizes the New Testament. God will act, but meanwhile certain things must happen first.
“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God. 2 “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”
We must remember that in spite of her glorious victory over the forces of Sennacherib, Jerusalem had not got away scot free. Her wealth had been hugely diminished by the fine that they had originally paid to Sennacherib to buy him off, prior to his second invasion of Judah, and her adjoining land and people had been totally devastated by the intrusion of the Assyrian armies. Her second city Lachish lay in ruins, and the whole land had become a wilderness. In the words with which Isaiah opens chapter 40, she had received ‘double for all her sins’
He was, of course, aware that Assyria remained a threat. It was Assyria who had oppressed them in the past, and, even though it had at present withdrawn its forces, and was busy elsewhere, he probably had no doubt that they would attempt to do so again, indeed were probably already doing so under Manasseh. He must have been well aware that Assyria would not stay away permanently. Their threat, therefore, continued to loom large over God’s people. Their attempted over lordship, brought on Judah by the unbelief of Ahaz, had been a constant problem, and would continue to be so.
But it was not of too great a concern to him. God had shown what He could do with Assyria. So he did not see them directly as a matter of great concern, and indeed was informed that Yahweh would deal with the threat by giving Egypt, Cush and Seba to Assyria as a ransom for His people.
However, very different was the threat of Babylon. He could not overlook what Yahweh had revealed to him of what Babylon was going to do to Judah’s royal house, and he was disturbed by the fact that Babylon, having been yet again subjugated by Assyria, was ominously being re-established by them after its earlier defeat, with authority over Judah. He recognized therefore that, as in the past, it would no doubt in the future ill treat God’s people and be a menace to the world. Indeed he probably saw them as the greater problem. For as we have seen in chapters 13-14 he saw Babylon as supremely the enemy of God because of its proud boasts and high claims against God. It was the city that from the first had stood up against God and built a tower up to heaven which had resulted in the dividing of the world. It was the city whose king (Amraphel, king of Shinar) had invaded Canaan and seized Lot, Abraham’s nephew, along with much spoil, and against whom Abraham had to raise an army so as to recover both him and the spoils. It was a city from which every superstition emanated. Thus Babylon was an ever present menace, and now that Assyria was re-establishing it he had no doubt that it would again encroach on God’s people. And that Assyria does indeed later appear to have administered its jurisdiction over Judah from Babylon comes out, as we have seen, in the fact that Manasseh was taken there when arraigned by the Assyrian oppressors. So it was clear that if Judah was to be free from evil influences Babylon was a city which must be destroyed.
So wanting to proclaim a message of encouragement and deliverance to his people, Isaiah, who knew that in the end Yahweh had promised to deliver His people from all outside influence, proclaimed the greatness of His power and what His future intentions were.
Let Judah, therefore, now consider what the deliverance of Jerusalem and departure of Sennacherib had revealed. It had demonstrated the sovereignty and over lordship of Yahweh in world affairs, so that now, if they would, they could seize their opportunity, rid themselves of all their enemies and become Yahweh’s Servant to the nations in accordance with His purpose established in Abraham.
Furthermore he has in mind God’s promise of the raising of a Deliverer, one born miraculously from the house of David, who will rule the nations and bring peace and justice to the earth, and this in spite of the fact that he has seen the failure of the house of David to live up to expectations. For he knows that the One Who will come in the future, will be of a different stamp. Like ‘David My Servant’, He will be God’s Servant, and He will be totally dedicated to fulfilling the purposes of Yahweh. But He will not be simply an earthly king like the others. They are too fallible. He will be miraculously born.
What is in fact made quite clear is that Isaiah was not concentrating his attention on Babylon. That is to demean his prophecy which had a wider worldwide view. He looked rather for worldwide redemption, for that was why Yahweh was raising up His Servant. He was concerned for all the exiles scattered around the world, and was speaking to the people of his own time.
What then was his concern for Babylon? Simply that for Isaiah Babylon was a symbol. Babylon had to be destroyed because it represented the great enemy of God, that boasted against God and ever threatened the people of God. It was seen as the city that having been laid waste by the Assyrians, was being rebuilt to carry on its blasphemy, and was the one world city that must be finally destroyed, never to rise again. It should never have been rebuilt, and Yahweh will yet thus destroy it once again.
Following immediately on the gloom resulting from the failure of the Davidic king in chapter 39, and the revelation of the future consequences in the taking of Jerusalem and removal of the Davidic line to a resurgent Babylon, Isaiah now declares God’s certain final triumph. In the end, Isaiah tells Israel/Judah, God will triumph over all, whether Assyria or Babylon or anyone else, because of Who and What He is.
Verses 1 and 2 are the words of the great Judge of all the world. The court has sat, the verdict has been reached and the sentence passed, and it is one of mercy. The words announce a change in Isaiah’s perspective. Previously he has mentioned quite regularly the deliverance and final blessing of Israel and Jerusalem, but here it takes centre stage. The time has come if only they will respond. The enemy has fled back to his own land. Now is the time to trust in Yahweh. The nations are withering, but the way is being prepared for Yahweh, the great King, to come, and Israel can therefore be comforted.
We have to recognize that Israel’s comfort was not to be so immediately for we shall see later in chapter 53 that this mercy is in fact shown because of One Who will suffer on her behalf. It is He Who will pay double for all her sins. Isaiah is not under any illusions. He is perfectly well aware that no man can pay for his own sins except by death. That is one of the things he was wrestling with. Thus he in the end comes to the conclusion that Jerusalem can only be delivered because of the price paid by the greatest of her sons. That is why her iniquity can be pardoned, because they will have been borne by Another. And yet included within that is that she has also been purified through suffering. God’s activity has made her ready if only she will see it.
‘Her warfare is accomplished, ended.’ The word translated ‘warfare’ regularly means ‘host, army’ and is so used in ‘Yahweh of hosts’, but therefore it also came to mean ‘war’ or ‘battle’. Here therefore it depicts all Jerusalem’s trouble with which she has battled through the years. It has now been gone through to the full.
‘Her iniquity is pardoned.’ It is not that she has suffered undeservedly. It is because God has stepped in with a pardon. It is already so in the mind of God. The word for ‘pardoned’ is used of the acceptability of a sacrifice for atonement, and then for general acceptability, for reconciliation, and thus for ‘being pleased with’. The idea is therefore that the barrier between God and His true people has been removed. But in the passive (as here) the verb only ever refers to the acceptability of a blood sacrifice, which points strongly to that meaning here. Once again it connects with the Suffering Servant. They are pardoned through His sacrifice.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare 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 brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; 5 The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Different members of the heavenly court cry out for the carrying out of the verdict described in verse 1. The cry here is for another ‘coming out of the desert’ by Yahweh Elohe Yisrael – The Lord God of Israel, when He will again come to act on behalf of His people. The way is to be prepared for Him. But by whom? Here by Isaiah and his followers, and in the New Testament days, by John the Baptist.
The picture is of a great king making a journey, with his people going ahead so as to prepare the road and make the way smooth for him. Mountains were to be leveled off, valleys were to be filled in, crooked roads were to be straightened, rough places were to be made flat so that the king could take his journey with ease. How much more should the earnest desire to do this for The Great King Elohim.
Instead of doing highway construction, the thought here is that they should prepare the way by dealing with all that offends. Once they have removed sin and all that displeases God from their midst He will then come in glory and be revealed among them. This is probably the idea in its use in the Gospels, and in the light of what follows may well be in mind here.
Once the way has been prepared Yahweh’s glory will be revealed. All flesh will behold it. So His glory and splendor will be seen by all flesh, and some will wither before it and flee for a hiding place while His people will rejoice in it and enjoy its splendor.
The apostle John saw this as fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. He records in chapter 1 verse 14, ‘And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth’.
6 The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Heavenly beings are involved in clarifying what is happening. They are here declaring doom on mankind and the certainty of the fulfillment of God’s word.
The heavenly voice is to declare the frailty of men in contrast with Yahweh. Man is as grass, his response to God and to his fellows is as withering vegetation, and when the wind of Yahweh comes it withers and fades. Man is unreliable. So man is as vegetation, he withers and fades, but in contrast what God has said, the ‘word of God’, stands for ever. It never withers, it never fades. It is everlasting.
9 O Zion, You who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
Those who have official responsibility for proclaiming good news when it comes, the ‘town criers’ of Jerusalem, are called on to get busy. They are go into a high mountain where all can hear, they are to shout loudly with their voices. They are to do it without fear, for it is certain of fulfillment. They are to go to all the cities of Judah and cry, “Behold, your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him;
Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.
This is the good news to be proclaimed to Judah. That Yahweh is coming as a Champion to His people. He will rule by His mighty arm. He has received His reward (His wage) in His people, and His recompense for what He has done is before Him. They are the fruits of His victory. For we know that they are His holy ones. His elect on whom He has set His love. They and we are the weak ones whom He has forgiven. Thus He will reveal His gracious covenant love towards them.
Notice the threefold ‘behold’. They are to behold their God. They are to behold Him as their sovereign Lord Yahweh, their Champion with His mighty arm. They are to behold Him as the One Who has won them and Who treasures them as His reward.
11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.
He has come as their Shepherd. He will feed them as a shepherd feeds his flock, He will gather the lambs in His protective arm where they are safe, He will carry them next to His heart, and have special care for the nursing mothers who are responsible to their lambs. The picture is one of love, concern and protection. He Is the good Shepherd.
He will be able to do all this because of His greatness. In this vital passage the greatness of God to do What He declares He will do is now revealed in all its fullness.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
The first concentration is on the vastness of God as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. He is the One Who takes the oceans in the palm of His hand to examine their size, He measures the heavens with the span of His fingers. He takes the dust of the whole earth into His measuring vessel. He picks up the mountains and puts them in His scales, and weighs the hills in His balances.
Water, sky and earth were the three basic constituents of creation in Genesis 1. So all the basic things in creation are seen as coming under His survey, and He is seen to be vaster than them all.
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has taught Him? 14 With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding?
The next thing about God is His omniscience. No one can teach Him anything. He is all wise, all knowing, all comprehending. No one has given directions to His Spirit, or has been appointed as His adviser and guided Him. He has never sought counsel from anyone, or needed to be taught how to make right judgments, or been given knowledge, or needed to be shown what is sensible and right. It is He alone Who directs the Spirit of Yahweh, and gives counsel and teaches men knowledge and understanding, and shows them what is right.
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.
Everyone should be aware that even the greatest nation is like a drop of water at the bottom of a bucket as El Roi – The Strong One Who Sees - peers in to see whether it is dry, they are like the fine dust which a man flicks off his balances before using them, hardly noticeable and irrelevant. The furthest isles and coastlands are minute in His sight. Wow!
If a burnt offering is to be found worthy of God even all the forests of Lebanon are insufficient for fire, nor are all its cattle and small cattle sufficient for a burnt offering. Before Him all nations are but a thing of naught, they are less than a nothing, in comparison with Him they are totally empty of meaning. The thought is one of comparison and contrast, not an indication that God does not care about them.
18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him? 19 The workman molds an image, the goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains. 20 Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot; He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter.
There is nothing that can compare with God. The gods of the nations certainly cannot be compared with God, for they are man-made. Such an idea is to be dismissed with contempt. They may be splendid, or they may be sturdy, but they will not be moved, either by themselves or by others. There they stay, lifeless and imprisoned on their bases. What care men take over them, and yet they are nothings. And their quality depends totally on whether their maker is rich or poor. (And besides, ‘the tree that will not rot’ will rot in the end). How then can they be compared with Him?
21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. 23 He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless. 24 Scarcely shall they be planted, scarcely shall they be sown, scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, when He will also blow on them, and they will wither, and the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.
The questions are put to mankind as a whole going back to the beginning of time. They have known, and heard and been told right from the beginning, even from the foundations of the earth, that He is the One Who sits on high, the One Who is ‘out of this world’, on His throne. And to them there was only one way of getting out of this world, and that was upwards. God was above and beyond all that they knew. What a contrast to the idols fixed to their bases.
The description ‘Its inhabitants are as grasshoppers.’ may have arisen because they knew what the men below looked like from a mountain top, like a bunch of grasshoppers, and knew that God looked down from even higher. Or it may simply be a way of describing man as tiny compared with God.
El Shaddai – God Almighty - uses the whole known universe as His tent, a temporary accommodation whenever He needs it. What is more, compared with Him great princes and judges are nothings. They count for nothing in the presence of the Judge of all the earth Who always does what is right and needs no assistance in judging.
25 “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.
God challenges them to produce an equal to Him, someone whom they can remotely compare with Him. Someone who is as unique and set apart as He. There is no one that they can even begin to think of, for He is The Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; Not one is missing.
He calls on them to survey the stars, the host of heaven. They are all His creation. He simply calls them ‘these’. When the sky is full of stars it is He Who has brought them out. And He has a name for every one of them as we read in Psalm 147, 4 He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.”
The naming of a thing indicated ownership by the One Who named. Thus God is claiming that every one of the stars is His. And they are all there, with none missing, because of His mighty power. Whatever men may think and say, they are all His and He has named each one.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God”?
We note the first use of Jacob/Israel in this chapter, which continues its use from earlier, and is characteristic of the next few chapters. Isaiah does not see God as addressing the refugees of Judah only, He is addressing all Israel wherever they may be. His people are declaring that God does not know their situation, that He has ceased to make judgments concerning them. That their case is continually disregarded by Him. That many of them are scattered in different parts of the world, and that God neither knows nor cares. The cities of Judah may have had declared to them what God is going to do, but, they ask, what about the remainder?
Please note the term, ‘O Jacob -- O Israel.’ The combination of names is a reminder of how Jacob met God as he was returning to the land, and how he became Israel, of how Jacob became Israel the prince with God. But now the people, whether Jacob or Israel are discouraged and discontented. They have lost their vision.
‘Why do you say?’ God is upset at their attitude, and He asks them why they say this in the light of the facts. It is in fact not He Who is at fault, but they. He points out that if they had waited on Him, had trusted in Him, it would be different.
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
His first challenge concerns Himself. Do they not recognize Whom He is? They should have known. They should have heard. But the implication is that they have not. Then He explains. He is the everlasting God, He is Yahweh the Creator of the ends of the earth. Thus He knows all that goes on in the world. And as the Everlasting One and the Creator of life itself He neither faints nor grows weary. He is always on the alert, always aware of what is going on. And He knows and understands everything. Nor can anyone even begin to search out His understanding. He is the all alive One, the living God.
29 He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.
If they had only trusted in Him and waited on Him they would have discovered that He did know their circumstances, and that He was there to act. For to those who are faint, and who trust in Him, He gives power. To those who have no might, but trust in Him, He gives strength. And they should have known it. And if they would only trust in Him now they would enjoy what He has promised, and He would be able to bring about His purposes through them.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
What they must do is recognize the power of their God, and turn from sin, and seek Him. Let them wait on Him. And then, even when the youths are fainting and are weary, and the young men at the peak of their powers are failing under the pressure, those who are trusting God will discover that by waiting on God they will fly like eagles, they will run without losing strength, they will walk without fainting.
This verse always reminds me of how the city of Philadelphia takes great pride in their football team. They put together a song ‘Fly Eagles fly’. Unfortunately, their team falls far short of what the real eagle is capable of achieving.
The eagle was famous for the height to which it flew, mounting into the skies until it was only a dark speck. So would rise those who waited on Yahweh, above the world and all its problems, to share their lives with God. The runner was the messenger, enduring, keeping on running because he had an important message to take. The runner who ran in Yahweh’s name would never grow weary. And the walker was the one who went about the ordinary affairs of life. ‘Walk’ is regularly used to describe the path of the righteous. The one who waited on God would walk and not faint.
So the offer of God is available. They have been faced with God, ‘Behold your God’. He is there ready to reveal Himself, to come among men in His glory. He has revealed the greatness of What He is. Let them but respond and His final purposes will come about, and He will give them the strength needed to participate. And the offer is to all both near and far. The whole chapter is a call to Judah and Israel, both near and far, to repent and respond. It is also a vision of what one day will be.
