Isaiah 40

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 40

Here the whole book turns, and the change is so great you can feel it the moment you begin to read. The chapters behind us have thundered with warning and judgment; now, all at once, the voice of God softens into tenderness: “Comfort, comfort My people.” A herald is told to cry aloud that the long night of exile has an end, and another voice calls out to prepare a highway through the wilderness for the coming of the LORD. From there the chapter climbs into one of the most soaring visions of God’s greatness anywhere in Scripture, the God who measures the oceans in the hollow of His hand and calls every star by name, before whom the mightiest nations are a single drop in a bucket. And yet this same immeasurable God bends all the way down to the faint and the weary, and the chapter closes with a promise so beloved that generations have leaned their whole weight upon it: those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength and mount up with wings like eagles.

As you read, hold this: The God who is infinitely great, whose word outlasts all flesh, bends down to comfort His weary people and renews the strength of all who wait on Him.

Isaiah 40:1–2 (BSB)

¹ “Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. ² “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”

Listen to how gently the great turn of the book begins. After all the thunder, the very first word out of God’s mouth is comfort (נָחַם) nacham, pronounced naw-KHAM. Strong's H5162, to be moved to compassion, to relent, to be comforted. The word doubled at the opening of this chapter is a rich and warm one. It means to comfort and to console, but under that meaning lies the picture of one who draws near to sighing sorrow and breathes relief into it, who sits down beside the grieving and eases their heart. This is not comfort shouted from a distance; it is comfort that comes close. And here it is God Himself who commissions it, sending His messengers to speak to the very heart of a broken city. The God who is high above the circle of the earth, whom the nations cannot begin to measure, is the same God who leans down to whisper courage to a people worn thin by their own failures and their long exile. That He repeats the word tells us how earnest He is about it. When our God sets Himself to comfort His people, He does it thoroughly, tenderly, and forever, and the greatness we will read of in the rest of the chapter is the very greatness that stands behind every word of consolation He speaks. , and He says it twice, the way you would repeat something to a frightened child to make sure it is truly heard. Notice too whose people they are: “My people,” says “your God.” The bond has not been broken by all their sin; He still claims them, and He still belongs to them. He tells the messengers to speak tenderly, literally to speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and to bring her three pieces of good news at once. Her hard service is finished; her iniquity is pardoned; and she has received from the LORD’s own hand all that was needed. This is the gospel note struck centuries before the Gospel, the announcement that a righteous God has found a way for the guilty to be forgiven and comforted. Praise Him for a God whose first instinct toward His chastened people is not to condemn but to console.

Isaiah 40:3–5 (BSB)

³ A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert. ⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain. ⁵ And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Now a second voice cries out, and it summons the whole earth to get ready, for the LORD Himself is coming. In the picture, when a great king traveled, servants would go ahead to level the road, filling in the valleys and cutting down the hills so the way was smooth for his coming. So it must be for the coming of God: every obstacle brought low, every crooked place made straight, a highway prepared across the wilderness for our God. And when He comes, His glory will be unveiled for all humanity to see together. We cannot read these verses as Christians without our hearts leaping, for all four Gospels take this cry and place it in the mouth of John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness who prepared the way for the Lord Jesus. What Isaiah heard as a distant summons became a man standing at the Jordan, pointing to the Christ in whom the glory of the LORD was at last revealed in flesh. The road God promised to build, He built all the way to us.

Isaiah 40:6–8 (BSB)

⁶ A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field. ⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass. ⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

A voice commands, “Cry out!” and when the prophet asks what he should possibly say, he is given a message that sounds at first like the plainest truth in the world and turns out to be the deepest comfort in it. All flesh is like grass. Think of a hillside green in spring and gold by summer, the flowers bright one week and gone the next; that is what we are, and that is what all the proud strength of every empire is too. One breath from the LORD, and it withers. If the chapter stopped there it would only be sorrow. But it does not stop there, for it lifts to a mighty “but”: the word of our God stands forever. Everything that seemed so permanent, every kingdom and every glory, fades like a wildflower, while the word of God alone outlasts the ages and never fails. And here is the wonder of it: the comfort He has just spoken over His people is that very word. Precisely because our God’s word stands forever, the frail grass that trusts it will not be blown away with the rest.

Isaiah 40:9–11 (BSB)

⁹ Go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Raise your voice loudly, O Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” ¹⁰ Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and His arm establishes His rule. His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him. ¹¹ He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads the nursing ewes.

The good news is too great to keep quiet, so Zion is told to climb the highest hill and shout it: “Here is your God!” And then, in two verses set side by side, we are shown the two truths about Him that hold this whole chapter together. First, He comes with might, His strong arm ruling and rewarding, the sovereign King no power can withstand. And then, in the very next breath, that same mighty arm is pictured gathering lambs. He tends His flock like a shepherd, He gathers the little ones in His arms and carries them close against His heart, and He leads the mother ewes gently, at the pace the weak can walk. Do not rush past the beauty of this. The arm strong enough to rule the nations is tender enough to cradle a lamb. The King is a Shepherd. And every believer who has ever felt small and unable to keep up may hear his own name in it, for this is how our God carries His people: not driving them, but gathering them, close to His heart.

Isaiah 40:12–14 (BSB)

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills with a balance? ¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or informed Him as His counselor? ¹⁴ Whom did He consult to enlighten Him, and who taught Him the paths of justice? Who imparted knowledge to Him and showed Him the way of understanding?

Now the chapter lifts its eyes to God’s greatness, and it does so by asking questions that can only have one answer. Who could scoop up all the oceans of the world in the cup of a single hand, or measure the whole span of the heavens between thumb and little finger, or weigh the mountains on a scale as a merchant weighs out grain? No one can, of course; and yet all of this is spoken of God as easily as we might describe a man measuring out a handful of dust. The Creator holds the seas in His palm. Then the questions turn from His power to His wisdom. Who ever taught God anything? Who counseled Him, tutored Him, showed Him the way of understanding? The very idea is absurd. He needs no adviser, for all wisdom is His own and always has been. Let the soul that is anxious and small before the powers of this world stand here a moment and remember: this measureless, all-wise God is the very One who calls you His people and carries you like a lamb.

Isaiah 40:15–17 (BSB)

¹⁵ Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust. ¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering. ¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before Him; He regards them as nothingness and emptiness.

Set beside a God so great, how large are the mighty empires that make the earth tremble? Isaiah answers with images that shrink them to nothing. The nations are a single drop hanging from the bottom of a bucket, a fleck of dust too light to move the scales, whole islands lifted like a handful of fine powder. Babylon itself, before whom Judah would one day cower, is only a drop of water in the hand of God. Even the great forest of Lebanon, with all its cedars and all its beasts, could not furnish enough wood or enough offerings to give God the worship He is worth; the whole creation cannot pay Him His due. This is not meant to crush us but to free us. When we have truly seen how small the frightening powers of this world are before the LORD, we are set free from being ruled by fear of them. The thing that looms so large in our anxious eyes is a drop in the bucket to the God who holds us.

Isaiah 40:18–20 (BSB)

¹⁸ To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him? ¹⁹ To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains? ²⁰ One lacking such an offering chooses wood that will not rot. He seeks a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.

Having lifted our eyes to the incomparable God, Isaiah turns and looks, almost with pity, at the idols people bow to instead. To whom, he asks, will you compare God? Will you set Him beside a statue that a workman pours out of metal, another gilds with gold, and a third fastens with little silver chains? See the gentle mockery in the details. The poor man who cannot afford gold picks out a block of wood that will not rot, then hires a skilled craftsman to nail his god down so the thing will not fall over. There is the whole folly of idolatry laid bare: a god that has to be manufactured, decorated, and steadied by the very people who worship it. How can such a thing be compared to the LORD, who measures the oceans in His hand? The idol cannot even keep itself upright. Our God upholds the heavens. Blessed are the people whose God made them, and not the other way around.

Isaiah 40:21–24 (BSB)

²¹ Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the foundation of the earth? ²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. ²³ He brings the princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth meaningless. ²⁴ No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.

Isaiah presses the truth home with a question meant to wake us up: Do you not know? Have you not heard? This has been plain since the world was made. And then comes one of the grandest pictures of God in all of Scripture. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, so high above it that its whole population looks like a swarm of grasshoppers, and He spreads out the vast sky the way a person pitches a tent for the evening, as easily as unrolling a curtain. From that throne He deals with the rulers who seem so unshakable, the princes and judges of the earth, and He reduces them to nothing. Watch how swiftly it happens in verse twenty-four: they are barely planted, their roots have hardly taken hold, when He breathes on them and they wither, and the storm carries them off like dry stubble. The powers that outlast our lifetimes are, to Him, seedlings that never get the chance to grow. Rest your soul, then, on the One whose throne is above it all.

Isaiah 40:25–26 (BSB)

²⁵ “To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One. ²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high: Who created all these? He leads forth the starry host by number; He calls each one by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Now the Holy One speaks for Himself and asks the question directly: to whom will you compare Me, who is My equal? And then He gives us the most breathtaking invitation in the chapter. Lift up your eyes on high. Go out under the night sky and look at the countless stars, more than any man could ever number, and ask who made them all. He did, and here is the wonder: He leads them out like a great army each night, and He calls every single one by name. Not a nameless multitude to Him, but each one known, each one named, and because of His mighty strength, not one of them ever goes missing. Hold that thought against the fear that God has forgotten you, for that is exactly where the chapter is about to turn. The God who keeps perfect count of every star, calling each by its own name so that none is ever lost, is not a God who could ever lose track of one of His weary children. Look up, and let the stars preach to you the faithful care of the God who made them.

Isaiah 40:27–28 (BSB)

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”? ²⁸ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out.

At last we see why Isaiah has spent all these verses lifting our eyes to the greatness of God, for now he turns and speaks straight to the tired, complaining heart. Why do you say, O Jacob, that your way is hidden from the LORD, that your cause slips past your God unnoticed? The weary soul is always tempted to think exactly this, that God is too high and too busy to see one small life and its one small trouble. And Isaiah answers not with a scolding but with the truth about God he has been building toward all along. Do you not know? The God you fear has forgotten you is the everlasting God, the Creator of the very ends of the earth, and here is the sweet turn: He does not grow tired or weary. The God who never runs out of strength is watching over you, and His understanding is so deep that no trouble of yours could ever escape it or exhaust it. He is not too great to notice you. He is too great ever to fail you.

Isaiah 40:29–31 (BSB)

²⁹ He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak. ³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. ³¹ But those who wait upon 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 faint.

And so the great chapter comes home to rest, and it does so with a promise that has carried more weary saints than we could ever count. He gives power to the faint, and to the one with no strength left He adds strength. See the contrast Isaiah draws: even the young and the strong, the very ones we expect to be tireless, will finally grow weary, stumble, and fall, for all human strength runs dry in the end. But there is a strength that never runs dry, and it belongs to those who wait (קָוָה) qavah, pronounced kah-VAH. Strong's H6960, to wait for, hope, look for with eager expectancy. The word at the heart of this beloved promise is richer than our English “wait” can carry. It does not mean idle waiting, the way we wait in a line with nothing to do. Its root is thought to be connected to the twisting of a cord, of strands bound tightly together, and from that comes its meaning: to wait with tension and expectancy, to hope, to look eagerly for something as sure as it is unseen. To wait upon the LORD in this sense is to bind your whole hope to Him, to lean your full weight on His faithfulness and expect Him with confidence, like a cord pulled taut and holding. And notice the beautiful exchange the verse promises to those who wait so: they “renew” their strength, a word that means to change, to exchange one thing for another, as a man changes worn-out clothes for new. The waiting soul lets go of its own exhausted strength and receives the LORD’s in its place. That is why the eagle can mount and the walker not faint: it is no longer their strength at all, but His, given freely to all who wait on Him. upon the LORD. They will renew their strength, exchanging their spent power for His inexhaustible power, and Isaiah gives us three glorious pictures of the result. They will mount up with wings like eagles, rising above the storm; they will run and not grow weary; and they will walk and not faint. Notice how the promise reaches down even to the plainest thing of all, the daily plodding walk, the long ordinary road, and promises strength for that too. This is the God of the whole chapter come near at last: the One who holds the oceans in His hand and names every star bends down to renew the strength of every weary soul that waits on Him. Praise Him, and wait on Him, and rise.