The preceding section answered the question that the people of Isaiah's day had about God's desire to deliver them. Yes, He wantedto deliver them. This section answered their question about whether He could save them. Yes, He couldsave them. Isaiah used the doctrine of God to assure the Judahites of their security and of God's faithfulness. He is the sole Creator, and He is infinitely greater than the created world. The passage has two parts (vv. 12-20 and 21-26), which questions introduce.
40:12 The opposites of waters and heavens, and dust and mountains, express the totality of God's careful and effortless workmanship in creation. The question is rhetorical (cf. Job 38:41). No one but the Lord is the creator.
40:13-14 The questions in these verses call for the same response. God was not only alone in the work of creation, but He is alone in the wisdom needed to execute it (cf. Job 38:2-39:30).
"He who has measured the creation cannot be measured by the creation."399
"In Babylonian mythology, the creator god Marduk could not proceed with creation without consulting Ea, the all-wise', but the Lord works with unaided wisdom. In both Babylonian and Canaanite creation stories the creator must overcome opposing forces before the way opens for the work of creation."400
The Spirit of the Lord was the executive of God in creation (cf. Gen. 1:2).401We could interpret "Spirit"as the mind of the Lord (cf. Rom. 11:34; 1 Cor. 2:16).402It may refer to the volitional, affective, and cognitive aspects of God's intelligence, in other words, His inner workings. God alone saw to the heart of things in creation and made the correct decisions at the proper time. No one advised Him in His creation or in His administration of the world.
40:15-17 The product as well as the process of creation reflect on God's immensity. He is larger than human collective strength, than the inanimate creation, than human worship, larger even than the totality of humankind. The creation is no challenge to the Creator.
40:18 The transcendent God (Heb. el) is incomparable; no one and nothing approaches Him in His greatness and glory.
40:19-20 How ridiculous, then, it is to practice idolatry (cf. 41:6-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7). Idols were likenesses of gods, but Yahweh is beyond compare. The value of an idol depended on the financial condition of the devotee. Idols are less impressive than the metals that people use to make them and less strong than the trees from which they fashion them. The best idols are immobile; they will not topple over (cf. 1 Sam. 5:2-5). But the living God is active in life, not just a product of the earth. Isaiah poured on the irony in these verses.
The prophet's emphasis shifted from God as Creator to God as Ruler, but still the point is His incomparability.
40:21 There are lessons that people should draw from the uniqueness of God as Creator that He has revealed. God has given both the objective revelation of Himself and the ability to understand its implications to human beings. The Israelites possessed this knowledge of God because He revealed it to them. Special revelation is in view here rather than natural revelation.
"According to this verse there are two reasons why men who practice idolatry are without excuse. On the one hand, the very foundation of the earth is a testimony that God is the Creator. On the other, from the beginning the truth has been taught by word of mouth, so that those who have not been willing to hear it are without excuse [cf. Rom. 1]."403
40:22 The same God who created the world presides over its affairs. He creates history as well as the material universe. The "vault"or "circle"of the earth probably refers to the heavens above as people perceive it (cf. Job 22:14) or, perhaps, to the horizon (cf. Job 16:10; Prov. 8:27).404God sits above them both. He is so great that people are as small as grasshoppers in comparison. The whole of the universe, the heavens and the earth, are as a tent to Him because He is so immense.
40:23-24 People of position and office, as well as the decision-makers of the world, may appear to wield power, but they are really under the enthroned God's authority. He can dispose of any human leader because He is over all of them. He can dispense with them just as easily as He can make flowers wither and blow chaff away (cf. vv. 6-8). He can reduce them to a state of comparative nothingness (Heb. tohu; cf. Gen. 1:2). Thus He is not only superior but sovereign. Furthermore, He is imminent as well as transcendent. God did not just create the world and then abandon it, as deism teaches.
40:25 This verse restates the question in verse 18 but puts it in the mouth of God this time. Not only is God infinitely superior to anyone else in power, wisdom, dignity, sovereignty, and authority, but, far more significantly, in His holiness. He is unattainable and unassailable in His moral perfections; He is wholly other.
40:26 The stars were objects of worship and signs of divine activity in Babylonian and Canaanite worship (cf. 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3). But they were only creations. The pagan cults assigned them names, but the Lord summons and directs them using their real names, the names that He as their sovereign assigns them. In the ancient world, to know the name of something was to know its essence and so have power over it. Innumerable as they may be to humans, the Lord knows and controls each one of the heavenly bodies.
"Isaiah has insisted on the absolute transcendence of God: he is not part of the cosmos in any way, and the cosmos is not part of him [in contrast to pantheism and panantheism]. But to carry that line to its logical conclusion as Aristotle did is to end with a passionless, colorless force as the source of everything. It is to say that personality is an accident in time. Isaiah will not go that way. He insists on transcendence, but leaves no doubt that the Transcendent is a person with all that that means. When all is said and done, the combination of these two may be Israel's greatest contribution to human thought."405
