Yesaya 40:28

40:28 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is an eternal God,

the creator of the whole earth. ¹ 

He does not get tired or weary;

there is no limit to his wisdom. ² 

Yesaya 40:2

40:2 “Speak kindly to ³  Jerusalem, ⁴  and tell her

that her time of warfare is over, ⁵ 

that her punishment is completed. ⁶ 

For the Lord has made her pay double ⁷  for all her sins.”

1 Raja-raja 19:1

Elijah Runs for His Life

19:1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, including a detailed account of how he killed all the prophets with the sword.

Yesaya 41:22

41:22 “Let them produce evidence! Let them tell us what will happen!

Tell us about your earlier predictive oracles, ⁸ 

so we may examine them ⁹  and see how they were fulfilled. ¹⁰ 

Or decree for us some future events!

[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.

[40:28]  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).

[40:2]  ³ tn Heb “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is personified as a woman.

[40:2]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:2]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “that her punishment is accepted [as satisfactory].”

[40:2]  ⁷ 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).

[41:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “As for the former things, tell us what they are!”

[41:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “so we might set [them to] our heart.”

[41:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and might know their outcome.”