Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Isaiah Chapter 40

In this first address the prophet vindicates his call to be the preacher of the comfort of the approaching deliverance, and explains this comfort on the ground that Jehovah, who called him to this comforting proclamation, was the incomparably exalted Creator and Ruler of the world. The first part of this address (Isaiah 40:1-11) may be regarded as the prologue to the whole twenty-seven. The theme of the prophetic promise, and the irresistible certainty of its fulfilment, are here declared. Turning of the people of the captivity, whom Jehovah has neither forgotten nor rejected, the prophet commences thus in Isaiah 40:1: “ Comfort ye, comfort ye may people, saith your God. ” This is the divine command to the prophets. Nachămū ( piel, literally, to cause to breathe again) is repeated, because of its urgency ( anadiplosis, as in Isaiah 41:27; Isaiah 43:11, Isaiah 43:25, etc.). The word יאמר , which does not mean “will say” here (Hofmann, Stier), but “saith” (lxx, Jerome) - as, for example, in 1 Samuel 24:14 - affirms that the command is a continuous one. The expression “ saith your God ” is peculiar to Isaiah, and common to both parts of the collection (Isaiah 1:11, Isaiah 1:18; Isaiah 33:10; Isaiah 40:1, Isaiah 40:25; Isaiah 41:21; Isaiah 66:9). The future in all these passages is expressive of that which is taking place or still continuing. And it is the same here. The divine command has not been issued once only, or merely to one prophet, but is being continually addressed to many prophets. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” is the continual charge of the God of the exiles. who has not ceased to be their God even in the midst of wrath, to His messengers and heralds the prophets.

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The summons is now repeated with still greater emphasis, the substance of the consoling proclamation being also given. “Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her affliction is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins.” The holy city is thought of here in connection with the population belonging to it. על־לב דּבּר (to speak to the heart) is an expression applied in Genesis 34:3 and Judges 19:3 to words adapted to win the heart; in Genesis 50:21, to the words used by Joseph to inspire his brethren with confidence; whilst here it is used in precisely the same sense as in Hosea 2:16, and possibly not without a reminiscence of this earlier prophecy. אל קרא (to call to a person) is applied to a prophetic announcement made to a person, as in Jeremiah 7:27; Zechariah 1:4. The announcement to be made to Jerusalem is then introduced with כּי , ὅτι , which serves as the introduction to either an indirect or a direct address (Ges. §155, 1, e). (1.) Her affliction has become full, and therefore has come to an end. צבא , military service, then feudal service, and hardship generally (Job 7:1); here it applies to the captivity or exile - that unsheltered bivouac, as it were, of the people who had bee transported into a foreign land, and were living there in bondage, restlessness, and insecurity. (2.) Her iniquity is atoned for, and the justice of God is satisfied: nirtsâh , which generally denotes a satisfactory reception, is used here in the sense of meeting with a satisfactory payment, like עון רצה in Leviticus 26:41, Leviticus 26:43, to pay off the debt of sin by enduring the punishment of sin. (3.) The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone: Jerusalem has already suffered fully for her sins. In direct opposition to לקחה , which cannot, when connected with two actual perfects as it is here, be take as a perfect used to indicate the certainty of some future occurrence, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Stier, and Hahn suppose kiphlayim to refer to the double favour that Jerusalem was about to receive (like m ishneh in Isaiah 61:7, and possibly borrowed from Isaiah in Zechariah 9:12), instead of to the double punishment which Jerusalem had endured (like mishneh in Jeremiah 16:18). It is not to be taken, however, in a judicial sense; in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust. Jerusalem had not suffered more than its sins had deserved; but the compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant. This compassion also expresses itself in the words “for all” ( b e khol , c. Beth pretii): there is nothing left for further punishment. The turning-point from wrath to love has arrived. The wrath has gone forth in double measure. With what intensity, therefore, will the love break forth, which has been so long restrained!

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There is a sethume in the text at this point. The first two vv. form a small parashah by themselves, the prologue of the prologue. After the substance of the consolation has been given on its negative side, the question arises, What positive salvation is to be expected? This question is answered for the prophet, inasmuch as, in the ecstatic stillness of his mind as turned to God, he hears a marvellous voice. “Hark, a crier! In the wilderness prepare ye a way for Jehovah, make smooth in the desert a road for our God.” This is not to be rendered “a voice cries” (Ges., Umbreit, etc.); but the two words are in the construct state, and form an interjectional clause, as in Isaiah 13:4; Isaiah 52:8; Isaiah 66:6: Voice of one crying! Who the crier is remains concealed; his person vanishes in the splendour of his calling, and falls into the background behind the substance of his cry. The cry sounds like the long-drawn trumpet-blast of a herald (cf., Isaiah 16:1). The crier is like the outrider of a king, who takes care that the way by which the king is to go shall be put into good condition. The king is Jehovah; and it is all the more necessary to prepare the way for Him in a becoming manner, that this way leads through the pathless desert. Bammidbâr is to be connected with pannū , according to the accents on account of the parallel ( zakeph katan has a stronger disjunctive force here than zekpeh gadol , as in Deuteronomy 26:14; Deuteronomy 28:8; 2 Kings 1:6), though without any consequent collision with the New Testament description of the fulfilment itself. And so also the Targum and Jewish expositors take במדבר קור קול together, like the lxx, and after this the Gospels. We may, or rather apparently we must, imagine the crier as advancing into the desert, and summoning the people to come and make a road through it. But why does the way of Jehovah lie through the desert, and whither does it lead? It was through the desert that He went to redeem Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and to reveal Himself to Israel from Sinai (Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4; Psalms 88:8); and in Psalms 88:4 (5.) God the Redeemer of His people is called hârōkhēbh bâ‛ărâbhōth . Just as His people looked for Him then, when they were between Egypt and Canaan; so was He to be looked for by His people again, now that they were in the “desert of the sea” (Isaiah 21:1), and separated by Arabia deserta from their fatherland. If He were coming at the head of His people, He Himself would clear the hindrances out of His way; but He was coming through the desert to Israel, and therefore Israel itself was to take care that nothing should impede the rapidity or detract from the favour of the Coming One. The description answers to the reality; but, as we shall frequently find as we go further on, the literal meaning spiritualizes itself in an allegorical way.

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The summons proceeds in a commanding tone. “Let every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; and let the rugged be made a plain, and the ledges of rocks a valley.” והיה , which takes its tone from the two jussive verbs, is also itself equivalent to ויהי . Instead of גּיא (from גּיא ), the pointing in Zechariah 14:4, we have here (according to Kimchi) the vowel-pointing גּיא ; at the same time, the editions of Brescia, Pesaro, Venice 1678, have גּיא (with tzere), and this is also the reading of a codex of Luzzatto without Masoretic notes. The command, according to its spiritual interpretation, points to the encouragement of those that are cast down, the humiliation of the self-righteous and self-secure, the changing of dishonesty into simplicity, and of unapproachable haughtiness into submission (for ‛ âqōbh , hilly, rugged,

(Note: In this ethical sense Essex applied the word to Queen Elizabeth. See Hefele, Ximenes, p. 90 (ed. 2).)

compare Jeremiah 17:9 together with Habakkuk 2:4). In general, the meaning is that Israel is to take care, that the God who is coming to deliver it shall find it in such an inward and outwards state as befits His exaltation and His purpose.

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The cry of the crier proceeds thus in Isaiah 40:5: “And the glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh seeth together: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.” The pret. cons. קנגלה is here apodosis imper. When the way is prepared for Jehovah the Coming One, the glory of the God of salvation will unveil itself (on the name Jehovah, which is applied to God, the absolute I, as living and revealing Himself in history, more especially in the history of salvation). His parousia is the revelation of His glory (1 Peter 4:13). This revelation is made for the good of Israel, but not secretly or exclusively; for all the human race, called here designedly “all flesh” ( kol bâsâr ), will come to see it (compare Luke 3:6, “the salvation of God”). Man, because he is flesh, cannot see God without dying (Exodus 33:20); but the future will fill up this gulf of separation. The object to the verb “see” is not what follows, as Rosenmüller supposes, viz., “that the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken,” for the word of promise which is here fulfilled is not one addressed to all flesh; nor does it mean, “see that Jehovah hath spoken with His own mouth,” i.e., after having become man, as Stier maintains, for the verb required in this case would be מדבּר , not דּבּר . The clause, “for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it,” is rather Isaiah's usual confirmation of the foregoing prophecy. Here the crier uses it to establish the certainty of what he foretells, provided that Israel will do what he summons it to perform.

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The prophet accordingly now takes, as his standpoint, the time when Jehovah will already have come. “Upon a high mountain get thee up, O evangelistess Zion; lift up they voice with strength, evangelistess Jerusalem: lift up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God.” Knobel and others follow the lxx and Targum, and regard Zion and Jerusalem as accusatives of the object, viz., “preacher of salvation (i.e., a chorus of preachers) to Zion-Jerusalem;” but such parallels as Isaiah 52:7 and Isaiah 62:11 are misleading here. The words are in apposition (A. S. Th. εὐαγγελιζομένη Σιών ). Zion-Jerusalem herself is called an evangelistess: the personification as a female renders this probable at the outset, and it is placed beyond all doubt by the fact, that it is the cities of Judah (the daughters of Zion-Jerusalem) that are to be evangelized. The prophet's standpoint here is in the very midst of the parousia. When Jerusalem shall have her God in the midst of her once more, after He has broken up His home there for so long a time; she is then, as the restored mother-community, to ascend a high mountain, and raising her voice with fearless strength, to bring to her daughters the joyful news of the appearance of their God. The verb bissēr signifies literally to smooth, to unfold, then to make glad, more especially with joyful news.

(Note: The verb bissēr signifies primarily to stroke, rub, shave, or scratch the surface of anything; then to stroke off or rub off the surface, or anything which covers it; then, suggested by the idea of “rubbing smooth” ( glatt ), “to smooth a person” ( jemanden glätten ; compare the English, to gladden a person), i.e., vultum ejus diducere , to make him friendly and cheerful, or “to look smoothly upon a person,” i.e., to show him a friendly face; and also as an intransitive, “ to be glad,” to be friendly and cheerful; and lastly, in a general sense, aliquid attingere , tractare , attrectare , to grasp or handle a thing (from which comes bâsâr , the flesh, as something tangible or material). In harmony with the Hebrew bissēr (Jeremiah 20:15), they say in Arabic basarahu (or intensive, bassarahu ) bi - maulûdin , he has gladdened him with the news of the birth of a son.)

It lies at the root of the New Testament εὐαγγελίζειν (evangelize), and is a favourite word of the author of chapters 40-66, that Old Testament evangelist, though it is no disproof of Isaiah's authorship (cf., Nahum 2:1). Hitherto Jerusalem has been in despair, bowed down under the weight of the punishment of her sins, and standing in need of consolation. But now that she has Jehovah with her again, she is to lift up her voice with the most joyful confidence, without further anxiety, and to become, according to her true vocation, the messenger of good tidings to all Judaea.

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In Isaiah 40:10 the prophet goes back from the standpoint of the fulfilment to that of the prophecy. “Behold the Lord, Jehovah, as a mighty one will He come, His arm ruling for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His retribution before Him.” We must not render the first clause “with strong,” i.e., with strength, as the lxx and Targum do. The Beth is Beth essentiae (cf., Isaiah 26:4; Ges. §154, 3, a). He will come in the essence, strength, and energy of a strong one; and this is still further defined by the participial, circumstantial clause, “His arm ruling for Him” ( brachio suo ipsi dominante ). It is His arm that rules for Him, i.e., that either brings into subjection to Him, or else overthrows whatever opposes Him. Nevertheless, Isaiah 40:10 does not present Him merely in one aspect, namely as coming to judge and punish, but in both aspects, viz., that of the law and that of the gospel, as a righteous rewarder; hence the double name of God, Adonai Jehovah (compare Isaiah 3:15; Isaiah 28:16; Isaiah 30:15, all in the first part), which is used even in the Pentateuch, and most frequently by Amos and Ezekiel, and which forms, as it were, an anagram. פּעלּה is already met with in Leviticus 19:13 as a synonym of שׂכר , passing from the general idea of work to that of something earned and forfeited. Jehovah brings with Him the penal reward of the enemies of His people, and also the gracious reward of the faithful of His people, whom He will compensate for their previous sufferings with far exceeding joys (see Isaiah 62:11).

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The prophet dwells upon this, the redeeming side not the judicial, as he proceeds to place the image of the good shepherd by the side of that of the Lord Jehovah. “He will feed His flock like a shepherd, take the lambs in His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are giving suck.” The flock is His people, now dispersed in a foreign land. The love with which He tends this flock is shown, by way of example, in His conduct towards the טלאים (= טליים from טלי = טלה ), the young lambs that have not long been born, and the עלות , those giving suck, lactantes (Vulg. fetae ), not those that are sucking, sugentes (from עוּל med. Vav, to nourish). Such as cannot keep pace with the flock he takes in his arms, and carries in the bosom of his dress; and the mothers he does not overdrive, but ינהל (see at Psalms 23:2), lets them go gently alone, because they require care (Genesis 33:13). With this loving picture the prologue in Isaiah 40:1-11 is brought to a close. It stands at the head of the whole, like a divine inauguration of the prophet, and like the quintessence of what he is commanded to proclaim. Nevertheless it is also an integral part of the first address. For the questions which follow cannot possibly be the commencement of the prophecy, though it is not very clear how far they form a continuation.

The connection is the following: The prophet shows both didactically and paraenetically what kind of God it is whose appearance to redeem His people has been prophetically announced in Isaiah 40:1-11. He is the incomparably exalted One. This incomparable exaltation makes the ignorance of the worshipers of idols the more apparent, but it serves to comfort Israel. And Israel needs such consolation in its present banishment, in which it is so hard for it to comprehend the ways of God.

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In order to bring His people to the full consciousness of the exaltation of Jehovah, the prophet asks in Isaiah 40:12, “Who hath measured the waters with the hollow of his hand, and regulated the heavens with a span, and taken up the dust of the earth in a third measure, and weighed the mountains with a steelyard, and hills with balances?” Jehovah, and He alone, has given to all these their proper quantities, their determinate form, and their proportionate place in the universe. How very little can a man hold in the hollow of his hand ( shō‛al )!

(Note: The root שׁל , Arab. sl has the primary meaning of easily moving or being easily moved; then of being loose or slack, of hanging down, or sinking-a meaning which we meet with in שׁעל and שׁאל . Accordingly, shō ‛ al signifies the palm (i.e., the depression made by the hand), and sh e ' ōl not literally a hollowing or cavity, but a depression or low ground.)

how very small is the space which a man's span will cover! how little is contained in the third of an ephah ( shâlı̄sh ; see at Psalms 80:6)! and how trifling in either bulk or measure is the quantity you can weight in scales, whether it be a peles , i.e., a steelyard ( statera), or mō'zenayim , a tradesman's balance ( bilances ), consisting of two scales.

(Note: According to the meaning, to level or equalize, which is one meaning of pillēs , the noun peles is applied not only to a level used to secure equilibrium, which is called mishqeleth in Isaiah 28:17, but also to a steelyard used for weighing, the beam of which consists of a lever with unequal arms, which flies up directly the weight is removed.)

But what Jehovah measures with the hollow of His hand, and with His span, is nothing less than the waters beneath and the heavens above. He carries a scoop, in which there is room for all the dust of which the earth consists, and a scale on which He has weighed the great colossal mountains.

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From His exaltation as Creator, the prophet now proceeds to His exaltation as Governor of the world. “Behold, nations like a little drop on a bucket, and like a grain of sand in a balance, are they esteemed; behold, islands like an atom of dust that rises in the air.” Upon Jehovah, the King of the world, does the burden rest of ruling over the whole human race, which is split up into different nations; but the great masses of people over whom Jehovah rules are no more burden to Him than a drop hanging upon a bucket is a burden to the man who carries it ( min is used in the same sense as in Song of Solomon 4:1; Song of Solomon 6:5), no more than the weight in a balance is perceptibly increased or diminished by a grain of sand that happens to lie upon it ( shachaq , from shâchaq , to grind to powder). The islands, those fragments of firm ground in the midst of the ocean ( אי = ivy, from אוה , to betake one's self to a place, and remain there), upon which the heathen world was dispersed (Gen 10), are to Him who carries the universe like the small particle of dust ( דּק from דּקק , to crush or pulverize), which is lifted up, viz., by the slightest breath of wind ( יטּול metaplastic fut. niph. of tūl = nâtal , cf., Isaiah 63:9). The rendering of Knobel, “dust which is thrown,” would require עפר (Isaiah 41:2); and neither that of Gesenius, viz., “He takes up islands like a particle of dust,” nor that of Hitzig, “He carries islands,” etc., is admissible, for טוּל = נטל signifies tollere , not portare ; and the former, viz., insulas tollit , furnishes no answer to the question, “How so, and to what end?”

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By the side of this vanishing diminutiveness on the part of man as contrasted with Jehovah, everything by which man could express his adoration of the exalted One comes incomparably short of His exaltation. “And Lebanon is not a sufficiency of burning, nor its game a sufficiency of burnt-offerings;” i.e., there is not enough wood to sustain the fire, nor a sufficient supply of sacrificial animals to be slaughtered, and to ascend in fire. דּי (constr. דּי ) signifies that which suffices (and then that which is plentiful); it differs therefore from τὸ δέον , what is requisite.

(Note: The derivation of דּי is still more obscure than that of δεῖ , which signifies, according to Benfey ( Wurzelwörterbuch, ii. 205), “there needs;” according to Sonne, “it binds, scil. ἡ ἀνάγκη .”)

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From the obverse of the thought in Isaiah 40:15 the prophet returns to the thought itself, and dwells upon it still further. “All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are regarded by Him as belonging to nullity and emptiness.” 'Ephes is the end at which a thing ceases, and in an absolute sense that at which all being ceases, hence non-existence or nullity. Tōhū (from tâhâh , related to shâ'âh ; vid., Comm. on Job, at Job 37:6), a horrible desolation, like the chaos of creation, where there is nothing definite, and therefore as good as nothing at all; min is hardly comparative in the sense of “more nothing than nothing itself” (Like Job 11:17, where “brighter” is to be supplied, or Micah 7:4, where “sharper” is similarly required), but is used in the same partitive sense as in Isaiah 41:24 (cf., Isaiah 44:11 and Psalms 62:10).

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The conclusion drawn from Isaiah 40:17, that Jehovah is therefore the matchless Being, shapes itself into a question, which is addressed not to idolaters, but to such of the Israelites as needed to be armed against the seductive power of idolatry, to which the majority of mankind had yielded. “And to whom can ye liken God, and what kind of image can ye place beside Him!” The ו before ואל is conclusive, as in Isaiah 28:26, and the futures are modi potent.: with what can ye bring into comparison ( אל as in Isaiah 14:10) El , i.e., God, the one Being who is absolutely the Mighty? and what kind of d e mūth (i.e., divine, like Himself) can ye place by His side?

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Least of all can an idol bear comparison with Him. “The idol, when the smith has cast it, the melter plates it with gold, and melteth silver chains for it.” The object ( happesel , the idol), which is here placed first as the theme in the accusative (lit. the image hewn out), denotes in this instance an idol generally. חרשׁ is as comprehensive as faber. בּזּהב רקּע signifies here to cover over with a זהב רקּע ( laminâ auri ), the verb being used in a denominative sense, and not in its primary meaning. As we must assume, according to Isaiah 40:20, that the prophet intends to carry us into the midst of the process of manufacturing the idol, the paratactic expression is to be pointed as above, viz., “after the (a) smith has cast it (compare Arab. nasik , a piece of cast metal), the (a) melter (goldsmith) covers it with gold plate;” and tsōrēph , which is palindromically repeated, according to Isaiah's custom, is not the third pers. poel (on the poel of strong stems, see at Job 9:15 and Psalms 109:10), but a participle, equivalent to הוּא צורף (as in Isaiah 29:8, which see; and also, according to the accents, Isaiah 33:5), “and he melteth chains of silver,” viz., to fasten the image.

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This is the origin of a metal idol. The wooden idol is described in Isaiah 40:20: “The man who is impoverished in oblations, he chooseth a block of wood that will not rot; he seeketh for himself a skilful smith, to prepare an idol that will not shake.” He who has fallen into such poverty that he can only offer to his God a poor oblation ( t e rūmâh , accusative, according to Ewald, §284, c), has an idol cut for himself out of a block of wood. That sâkhan (Arab. sakana or sakuna )

(Note: Both forms occur in this sense, according to the evidence of original sources, with the common imperative yaskunu , the infinitive sukūne passed over by Freytag, the verbal substantive m askane , and the adjective m iskin or m eskin , primarily to be forced to inactivity through weakness, destitution, or outward influences, not to be able to move and exert one's self; or, more particularly, not to be able to defend one's self (as it were to be obliged to sit still or keep still). Hence more especially opibus et facultatibus carens , being in distress, destitute, poor.)

is an ancient word, is evident from Deuteronomy 8:9. The verb yimmōt , like yittōl in Isaiah 40:15, is a fut. niphal, to be made to shake. A wooden image, which is planed at the bottom, and made heavier below than above, to prevent its falling over with every shock, is to be a god! The thing carries its own satire, even when described with the greatest seriousness.

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Having thus depicted in a few strokes the infatuation of idolatry, the prophet addresses the following question to such of the Israelites as are looking at it with longing eye, even if they have not already been deluded by it. “Do ye not know? Do ye not hear? Is it not proclaimed to you from the beginning? Have ye not obtained an insight into the foundations of the earth?” We have here four questions chiastically arranged. The absolute being of God, which is above all created things, is something which may be either inferred per ratiocinationem , or learned per traditionem . When Israel failed to acknowledge the absolute distinctness and unequalled supremacy of Jehovah its God, it hardened itself against the knowledge which it might acquire even in a natural way (cf., Psalms 19:1-14 and Romans 1:20), and shut its ears against the teaching of revelation and tradition, which had come down from the very beginning of its history. The first two questions are construed with futures, the other two with perfects; the former refer to what is possible, the latter to what is an actual fact. Have you - this is the meaning of the four questions - have you obtained no knowledge of the foundations of the earth, namely, as to the way in which they were laid?

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The prophet now proceeds to describe the God whom both His works and word proclaim. The participles which follow are predicates of the subject, which filled the consciousness of the prophet as well as that of every believer. “He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants resemble grasshoppers; who has spread out the heavens like gauze, and stretched them out like a tent-roof to dwell in.” He, the manifested and yet unknown, is He who has for His throne the circle of the heavens ( chūg shâmayim , Job 22:14), which arches over the earth, and to whom from His inaccessible height men appear as diminutive as grasshoppers (Numbers 13:33); He who has spread out the blue sky like a thin transparent garment ( dōq , a thin fabric, like daq , fine dust, in Isaiah 40:15), and stretched it out above the earth like a tent for dwelling in ( 'ōhel

(Note: The noun 'ōhel is derived from the root אל , from which come Arab. 'wl , coaluit , cohaesit , to thicken within or gain consistency (hence, regarded on another side, to lose in outward extent or outward bulk, to shrink; to go back to its original or essential condition; to issue in something as the final result; or generally, to draw back or return from a distance), and Arab. 'h' , to attach one's self or accustom one's self to a person or thing, equivalent to alifa and anisa; to take up one's abode in a place, or absolutely, to commence housekeeping by marrying, like the Italian accasarsi , Turkish ewlenmek (from ew , a house); or, when applied to a place itself, to be habitable, inhabited, and cultivated (= pass. uhila , more especially in the participle âhil , = ‛ âmir = m a‛mūr ). (Hence ahl , one who belongs to a person or place, with its numerous applications, and also אהל , a tent (primarily a dwelling generally, Engl. abode), which stands at the end of this etymological series.)

lâshebheth ). The participle brings to view the actions and circumstances of all times. In the present instance, where it is continued in the historical sense, it is to be resolved into the perfect; in other cases, the preservation of the world is evidently thought of as a creatio continua (see Psychol. P. 111).

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The thought of Isaiah 40:18 now recurs like a refrain, a conclusion being appended to the premises by means of ו , as was the case there. “And to whom will ye compare me, to whom I can be equal? saith the Holy One.” Not haqqâdōsh , because a poetical or oratorical style omits the article wherever it can be dispensed with. The Holy One asks this, and can ask it, because as such He is also exalted above the whole world (Job 15:15; Job 25:5).

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After the questions in Isaiah 40:18 and Isaiah 40:25, which close syllogistically, a third start is made, to demonstrate the incomparable nature of Jehovah. “Lift up your eyes on high, and see: who hath created these things? It is He who bringeth out their host by number, calleth them all by names, because of the greatness of ( His) might, and as being strong in power: there is not one that is missing.” Jehovah spoke in Isaiah 40:25; now the prophet speaks again. We have here the same interchange which occurs in every prophetic book from Deuteronomy downwards, and in which the divine fulness of the prophets is displayed. The answer does not begin with המּוציא , in the sense of “He who brings them out has created them;” but the participle is the predicate to the subject of which the prophet's soul is full: Jehovah, it is He who brings out the army of stars upon the plane of heaven, as a general leads out his army upon the field of battle, and that b e mispâr , by number, counting the innumerable stars, those children of light in armour of light, which meet the eye as it looks up by night. The finite verb יקרא denotes that which takes place every night. He calls them all by name (comp. the derivative passage, Psalms 147:4): this He does on account of the greatness and fulness of His might ( 'ōnı̄m , vires , virtus ), and as strong in power, i.e., because He is so. This explanation is simpler than Ewald's (§293, c), viz., “because of the power ( τὸ κρατερὸν ) of the Strong One.” The call addressed to the stars that are to rise is the call of the Almighty, and therefore not one of all the innumerable host remains behind. אישׁ individualizes; נעדּר (participle), as in Isaiah 34:16, suggests the idea of a sheep that is missed from the flock through staying behind. The second part of the address closes here, having demonstrated the folly of idolatry from the infinite superiority of God; and from this the third part deduces consolation for Israel in the midst of its despair.

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Such of the Israelites are required first of all to be brought to a consciousness of the folly of idolatry are not called Israel at all, because they place themselves on a part with the gōyı̄m . But now the prophet addresses those of little faith, who nevertheless desire salvation; those who are cast down, but not in utter despair. “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hidden from Jehovah, and my right is overlooked by my God?” The name Jacob stands here at the head, as in Isaiah 29:22, as being the more exquisite name, and the one which more immediately recalled their patriarchal ancestor. They fancied that Jehovah had completely turned away from them in wrath and weariness. “My way” refers to their thorny way of life; “my right” ( m ishpâtı̄ ) to their good right, in opposition to their oppressors. Of all this He appeared to take no notice at all. He seemed to have no thought of vindicating it judicially (on the double min, away from him, see Ges. §154, 3, c).

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The groundlessness of such despondency is set before them in a double question. “Is it not known to thee, or hast thou not heard, an eternal God is Jehovah, Creator of the ends of the earth: He fainteth not, neither becomes weary; His understanding is unsearchable.” Those who are so desponding ought to know, if not from their own experience, at least from information that had been handed down, that Jehovah, who created the earth from one end to the other, so that even Babylonian was not beyond the range of His vision or the domain of His power, was an eternal God, i.e., a God eternally the same and never varying, who still possessed and manifested the power which He had displayed in the creation. Israel had already passed through a long history, and Jehovah had presided over this, and ruled within it; and He had not so lost His power in consequence, as to have now left His people to themselves. He does not grow faint, as a man would do, who neglected to take the repeated nourishment requisite to sustain the energy of his vital power; nor does He become weary, like a man who has exhausted his capacity for work by over-exertion. And if He had not redeemed His people till then, His people were to know that His course was pure t e bhūnâh or understanding, which was in the possession of infallible criteria for determining the right point of time at which to interpose with His aid.

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Jehovah is so far from becoming faint, that it is He who gives strength to the fainting. “Giving power to the faint, and to the incapable He giveth strength in abundance.” אונים לאין is equivalent to אונים אין לאשׁר אין is used exactly like a privative to form a negative adjective (e.g., Psalms 88:5; Proverbs 25:3).

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