The Preparing of the Way (Isaiah 40:1-8).
The humiliation of Assyria has, in Isaiah's eyes, opened up a new opportunity for the future for Judah/Israel. Yahweh has delivered His people, and awaits their response.
‘Comfort, comfort my people,
Says your God,
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem,
And cry to her,
That her warfare is accomplished,
That her iniquity is pardoned,
That she has received of the hand of Yahweh,
Double for all her sins.'
These 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 (Isaiah 37:37). Now is the time to trust in Yahweh.
The verb ‘comfort' is in the plural. Its repetition indicates the intensity with which it is spoken. The speaker is God, but this raises the question as to who are called on to comfort God's people. There are two possible answers. Firstly that it is those who are to prepare the way of Yahweh (Isaiah 40:3), the heavenly beings who speak to each other in Isaiah 40:6. Or secondly that it is the small group of faithful Israelites gathered around Isaiah and his ministry, the faithful remnant. Or it may be a general command to be obeyed by both. The nations are withering, but the way is being prepared for Yahweh, the great King, to come, and Israel can therefore be comforted.
But the other question is, why can she be comforted? And the answer is, because, if she will accept it, all her tribulations are past, her iniquity is pardoned, she has received ‘double' for all her sins. They have been ‘doubly paid', paid in full. In other words she is now in a position where God can show His mercy because of her suffering.
But it was not to be so immediately and later in chapter 53 we will discover 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 (Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:8). And yet included within that is that she has also been purified through suffering (Isaiah 4:4). Compare the Psalm of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:15-17). 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' (Joshua 4:13; Joshua 22:12; Joshua 22:33). 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 (Isaiah 44:21-22). It is already so in the mind of God. The word for ‘pardoned' is used of the acceptability of a sacrifice for atonement (Leviticus 1:4), and then for general acceptability (Deuteronomy 33:24), for reconciliation (1 Samuel 29:4), 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 (Leviticus 1:4; Leviticus 7:18; Leviticus 19:7; Leviticus 22:23; Leviticus 22:25; Leviticus 22:27), which points strongly to that meaning here. Once again it connects with the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:10-11). They are pardoned through His sacrifice.
Alternately reference may be to Leviticus 26:43, ‘they will accept the punishment for their iniquity', indicating that Jerusalem has accepted her guilt and whatever punishment has been meted out. But it still required that God would accept it too, which is what is in mind here.
‘She has received of the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins.' Even Israel would recognise that this could not be strictly true, unless there was more to it than just her own suffering. Isaiah will later point out that it was because One Who was unique would suffer for their sins that this could be so (Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12). The world for ‘double' suggests a piece of something doubled up (it comes from the root ‘to fold') so that both sides exactly match. Thus the exact punishment has been achieved.
It is not therefore out of context that Isaiah 40:3-4 are cited in Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 3:4-6. In the end the preparing of the way was in order to prepare for the coming suffering Servant of the house of David, Who could be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6).
There is no real reason for thinking that this passage should be applied to the ending of the so-called Babylonian captivity (which was only one of a number of captivities), of which Isaiah says nothing. No Babylonian captivity is mentioned and Babylon is only mentioned as a city that must be destroyed because of what it represents. It is unmentioned in Chapter s 40-42 and hardly prominent in the following Chapter s. The emphasis is rather on looking forward to the time when the Lord Yahweh Himself, having paid the price of sin through His Servant, will come as a Mighty One, to shepherd His flock and gather His lambs in His arms (Isaiah 40:10-11), in the everlasting kingdom (compare Ezekiel 37:24).
‘The voice of one who cries,
“Prepare in the wilderness the way of Yahweh,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley will be exalted,
And every mountain and hill will be made low,
And the crooked will be made straight,
And the rough places plain,
And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed,
And all flesh will see it together.
For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.” '
Different members of the heavenly court cry out for the carrying out of the verdict described in Isaiah 40:1 (compare Isaiah 40:6). The cry here is for another ‘coming out of the desert' by God, another deliverance, when God will again come to act on behalf of His people. Compare Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 30:27-28; Deuteronomy 33:2-5; Judges 5:3-5 where we have the same idea of God marching out of the desert into the land on His people's behalf. He is the God of Sinai, coming to call His people back to the covenant, and coming to act on their behalf. And 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 Baptiser.
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 levelled 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 (this was often literally done). But here the great King is Yahweh, and thus the responders must be His subjects.
The Babylonians could speak similarly of preparing the way for a god. In a hymn to Nebo they said, ‘Make his way good, renew his road, make his path straight, hew him out a track.' But the thought there was of making a processional way for the god as he was carried in his cart. There was no thought of the god as coming in person.
This call could thus be referring to His angel attendants, those who have already been told to comfort Jerusalem, who would go before Him, gladly serving Him. This would demonstrate heavenly activity on behalf of the people of God (compare Hebrews 1:14). Or it could be referring to the faithful among the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem as preparing the way by repentance and response, by an enthusiastic return to the covenant and the offering of true worship, and by acting as God's servant towards the people. In the latter case the thought 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.
But in general Isaiah sees the way as being prepared for His people, not by them. See Isaiah 35:8 where it is for those made holy; Isaiah 42:16 where it is for the blind, making darkness light before them, and crooked places straight; Isaiah 43:19 where He makes a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert; Isaiah 55:12 where it is for those led forth in peace. Thus it may well be that we are to see the way for God here as prepared primarily by the heavenly court. God does all. The angels go before Him to prepare the way. His people humbly receive the benefits. (Although this does not prevent man from having some humble part in it). When God acts, His own follow (compare here Isaiah 62:10-12).
‘And the glory of Yahweh will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.' Once the way has been prepared Yahweh's glory will be revealed (compare Exodus 16:10; Exodus 33:18; Exodus 33:22; Exodus 40:34). All flesh will behold it (compare Revelation 1:7). And Yahweh has declared it, and thus it will be so. (See Isaiah 2:10; Isaiah 2:19; Isaiah 2:21; Isaiah 4:5; Isaiah 28:5; Isaiah 33:17; Isaiah 33:21; Isaiah 60:1; Isaiah 60:19-20). So His glory and splendour will be seen by all flesh, and some will wither before it (Isaiah 40:6-8) and flee for a hiding place (compare Isaiah 2:10; Isaiah 2:19; Isaiah 2:21) while His people will rejoice in it and enjoy its splendour (Isaiah 24:23; Isaiah 60:19-20).
John saw this as fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. ‘And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14).
‘The voice of one saying, “Cry out.” And one said, “What shall I cry?” '
Compare here Daniel 12:5-6. Heavenly beings are involved in clarifying what is happening. They are here declaring doom on mankind in his frailty, and the certainty of the fulfilment of God's word. A Qumran scroll supported by the Greek and Latin versions, has ‘I said' but there is no known good reason for the change except that it is an obvious simplification.
“All flesh is as grass,
And all its covenant love is as the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
Because the breath (spirit) of Yahweh blows on it.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God will stand for ever.”
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 (chesed - covenant love to God and neighbour) 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. In Isaiah 37:27 this description of man as grass and vegetation is specifically referred to those too weak to stand against Assyria. In Psalms 103:15-16 it is referred to the brevity of life. It represents man in all his frailty.
The wind or spirit of Yahweh here indicates judgments (Isaiah 4:4). Once these come men are unable to stand against them, and their behaviour is badly affected by them. Their changeableness is made apparent. Here the thought is of the effect of the searing wind on vegetation in a hot country, causing it to wither, likening it to the effect of God acting on the generality of mankind.
But in contrast to their fickleness God's word stands for ever. It never withers or fades. He is unchangeable (see James 1:17). His promises never fail, His purposes always come to completion. He is totally reliable.
The overall thought connects with Isaiah 40:5 where all flesh sees the glory of Yahweh. But most are blasted over by it. It is only towards His own people that He acts in deliverance.