Isaiah 40

Summary: Sometimes there’s great comfort in being small…like the child who snuggles into her mom’s lap, or the employee who gets to pass all the really difficult matters on to the boss. Much of Isaiah’s preaching wouldn’t really hit its mark until the people of Israel sat weeping by the rivers of Babylon in exile. That’s the desperate situation Isaiah’s 40th chapter anticipates, and the comfort he offers is the comfort of being really small. Steeped with images of God’s un-surpassing majesty, Israel found her exilic comfort in the fact that God was Holy—supremely and absolute greater than any trial she faced. The comfort of Isaiah 40 is that if a God this great and glorious is for us, whom then shall we fear? And of what shall we be afraid?