The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66

John N. Oswalt

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9781467423694
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This long-anticipated work completes John Oswalt's two-volume commentary on the book of Isaiah. After opening with a valuable discussion on the state of Isaiah studies today, Oswalt provides an insightful verse-by-verse explanation of Isaiah 40-66, giving special attention to the message of the prophet not only for his own time but also for modern readers.

TEXT AND COMMENTARY

IV. THE VOCATION OF SERVANTHOOD (40:1–55:13)

A. MOTIVE FOR SERVANTHOOD: GRACE (40:1–48:22)

1. THE SERVANT’S LORD (40:1–31)

a. The comforting Lord (40:1–11)

1“Comfort, comfort my people,” says1 your God.

2“Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and2 call out to her

that her hard service3 is completed,

that her iniquity is atoned for,4

that she has received from the hand of the Lord double5 for all

her sins.”

3A voice crying out,

“In the desert prepare the way of the Lord;

in the wilderness make a highway straight for our God.

4Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

rough places6 shall be made smooth,

and high places into a valley.

5Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed;

all flesh will see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6A voice saying, “Call out!”

I7 said, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass;

all its dependability8 is like the flower of the field.

7The grass dries up; the flower withers

when the breath of the Lord blows on it.

Surely the people are grass.9

8The grass dries up; the flower withers,

but the word of our God will stand forever.”

9Get up onto a high mountain,

Zion, herald of good news;

lift up your voice with strength,

Jerusalem, herald of good news.

Lift [it] up, do not be afraid;

say to the cities of Judah, “Look, it is your God.”

10See, as a strong one10 the Sovereign Lord11 comes,

and his arm will rule for him.

See, his wages are with him,

and his repayment is before him.

11Like a shepherd he will feed his flock;

with his arm he will gather the lambs

and carry [them] in his bosom.

He will lead the nursing ewes.

The recurring theme in chs. 7–39 was that God could be trusted in the face of the threats from the surrounding nations. Yet the people of Israel were continually tempted to trust other nations to help them. God’s response was to say that those other nations would fail them and the result would be destruction, sometimes from the very nation trusted for help (8:5–8; 30:1–5; etc.). Nevertheless, Isaiah had declared, God’s trustworthiness was so great that even after the well-deserved destruction had come, God would not forsake his own, but would deliver them from what had overtaken them (9:1–6 [Eng. 2–7]; 30:9–33; etc.).

Chapters 40–55, especially chs. 40–48, take up the latter part of the theme, showing how this truth will work itself out in the reality of the coming exile. God’s trustworthiness does not end at the point of disobedience. He was the Lord of history who delivered those who would obey (37:30–38), and he continues to be the Lord of history to deliver those who would disobey but would then turn to him in faith (44:24–28). Thus the path to servanthood for Israel lay through an experience of the utterly unmerited grace of God. He was not required to deliver them. They had been amply warned of the consequences of their disbelief. If they persisted, as persist they would, God would have no obligation to them whatsoever. Yet these chapters speak of a God who, knowing that his people would forsake him, nevertheless promises in advance to redeem them, and that “without silver and without price” (55:1). Surely this God can be trusted.

Chapters 40–48 particularly address the questions concerning God’s ability and desire to deliver that the exile would pose. This focus is evident immediately in ch. 40. Would not the exile prove that God had either forsaken his people or was not the Lord of history? Would it not mean that he had been unable to defend his people from the pagan nations or that he had been defeated by his people’s pernicious sinfulness? Isaiah’s answer to both questions is a resounding no! He shows that a new historical situation would not invalidate the truths he had proclaimed to Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Indeed, the new situation would only make those truths clearer. The exile would give God an even greater opportunity to show his sovereignty and his trustworthiness. Thus ch. 40, the introductory chapter, makes two points: God is the sole ruler of the universe (vv. 12–26), and he can be trusted to deliver (vv. 1–11, 27–31).

The basic content of chs. 41–48 can be stated fairly easily. God will demonstrate his absolute superiority over the idols by doing something new, something unheard-of to that point: causing a people, his people, to return from exile (41:1–44:22). He will do this by destroying proud Babylon through Cyrus, a previously unknown ruler who will not come from any of the established kingdoms of the Mesopotamian valley (44:23–47:15). A Jerusalem delivered through no merit or effort of its own would be the evidence of Yahweh’s claims (48:1–22).

Beyond these broad statements, however, scholars find it difficult to agree on the structure of the section. A survey of the commentaries as well as books and articles dealing with the subject leads to one conclusion: the number of opinions closely approximates the number of writers.12 Perhaps the main reason for this disagreement is the author’s tendency to repeat themes several times in differing relations to one another. This tendency leads scholars to create sometimes elaborate hypotheses of chiasm, parallelism, and so on. Unfortunately, the complexity of the material renders one proposed arrangement no more compelling than another. The general outline just given has some broad support. Any more detailed proposals should be offered only with some degree of diffidence.

As regards ch. 40, the main disagreement revolves around whether vv. 1–11 should stand alone as a prologue to chs. 40–55, with vv. 12–31 as the opening part of the body of what follows, or whether the entire chapter serves an introductory function. Since the two main questions addressed in chs. 40–48 concern God’s desire and ability to save, and since these are the two major issues addressed in ch. 40, it seems likely that the entire chapter is an introductory unit (see also Delitzsch, Pieper, Wright, Knight, etc.). This impression is strengthened by the forceful opening of ch. 41, with its call to the nations to enter into a disputation, an opening that suggests the start of a new literary unit.

Having said that ch. 40 functions in an introductory way, one must immediately qualify that statement. One should not think that the chapter introduces all the major themes of even chs. 41–48, let alone chs. 41–55 or chs. 41–66. Three major themes that are not touched on are witness, the Servant, and the salvation of the nations.13 Thus the chapter does not provide a summary of what follows but rather sets the stage. In so doing it establishes the tone (“Comfort my people”), and the bases (“All flesh is grass,” “Who is like me”) for the ensuing pronouncements. The chapter also functions as a bridge from the first part of the book. The theme of “comfort” was already introduced in ch. 12, while the “highway” had appeared in chs. 11, 19, 33, and 35. One can also hear overtones of ch. 6 as the prophet’s commission is now expanded to the word of hope that had previously been denied him (see below). In the entire chapter the central focus is on God. As noted above, this is in response to the questions about the character of God that the exile would pose for the theology promulgated in chs. 1–39.

Verses 1–11 provide a stirring opening for the new section of the prophecy.14 In four evenly balanced strophes the prophet lays the groundwork for the rest of the book. He establishes that the theme from this point on will no longer be judgment but restoration (vv. 1–2), that this restoration will be through the personal intervention of God (vv. 3–5), that no human force or condition can prevail against God’s promise (vv. 6–8), and that there is good news of divine might coupled with divine compassion (vv. 9–11).

Through the entire segment, speech is the prominent element. Eleven words relating to speaking appear. Three times the speech of God is mentioned. Alongside God’s voice are other voices, perhaps those of angels (see below on v. 2); there is also the voice of the prophet and the voice of Jerusalem. This good news must be spoken, announced, proclaimed.15 God has spoken, and who can keep silent? One must not overlook the understanding of salvation implied by all of this. As God breaks into the world and interprets his actions through inspired speech to and through inspired messengers, he provides the only hope for a fading, dying humanity. Humans may pass away like grass, but the Word of God will stand forever. That word is one of comfort and restoration because of atonement and forgiveness.

Some refer to this segment as an account of “Deutero-Isaiah’s” call (see, e.g., Whybray) and compare it to ch. 6. But such a comparison can only drive home the dramatic differences between the two accounts. One is chiefly struck by the indefiniteness here as opposed to the definiteness of ch. 6. There we know the time, the place, the characters, and the precise nature of the commission with perfect clarity. Here, if this setting is supposed to be different, we know next to nothing about any of these details. There is no hint of time or place; the voices are disembodied, without identification except for God, and even his representation is indirect. The only commission given directly to the prophet (and even this is subject to textual uncertainty; see below on v. 6) is to announce that all flesh is grass. If this is intended to report the call of another “Isaiah” in the tradition of ch. 6, it falls far short of that tradition.16

At the same time, some elements in 40:1–11 are certainly reminiscent of 6:1–13. The calling (qôrēʾ) voices of 40:3 remind us of the seraphim who called (qārāʾ) to each other in 6:3. The announcement that all flesh will see the glory (kābôd) of the Lord (40:5) recalls the statement of 6:3 that the whole earth is full of the glory (kābôd) of the Lord.

The prophet’s “What shall I say?” in 40:6 sounds like the response “How long?” in 6:11. Finally, the announcement of good news to the cities (ʿārê) of Judah (40:9) looks very much like a reversal of the command in 6:11 to speak the word of God until the cities (ʿārîm) lie in waste.17

What do these similarities and differences mean? The most likely meaning seems to be that the writer wants us to think of this not as a new call of a new person, but as an expansion and adaptation of the single Isaiah’s original call. As said in the introduct...