Isiah 40:12-13, 25-31
SS Lesson for 02/04/2024
Devotional Scriptures: 2 Cor 4:8-10
Today’s lesson comes from the writings of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. His text is the first in a group of five referred to as the Major Prophets; those five are the books known as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. We may wonder what value the Old Testament books of the prophets still have in the New Testament era. After all, the days of those prophets are long gone, and we’re under the new covenant, not the old (Colossians 2:14). The value of the prophets today is firmly established in how many times they are cited by Jesus and the authors of the New Testament. One clue to their value today is to be aware of how often these books are quoted in the New Testament. By one count, the tallies are Isaiah (67 times), Jeremiah (5 times), Lamentations (0 times), Ezekiel (2 times), and Daniel (5 times). These figures reveal the continuing relevance of the book of Isaiah. It has been called “the fifth Gospel” because of its numerous prophecies declared as fulfilled in the messianic era of the New Testament (examples: Isaiah 6:9-10 in Matthew 13:14-15 and Mark 4:12; Isaiah 53:7-8 in Acts 8:32-33). Isaiah prophesied during some very dismal times for God’s people. His prophetic call came “in the year that King Uzziah died” (Isaiah 6:1; compare 2 Chronicles 26:22), which would have been 740 BC (see 2 Chronicles 26; Uzziah is also known as Azariah in 2 Kings 15:1-7). The final historical event recorded by the prophet is the death of Sennacherib, which occurred in 681 BC (Isaiah 37:38). That makes for a lengthy period of ministry! The text under consideration in our lesson follows a prophecy that warns King Hezekiah of Judah regarding a time when Babylon would carry away Judah’s wealth and people to Babylon (Isaiah 39:5-7); more than 100 years would pass before that happened, but it indeed did happen. This was a punishment from the Lord for the people’s sins, followed by “comfort” in declaring that that punishment would eventually end (40:1-2). The predictions that immediately follow in Isaiah 40:3-5 shift forward more than five centuries for fulfillment, quoted in Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4-6; and John 1:23. The passage of time from pronouncement to fulfillment of these prophecies makes for valuable study. But the study in today’s lesson takes us beyond time-bound prophecies in considering the timeless nature of God Himself.
He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?
25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
13 My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they all stand up together.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
5 This is what God the Lord says — he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
99 I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. 100 I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
25 "To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?" says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; Not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God"?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
9 Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
11 He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people."
2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,
15 Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
7 Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.
23 If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; 24 though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.
6 From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.
116 Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed.
6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
The voice now summoned the people of Israel, collectively identified with Zion and Jerusalem, to announce the coming of their God. They were to go up on a high mountain and speak loudly without fear, so everyone else would hear their message of good news (cf. Acts 1:8).
"The essence of the message is: ’Look, it’s God.’" [Note: John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, p. 54.]
God’s deliverance of His people was not just for their own blessing, however. It was to be for the blessing of the whole world.
The sovereign Yahweh was coming to exercise His strong rule (cf. Isaiah 53:1; Deuteronomy 4:34). He was bringing His "reward" and "recompense" (synonyms) with Him for His people (cf. Revelation 22:12). These are the fruits of His victory, which He will share with His people (cf. Isaiah 61:6; Isaiah 66:12).
However, He would rule like David, the shepherd-king. He will be very sensitive to the needs of His people as He rules over them. Intimate and loving care will mark His reign. The two different uses of God’s arm in this verse and the preceding one illustrate the two complementary sides of God’s activity. Chapters 1-39 feature His arm of judgment, and chapters 40-66 emphasize His arm of compassion and deliverance.
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. His omnipotence is in view.
The preceding section answered the question that the people of Isaiah’s day had about God’s desire to deliver them. Yes, He wanted to deliver them. This section answered their question about whether He could save them. Yes, He could save 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 (Isaiah 40:12-26), each introduced by several questions.
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 to Job 39:30).
"He who has measured the creation cannot be measured by the creation." [Note: Young, 3:44.]
"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." [Note: Motyer, p. 303.]
The Spirit of the Lord was the executive of God in creation (cf. Genesis 1:2). It is very difficult to tell how much of the triune nature of the Godhead the ancient Israelites understood. In Jesus’ day (and in ours) Jews resisted the idea that God exists in three persons, as do Moslems today. It is the New Testament that clarifies the relationships of the persons within the Trinity. In Old Testament times, monotheism as opposed to polytheism was the distinctive belief of the Jews and the emphasis of the prophets. The issue for them was not how many persons compose the Godhead. So when they read references to "the spirit of the Lord," they did not think of a Person in the Godhead who was distinct from the Father and the Son, but of an aspect of God in a more general sense. Moslems also reject Trinitarianism.
We could interpret "Spirit" as the mind of the Lord (cf. Romans 11:34; 1 Corinthians 2:16). This is how the Septuagint translators rendered ruah here and in 1 Chronicles 28:12 and Ezekiel 20:32. It may refer to the volitional, effective, 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. Now His omniscience is in view.
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. Now His sovereignty is in view.
The transcendent God (Heb. ’el) is incomparable; no one and nothing approaches Him in His greatness and glory.
How ridiculous, then, it is to practice idolatry (cf. Isaiah 41:6-7; Isaiah 44:9-20; Isaiah 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 Samuel 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.
"Right now two idols dominate our world. One idol is enormous. The other is smaller but influential. The big idol is secularism. I mean not only naturalism as a technical philosophy but also a general outlook that makes man the measure of all things. . . . The other rival to God, the smaller idol, is alternative spiritualities. . . . Secularism and superstition-despite their obvious differences, they’re both allied against the God who loves rationalists and pagans and is inviting them into his glorious kingdom with open arms. The door stands open to both atheists and witches and everyone in between." [Note: Ortlund, p. 241.]
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. Romans 1]." [Note: Young, 3:56-57.]
The prophet’s emphasis shifted from God as Creator to God as Ruler, but still the point is His incomparability.
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 them (cf. Job 22:14) or, perhaps, to the horizon (cf. Job 26:10; Proverbs 8:27). Isaiah was not revealing that the earth is round. God 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.
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. Isaiah 40:6-8). He can reduce them to a state of comparative nothingness (Heb. tohu; cf. Genesis 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.
This verse restates the question in Isaiah 40:18, 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.
The stars were objects of worship and signs of divine activity in Babylonian and Canaanite worship (cf. 2 Kings 17:16; 2 Kings 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 to 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." [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 70.]
"Why does the glory of God sit lightly on believers today? It may be the fault of those of us who are preachers. Is our constant message to the people, ’Behold your God’? Or have we changed the subject? We seem to have sunk to the level of quick-stop churches where God is expected to lubricate the vehicle of American selfishness." [Note: Ortlund, p. 242.]
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God’s Superiority to All Possible Opposition [Note: Dyer, in The Old . . ., pp. 563-64.] |
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Question(s) |
Conclusion |
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His superiority to the nations is shown by His creation of the earth. |
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His superiority to idols is seen in the fact that they are created by craftsmen. |
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His superiority to the rulers of the earth is seen in the fact that He is transcendent while they are temporary. |
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His superiority over other "deities" is shown by His creation of the heavenly bodies. |
The Judahites kept saying: "How can God do this to us? He has forgotten us and no longer cares about us." They questioned God’s nature (He could not see them) and His dealings with them (He would not defend them).
Perhaps the double names "Jacob" and "Israel" are more than poetic synonyms. Isaiah may have been implying that the Judahites, God’s covenant people, were in a position as desperate in their own eyes as was Jacob, when he came to the end of himself, and God changed his name (Genesis 32:22-32). [Note: Motyer, p. 307.] This happened, they would remember, after his exile in Mesopotamia.
God is not too great to care. He is too great not to care (cf. Genesis 18:25).
Isaiah now applied this knowledge of God to the discouraging prospect that the Judahites faced, namely: Babylonian captivity (cf. Isaiah 39:6). Even though Isaiah spoke to the nation from the perspective of the captivity being past, he still addressed his pre-exilic contemporaries. He encouraged them by pointing to the sufficiency of their God. Since the Creator knows the name of everything in His complex creation, how could He, the God of Israel, possibly forget His covenant people? Since He is as powerful as He is, how could He be incapable of helping them?
The people needed to open their eyes and ears to what they already knew about their God (cf. Isaiah 40:21). He is eternal, not bound to the present, as we are. He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God. He is the Creator of all the earth, not restricted to only one locale at a time. He does not grow tired, because He is omnipotent. He is inscrutable, because He is omniscient. He is unlimited by time, space, power, and understanding.
"Their God is such (eternal, Creator, untiring) that they need never doubt his capacity; he is also such (possessing unfathomable wisdom) that they must never expect to understand all his ways." [Note: Ibid.]
"Everything that matters in life hangs on who God is." [Note: Ortlund, p. 252.]
God does not just possess all these qualities, but He shares His strength with those who need it. He has all energy, and He has energy to spare and to share. Whether we buckle under life’s pressures or lack innate strength, He provides durable, stable power (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9).
Circumstances may overcome even the strongest young people in their prime, either through lack of inner resources or because of the hardness of life. Yet those who continually rest on, trust in, and wait for Yahweh will receive renewed and different-divine-strength. The Hebrew verb translated "gain" suggests an exchange of strength, our inadequate strength for His abundant strength.
"This expression ["those who wait for the Lord"] implies two things: complete dependence on God and a willingness to allow him to decide the terms." [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 74]
". . . the Old Testament applies to faith a number of synonyms denoting trust, hope, and longing, and thus describes it according to its inmost nature, as fiducia and as hope, directed to the manifestation and completion of that which is hoped for." [Note: Delitzsch, 2:156.]
They who wait on the Lord will be able to overcome natural drawbacks, endure with energy to spare, and keep on living without becoming excessively tired.
"The threefold description forms a climax, not its opposite; for the exceptional flying and the occasional running do not require, as does the constant walking, an ever-flowing stream of grace." [Note: Grogan, p. 246.]
(Adapted from URL:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dcc/isaiah-40.html)
When the impact of the coronavirus pandemic began to be felt during the spring of 2020, one result was shortages in various commodities. Issues with business closings and logistical limitations meant that goods were not as readily available as before. Stores simply ran out of certain items, even after limiting purchases per customer. Many consumers found themselves frustrated at being unable to purchase the things they wanted (or outright needed) with the convenience to which they were accustomed. Our passage for today reminds us that the God we worship and serve has never been subject to any kind of weakness, attrition, or scarcity in his resources. The prophet’s affirmations of God’s incomparable sustaining power and of his promise to provide strength to those who grow tired or weary have no expiration date. God’s power and strength are indeed available to us today! But here, a caution must be interjected concerning what the Chronicler records: “The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you” (2 Chronicles 15:2). The only restriction regarding our access to God’s resources is our own sin and unwillingness to trust him.