Be comforted, my people
1 Be comforted, my people,
be strengthened, says your God.
2 Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her
that her time of bondage is at an end,
that her guilt has been paid for,
that from the hand of Yahweh
she has received double punishment
for all her iniquity.
3 A voice cries,
“In the wilderness prepare the way for Yahweh.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley will be raised up;
every mountain and hill will be laid low.
The stumbling blocks shall become level
and the rugged places smooth.
5 The glory of Yahweh will be revealed,
and all mortals together will see it;
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Cry.”
and I say, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty as the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower wilts,
when the breath of Yahweh blows upon it.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will forever stand.”
9 Go up onto the high mountain, messenger of Zion,
lift up your voice with strength,
fear not to cry aloud when you tell Jerusalem
and announce to the cities of Judah:
Here is your God!
10 Here comes your God with might;
his strong arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and here before him is his booty.
11 Like a shepherd he tends his flock:
he gathers the lambs in his arms,
he carries them in his bosom,
gently leading those that are with young.
The great God
12 Who has measured the waters of the sea in a cupped hand,
or the breadth of the sky in the span of a hand?
Who has collected the sands of the earth?
Who has weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has probed the spirit of Yahweh
or as a counselor advised him?
14 Whom has he consulted to enlighten him,
and help him to decide?
Who gave him knowledge
and taught him the ways of success?
15 The nations before him are like a drop on the brim of the bucket,
or like dust on the scales.
The islands weigh no more than powder.
16 Lebanon is not enough to burn as altar fire,
nor will its animals provide a holocaust.
17 All nations before him are as nothing,
all emptiness, all vanity in his eyes.
18 To whom, then, will you liken God?
With whose image will you compare him?
19 To an idol cast by a craftsman,
covered with gold by a goldsmith
and adorned with silver chains?
20 Or to wood that will not rot, chosen and fashioned by a skilled craftsman into an image that cannot move?
21 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning,
that you may understand how the earth was founded?
22 He sits far above the vault of the earth,
with its inhabitants like grasshoppers;
he stretches out the heavens as a curtain
and spreads them out like a tent where he dwells.
23 He reduces the princes to naught,
and the rulers of the earth to nothingness.
24 No sooner are they planted or sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them, and they wither,
a storm sweeps them away like stubble.
25 To whom, then, will you liken me
or make me equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and see:
who has created all this?
He has ordered them as a starry host
and called them each by name.
So mighty is his power,
so great his strength,
that not one of them is missing.
27 How can you say, O Jacob,
how can you complain, O Israel,
that your destiny is hidden from me,
that your rights are ignored by Yah weh?
28 Have you not known, have you not heard
that Yahweh is an everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth?
He does not grow tired or weary,
his knowledge is without limit.
29 He gives strength to the enfeebled,
he gives vigor to the wearied.
30 Youth may grow tired and faint,
young men will stumble and fall,
31 but those who hope in Yahweh
will renew their strength.
They will soar as with eagle’s wings;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and never tire.
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Comments Isaiah, Chapter 40
• 40.1 The prophet discretely tells about his being called. As Isaiah, he is introduced in the Heavenly Council, where God, surrounded by his angels, makes his decisions. There, something mysterious is revealed to him:
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her… that her guilt has been paid for. Yahweh has forgiven his people, and because of this he is about to reestablish them in the Promised Land. They should not be overwhelmed by the prestige of the invincible Babylon where they live as exiles. All flesh (all mortals) is grass: means that the famous city is only a human construction and it would pass like human ambitions (see James 1:10); but God’s promises will always be fulfilled.
Angels are told to prepare for the return of the exiles. The arid and dangerous road of the desert would be leveled for them. And they will have a triumphant return. To all people (all flesh) in the world, the wonders would be so obvious that they would dis cover the glory of the one God and recog nize Yahweh.
Then, across time and space, the prophet addresses the new community to be born, in order to announce the Good News to them. This is the first time these words appear in the Bible.
Comfort is another new word. In the Bible, it does not mean that God brings us to resignation, or to passive observance, but rather encourages us to continue our mission. Thus, in the following chapters, the prophet would encourage the Jews to return, in spite of difficulties. In Paul’s let ters, we would find the words to comfort and encourage countless times. Like the other authors of the Bible, in recalling God’s promises, Paul invites us to struggle against the forces of evil with perseverance.
In the wilderness prepare the way for Yahweh. The prophet saw Yahweh walking ahead of his peo ple to guide them to their definitive homeland. When the exiles returned to Palestine, they realized that they neither found God nor a lasting peace: something was still missing which would only be ful filled centuries later. In fact, at the appointed time, John the Baptist appeared preach ing in the desert, and after him God “so that all mortals would see him,” as the Gospel points out (Lk 3:6).
• 12. In later chapters, we will read other poems resembling this one, stressing the greatness of the Lord of creation. This insistence should not surprise us. The prophet repeats the same arguments against idols, not so much to convince us, as to delight in repeating the same praise of the one God.
In Babylon without a temple or organized worship, the Jews saw the splendor of pagan worship. The imperial city calmly flaunted the superiority of its secular gods and its famous temples. It was then dispersed among foreign nations, that the Jews discovered that their faith could conquer the world: they alone knew where the world came from and where history was headed.
The Jews had experienced a God who was theirs, who saved them, but who exacted justice from them. In time they understood that Yahweh their God was none other than the master of the world, its laws, and all human kind. It was then that they became conscious of their mission to the world.
It could be the same for us. We should be conscious of the extent of our faith and appreciate the “absolute” the person of Christ is. Many are fond of him but without seeking to know who he is. They are not over-interested in knowing him in his concrete life, how he is portrayed in the Gospels: it is enough for them that his personality stands apart from all others. People formed by means of modern science know they are in solidarity with the whole universe. They know that a same power, a same law governs the stars, the atom including even the movements of the heart. Such persons cannot be satisfied with a Christ – “first revolutionary” or superman or great prophet. They have to see him as greater than the world and one whom they can adore as the Creator-made-human.
Here the prophet begins by evoking the extent and the mystery of creation: the universe we perceive on a starry night. He goes on to say that this God-Creator is active in events and gives life to the one who believes (40:29). It is he who announces his plans for deliverance (41:2).