Text -- Isaiah 40:8-31 (NET)

40:8 The grass dries up, the flowers wither, but the decree of our God is forever reliable.” 40:9 Go up on a high mountain, O herald Zion! Shout out loudly, O herald Jerusalem! Shout, don’t be afraid! Say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” 40:10 Look, the sovereign Lord comes as a victorious warrior; his military power establishes his rule. Look, his reward is with him; his prize goes before him. 40:11 Like a shepherd he tends his flock; he gathers up the lambs with his arm; he carries them close to his heart; he leads the ewes along.

The Lord is Incomparable

40:12 Who has measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand, or carefully measured the sky, or carefully weighed the soil of the earth, or weighed the mountains in a balance, or the hills on scales? 40:13 Who comprehends the mind of the Lord, or gives him instruction as his counselor? 40:14 From whom does he receive directions? Who teaches him the correct way to do things, or imparts knowledge to him, or instructs him in skillful design? 40:15 Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales. He lifts the coastlands as if they were dust. 40:16 Not even Lebanon could supply enough firewood for a sacrifice; its wild animals would not provide enough burnt offerings. 40:17 All the nations are insignificant before him; they are regarded as absolutely nothing. 40:18 To whom can you compare God? To what image can you liken him? 40:19 A craftsman casts an idol; a metalsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it. 40:20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over. 40:21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made? 40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, and spreads it out like a pitched tent. 40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant. 40:24 Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw. 40:25 “To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?” says the Holy One. 40:26 Look up at the sky! Who created all these heavenly lights? He is the one who leads out their ranks; he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing. 40:27 Why do you say, Jacob, Why do you say, Israel, “The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, My God is not concerned with my vindication”? 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is an eternal God, the creator of the whole earth. He does not get tired or weary; there is no limit to his wisdom. 40:29 He gives strength to those who are tired; to the ones who lack power, he gives renewed energy. 40:30 Even youths get tired and weary; even strong young men clumsily stumble. 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength; they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings, they run without growing weary, they walk without getting tired.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 40:8

¹ tn Heb “but the word of our God stands forever.” In this context the divine “word” specifically refers to his decreed promise assuring Jerusalem that her suffering is over and his glorious return imminent (vv. 1-5).

NET Notes: Isa 40:9

¹ tn The second feminine singular imperatives are addressed to personified Zion/Jerusalem, who is here told to ascend a high hill and proclaim the good news of the Lord’s return to the other towns of Judah. Isa 41:27 and 52:7 speak of a herald sent to Zion, but the masculine singular form מְבַשֵּׂר (mÿvaser) is used in these verses, in contrast to the feminine singular form מְבַשֶּׂרֶת (mÿvaseret) employed in 40:9, where Zion is addressed as a herald.

NET Notes: Isa 40:10

¹ tn Heb “comes as a strong one”; ASV “will come as a mighty one.” The preposition בְּ (bet) here carries the nuance “in the capacity of.” It indicates that the Lord possesses the quality expressed by the noun. See GKC 379 §119.i and HALOT 104 s.v. בְּ.

² tn Heb “his arm rules for him” (so NIV, NRSV). The Lord’s “arm” symbolizes his military power (see Isa 51:9-10; 63:5).

³ tn As the Lord returns to Jerusalem as a victorious warrior, he brings with him the spoils of victory, called here his “reward” and “prize.” These terms might also be translated “wages” and “recompense.” Verse 11 indicates that his rescued people, likened to a flock of sheep, are his reward.

NET Notes: Isa 40:11

¹ tn Heb “in his bosom” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV), an expression which reflects closeness and protective care.

NET Notes: Isa 40:12

¹ tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has מי ים (“waters of the sea”), a reading followed by NAB.

² tn Heb “with a span.” A “span” was the distance between the ends of the thumb and the little finger of the spread hand” (BDB 285 s.v. זֶרֶת).

³ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

⁴ tn Heb “or weighed by a third part [of a measure].”

⁵ sn The implied answer to the rhetorical questions of v. 12 is “no one but the Lord. The Lord, and no other, created the world. Like a merchant weighing out silver or commodities on a scale, the Lord established the various components of the physical universe in precise proportions.

NET Notes: Isa 40:13

¹ tn Perhaps the verb is used metonymically here in the sense of “advises” (note the following line).

² tn In this context רוּחַ (ruakh) likely refers to the Lord’s “mind,” or mental faculties, rather than his personal Spirit (see BDB 925 s.v.).

³ tn Heb “or [as] the man of his counsel causes him to know?”

NET Notes: Isa 40:14

¹ tn Heb “With whom did he consult, so that he gave discernment to him?”

² tn Heb “and taught him.” The vav (ו) consecutive with prefixed verbal form continues the previous line. The translation employs an interrogative pronoun for stylistic reasons.

³ tn The phrase אֹרַח מִשְׁפָּט (’orakh mishpat) could be translated “path of justice” (so NASB, NRSV), but in this context, where creative ability and skill is in view, the phrase is better understood in the sense of “the way that is proper or fitting” (see BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 6); cf. NIV, NCV “the right way.”

⁴ tn Heb “or the way of understanding causes him to know?”

sn The implied answer to the rhetorical questions in vv. 13-14 is, “No one.” In contrast to Marduk, the creator-god of Mesopotamian myths who receives help from the god of wisdom, the Lord neither needs nor receives any such advice or help. See R. Whybray, Heavenly Counsellor (SOTSMS), 64-77.

NET Notes: Isa 40:15

¹ tn Or “weighs” (NIV); NLT “picks up.”

² tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV, NLT).

NET Notes: Isa 40:16

¹ tn The words “for a sacrifice” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

² sn The point is that not even the Lebanon forest could supply enough wood and animals for an adequate sacrifice to the Lord.

NET Notes: Isa 40:17

¹ tn Heb “[as derived] from nothing and unformed.”

NET Notes: Isa 40:19

¹ tn Heb “pours out”; KJV “melteth.”

NET Notes: Isa 40:20

¹ tn The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan tÿrumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.

² tn Or “set up” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NASB “to prepare.”

NET Notes: Isa 40:22

¹ tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

² tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

³ tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).

⁴ tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.

⁵ tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”

NET Notes: Isa 40:25

¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

NET Notes: Isa 40:26

¹ tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”

² tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.

³ tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)

NET Notes: Isa 40:27

¹ tn Heb “my way is hidden from the Lord” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

² tn Heb “and from my God my justice passes away”; NRSV “my right is disregarded by my God.”

NET Notes: Isa 40:28

¹ tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.

² sn Exiled Israel’s complaint (v. 27) implies that God might be limited in some way. Perhaps he, like so many of the pagan gods, has died. Or perhaps his jurisdiction is limited to Judah and does not include Babylon. Maybe he is unable to devise an adequate plan to rescue his people, or is unable to execute it. But v. 28 affirms that he is not limited temporally or spatially nor is his power and wisdom restricted in any way. He can and will deliver his people, if they respond in hopeful faith (v. 31a).

NET Notes: Isa 40:30

¹ tn Heb “stumbling they stumble.” The verbal idea is emphasized by the infinitive absolute.

NET Notes: Isa 40:31

¹ tn The words “for the Lord’s help” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

² tn Heb “they rise up [on] wings like eagles” (TEV similar).