By David C. Jarnes
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for May 15–21, 2004, on Isaiah 40
Between the time I received the assignment to write on Isaiah 40 and the time I got my thoughts down on paper, my father suffered his final illness. Dad was physically active through most of his life. A pastor, he’d built several churches—and I mean literally built them, doing everything from pouring and finishing the concrete through plumbing and wiring to roofing the buildings. Parkinson’s progressively stiffened him, robbing him of his mobility and his ability to communicate with us. Before his death, he’d become totally dependent on others for his care. The Parkinson’s, or the medications used to treat it, also deadened his mind—or at least we think it did. It’s hard to tell whether a person can no longer think or is simply locked inside his head.
Seeing death face to face makes one impatient with nit-picky matters and petty squabbles. One wants to know if there’s substance to religion’s claim to make sense of this world and to offer hope beyond this short and eventually troubled existence. In this frame of mind, let’s look at Isaiah 40.
The book of Isaiah parallels the Bible in some interesting ways. Isaiah contains sixty-six chapters, and the Bible, sixty-six books. Both Isaiah and the Bible break into two very distinct parts. The first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah deal with Israel’s (Judah’s) unfaithfulness and the resulting negative consequences, and the latter twenty-seven chapters promise release from captivity, the coming of the "suffering servant" who bears our iniquities and by whose stripes we are healed, and the creation of new heavens and a new earth. Similarly, the Bible comprises two parts: the Old Testament story of Israel in thirty-nine books, and the twenty-seven-book New Testament, which introduces the Messiah, who came to release from captivity those who are bound and, ultimately, to create new heavens and a new earth.
The difference between the two parts of Isaiah is distinct enough that critical scholars have posited two, three, or more, authors. They point to literary differences between the parts of this prophetic book as proof of their contention. However, their conjectures may rest more heavily on anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions than on textual characteristics. R. E. Clements, for instance, says he no longer cites vocabulary and style as demonstrating that the author of chapters 1–39 could not have written chapters 40–66. Now he bases this contention on his conclusion that "the latter chapters seem to have been written to another historical context than [that of chapters 1–39]."1
Clements is referring to the fact that although the first part of the book deals with pre-exilic Judah, its latter parts address exilic and post-exilic times. He implies that a single prophet wouldn’t have addressed people who would live in such varying circumstances and times. These latter parts of Isaiah also predict specific events: Judah’s release from captivity and Cyrus’s role as liberator (see, for example, chapter 45). Many critics regard this kind of predictive prophecy as impossible; they suggest that such "prophecies" were written after the events predicted.
However, the whole book of Isaiah contains predictive prophecy of one sort or another. The conclusion that there can be no genuine predictive prophecy poses problems for our evaluation of this book. When the prophet argues that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is superior to all other gods, he bases his argument in part on Yahweh’s knowledge of the future (see, for instance, Isa. 41:23). However, if the prophet has fabricated the evidence, his claim about Yahweh’s superiority loses credibility, and the prophet himself, rather than being the "great theologian of the Exile," is a fraud and his grand gospel themes reek of rot.
What themes do we find in Isaiah 40? The prophet writes of God’s willingness to save his people, to justify them in relationship to him: "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid." "See, the Lord God comes with might,…his reward is with him.…He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep" (vs. 1, 2, 10, 11).
Isaiah also assures those who listen to him of God’s ability to do what he says he will do. God totally transcends anything in this world we might compare him to—even "the nations are like a drop from a bucket" compared to him (v. 15). Isaiah contrasts his God with those for whom idols are satisfactory representations—idols crafted by finite human hands; idols that, fittingly, would topple over if not carefully fastened upright by those who worship them (vs. 18–20).
Isaiah says that the fact that God created the cosmos evidences his ability to carry out his purposes. The one who "stretches out the heavens like a curtain" can bring "princes to naught" (vs. 22, 23). The Lord, "the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth…gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless" (vs. 28, 29).
John N. Oswalt comments on these latter verses:
Does the receiving [of this power] depend on any particular condition? Only one,…waiting on the Lord [v. 31]. This expression implies two things: complete dependence on God and a willingness to allow him to decide the terms. To wait on him is to admit that we have no other help, either in ourselves or in another.…By the same token, to wait on him is to declare our confidence in his eventual action on our behalf. Thus, waiting…is not merely killing time but a life of confident expectation.2
Later, in his book, Isaiah prophesies of "new heavens and a new earth." He says that those who live there will "build houses and inhabit them.…They shall not build and another inhabit" (66:17, 21, 22). Isaiah may have seen these prophecies in terms of Judah’s restoration to its land in Palestine, but the New Testament enlarges them to portend earth’s ultimate restoration and our release from our exile from God’s presence, from our captivity to sin and death (see 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21, 22).
I appreciate these images when I think of my dad. He built houses for himself and his family in which others now live, and he raised up churches in which others worship while he no longer can. But the Creator of the ends of the earth, the one who made the stars, will ultimately renew Dad’s strength too. His Parkinson’s gone, he shall once more run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.
1. R. E. Clements, “Beyond Tradition History: Deutero-Isaianic Development of First Isaiah’s Themes,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testamen, 31 (1985) 96; referenced in John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, R. K. Harrison, Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., gen. eds. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 6.
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
|
