The Greatness Of God Proclaimed (Isaiah 40:12-31).
And He will be able to do it 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.
He Is Over Creation.
‘Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?
And measured the heavens with a span?
And enveloped the dust of the earth in a measure?
And 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 jug (literally ‘his third'), 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.
He Is Omniscient.
‘Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh?
Or being his counsellor, has taught him?
With whom did he take counsel and who instructed him?
And who taught him in the path of judgment?
And 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.
This is in contrast with the myths of the nations where the gods regularly make mistakes, consult and seek counsel, and have to learn and grow in knowledge and understanding. When the Babylonian god Marduk is depicted as wanting to ‘create' he did not just act of himself, he sought the guidance of Ea, the all-wise. But they are to recognise that in reality all advice and counsel comes from Yahweh.
He Is Greater Than All.
Behold the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust of the balance.
Behold he takes up the isles as a very small thing,
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before him,
They are counted to him less than nothing, and emptiness.
Look! They should be aware that even the greatest nation is like a drop of water at the bottom of a bucket as God 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.
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 nought, 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).
He Is Divinely Incomparable.
‘To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to him?
The graven image? A workman casts it,
And the goldsmith covers it with gold,
And casts for it silver chains.
He who is too poor for such an offering,
Chooses a tree that will not rot.
He seeks for himself a skilful craftsman,
To set up a graven image that will not be moved.'
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?
As often when idols are mentioned the description is pragmatic. The idea is that the worshippers may sense something beyond the idols, but that really there is nothing. Both Old and New Testament however go further and say that what lies behind them is devils (1 Corinthians 10:19-20; Deuteronomy 32:17).
He Is Supremely Great Beyond All Things and All Men, King Over All.
‘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?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are as grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain,
And spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.
Who brings princes to nothing,
He makes the judges of the earth as nought.
Yes, they have not been planted, yes, they have not been sown,
Yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth,
What is more he blows on them and they wither,
And the whirlwind takes them away as 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 circle of the earth probably has in mind the course of the sun, rising from the east and setting in the west, and then going below the earth to arise again on the east. Or it could refer to the circle of the horizon. We should not read into this scientific ideas, even ancient scientific ideas. Few asked those kinds of questions. They described what they saw. Such questions were for Babylonian priests who did engage in such speculation, not for small country savants. No one in Judah would have a theory about the world, other than that they knew that God had made the world. They knew that He had made it as it was and they simply described it as they saw it without speculating.
‘Its inhabitants are as grasshoppers.' This description 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.
‘Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in. Who brings princes to nothing, He makes the judges of the earth as nought.' That is, God 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 (Genesis 18:25).
‘Yes, they have not been planted, yes, they have not been sown, yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth. What is more He blows on them and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.' Such prince and judges are transitory, here today and gone tomorrow. They are hardly planted, or sown, or take root when God blows so that they wither, and then as stubble the whirlwind takes them away. He is permanent, they are temporary. It is His wind and breath that controls all things.
The main purpose behind all this is to describe the greatness of the Creator and the minuteness of those whom He has created, specially those whom men fear, and to put them into the context of the magnificence of God.
“To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal to him?” 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.
‘Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these,
Who brings out their host by number.
He calls them all by name.
By the greatness of his might,
And because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.'
He calls on them to survey the stars, the host of heaven. They are all His creation. He simply calls them ‘these'. We can compare how the creation story dismissed them in a phrase, ‘He made the stars also' (Genesis 1:16). But 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 (Psalms 147:4). 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.
‘‘Lift up your eyes on high.' Compare here Deuteronomy 4:19 where the verb is used of those who lift up their eyes to heaven to worship the star-gods. What folly! Here they are to lift up their eyes above the heavens to see the Creator of the stars, to Whom all the stars belong.
‘Who brings out their host.' The word for ‘bring out' is a military term, as is clear from Isaiah 43:17 and 2 Samuel 5:2. It is similarly applied the host of heaven in Job 38:32. The sense is that the stars are like an army which its leader ‘brings out' and enumerates.
Israel Cannot Hide Their Ways from God.
‘Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel, saying
“My way is hid from Yahweh,
And my case is being disregarded 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 Chapter s. 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 (Isaiah 11:11), 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?
‘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 the supplanter 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.
‘Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
Does not faint, nor is weary.
There is no searching of his understanding.'
His first challenge concerns Himself. Do they not recognise 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.
‘He gives power to the faint,
And to him who has no might he increases strength.'
If they had only trusted in Him and waited on Him (Isaiah 40:31) 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.
‘Even the youths will be faint and be weary,
And the young men will utterly fail.
But those who wait on Yahweh will renew their strength,
They will mount up with wings as eagles,
They will run and not be weary,
They will walk and not faint.'
What they must do is recognise 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. 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 (compare Isaiah 60:8; Psalms 55:6). 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' (Isaiah 40:9). He is there ready to reveal Himself, to come among men in His glory (Isaiah 40:1-11). He has revealed the greatness of What He is (Isaiah 40:12-26). 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. First when men behold God in Jesus Christ (John 1:14), and respond to Him. And then in the final day when they will truly mount up on wings as eagles, meeting the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), ever to be with Him.
We may rightly see in this chapter an expansion of Isaiah 6. But here we have, not the Lord seated on His throne, but the Lord enthroned over all things,