Yesaya 40:1-2

The Lord Returns to Jerusalem

40:1 “Comfort, comfort my people,”

says your ¹  God.

40:2 “Speak kindly to ²  Jerusalem, ³  and tell her

that her time of warfare is over, ⁴ 

that her punishment is completed. ⁵ 

For the Lord has made her pay double ⁶  for all her sins.”

Yesaya 40:22-23

40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ⁷ 

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ⁸ 

He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ⁹ 

and spreads it out ¹⁰  like a pitched tent. ¹¹ 

40:23 He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing;

he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant.

[40:1]  ¹ tn The pronominal suffix is second masculine plural. The identity of the addressee is uncertain: (1) God’s people may be addressed, or (2) the unidentified heralds commanded to comfort Jerusalem.

[40:2]  ² tn Heb “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is personified as a woman.

[40:2]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “that she is filled [with] her warfare.” Some understand צָבָא (tsavah, “warfare”) as meaning “hard service” or “compulsory labor” in this context.

[40:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “that her punishment is accepted [as satisfactory].”

[40:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “for she has received from the hand of the Lord double.” The principle of the double portion in punishment is also seen in Jer 16:18; 17:18 and Rev 18:6. For examples of the double portion in Israelite law, see Exod 22:4, 7, 9 (double restitution by a thief) and Deut 21:17 (double inheritance portion for the firstborn).

[40:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[40:22]  ⁸ tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:22]  ⁹ 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).

[40:22]  ¹⁰ 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.

[40:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”