For Teaching

Isaiah 40: What the Passage Says

115 claims across 31 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Isaiah 40 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

God gives the command to comfort Jerusalem: her hard service is over and her sin is pardoned. A voice calls for a road to be made ready for the LORD, whose glory all people will see, and whose word stands after all human life has withered like grass. The rest of the chapter asks who could be compared to the God who measures the oceans in his hand, reduces rulers to nothing, and names every star, and it answers Israel's complaint that God has overlooked its case by promising strength to those who wait for him.

Claim by Claim

40:1
- A command is given to comfort God's people.
- The command to comfort is spoken twice.
- The one who speaks this is identified as "your God".
- The people are called God's people.
40:2
- A command is given to speak to the heart of Jerusalem.
- A command is given to call out to her.
- Her term of hard service is completed.
- Her iniquity has been pardoned.
- She has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
40:3
- A voice calls out.
- It is unclear whether the wilderness is where the voice calls or where the way is to be prepared.
- The call is to clear the way of the LORD.
- The call is to make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
40:4
- Every valley will be raised up.
- Every mountain and hill will be made low.
- The uneven ground will become level.
- The rugged ridges will become a plain.
40:5
- The glory of the LORD will be revealed.
- All flesh together will see it.
- The mouth of the LORD has spoken this.
40:6
- A voice says, "Cry out."
- Someone asks, "What shall I cry?"
- All flesh is grass.
- All its beauty is like the flower of the field.
40:7
- The grass withers.
- The flower fades.
- The reason is that the breath of the LORD blows on it.
- The people are grass.
40:8
- The grass withers.
- The flower fades.
- The word of our God stands forever.
40:9
- A command is given to go up on a high mountain.
- Zion is addressed as a bearer of good news.
- It is unclear whether Zion and Jerusalem are the ones announcing the good news or the ones being told it.
- A command is given to lift up the voice with strength.
- Jerusalem is addressed as a bearer of good news.
- A command is given to lift it up and not be afraid.
- A command is given to say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God."
40:10
- The Lord GOD comes with strength.
- His arm rules for him.
- His reward is with him.
- His recompense goes before him.
40:11
- He will tend his flock like a shepherd.
- He will gather the lambs with his arm.
- He will carry them in his bosom.
- He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
40:12
- A question is asked: who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?
- A question is asked: who has marked off the heavens with a span?
- A question is asked: who has held the dust of the earth in a measure?
- A question is asked: who has weighed the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance?
40:13
- A question is asked: who has directed the spirit of the LORD?
- A question is asked: who as his counselor has instructed him?
40:14
- A question is asked: with whom did he take counsel?
- A question is asked: who gave him understanding?
- A question is asked: who taught him the path of justice?
- A question is asked: who taught him knowledge?
- A question is asked: who showed him the way of understanding?
40:15
- The nations are like a drop from a bucket.
- The nations are reckoned as dust on the scales.
- He lifts up the coastlands like fine dust.
40:16
- Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel to burn.
- The animals of Lebanon are not sufficient for a burnt offering.
40:17
- All the nations are as nothing before him.
- He reckons them as less than nothing and emptiness.
40:18
- A question is asked: to whom will you liken God?
- A question is asked: what likeness will you set beside him?
40:19
- A craftsman casts a carved image.
- A metalworker overlays it with gold.
- A metalworker casts silver chains for it.
40:20
- The phrase describing the one who chooses the wood is obscure, meaning either one too poor to afford such an offering or a particular kind of wood.
- He chooses wood that will not rot.
- He seeks out a skilled craftsman for himself.
- The purpose is to set up a carved image that will not topple.
40:21
- A question is asked: do you not know?
- A question is asked: have you not heard?
- A question is asked: has it not been told you from the beginning?
- A question is asked: have you not understood the foundations of the earth?
40:22
- He sits above the circle of the earth.
- The inhabitants of the earth are like grasshoppers.
- He stretches out the heavens like a thin veil.
- He spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
40:23
- He brings rulers to nothing.
- He makes the judges of the earth like emptiness.
40:24
- They are scarcely planted.
- They are scarcely sown.
- Their stem has scarcely taken root in the ground.
- It is unclear whether the negation means they are never planted at all or only barely planted.
- He blows on them and they wither.
- A storm wind carries them away like stubble.
40:25
- A question is asked: to whom will you liken me, that I should be equal?
- The Holy One is the one who says this.
40:26
- A command is given to lift up the eyes on high and see who created these.
- He brings out their host by number.
- He calls them all by name.
- This is because of the greatness of his might and his mighty power.
- Not one of them is missing.
40:27
- A question is asked: why do you say this, Jacob?
- A question is asked: why do you speak this, Israel?
- The saying is that my way is hidden from the LORD.
- The saying is that my just claim passes away from my God.
40:28
- A question is asked: have you not known?
- A question is asked: have you not heard?
- The LORD is the everlasting God.
- The LORD is the creator of the ends of the earth.
- He does not grow faint.
- He does not grow weary.
- There is no searching out of his understanding.
40:29
- He gives power to the faint.
- To those who have no might he increases strength.
40:30
- Youths will grow faint and weary.
- Young men will utterly stumble.
40:31
- Those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength.
- They will mount up with wings like eagles.
- They will run and not grow weary.
- They will walk and not grow faint.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

40:1: The verb "comfort" is plural, the speaker is commissioning a group (unnamed here) to deliver the message. From this chapter on, the book speaks to Judeans already living through the aftermath of defeat and deportation to Babylon; the punishment is spoken of as finished, not threatened.
40:2: "Warfare" in 1611 English covered any period of compulsory service, military or otherwise. The Hebrew word (tsava) means a term of hard, imposed duty, here the exile, that has now been served out. "Double" translates a word that can mean twice as much, but also an equivalent or matching amount, the way a folded cloth matches itself; readers have taken it both ways. Jerusalem is addressed throughout as a woman, standard Hebrew usage for a city.
40:3: The Hebrew has no punctuation, so "in the wilderness" can attach either to the voice (a voice crying in the wilderness) or to the command (prepare, in the wilderness, the way). Ancient kings sent crews ahead to clear and level a road for a royal procession; that is the picture behind the whole image.
40:4: This is still about getting a road ready. Filling valleys and cutting down hills is what road workers did.
40:5: "All flesh" is a Hebrew idiom for every living human being, sometimes for every living creature.
40:6: "Goodliness" here means beauty or splendor, not moral goodness. The Hebrew word (chesed) usually means loyal love or steadfastness, and some read it that way here: even human faithfulness is short-lived as a flower.
40:7: The same Hebrew word (ruach) means wind, breath, and spirit. Behind the image is the sirocco, the scorching desert wind that shrivels grass and flowers in a day.
40:9: The Hebrew phrase can be read either as "Zion, herald of good news" (the city announcing to others) or "herald of good news to Zion" (someone announcing to the city); both readings are old. Zion was originally the ridge Jerusalem was built on and came to stand for the city itself. Heralds climbed high ground so their voices would carry.
40:10: "Arm" stands for strength, as in an arm that wins a battle. The pair "reward" and "work" are the two halves of a single idea: wages earned, and what is owed being paid out, the picture of a victorious king or a returning workman bringing his pay with him.
40:11: Ewes still nursing lambs cannot be driven at the pace of the flock; a shepherd sets the pace to them. The phrase names a real and specific problem of herding, not a general sentiment.
40:12: A "span" is the distance from thumb-tip to little-finger-tip on a spread hand, about nine inches, a standard small unit of length. The "measure" is the Hebrew shalish, literally "a third," a dry-goods container of unknown size, roughly a third of some larger unit. The joke of the verse is a workman using ordinary tools of the trade on the sea, sky, and mountains.
40:13: The word translated "Spirit" (ruach) also means wind or mind. Following the measuring images of verse 12, some read this as "who has taken the measure of the LORD's mind"; others keep "directed the Spirit."
40:14: "The path of judgment" means the right way to decide a case, the skill of a judge, which in the ancient world was learned from teachers and elders.
40:15: "The isles" translates a word for coastlands: the shores and islands at the far edge of the Mediterranean, the outermost known world from Judah's viewpoint.
40:16: Lebanon's cedar forests were the proverbial source of the finest and most plentiful timber in the region. A burnt offering was an animal placed entirely on the altar fire, with none of it eaten, the most costly kind of sacrifice, since nothing came back.
40:17: "Vanity" in 1611 English meant emptiness or nothingness, not conceit about one's appearance.
40:19: A "graven image" is a carved or cast figure of a god. The manufacturing sequence is literal: a metal core, a gold overlay hammered on, then silver chains, the chains fastened the figure in place so it would not tip over.
40:20: This verse is one of the hardest in the book. The Hebrew word behind "so impoverished that he hath no oblation" (mesukkan) is otherwise almost unknown; it has been read as "too poor to make an offering," as the name of a durable wood, and as "skilled artisan." What is clear is the contrast: a cheaper wooden idol for someone who cannot afford the gold-plated kind.
40:21: "From the foundations of the earth" means from the time the world was set in place: that is, this has been common knowledge for as long as there has been anyone to tell it.
40:22: "The circle of the earth" translates chug, a word for a circle or arc, used elsewhere of the horizon drawn as a ring around the sea. It describes what the earth looks like from far above, not a claim about its shape. The heavens are pictured as cloth: stretched out like a curtain, then pitched like the goat-hair tent of a nomad.
40:23: "Princes" here means ruling officials of any rank, not sons of kings. "Judges" likewise means the men who governed and decided cases, the local holders of power.
40:24: "Stubble" is the dry stalk-ends left standing in a field after harvest: weightless, worthless, and the first thing a wind picks up.
40:25: "The Holy One" is a standing title for Israel's God in this book. The Hebrew root behind "holy" carries the sense of being set apart, in a category by itself, which is exactly the point being pressed in the question.
40:26: "Host" is an old military word for an army, used of the stars drawn up in ranks across the sky. Neighboring peoples worshiped the stars as gods with names; here the names are ones he assigns, and mustering troops "by number" with none missing is a commander's roll call.
40:27: Jacob and Israel are two names for the same ancestor, used here for the nation descended from him. "My judgment is passed over" is legal language: my case, my rightful claim, is being ignored, the complaint of someone who cannot get a hearing in court.
40:28: "The ends of the earth" means the farthest edges of the world, so the phrase amounts to "the whole of it."
40:30: The two words cover the full range of young manhood: boys and men in their physical prime, the last people expected to give out.
40:31: "Wait upon" in 1611 English meant to hope for or expect, not to serve or attend on someone. The Hebrew word carries a sense of tense, stretched-out expectation. The bird (nesher) is the eagle or the griffon vulture, both were known for soaring at great height on rising air without beating their wings.

Read Isaiah 40