Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 40:12
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
12. Who can vie with Jehovah in power? The point of these questions lies in the smallness of the measures figured as being used by Jehovah in creating the universe, the hollow of the hand, the span, etc. Logically, the questions are not quite on the same line as those in Isa 40:13 f. There the answer required is a simple negative: “No one”; here the meaning is, “What sort of Being must He be who actually measured” etc.
meted out ] Lit. “weighed out” (as Job 28:25); see on “directed,” ( Isa 40:13). The word for comprehended has in New Hebr. and Aram. the sense of “measure” and is probably so used here, the only instance in the O.T.
a measure ] means “a third part,” a tierce, but obviously a small measure, probably a third of an ephah.
scales and balance might be better transposed; the first word denotes probably a “steelyard,” the second the ordinary pair of scales.
The conception of the universe as measured out by its Creator appears to include two things. There is first the idea of order, adjustment and proportion in Nature, suggesting intelligence at work in the making of the world. But the more important thought is that of the infinite power which has carried through these vast operations as easily as man handles his smallest instruments of precision. The passage is not a demonstration of the existence of God, but assuming that He exists and is the Creator of all things, the prophet seeks to convey to his readers some impression of His Omnipotence, which is so conspicuously displayed in the accurate determination of the great masses and expanses of the material world.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
12 14. The argument for the infinitude of God opens with a series of rhetorical questions, not needing to be answered, but intended to raise the thoughts of despondent Israelites to the contemplation of the true nature of the God they worshipped. For a different purpose, namely, to humble the pride of human reason, the Almighty Himself addresses a similar series of interrogations to Job (Isa 38:4 ff.).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Who hath measured – The object in this and the following verses to Isa 40:26, is to show the greatness, power, and majesty of God, by strong contrast with his creatures, and more especially with idols. Perhaps the prophet designed to meet and answer an implied objection: that the work of deliverance was so great that it could not be accomplished. The answer was, that God had made all things; that he was infinitely great; that he had entire control over all the nations; and that he could, therefore, remove all obstacles out of the way, and accomplish his great and gracious purposes. By man it could not be done; nor had idol-gods any power to do it; but the Creator and upholder of all could effect this purpose with infinite case. At the same time that the argument here is one that is entirely conclusive, the passage, regarded as a description of the power and majesty of God, is one of vast sublimity and grandeur; nor is there any portion of the Sacred Volume that is more suited to impress the mind with a sense of the majesty and glory of Yahweh. The question, who hath measured, is designed to imply that the thing referred to here was that which had never been done, and could never be done by man; and the argument is, that although that which the prophet predicted was a work which surpassed human power, yet it could be done by that God who had measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. The word waters here refers evidently to the vast collection of waters in the deep – the mighty ocean, together with all the waters in the running streams, and in the clouds. See Gen 1:6, where the firmament is said to have been made to divide the waters from the waters. A reference to the waters above the heavens occurs in Psa 148:4 :
Praise him, ye heavens of heavens,
And ye waters that be above the heavens.
And in Pro 30:4, a Similar description of the power and majesty of God occurs:
Who hath gathered the wind in his fists?
Who hath bound the waters in a garment?
Who hath established all the ends of the earth?
And in Job 26:8 :
He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds;
And the cloud is not rent under them.
The word waters here, therefore, may include all the water on the earth, and in the sky. The words, the hollow of his hand, mean properly the hand as it is closed, forming a hollow or a cavity by which water can be taken up. The idea is, that God can take up the vast oceans, and all the waters in the lakes, streams, and clouds, in the palm of his hand, as we take up the smallest quantity in ours.
And meted out heaven – The word rendered meted, that is, measured ( kun), means properly to stand erect, to set up, or make erect; to found, fit, adjust, dispose, form, create. It usually has the idea of fitting or disposing. The word span ( zeret) denotes the space from the end of the thumb to the end of the middle finger, when extended – usually about nine inches. The idea is, that Yahweh was able to compass or grasp the heavens, though so vast, as one can compass or measure a small object with the span. What an illustration of the vastness and illimitable nature of God!
And comprehended – And measured ( kol from kul, to hold or contain); Lo, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee 1Ki 8:27.
The dust of the earth – All the earth; all the dust that composes the globe.
In a measure – ( bashalsh) Properly three; and then the third part of anything. Jerome supposes that it means the three fngers, and that the sense is, that God takes up all the dust of the earth in the first three fingers of the hand. But the more probable signification is, that the word denotes that which was the third part of some other measure, as of an ephah, or bath. In Psa 80:5, the word is used to denote a large measure:
Thou feedest them with the bread of tears,
And givest them tears to drink in great measure ( shalysh).
The idea is, that God is so great that he can measure all the dust of the earth as easily as we can measure a small quantity of grain with a measure.
And weighed the mountains in scales – The idea here is substantially the same. It is, that God is so mighty that he can weigh the lofty mountains, as we weigh a light object in scales, or in a balance; and perhaps, also, that he has disposed them on the earth as if he had weighed them out, and adapted them to their proper places and situations Throughout this entire passage, there is not only the idea of majesty and power in God, but there is also the idea that he has suited or adjusted everything by his wisdom and power, and adapted it to the condition and needs of his creatures.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 40:12-28
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand?
—
The grandeur of God
The prophets notions of God are diffused through all the verses of the text. The prophets design in describing the Deity with so much magnificence is to discountenance idolatry, of which there are two sorts.
1. Religious idolatry, which consists in rendering that religious worship to a creature which is due to none but God.
2. Moral idolatry, which consists in distrusting the promises of God in dangerous crises, and in expecting that assistance from men which cannot but be expected from God. The portrait drawn by the prophet is infinitely inferior to his original. Ye will be fully convinced of this if ye attend to the following considerations of the grandeur of God.
I. THE SUBLIMITY OF HIS ESSENCE. The prophets mind was filled with this object. It is owing to this that he repeats the grand title of Jehovah, the Lord, which signifies I am by excellence, and which distinguisheth by four grand characters the essence of God from the essence of creatures.
1. The essence of God is independent in its cause. God is a self-existent being. We exist, but ours is only a borrowed existence, for existence is foreign from us.
2. The essence of God is universal in its extent. God possesseth the reality of every thing that exists. He is, as an ancient writer expresseth it, a boundless ocean of existence. From this ocean of existence all created beings, like so many rivulets, flow.
3. The essence of God is unchangeable in its exercise. Creatures only pass from nothing to existence, and from existence to nothing. We love to-day what we hated yesterday, and to-morrow we shall hate What to-day we love.
4. The Divine essence is eternal in its duration. Hast thou not known, saith our prophet, that He is the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth?
II. THE IMMENSITY OF HIS WORKS (Isa 40:22; Isa 40:26). A novice is frightened at hearing what astronomers assert. Over all this universe God reigns.
III. THE EFFICIENCY OF HIS WILL. The idea of the real world conducts us to that of the possible world. The idea of a creative Being includes the idea of a Being whose will is efficient. But a Being whose will is self-efficient, is a Being who, by a single act of His will, can create all possible beings: that is, all, the existence of which implies no contradiction; there being no reason for limiting the power of a will that hath been once efficient of itself.
IV. THE MAGNIFICENCE OF SOME OF HIS MIGHTY ACTS, AT CERTAIN PERIODS, IN FAVOUR OF HIS CHURCH. The prophet had two of these periods in view. The first was the return of the Jews from that captivity in Babylon which he had denounced; and the second, the coming of the Messiah, of which their return from captivity was only a shadow. Such, then, are the grandeurs of God! Application–We observed that the prophets design was to render two sorts of idolatry odious: idolatry in religion, and idolatry in morals. Idolatry in religion consists in rendering those religious homages to creatures which are due to the Creator only. To discredit this kind of idolatry, the prophet contents himself with describing it. He shames the idolater by reminding him of the origin of idols, and of the pains taken to preserve them. A man is guilty of moral idolatry when, in dangerous crises, he says, My way is hid from the Lord; my judgment is passed over from my God. God is the sole arbiter of events. Whenever ye think that any more powerful being directs them to comfort you, ye put the creature in the Creator s place; whether ye do it in a manner more or less absurd; whether formidable armies, impregnable fortresses, and well-stored magazines; or whether a small circle of friends, an easy income, or a country house. The Jews were often guilty of the first sort of idolatry. The captivity in Babylon was the last curb to that fatal propensity. Thanks be to God that the light of the Gospel hath opened the eyes of a great number of Christians in regard to idolatry in religion. Ye who, in order to avert public calamities, satisfy yourselves with a few precautions of worldly prudence, and take no pains to extirpate those horrible crimes which provoke the vengeance of heaven to inflict punishments on public bodies; ye are guilty of this second kind of idolatry. Were your confidence placed in God, ye would endeavour to avert national judgments by purging the state of those wicked practices which are the surest forerunners and the principal causes of famine, and pestilence, and war. And thou, feeble mortal, lying on a sick-bed, already struggling with the king of terrors; thou, who tremblingly complainest, I am undone!–thou art guilty of this second kind of idolatry, that thou hast trusted in man and made flesh thine arm. Were God the object of thy trust, thou wouldest believe that though death is about to separate thee from man, it is about to unite thee to God. (J. Saurin.)
The incomparableness of the great God
To whom then will ye liken God?
I. THAT THE GREATEST THINGS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD ARE NOTHING TO HIM. The ocean is great, great in its depths, breadths, contents, occupying by far the largest portion of this globe of ours. But He hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand. The heaven is great; its expanse is immeasurable, its worlds and systems baffle all arithmetic, but He meted out heaven with the span. The earth is great, great to us, though mere speck in the universe, and, it may be, an atom to other intelligences; but He comprehendeth the dust in a measure, etc. What is the universe to God? You may compare an atom to the Andes, a raindrop to the Atlantic, a spark to the central fires of the creation; but you cannot compare the universe, great as it is, to the Creator.
II. THAT THE GREATEST MINDS IN THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE ARE NOTHING TO HIM. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? etc. (Isa 40:13-14). The Bible gives us to understand that there is a spiritual universe far greater than the material, of which the material is but the dim mirror and feeble instrument–a universe containing intelligences innumerable in multitude and incalculable in their gradations of strength and intelligence. But what spirit or spirits at the head or hierarchy of these intelligences has ever given Him counsel, instructed or influenced Him in any matter? He is uninstructible: the only Being in the universe who is so. He knows all. Sooner speak of a spark enlightening the sun, than speak of a universe of intelligences adding aught to the knowledge of God. He is absolutely original: the only Being in the universe who is so. We talk of original thinkers. Such creatures are mere fictions. He being so independent of all minds–
1. His universe must be regarded as the expression of Himself. No other being had a hand in it.
2. His laws are the revelation of Himself. No one counselled Him in His legislation.
3. His conduct is absolutely irresponsible, and He alone can be trusted with irresponsibility.
III. THAT THE GREATEST INSTITUTIONS IN HUMAN SOCIETY ARE NOTHING TO HIM. Nations are the greatest things in human institutions. But nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. What were the greatest nations of the old world, or the most powerful of modem times? What are the greatest nations that have ever been, or are, compared to Him? Nothing, emptiness. Oh, ye magnates of the world, ye kings of the earth, what are ye in the presence of God? Less than animalcula dancing in the sun.
IV. THAT THE GREATEST PRODUCTIONS OF HUMAN LABOUR ARE NOTHING TO HIM. There is, said an eloquent French preacher, nothing great but God. (Homilist.)
The transcendent One
The grand object of this sublime chapter seems to be to inspirit and to comfort the Jews in their Babylonian captivity. Their God in His transcendent greatness is brought under their notice for this purpose–
I. IN THE EXACTITUDE OF HIS OPERATIONS. He is here represented as measuring the waters, as spanning the heavens, as comprehending the very dust of the earth in a measure, as weighing the mountains in scales. As the physician adjusts in nicest proportions the elements in the medical dose, with which he hopes to cure his patient; the engineer every crank and wheel and pin in the machine which he has constructed for a certain purpose, so God–only in an Infinite degree–arranges all the parts of the complicated universe. It is seen in the atmosphere that surrounds this globe; were one of its constituent elements more or less than it is the whole would be disturbed. This is seen in the punctuality with which all the heavenly orbs perform their movements; they are never out of time. It is seen, in fact, in the unbroken uniformity with which all nature proceeds on its march.
1. This Divine exactitude should inspire us with unbounded confidence in His procedure. Because God works with such infinite precision, His works admit of no improvement.
2. This Divine exactitude should inspire us to imitate Him in this respect. When we act from blind impulse, or from imperfect reflection, we risk our wellbeing.
II. IN THE ALMIGHTINESS OF HIS POWER. He is here represented as holding the waters in the hollow of His hand. In thinking of this power we should remember–
1. That all this power is under the direction of intelligence. It is not a blind force, like the force of the storm or the tornado, but it is a force directed by the highest wisdom. Wisdom uses the whole as the smith uses his hammer on the anvil, as the mariner the rudder in the tempest.
2. That all this power is inspired by benevolence. The infinite is here portrayed.
III. IN THE INDEPENDENCY OF HIS MIND. With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him? From this absolute mental independency of God the following things may be deduced–
1. That all His operations must originate in pure sovereignty. All that exists must be traced to the counsels of His own will, for He had no counsellor.
2. That all His laws must be a transcript of His mind. What they are He is; they are the history of Himself. Conclusion–What an argument is here for an entire surrender to, and a thorough acquiescence in, the Divine will. (Homilist.)
The greatness of Israels God
How little the palm of a man takes, how little the space which the span of a man can cover, how scanty the third of an ephah and for what insignificant measures a balance suffices, whether a steelyard (statera), or a retail balance (libra) consisting of two scales (lances). But what Jehovah measures with His palm and regulates with His span is nothing less than the waters below and the heavens above. He uses a shalish, in which the dust composing the earth finds place, and a balance in which He weighs the colossus of the mountains. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
God in relation to earth and ocean
Put two tablespoonfuls of water in the palm of your hand and it will overflow; but Isaiah indicates that God puts the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Arctic and the Antarctic and the Mediteranean and the Black Sea and all the waters of the earth in the hollow of His hand. The fingers the beach on one side, the wrist the beach on the other. He holdeth the water in the hollow of His hand. As you take a pinch of salt or powder between your thumb and two fingers, so Isaiah indicates God takes up the earth. He measures the dust of the earth. The original there indicates that God takes all the dust of all the continents between the thumb and two fingers. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
The great God in His relation to heaven and earth
There was an engineer by the name of Strasicrates who was in the employ of Alexander the Great, and he offered to hew a mountain in the shape of his master, the Emperor, the enormous figure to hold in the left hand a city of 10,000 inhabitants, while with the right hand it was to hold a basin large enough to collect all the mountain torrents. Alexander applauded his ingenuity, out forbade the enterprise because of its costliness. Yet I have to tell you that our King holds in His one hand all the cities of the earth, and with the other all the oceans, while He has the stars of heaven for a tiara. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)
God weighing the mountains
What are all the balances of earthly manipulation compared with the balances that Isaiah saw suspended when he saw God putting into the scales the Alps and the Apennines and Mount Washington and the Sierra Nevadas? You see the earth had to be ballasted. It would not do to have too much weight in Europe, or too much weight in Asia, or too much weight in Africa or in America; so when God made the mountains He weighed them. God knows the weight of the great ranges that cross the continents, the tons, the pounds avoirdupois, the ounces, the grains, the milligrammes. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Why sayest thou?
The devout thought of these paragraphs passes in survey, first the earth (Isa 40:12-20); then the heavens (21-26); finally, the experience of the children of God in all ages (27-31).
I. THE TESTIMONY OF THE EARTH. It seems as though we are conducted to the shores of the Mediterranean, and stationed somewhere near the site of ancient Tyre. Before us spreads the Great Sea, as the Hebrews were wont to call it. Far across the waters, calm and tranquil, or heaving in memory of recent storms, sea and sky blend in the circle of the horizon. Now remember, says the prophet, Gods hands are so strong and great that all that ocean and all other oceans lie in them as a drop on a mans palm And this God is our God for ever and ever. All men may be in arms against thee: encircling thee with threats, and plotting to swallow thee up. But the nations are to Him as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Thou hast no reason, therefore, to be afraid.
II. THE TESTIMONY OF THY HEAVENS. The scene shifts to the heavens, and all that is therein. This is the antidote of fear. Sit in the heavenlies. Do not look from earth towards heaven, but from heaven towards earth. Let God, not man, be the standpoint of vision. But this is not all. To this inspired thinker, it seemed as though the blue skies were curtains that God had stretched out as a housewife gauze (see Revised Version, marg.), or the fabric of a tent within which the pilgrim rests. If creation be His tent, which He fills in all its parts, how puny are the greatest potentates of earth! The child of God need not be abashed before the greatest of earthly rulers. And even this is not all–day changes to night, and as the twilight deepens, the stars come out in their hosts; and suddenly, to the imagination of this lofty soul, the vault of heaven seems a pasture-land over which a vast flock is following its Shepherd, who calls each by name. What a sublime conception! Jehovah, the Shepherd of the stars, leading them through space; conducting them with such care and might that none falls out of rank, or is lacking. And will Jehovah do so much for stars, and nought for sons?
III. THE TESTIMONY OF THE SAINTS. Hast thou not heard? It has been a commonplace with every generation of Gods people, that the Lord fainteth not, neither is weary. He never takes up a case to drop it. He never begins to build a character to leave it when it is half complete. He may seem to forsake and to plunge the soul into needless trial; this, however, is no indication that He has tired of His charge, but only that He could not fulfil the highest blessedness of some soul He loved save by the sternest discipline. There is no searching of His understanding. There is another point on which all the saints are agreed, that neither weariness nor fainting are barriers to the forth-putting of Gods might. On the contrary, they possess an infinite attractiveness to His nature. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Nature ministers to the suffering
Nature has always been the resort of the suffering. Elijah to Horeb; Christ to Olivet. And in these glowing paragraphs, which touch the high-water mark of sacred eloquence, we are led forth to stand in the curtained tent of Jehovah, to listen to the beat of the surf, and watch the march of the stars. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? i.e. who can measure them? for indicative verbs in the Hebrew language are oft taken potentially. Who can do this and the following things but God! And this discourse of Gods infinite power and wisdom is here conveniently added, to give them the greater assurance that God was able, as he had declared himself willing, to do these great and wonderful things which he had promised; and that neither men nor false gods were able to hinder him in it. God is here compared to a mighty giant, supposed to be so big that he can take up and hold all the waters of the sea and rivers of the whole world in one hand, and span the heavens, and then take up and weigh the whole earth with the other hand.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. Lest the Jews should supposethat He who was just before described as a “shepherd” is amere man, He is now described as GOD.
WhoWho else but GODcould do so? Therefore, though the redemption and restoration of Hispeople, foretold here, was a work beyond man’s power, they should notdoubt its fulfilment since all things are possible to Him who canaccurately regulate the proportion of the waters as if He hadmeasured them with His hand (compare Isa40:15). But MAURERtranslates: “Who can measure,” c., that is, Howimmeasurable are the works of God? The former is a better explanation(Job 28:25 Pro 30:4).
spanthe space from theend of the thumb to the end of the middle finger extended; Godmeasures the vast heavens as one would measure a small object withhis span.
dust of the earthAllthe earth is to Him but as a few grains of dust containedin a small measure (literally, “the third part of alarger measure”).
hills in a balanceadjustedin their right proportions and places, as exactly as if He hadweighed them out.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?…. The following account of the power, wisdom, and all sufficiency of God, and which is to be understood of Christ, is to show that he is equal to the work of redemption and salvation he has engaged in, and was about to come and perform, and that he is able to do it, as well as to execute his office as a shepherd; and also to observe, that though his rich grace and goodness he had condescended to take upon him the work of a saviour, and the office of a shepherd, yet this was not to be interpreted as if he had lost his dignity and glory as a divine Person, or as if that was in the least diminished; for he was no other than that infinite Being, “who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand”; the waters of the seas, for which he has provided a receptacle, where he has collected and put them together; the dimensions of which are exactly known to him, and the vast confluence of water is no more in his hands than so much water as a man can hold in the hollow of his hand, in his fist, or hand contracted:
and meted out heaven with the span; which he has stretched out as a curtain, Isa 40:22, and the measure of which is but one hand’s breadth with him; and is no more to him than stretching out a carpet or canopy; and as easily measured by him as a piece of cloth is by a man with the span of his hand, or any measuring rule or yard:
and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure; the word r used signifies the third part of some larger measure, as of a sextarius, as some; or of an ephah, or bath as others; or of some other measure not known; [See comments on Ps 80:5]. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, “with three fingers”; and the sense may be, that the dust of the earth, or the earth itself, which is but dust, is no more with the Lord than so much earth or dust as a man can hold between his thumb and two fingers; and in like manner is the whole earth comprehended by the Lord:
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance; as easily as a man can throw in his goods into a pair of scales, and take the true weight of them, with equal ease did the Lord raise the mountains and the hills in a proper proportion, and has so exactly poised them, as if he had weighed them in a pair of scales; this seems to hint at the use of mountains and hills to be a sort of ballast to the earth, and shows the original formation of them from the beginning. The answer to the above question is, that it was the same divine Person of whom it is said, “behold your God, [and who should] come with a strong hand, [and] feed his flock.”
r “in mensura ternaria”, Montanus; “trientali”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Vitringa.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In order to bring His people to the full consciousness of the exaltation of Jehovah, the prophet asks in Isa 40:12, “Who hath measured the waters with the hollow of his hand, and regulated the heavens with a span, and taken up the dust of the earth in a third measure, and weighed the mountains with a steelyard, and hills with balances?” Jehovah, and He alone, has given to all these their proper quantities, their determinate form, and their proportionate place in the universe. How very little can a man hold in the hollow of his hand ( shoal )!
(Note: The root , Arab. sl has the primary meaning of easily moving or being easily moved; then of being loose or slack, of hanging down, or sinking-a meaning which we meet with in and . Accordingly, sho al signifies the palm (i.e., the depression made by the hand), and sh e ‘ ol not literally a hollowing or cavity, but a depression or low ground.)
how very small is the space which a man’s span will cover! how little is contained in the third of an ephah ( shalsh ; see at Psa 80:6)! and how trifling in either bulk or measure is the quantity you can weight in scales, whether it be a peles , i.e., a steelyard ( statera), or mo’zenayim , a tradesman’s balance ( bilances ), consisting of two scales.
(Note: According to the meaning, to level or equalize, which is one meaning of pilles , the noun peles is applied not only to a level used to secure equilibrium, which is called mishqeleth in Isa 28:17, but also to a steelyard used for weighing, the beam of which consists of a lever with unequal arms, which flies up directly the weight is removed.)
But what Jehovah measures with the hollow of His hand, and with His span, is nothing less than the waters beneath and the heavens above. He carries a scoop, in which there is room for all the dust of which the earth consists, and a scale on which He has weighed the great colossal mountains.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Evangelical Predictions. | B. C. 708. |
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? 13 Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? 14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? 15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. 16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. 17 All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.
The scope of these verses is to show what a great and glorious being the Lord Jehovah is, who is Israel’s God and Saviour. It comes in here, 1. To encourage his people that were captives in Babylon to hope in him, and to depend upon him for deliverance, though they were ever so weak and their oppressors ever so strong. 2. To engage them to cleave to him, and not to turn aside after other gods; for there are none to be compared with him. 3. To possess all those who receive the glad tidings of redemption by Christ with a holy awe and reverence of God. Though it was said (v. 9), Behold your God, and (v. 11) He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, yet these condescensions of his grace must not be thought of with any diminution to the transcendencies of his glory. Let us see how great our God is, and fear before him; for,
I. His power is unlimited, and what no creature can compare with, much less contend with, v. 12. 1. He has a vast reach. View the celestial globe, and you are astonished at the extent of it; but the great God metes the heavens with a span; to him they are but a hand-breadth, so large-handed is he. View the terraqueous globe, and he has the command of that too. All the waters in the world he can measure in the hollow of his hand, where we can hold but a little water; and the dry land he easily manages, for he comprehends the dust of the earth in a measure, or with his three fingers; it is no more to him than a pugil, or that which we take up between our thumb and two fingers. 2. He has a vast strength, and can as easily move mountains and hills as the tradesman heaves his goods into the scales and out of them again; he poises them with his hand as exactly as if he weighed them in a pair of balances. This may refer to the work of creation, when the heavens were stretched out as exactly as that which is spanned, and the earth and waters were put together in just proportions, as if they had been measured, and the mountains made of such a weight as to serve for ballast to the globe, and no more. Or it may refer to the work of providence (which is a continued creation) and the consistency of all the creatures with each other.
II. His wisdom is unsearchable, and what no creature can give either information or direction to, Isa 40:13; Isa 40:14. As none can do what God has done and does, so none can assist him in the doing of it or suggest any thing to him which he thought not of. When the Lord by his Spirit made the world (Job xxvi. 13) there was none that directed his Spirit, or gave him any advice, either what to do or how to do it. Nor does he need any counsellor to direct him in the government of the world, nor is there any with whom he consults, as the wisest kings do with those that know law and judgment, Esther i. 13. God needs not to be told what is done, for he knows it perfectly; nor needs he be advised concerning what is to be done, for he knows both the right end and the proper means. This is much insisted upon here, because the poor captives had no politicians among them to manage their concerns at court or to put them in a way of gaining their liberty. “No matter,” says the prophet, “you have a God to act for you, who needs not the assistance of statesmen.” In the great work of our redemption by Christ matters were concerted before the world was, when there was one to teach God in the path of judgment, 1 Cor. ii. 7.
III. The nations of the world are nothing in comparison of him, Isa 40:15; Isa 40:17. Take them all together, all the great and mighty nations of the earth, kings the most pompous, kingdoms the most populous, both the most wealthy; take the isles, the multitude of them, the isles of the Gentiles: Before him, when they stand in competition with him or in opposition to him, they are as a drop of the bucket compared with the vast ocean, or the small dust of the balance (which does not serve to turn it, and therefore is not regarded, it is so small) in comparison with all the dust of the earth. He takes them up, and throws them away from him, as a very little thing, not worth speaking of. They are all in his eye as nothing, as if they had no being at all; for they add nothing to his perfection and all-sufficiency. They are counted by him, and are to be counted by us in comparison of him, less than nothing, and vanity. When he pleases, he can as easily bring them all into nothing as at first he brought them out of nothing. When God has work to do he values not either the assistance or the resistance of any creature. They are all vanity; the word that is used for the chaos (Gen. i. 2), to which they will at last be reduced. Let this beget in us high thoughts of God and low thoughts of this world, and engage us to make God, and not man, both our fear and our hope. This magnifies God’s love to the world, that, though it is of such small account and value with him, yet, for the redemption of it, he gave his only-begotten Son, John iii. 16.
IV. The services of the church can make no addition to him nor do they bear any proportion to his infinite perfections (v. 16): Lebanon is not sufficient to burn; not the wood of it, to be for the fuel of the altar, though it be so well stocked with cedars; not the beasts of it, to be for sacrifices, though it be so well stocked with cattle, v. 16. Whatever we honour God with, it falls infinitely short of the merit of his perfection; for he is exalted far above all blessing and praise, all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 12-17: THE GREATNESS OF GOD
1. The rhetorical questions raised in verses 12-14 (like those in Job 38) are designed to awaken the human heart to the majesty, power and awe of God.
a. Divine omnipotence. is the only adequate answer to the question raised in verse 12, (comp. Isa 48:13; Job 38:8-10; Psa 102:25-26; Heb 1:10-12).
b. Verses 13-14 lay special stress on the omniscience of God -whom no one is qualified to enlighten, instruct, counsel or advise -for the fullness of understanding, wisdom and knowledge dwells in Him, (Rom 11:34; 1Co 2:16; Isa 41:28; Job 21:22; Col 2:3).
2. The infinite greatness of God is especially illustrated in verses 15-17. Beside Him:
a. The nations are as “a drop in a bucket” (Jer 10:10), or a few insignificant specks of dust on a scale, (Isa 17:13; Isa 29:5).
b. Lebanon and all the beasts thereof are not sufficient for a burnt offering before Him, (Isa 37:24; Psa 50:9-11; Mic 6:6-7; Heb 10:5-9).
c. The plurality of isles and nations are as nothing – even less than nothing, and emptiness – before Him, (Isa 29:7; Isa 30:28).
d. If you stand perplexed before the seeming immensity of this infinitesimal planet, is it, perhaps, an evidence that your concept of God is TOO SMALL?
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
12. Who hath measured? After having spoken of God’s friendly care in defending his people, he now proclaims his power, and bestows upon it all possible commendations, which, however, would produce less impression upon us, if we did not attend to the Prophet’s design. At first sight, ignorant readers would think that the Prophet crowds together unfinished sentences, which would be absurd. But if we look at his object, he adorns the power of God by a seasonable and elegant discourse, which is a true support of our faith, that we may not hesitate to believe that he will do what he has promised. Not without reason does Paul say that Abraham did not hesitate, because he believed that God who had promised was able to perform what he had said. (Rom 4:20.) In the same sense also he testifies of himself in another passage,
“
I know whom I have believed; God is able to keep what I have committed to him.” (2Ti 1:12.)
Such is also the import of those words of Christ,
“
My Father who gave you to me is greater than all.” (Joh 10:29.)
Since, therefore, we ought continually to strive against distrust, and since Satan attacks us by various contrivances, it is of great importance that the promises of God should be believed by us, to give to his power the praise which it deserves. Now, because the restoration of the people was beyond belief, it was necessary that godly minds should he raised above the world, that they might not view the grace of God as limited to human means.
We see that the Prophet does not merely teach that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, but applies to the present subject all that he relates concerning God’s infinite power; and in like manner it is fitted for our guidance. When any adversity befalls us, our salvation is hidden, and, as if a cloud had come between, the power of God is concealed; we are held in astonishment, as if the Lord had forsaken and overlooked us. Let us not, therefore, think that the Prophet speaks of some ordinary matter; for if this conviction of the power of God were deeply seated in our hearts, we would not be so much alarmed, and would not be disturbed by any calamity whatever. On this power, as we have said, Abraham leaned, that he might cordially embrace what was otherwise incredible; and, accordingly, Paul affirms (Rom 4:18) that “he hoped against hope;” for he believed that God was able to do what he had said, and did not waver or stagger in his mind. We are thus taught to raise our eyes above this world, that we may not judge by outward appearances, but may believe that what God hath spoken will come to pass; because all things are at his disposal.
While this conviction is necessary for all, I have said that the Jews had very great need of it; for they were pressed hard by very powerful enemies, they had no means of escape and no hope of freedom, and nothing was to be seen on every hand but a large and frightful wilderness. In vain, therefore, would consolation have been offered to them, had they not, at the suggestion of the Prophet, raised their minds to heaven, and, disregarding the appearances of things, fixed their whole heart on the power of God.
When he names “measures,” which are used by men in very small matters, he accommodates himself to our ignorance; for thus does the Lord often prattle with us, and borrow comparisons from matters that are familiar to us, when he speaks of his majesty; that our ignorant and limited minds may better understand his greatness and excellence. Away, then, with all gross conceptions of God; for his greatness far exceeds all creatures, so that heaven, and earth, and sea, and all that they contain, however vast may be their extent, yet in comparison of him are nothing.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
b. PERCEIVE THE NATURE OF THE LORD
TEXT: Isa. 40:12-26
12
Who hath measured the water in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13
Who hath directed the Spirit of Jehovah, or being his counsellor hath taught him?
14
With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?
15
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering.
17
All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing, and vanity.
18
To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
19
The image, a workman hath cast it, and the goldsmith overlayeth it with gold, and casteth for it silver chains.
20
He that is too impoverished for such an oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a skilful workman to set up a graven image, that shall not be moved.
21
Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22
It is he that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out of the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in;
23
that bringeth princes to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24
Yea, they have not been planted; yea, they have not been sown; yea, their stock hath not taken root in the earth: moreover he bloweth upon them, and they wither, and the whirlwind taketh them away as stubble.
25
To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One.
26
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.
QUERIES
a.
What is meant by the mountains being weighed?
b.
What is the circle of the earth?
c.
What does God call by name?
PARAPHRASE
Who else has measured all the oceans, lakes and rivers in the infinite palm of His hand and measured off the heavens with His yardstick? Who else is able to measure the land of the earth in its proper one-third portion? Who else is able to weigh accurately the mountains and hills in the proportion needed upon the earth? Who regulated the Spirit of the Lord with rules or directions according to which all this was to be done? With whom did He consult? Who instructed Him how to create all this and who taught Him what to do with it? Who gave Him this omniscient understanding? Indeed, the great masses of people over whom the Lord rules are no more burden to Him than a drop in a bucket is a burden to the man who carries it and no more than a tiny speck of dust would tip the balance of a scale. Indeed, the islands and continents may be carried by Him as if they were an infinitesimal atom. All the wood of Lebanons forests is not enough to provide a sacrificial fire, nor all Lebanons animals enough to provide a sacrifice sufficient to His majesty. Compared to His greatness, the masses of humanity and the power of mans empires are as nothingas if they did not even exist.
To whom then will you compare God? Who or what resembles Him? Will you be so foolish as to liken God to one of your man-made images? These are made by men, in the likeness of man, from earthen metals and with man-made ornamentations. Even your poor people, who cannot afford gold and silver, will not be outdone in foolishness. They select a tree they think will not rot and hire skilled artisans to carve them an idol they think will be permanent. Why do you continually refuse to acknowledge who the real God is? Why do you continually refuse to listen to His prophets tell you who the real God is? It is not because you have not had the truth about God preached to you, is it? It is not because you have not been able to understand what His creative works say about Him, is it? What you have heard and what you have seen should have taught you that it is Jehovah who is enthroned upon the zenith of the earth and upholds His creation by His almighty power. Men and their idols are as weak and powerless as grasshoppers when compared to Him. He stretches out the heavens as easily as man would a curtain and makes a tent of all the heavens for His own dwelling place. He is the One who deposes princely rulers from their thrones, and brings down high and mighty human judges to nothingness. In fact, many of these pretended potentates scarcely come to power before Jehovah sees fit to remove them. Rulers are one moment upon the throne; the next they are gone like stubble in a whirlwind.
So, there is no one to whom you may compare Me, is there? There is nothing that is equal to Me, is there? Look up into the heavens! Understand that Jehovah is Creator of all the universe. He brought every single star into being and knows exactly how many stars there are. He has named every one of them and calls the roll like a military commander. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
COMMENTS
Isa. 40:12-17 SOVEREIGN CREATOR: If Gods covenant people are to be strengthened (comforted) in order to fulfill their messianic destiny they must prepare themselves to receive Gods coming to them in the flesh. This is announced in Isa. 40:1-11. But they are not prepared. They have made for themselves gods of wood and metal. They do not know the God who speaks to them through the prophets because they have rejected His word for that of the mediums and the wizards (Isa. 8:19). They think they know him. But they have compared Him to their idols and pronounced Him impotent, unable to carry out His promises (cf. Isa. 5:18-20; Isa. 29:15-16; Isa. 48:1-5; Jer. 17:15, etc.). In fact, Isaiahs contemporaries have already told him they do not want to know the Holy One of Israel! (Isa. 30:9-11).
It is interesting that Isaiah, attempting to prepare the people for the messianic destiny, does not spend his time in elaborate plans for organization, entertainment, chicken-dinners, welfare programs, singing, or emotion-packed stories. He preached a logical, reasonable sermon on the nature and character of God. Mankind is not going to be saved by human programs but by perceiving the Person of God (see Special Study, The Faith Once Delivered For All Time, Isaiah, Vol. II, pg. 250257, College Press).
Who is the God whose coming the prophet has predicted? He is the Sovereign Creator. He has created the earth and its physical features in perfect proportion necessary to maintain the intricate balance of life. The fundamental principle of geophysics known as isostasy (equal weights) is announced in Isa. 40:12. The waters of the earths surface, the land-mass and the atmosphere were created with the preciseness necessary to cause the proper gravitational and hydrological functions to sustain life on this planet. The Hebrew word shalish is translated measure referring to the dust of the earth . . . and means literally a third. The surface of the earth consists of land and water. Land, the solid part, covers about 57,584,000 square miles, or about three tenths () of the earths surface! Amazing! How did Isaiah know that the dust of the earth was a third 2700 years ago? The only accounting for it is that it was divinely revealed to him!
The God who is coming is not only omnipotent, He is omniscient. The verb translated directed in Isa. 40:13 is the Hebrew tikken and may also be translated measured. He who has measured the creation cannot be measured by the creation. He is unmeasurable and unsearchable (cf. Job. 5:9; Psa. 145:3; Isa. 55:8-9; Rom. 11:33).
Creation required infinite, supernatural knowledge. Look wherever he willinto the vastness of outer space or into the minuteness of biological space or into the labyrinthine space of human personalityman reaches limits to his knowledge. But God knows. This was demonstrated once for all in Jesus Christ who calmed the seas, raised the dead, cast out demons, read the minds of His disciples and enemies, and predicted the future behavior of men and women. God knowsbut no one taught God this knowledge, for no creature possesses such knowledge.
How did Isaiah come to such a lofty concept of God? Not by human speculation. One has only to read ancient literature of the Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and Romans to understand that the great thinkers of history never reached such sublime heights as these in their speculations about origins and gods. Isaiahs knowledge of God came by revelation (Isa. 64:4; 1Co. 2:1-13).
Not only is Jehovah infinitely supreme to individuals, He is sovereign to and independent of nations. Powerful world empires consolidate human wisdom, human power and natural resources, and seem to be able to exercise and execute the will of man in opposition to the will of God. World empires appear at times to have the power to usurp the sovereignty of God upon the earth. But compared to the power and wisdom of God they are as infinitesimal as a drop in a bucket. It is not that God has no concern for the nations. The Bible is His love letter to the world. But as far as their opposition to the fulfilling of His purposes, it is less than nothingvanity. His Being and His Sovereignty is not dependent upon them. They do not create HimHe creates them. He does not need them. If all creation were a temple, Lebanon an altar, its lordly woods the fire-wood, and its countless beasts the sacrifice, it would not be an offering sufficient to make Jehovah dependent upon man. If God were hungry He would not need to depend upon man (Psa. 50:3-15). If He needed a house He would not need to depend upon man (Isa. 66:1-2).
Perhaps Christians today need this sermon of Isaiah! Perhaps we sometimes flirt with the same arrogance of the Jews of Isaiahs daythat God could not do without us! God is not dependent upon our goodness, our offerings, our wisdom, our buildings. It is we who need His goodness. We need to make offerings to Him. The Jews were not ready for God to come to them until they perceived this. No man is ready to receive God, His Son or His Spirit, until he perceives the same thing.
Isa. 40:18-20 STUPID CREATURES: Since God is infinitely powerful, infinitely wise and unsearchable, it is sheer stupidity for the creature to attempt, in his finite limitations, to carve a likeness in wood or stone and think he has reproduced the totality of God. It is also sheer stupidity for men to devise political, ethical and philosophical systems and assume they have reproduced the totality of God, Man is limited to the experienced. God is beyond the experienced. The only possibility of man reaching beyond the experienced is that the Unexperienceable One shall reveal Himself in mans experience. This He did in Jesus Christ. God can create man in His imagebut man cannot create God in his image. Edward J. Young says it succinctly, Isaiahs question (Isa. 40:18) brings us to the heart of genuine theism. There can be no comparison between the living, eternal God (el) and any man, for man is but a creature. Man is limited, finite, temporal; God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all His attributes and perfections. In our thinking about God the infinite distance between God and the creature must ever be kept in mind. To break down this distinction is to fall into the sin of idolatry.
The Hebrew word pesel is translated image or graven image and is the thing Israel was forbidden to have in the Decalogue (Exo. 20:4). Moses was warned that God cannot be represented by any form (Deu. 4:12-24). Men seem to have an insatiable desire to see some form of God (Joh. 14:8-11), yet no one has ever seen Him (Joh. 1:18; Joh. 6:46; Col. 1:15; 1Ti. 1:17; 1Ti. 6:16; Mat. 11:27; 1Jn. 4:20). Christians are to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29; 2Co. 3:18; Col. 3:10), but this does not mean the flesh and blood body of Jesus (cf. 1Co. 15:49-50). It is therefore a dangerous practice to make statues and pictures of Jesus and depend upon them for our concept of the Son of God (besides the fact no one actually knows today the precise physical features of Jesus). It is the thinking and acting of Jesus we are to adore and recreate in usnot His human body. Perhaps this is why God saw fit to obliterate from history any exact description of Jesus. Perhaps this is why God has seen fit to erase any precise location of Jesus birth, home, etc., lest men be more tempted than they are to worship things and places rather than the Person.
The silliness of attempting to fashion a Creator out of that which is created is best exemplified by Isa. 44:9-20. There the idol-maker cuts down a tree and with half he builds a fire and cooks his food and with the other half he makes himself a god. How ridiculous! It is a fundamental principle of life that men take on the character of that which they worship (Psa. 115:3-8; Hos. 9:10; Rom. 1:18-32). Idolatry produces stupidity, degradation and death. Carving images of men and animals from wood and stone to adore and worship is not the only form of idolatry. Disobedience and rebellion against Gods commands (1Sa. 15:23) and covetousness (Col. 3:5) are both forms of idolatry.
Even the poor people of Isaiahs day refused to be deprived of indulging in idolatry. They could not afford gold and silver so they had a craftsman carve them an idol from hard wood. Making of idols was taken seriously by those who worshipped them. Only the best craftsmen fashioned them lest the production be an unworthy representation of the god or goddess. They must be made substantially of endurable materials. The larger they were and the longer lasting, the more prestige and power the idols supposedly retained.
Isa. 40:21-26 SENSIBLE CONSIDERATION: There are two sources from which these stupid people should have perceived the sovereignty of Jehovah and prepared for His comingthe word of God and the world of God. Isaiahs questions are rhetorical. Only one answer is possibleyes! Over and over, through His spokesmen (the patriarchs and the prophets), the existence and nature of the Creator was proclaimed to Israel. Day by day Israel could see the Creator in nature and providence. Have they heard? have they known? Yes! There is no excuse for their stupidity. They could not plead ignorance as the cause for their idolatry. Their sin is deliberate and in spite of their knowledge (see Special Study, Unbelief is Deliberate, Isaiah Vol. II, pg. 99, College Press).
The prophet implores his people to come back to a sensible consideration of the sovereignty of Jehovah based on more evidence from creation and history. One thing is certain from mans experienceman is not supernatural and omnipotent. Compared to the eternal, sovereign Jehovah, who sits enthroned upon the circle (zenith) of the earth, men are like grasshoppers. Get all the millions and millions of grasshoppers together and they cannot hold the world in its course, All the men of the world are like that. Some interpreters see in the word hkoog (circle) an indication that ancient people knew the world was round. Others think it merely means the highest part of the horizon or the zenith. God is pictured as sitting over the highest part of the earth to watch over His creation. The emphasis of the context is on comparing the power of God and the weakness of man. God also stretched out the heavens as effortlessly and quickly as a man in Isaiahs day would stretch out a curtain. These vast, endless, majestic heavens are His dwelling place. Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second. The estimated distance to the extent of the known universe is 6,000,000 light years! Multiply the number of seconds in a year by six million and you get the estimate of the known universe. But there are areas beyond that!
Proud, haughty, presumptuous human potentates and rulers strut through history pretending they rule the earth. But it is Jehovah who gives and takes away (cf. Dan. 2:20-23; Jer. 27:5-11; Isa. 45:1-7). God plants and sows and lets them take root only as long as He wishes. Some men scarcely are sown and hardly take root before He takes them away like the whirlwind takes chaff away. All flesh is like grass (1Pe. 1:24-25). Our years are soon gone and we fly away (cf. Psa. 90:9-10; Mat. 6:27; Jas. 4:13-17), but God is forever.
The prophet repeats his challenge. There is no being to whom one may liken Jehovah. No one in all His creation is His equal. He is the Incomparable One. He has created the stars and planets. He knows how many there are and has a name for each of them. Man cannot even count the stars, let alone create one. Someone has pointed out that while God formed other animals to look downwards for pasture and prey, he made man alone erect, and told him to look at what may be regarded as his own habitation, the starry heavens. When man seriously contemplates the heavens he is pointed to the Creator (Psa. 19:1-6). Charles A. Lindbergh was 25 years old when he took off from Roosevelt Field, New York, at 7:52 a.m. on May 20, 1927. After more than 3600 miles and 33 hours, he landed at LeBourget Field near Paris, France. When he had flown his trusted plane, Spirit of St. Louis, midway on its transatlantic flight he began to think of the smallness of man and the deficiency of his devices, and the greatness and marvels of Gods universe. He mused, Its hard to be an agnostic here in the Spirit of St. Louis when so aware of the frailty of mans devices. If one dies, all Gods creation goes on existing in a plan so perfectly balanced, so wondrously simple and yet so incredibly complex that it is beyond our comprehension. Theres the infinite detail, and mans consciousness of it alla world audience to what, if not to God.
QUIZ
1.
Why must Isaiahs people know about the nature of God?
2.
How does Isaiah proceed to bring the people to this knowledge?
3.
What is interesting about Isaiahs statement about the dust of the earth having been measured by God?
4.
How did Isaiah come to such a lofty concept of God?
5.
What can Christians learn from this emphasis on the nature of God?
6.
Why is making graven images stupid?
7.
What other forms of idolatry are there?
8.
Why should the contemplation of the heavens point man to God?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(12) Who hath measured . . .?Another section opens, expanding the thought of the eternal majesty of Jehovah, as contrasted with the vanity of the idols, or no-gods, of the heathen. The whole passage in form and thought supplies once more a parallelism with Job. 38:4; Job. 38:25; Job. 38:37. The whole image is divinely anthropomorphic. The Creator is the great Work-master (Wis. 13:1) of the universe, ordering all things, like a human artificer, by number and weight and measure. The mountains of the earth are as dust in the scales of the Infinite.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12-14. In the presence and hearing of the Jewish people, the prophet asks,
Who hath measured meted comprehended The verbs are in the past tense, and the last is better rendered as here written (comprehended) because it, on the whole, expresses not what is physical, as do the other terms employed, but what is spiritual or mental.
Who hath directed To the question respecting God’s omnipotence, is one added respecting his omniscience: who, besides himself, can regulate the movements of His will, intellect, boundless power, and matchless wisdom? This general idea runs on, showing God’s infinite sufficiency in himself, and how vain human assumptions of being in possible communication with God as his counsellor. This thought is referred to by Paul, ( Rom 11:34 ; 1Co 2:16,) to show in both cases, as here, the inconceivable absurdity of attempting comparison of man with God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Greatness Of God Proclaimed ( Isa 40:12-31 ).
And He will be able to do it because of His greatness. In this vital passage the greatness of God to do What He declares He will do is now revealed in all its fullness.
He Is Over Creation.
Isa 40:12
‘Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?
And measured the heavens with a span?
And enveloped the dust of the earth in a measure?
And weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?’
The first concentration is on the vastness of God as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. He is the One Who takes the oceans in the palm of His hand to examine their size, He measures the heavens with the span of His fingers. He takes the dust of the whole earth into His measuring jug (literally ‘his third’), picks up the mountains and puts them in His scales, and weighs the hills in His balances.
Water, sky and earth were the three basic constituents of creation in Genesis 1. So all the basic things in creation are seen as coming under His survey, and He is seen to be vaster than them all.
He Is Omniscient.
Isa 40:13-14
‘Who has directed the Spirit of Yahweh?
Or being his counsellor, has taught him?
With whom did he take counsel and who instructed him?
And who taught him in the path of judgment?
And taught him knowledge?
And showed him the way of understanding?’
The next thing about God is His omniscience. No one can teach Him anything. He is all wise, all knowing, all comprehending. No one has given directions to His Spirit, or has been appointed as His adviser and guided Him. He has never sought counsel from anyone, or needed to be taught how to make right judgments, or been given knowledge, or needed to be shown what is sensible and right. It is He alone Who directs the Spirit of Yahweh, and gives counsel and teaches men knowledge and understanding, and shows them what is right.
This is in contrast with the myths of the nations where the gods regularly make mistakes, consult and seek counsel, and have to learn and grow in knowledge and understanding. When the Babylonian god Marduk is depicted as wanting to ‘create’ he did not just act of himself, he sought the guidance of Ea, the all-wise. But they are to recognise that in reality all advice and counsel comes from Yahweh.
He Is Greater Than All.
Isa 40:15-17
Behold the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust of the balance.
Behold he takes up the isles as a very small thing,
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before him,
They are counted to him less than nothing, and emptiness.
Look! They should be aware that even the greatest nation is like a drop of water at the bottom of a bucket as God peers in to see whether it is dry, they are like the fine dust which a man flicks off his balances before using them, hardly noticeable and irrelevant. The furthest isles and coastlands are minute in His sight.
If a burnt offering is to be found worthy of God even all the forests of Lebanon are insufficient for fire, nor are all its cattle and small cattle sufficient for a burnt offering. Before Him all nations are but a thing of nought, they are less than a nothing, in comparison with Him they are totally empty of meaning. (The thought is one of comparison and contrast, not an indication that God does not care about them).
He Is Divinely Incomparable.
Isa 40:18-20
‘To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to him?
The graven image? A workman casts it,
And the goldsmith covers it with gold,
And casts for it silver chains.
He who is too poor for such an offering,
Chooses a tree that will not rot.
He seeks for himself a skilful craftsman,
To set up a graven image that will not be moved.’
There is nothing that can compare with God. The gods of the nations certainly cannot be compared with God, for they are man-made. Such an idea is to be dismissed with contempt. They may be splendid, or they may be sturdy, but they will not be moved, either by themselves or by others. There they stay, lifeless and imprisoned on their bases. What care men take over them, and yet they are nothings. And their quality depends totally on whether their maker is rich or poor. (And besides, ‘the tree that will not rot’ will rot in the end). How then can they be compared with Him?
As often when idols are mentioned the description is pragmatic. The idea is that the worshippers may sense something beyond the idols, but that really there is nothing. Both Old and New Testament however go further and say that what lies behind them is devils (1Co 10:19-20; Deu 32:17).
He Is Supremely Great Beyond All Things and All Men, King Over All.
Isa 40:21-24
‘Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are as grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain,
And spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.
Who brings princes to nothing,
He makes the judges of the earth as nought.
Yes, they have not been planted, yes, they have not been sown,
Yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth,
What is more he blows on them and they wither,
And the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.’
The questions are put to mankind as a whole going back to the beginning of time. They have known, and heard and been told right from the beginning, even from the foundations of the earth, that He is the One Who sits on high, the One Who is ‘out of this world’, on His throne. And to them there was only one way of getting out of this world, and that was upwards. God was above and beyond all that they knew. What a contrast to the idols fixed to their bases.
The circle of the earth probably has in mind the course of the sun, rising from the east and setting in the west, and then going below the earth to arise again on the east. Or it could refer to the circle of the horizon. We should not read into this scientific ideas, even ancient scientific ideas. Few asked those kinds of questions. They described what they saw. Such questions were for Babylonian priests who did engage in such speculation, not for small country savants. No one in Judah would have a theory about the world, other than that they knew that God had made the world. They knew that He had made it as it was and they simply described it as they saw it without speculating.
‘Its inhabitants are as grasshoppers.’ This description may have arisen because they knew what the men below looked like from a mountain top, like a bunch of grasshoppers, and knew that God looked down from even higher. Or it may simply be a way of describing man as tiny compared with God.
‘Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in. Who brings princes to nothing, He makes the judges of the earth as nought.’ That is, God uses the whole known universe as His tent, a temporary accommodation whenever He needs it. What is more, compared with Him great princes and judges are nothings. They count for nothing in the presence of the Judge of all the earth Who always does what is right and needs no assistance in judging (Gen 18:25).
‘Yes, they have not been planted, yes, they have not been sown, yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth. What is more He blows on them and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.’ Such prince and judges are transitory, here today and gone tomorrow. They are hardly planted, or sown, or take root when God blows so that they wither, and then as stubble the whirlwind takes them away. He is permanent, they are temporary. It is His wind and breath that controls all things.
The main purpose behind all this is to describe the greatness of the Creator and the minuteness of those whom He has created, specially those whom men fear, and to put them into the context of the magnificence of God.
Isa 40:25
“To whom then will you liken me, that I should be equal to him?” says the Holy One.’
God challenges them to produce an equal to Him, someone whom they can remotely compare with Him. Someone who is as unique and set apart as He. There is no one that they can even begin to think of, for He is the Holy One.
Isa 40:26
‘Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these,
Who brings out their host by number.
He calls them all by name.
By the greatness of his might,
And because he is strong in power, not one is lacking.’
He calls on them to survey the stars, the host of heaven. They are all His creation. He simply calls them ‘these’. We can compare how the creation story dismissed them in a phrase, ‘He made the stars also’ (Gen 1:16). But when the sky is full of stars it is He Who has brought them out. And He has a name for every one of them (Psa 147:4). The naming of a thing indicated ownership by the One Who named. Thus God is claiming that every one of the stars is His. And they are all there, with none missing, because of His mighty power. Whatever men may think and say, they are all His and He has named each one.
‘‘Lift up your eyes on high.’ Compare here Deu 4:19 where the verb is used of those who lift up their eyes to heaven to worship the star-gods. What folly! Here they are to lift up their eyes above the heavens to see the Creator of the stars, to Whom all the stars belong.
‘Who brings out their host.’ The word for ‘bring out’ is a military term, as is clear from Isa 43:17 and 2Sa 5:2. It is similarly applied the host of heaven in Job 38:32. The sense is that the stars are like an army which its leader ‘brings out’ and enumerates.
Israel Cannot Hide Their Ways from God.
Isa 40:27
‘Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel, saying
“My way is hid from Yahweh,
And my case is being disregarded by my God.” ’
We note the first use of Jacob/Israel in this chapter, which continues its use from earlier, and is characteristic of the next few chapters. Isaiah does not see God as addressing the refugees of Judah only, He is addressing all Israel wherever they may be. His people are declaring that God does not know their situation, that He has ceased to make judgments concerning them. That their case is continually disregarded by Him. That many of them are scattered in different parts of the world (Isa 11:11), and that God neither knows nor cares. The cities of Judah may have had declared to them what God is going to do, but, they ask, what about the remainder?
‘O Jacob — O Israel.’ The combination of names is a reminder of how Jacob met God as he was returning to the land, and how he became Israel, of how Jacob the supplanter became Israel the prince with God. But now the people, whether Jacob or Israel are discouraged and discontented. They have lost their vision.
‘Why do you say?’ God is upset at their attitude, and He asks them why they say this in the light of the facts. It is in fact not He Who is at fault, but they. He points out that if they had waited on Him, had trusted in Him, it would be different.
Isa 40:28
‘Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
Does not faint, nor is weary.
There is no searching of his understanding.’
His first challenge concerns Himself. Do they not recognise Whom He is? They should have known. They should have heard. But the implication is that they have not. Then He explains. He is the everlasting God, He is Yahweh the Creator of the ends of the earth. Thus He knows all that goes on in the world. And as the Everlasting One and the Creator of life itself He neither faints nor grows weary. He is always on the alert, always aware of what is going on. And He knows and understands everything. Nor can anyone even begin to search out His understanding. He is the all alive One, the living God.
Isa 40:29
‘He gives power to the faint,
And to him who has no might he increases strength.’
If they had only trusted in Him and waited on Him (Isa 40:31) they would have discovered that He did know their circumstances, and that He was there to act. For to those who are faint, and who trust in Him, He gives power. To those who have no might, but trust in Him, He gives strength. And they should have known it. And if they would only trust in Him now they would enjoy what He has promised, and He would be able to bring about His purposes through them.
Isa 40:30-31
‘Even the youths will be faint and be weary,
And the young men will utterly fail.
But those who wait on Yahweh will renew their strength,
They will mount up with wings as eagles,
They will run and not be weary,
They will walk and not faint.’
What they must do is recognise the power of their God, and turn from sin, and seek Him. Let them wait on Him. And then, even when the youths are fainting and are weary, and the young men at the peak of their powers are failing under the pressure, those who are trusting God will discover that by waiting on God they will fly like eagles, they will run without losing strength, they will walk without fainting. The eagle was famous for the height to which it flew, mounting into the skies until it was only a dark speck. So would rise those who waited on Yahweh, above the world and all its problems, to share their lives with God (compare Isa 60:8; Psa 55:6). The runner was the messenger, enduring, keeping on running because he had an important message to take. The runner who ran in Yahweh’s name would never grow weary. And the walker was the one who went about the ordinary affairs of life. ‘Walk’ is regularly used to describe the path of the righteous. The one who waited on God would walk and not faint.
So the offer of God is available. They have been faced with God, ‘Behold your God’ (Isa 40:9). He is there ready to reveal Himself, to come among men in His glory (Isa 40:1-11). He has revealed the greatness of What He is (Isa 40:12-26). Let them but respond and His final purposes will come about, and He will give them the strength needed to participate. And the offer is to all both near and far. The whole chapter is a call to Judah and Israel, both near and far, to repent and respond. It is also a vision of what one day will be. First when men behold God in Jesus Christ (Joh 1:14), and respond to Him. And then in the final day when they will truly mount up on wings as eagles, meeting the Lord in the air (1Th 4:13-18), ever to be with Him.
We may rightly see in this chapter an expansion of Isaiah 6. But here we have, not the Lord seated on His throne, but the Lord enthroned over all things,
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 40:12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
Isa 40:16 Isa 40:16
Isa 40:18 To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?
Isa 40:18
Isa 40:18 repeats this rhetorical question in Isa 40:25.
Isa 40:19 The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
Isa 40:20 Isa 40:20
Isa 41:7, “So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the sodering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.”
Isa 40:21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
Isa 40:21
Rom 1:19-20, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
Isa 40:22
Isa 40:22 “that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain” Scripture References – Note a similar verse in Psa 104:2, “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain :”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Revelation of God as Creator – In Isa 40:12 to Isa 41:29 God challenges backslidden Israel to produce her reasons for trusting in idols (Isa 41:21) while revealing Himself as the Creator of all things. God establishes His omnipotence and omniscience through irrefutable testimony cited in this section of Isaiah as the Creator of the universe. Thus, He is able to bring to pass anything He declares.
We find a similar passage of Scripture in Job 38:1 to Job 41:34 where God challenges Job to produce his reasons for trusting in his own righteousness. In a similar manner God reveals to Job his frailty and weakness in the midst of His majestic creation that reveals Him as the divine creator of all things.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Jehovah the Supreme Ruler.
The connection of thought between this section and the foregoing one is this, that the majesty and glory of God over against the idolatry of the heathen nations guarantees the security and the deliverance of the believers of all times.
v. 12. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? v. 13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord? v. 14. With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, v. 15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, v. 16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, v. 17. All nations before Him are as nothing, v. 18. To whom, then, will ye liken God? v. 19. The workman melteth a graven image, v. 20. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation, v. 21. Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? v. 22. It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, v. 23. that bringeth the princes to nothing, v. 24. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown; yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth, v. 25. To whom, then, will ye liken Me or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. v. 26. Lift up your eyes on high, v. 27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, v. 28. Hast thou not known? v. 29. He giveth power to the faint, v. 30. Even the youths, v. 31. But they that wait upon the Lord,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Isa 40:12-17. Who hath measured the waters, &c. The prophet here, in the most sublime manner, celebrates the divine majesty and greatness, but particularly his wisdom. Rapt into an extacy, after he had described the beginning and the nature of the new oeconomy, he sees that there would be many men of worldly prudence, who would hesitate at the methods of the divine counsel; and that the pious themselves, considering the extent and firmness of the kingdom of Satan in the world, the obstinate prejudices of the Gentiles, and the power of idolatry, would have their fears and doubts of the effect and success of the kingdom of the Messiah; a spiritual kingdom, to be established without any external means, by the mere preaching of the word, and to oppose itself to whatever was great or strong among men. The prophet, therefore, occurs to these thoughts; teaching, that the divine counsel, though it might seem strange to carnal judgment, was yet founded in the sovereign and most perfect wisdom and knowledge of God, whereof the clearest proofs were discernible in the structure of this world; that God was wiser than men; that his counsel was maturely weighed; that it pertained to his wisdom and glory to establish and promote his kingdom in the world, rather by this method than any other; that he might put to shame all carnal wisdom both of the Jews and Gentiles; for that the foolishness of God, as it seems to carnal men, is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men (according to the apostle, whose whole discourse in 1Co 1:22; 1Co 1:31 contains a paraphrase of this period): therefore he knew that this method of establishing his kingdom would have its certain effect; that this word, this faith, would overcome the world, and subvert idolatry. This is the connection, and this the sum of the passage. The prophet discourses concerning the prudence of the divine counsel, in the verses here marked out; and concerning idolatry, from Isa 40:18-27. In this period he first praises the prudence and wisdom of God, in constituting the state of his kingdom such as he had above described it, Isa 40:12-14 and herein he observes, that God has shewn the same perfection of wisdom and judgment in the oeconomy of this spiritual world, as all men who have eyes to see must discern in the admirable structure of the natural world. He then particularly praises the justification of the sinner, recommended in the Gospel (wherein the kingdom of the Son of God should be founded), comparatively, and oppositely to some other righteousness or justification of Jews and Gentiles, which was esteemed as nothing in the sight of God; Isa 40:15-17 which contain an illustration of the evangelical cry in the 6th verse, All flesh is grass. The meaning of the 16th verse is this, that, though the nations might consume all their riches upon their false religion, though they might offer to God in sacrifice all the beasts on their mountains, and all the cattle of their fields; and though they might employ for this purpose all the wood of Lebanon, it would avail nothing before him: that he would admit no other righteousness, no other justification, than that recommended in the Gospel; that being the only ransom, that the only sacrifice which he would approve. What is said of the nations, the carnal Jews might apply to themselves. See a remarkable passage in Psa 50:8. &c. to the same purpose with the present; Rom 8:6; Rom 8:39.; and Vitringa.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Some have thought that the person of God the Father is here spoken of, because the Church is taught to look up to Him with peculiar reverence of character, as the Creator. But, as the church is never taught to look up to God the Father, in this glorious distinction of character, to the exclusion of the other persons of the Godhead, but always in conjunction with them, I see no reason to break the connection of the chapter, by supposing that what went before, and which is evidently spoken of the person of Christ, as Mediator, is not continued through this passage also. In all the acts of creation, as well as of redemption, the word of God tells us, that every manifestation of Jehovah is in and through the person, offices, and character of our Lord Jesus Christ: Heb 1:1-2 . And if we read this sublime description in the person of the Lord Jesus, as the glorious Head of his Church and people; and while we read it (and which seems to have been the design for which it is given) recollect our interest in him; oh! how blessed doth every word then come home to the soul, to comfort, to encourage, and to give confidence to every redeemed sinner. Reader! read again and again these verses. Recollect what was said before of Jesus’s tenderness as a Shepherd, and here see how great he is, who was there said to be so gracious. Blend both views in one; then say, how safe, how eternally safe and secure, must that redeemed soul be, however poor, however little and insignificant in himself, who is truly one with Him, whose power takes up the isles as a very little thing; whose wisdom measures the waters, and meeteth out the heavens; and to whom the nations are but as the drop of the bucket? Reader! have you an interest in this omnipotent Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Make this the subject of inquiry, as one of the most blessed improvements of this scripture; and then you will enter into a full apprehension of what the Prophet saith: how impossible is it to find any to whom to liken Jesus, and how impossible it is to enrich him by any services of his creatures, before whom Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor all the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. And how truly blessed is it, moreover, to contemplate this sovereignty of our Lord Jesus, in the new creation of the soul, while reading such sublime instances of the old creation in nature?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 40:12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
Ver. 12. Who hath measured the waters. ] Who but God alone. Totus est in hoc libro, ut confirmet nos in fide. God made heaven, earth, and sea, in number, weight, and measure, as an architect; therefore he wanteth neither power nor wisdom to work in and for his people.
And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 40:12-17
12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
And marked off the heavens by the span,
And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?
13Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
Or as His counselor has informed Him?
14With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge
And informed Him of the way of understanding?
15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales;
Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.
16Even Lebanon is not enough to burn,
Nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17All the nations are as nothing before Him,
They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.
Isa 40:12-17 As Isa 40:9-11 describe the message of YHWH’s personal presence as Savior, Isa 40:12-17 describe Him as Creator.
1. measured the waters (i.e., controller and organizer of original water of chaos), Isa 40:12
2. designed the atmosphere of this planet, Isa 40:12
3. ordered the dry land (calculated the dust and weighed the mountains. . .hill [Hebrew parallelism]), Isa 40:12
4. directed the Spirit as agent, without counsel, Isa 40:13-14
5. in comparison with God’s creative power and intellect, humans are nothing (cf. Isa 40:6-8, this is similar to Job 38-41), Isa 40:15-17
Isa 40:12 Who has measured the waters All of the VERBS of Isa 40:12 are PERFECT (i.e., completed action). This is a series of questions which expect a no answer. It is similar to the book of Job 38-41, where God answered Job’s questions by asserting His sovereignty and authority. Isa 40:12 is very similar to Isa 41:26.
Notice the parallelism.
1. measured – BDB 551, KB 547]
2. marked off – BDB 1067, KB 1733
3. calculated – BDB 465, KB 463
4. weighed – BDB 1053, KB 1642
These are all metaphorical actions of the Creator. The creation account of Genesis 1 is also imagery of God’s control, ordering and maintaining the universe. A new good book is John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One.
Isa 40:13-14 The who of these verses may link back to the PLURALS of Isa 40:1-3. If so, they relate to the heavenly council. These angelic servants can be seen in
1. the Us passages of Genesis 1, 6
2. 1Ki 22:19-23
3. Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7
4. Dan 7:10; Dan 7:26
Isa 40:13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD Isa 40:13-14 are parallel. This is not a Trinitarian passage but an OT passage, much like Gen 1:2, which speaks of the Spirit as God’s presence (see Special Topic: Spirit in the Bible ).
Isa 40:14 And who taught Him in the path of justice Notice the parallelism. Path is the OT background to the NT concept of The Way, which was used of the early church in Acts. This speaks of biblical faith as lifestyle fellowship with God.
For justice see Special Topic below. This verse in essence is asserting monotheism.
SPECIAL TOPIC: JUDGE, JUDGMENT, and JUSTICE () IN ISAIAH
This verse in essence is asserting monotheism. See Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: MONOTHEISM
Isa 40:15-17 the nations are like a drop from a bucket. . .a speck of dust on the scales. . .All nations are as nothing before Him This is an emphasis on God’s power (cf. Jer 10:10), not on His lack of care or compassion for the nations. YHWH sent Jesus for the redemption of the whole human race. However, rebellious nations will be judged (cf. Isa 17:13; Isa 29:5; Isa 29:7).
SPECIAL TOPIC: YHWH’s ETERNAL REDEMPTIVE PLAN
Isa 40:16 The point of this verse is that even a place (i.e., Lebanon) which is heavily forested and full of wild animals would not provide an adequate sacrifice to the greatness of Israel’s covenant God. For a similar extravagant attempt at an adequate sacrifice note 1Ki 8:63.
Isa 40:17
NASBmeaningless
NKJVworthless
NRSV, NJBemptiness
This word, (BDB 1062), is used of the formless earth in Gen 1:2 (cf. Isa 34:11; Isa 45:18; Jer 4:23). It is also used of the non-existence of idols (1Sa 12:21; Isa 41:29; Isa 44:9).
Isaiah uses it in this same chapter for the nothingness of human rulers (i.e., Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and all enemies of God’s people). Human organization and power are incomparable to YHWH’s power and plan.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
These chapters (Isa 40:12-66:24) form a group corresponding with Isaiah chapters 1-5; and, like them, consist of exhortations and prophecies, while they are set in contrast with them, being promissory instead of reprehensory. Their subjects, as respectively repeated, will be seen in the Structure A below. They look beyond the Captivity.
Isa 40:12-66:24. EXHORTATIONS: PROMISSORY AND PROPHETIC.
(Alternation and Introversion.)
Structure A:
K | 40:12-31. God’s Controversy with the Nations. Vanity of Idols.
L | M | 41:1-42:16.Messiah’s Anointing and Mission.
N | 42:17-45:15.Jehovah’s Controversy with Israel.
K | 45:16-47:15. God’s Controversy with the Nations. Vanity of Idols.
L | N | 48:1-22. Jehovah’s Controversy with Israel.
M| 49:1-66:24. Messiah’s Mission and Triumph.
(Isa 40:12-14) Who. . . . Who. . . With whom. . . ? Isa 40:12-14 are introductory: while the Figure of speech Erotesis emphasizes the importance of Him Who speaks.
a measure = a [Shalish] measure. See App-51.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 40:12-17
Isa 40:12-17
“Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of Jehovah, or being his counselor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel? and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. All the nations are as nothing before him as less than nothing, and vanity.”
Isaiah here offered no argument for the existence of God, because he was addressing a people who had long been accustomed to the acceptance of such a fact. Here, Isaiah was commenting upon the greatness of God. As Hailey noted, “No more appropriate title for these verses could be imagined than the one found in the ASV, as follows: `The Incomparable Greatness of God.’
There is a series of rhetorical questions here, every one of which requires the answer: “No one.” Kelley commented that the use of such questions, “was a favorite literary device of this prophet.
The apostle Paul quoted from Isa 40:13 in Rom 11:34. One of the unusual metaphors here is in Isa 40:16 where it is declared that the whole forest of Lebanon for the fire and all of the beasts thereof for the burnt-offering would not be sufficient to provide a single sacrifice for such a great God as Jehovah!
“The nations …” (Isa 40:17). This means all of the nations on earth taken together.
Isa 40:12-17 SOVEREIGN CREATOR: If Gods covenant people are to be strengthened (comforted) in order to fulfill their messianic destiny they must prepare themselves to receive Gods coming to them in the flesh. This is announced in Isa 40:1-11. But they are not prepared. They have made for themselves gods of wood and metal. They do not know the God who speaks to them through the prophets because they have rejected His word for that of the mediums and the wizards (Isa 8:19). They think they know him. But they have compared Him to their idols and pronounced Him impotent, unable to carry out His promises (cf. Isa 5:18-20; Isa 29:15-16; Isa 48:1-5; Jer 17:15, etc.). In fact, Isaiahs contemporaries have already told him they do not want to know the Holy One of Israel! (Isa 30:9-11).
It is interesting that Isaiah, attempting to prepare the people for the messianic destiny, does not spend his time in elaborate plans for organization, entertainment, chicken-dinners, welfare programs, singing, or emotion-packed stories. He preached a logical, reasonable sermon on the nature and character of God. Mankind is not going to be saved by human programs but by perceiving the Person of God.
Who is the God whose coming the prophet has predicted? He is the Sovereign Creator. He has created the earth and its physical features in perfect proportion necessary to maintain the intricate balance of life. The fundamental principle of geophysics known as isostasy (equal weights) is announced in Isa 40:12. The waters of the earths surface, the land-mass and the atmosphere were created with the preciseness necessary to cause the proper gravitational and hydrological functions to sustain life on this planet. The Hebrew word shalish is translated measure referring to the dust of the earth . . . and means literally a third. The surface of the earth consists of land and water. Land, the solid part, covers about 57,584,000 square miles, or about three tenths () of the earths surface! Amazing! How did Isaiah know that the dust of the earth was a third 2700 years ago? The only accounting for it is that it was divinely revealed to him!
The God who is coming is not only omnipotent, He is omniscient. The verb translated directed in Isa 40:13 is the Hebrew tikken and may also be translated measured. He who has measured the creation cannot be measured by the creation. He is unmeasurable and unsearchable (cf. Job 5:9; Psa 145:3; Isa 55:8-9; Rom 11:33).
Creation required infinite, supernatural knowledge. Look wherever he will-into the vastness of outer space or into the minuteness of biological space or into the labyrinthine space of human personality-man reaches limits to his knowledge. But God knows. This was demonstrated once for all in Jesus Christ who calmed the seas, raised the dead, cast out demons, read the minds of His disciples and enemies, and predicted the future behavior of men and women. God knows-but no one taught God this knowledge, for no creature possesses such knowledge.
How did Isaiah come to such a lofty concept of God? Not by human speculation. One has only to read ancient literature of the Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and Romans to understand that the great thinkers of history never reached such sublime heights as these in their speculations about origins and gods. Isaiahs knowledge of God came by revelation (Isa 64:4; 1Co 2:1-13).
Not only is Jehovah infinitely supreme to individuals, He is sovereign to and independent of nations. Powerful world empires consolidate human wisdom, human power and natural resources, and seem to be able to exercise and execute the will of man in opposition to the will of God. World empires appear at times to have the power to usurp the sovereignty of God upon the earth. But compared to the power and wisdom of God they are as infinitesimal as a drop in a bucket. It is not that God has no concern for the nations. The Bible is His love letter to the world. But as far as their opposition to the fulfilling of His purposes, it is less than nothing-vanity. His Being and His Sovereignty is not dependent upon them. They do not create Him-He creates them. He does not need them. If all creation were a temple, Lebanon an altar, its lordly woods the fire-wood, and its countless beasts the sacrifice, it would not be an offering sufficient to make Jehovah dependent upon man. If God were hungry He would not need to depend upon man (Psa 50:3-15). If He needed a house He would not need to depend upon man (Isa 66:1-2).
Perhaps Christians today need this sermon of Isaiah! Perhaps we sometimes flirt with the same arrogance of the Jews of Isaiahs day-that God could not do without us! God is not dependent upon our goodness, our offerings, our wisdom, our buildings. It is we who need His goodness. We need to make offerings to Him. The Jews were not ready for God to come to them until they perceived this. No man is ready to receive God, His Son or His Spirit, until he perceives the same thing.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
measured: Isa 48:13, Job 11:7-9, Job 38:4-11, Psa 102:25, Psa 102:26, Psa 104:2, Psa 104:3, Pro 8:26-28, Pro 30:4, Heb 1:10-12, Rev 20:11
measure: Heb. tierce
weighed: Job 28:25
Reciprocal: Gen 1:2 – Spirit Jdg 15:4 – caught three 1Ch 16:25 – great Job 9:5 – removeth Job 14:18 – the mountain Job 37:18 – spread Job 38:5 – laid Psa 111:2 – works Isa 41:4 – hath Isa 42:5 – he that created Isa 45:12 – my hands Jer 31:37 – If Amo 4:13 – he that Jon 2:6 – mountains Zec 12:1 – which Act 17:24 – that made Act 17:29 – we ought
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 40:12-14. Who hath measured the waters, &c. Who can do this but God? And this discourse on Gods infinite power and wisdom is added, to give them the greater assurance, that he was able, as he had declared himself willing, to do those great and wonderful things which he had promised; and neither men nor false gods were able to hinder him. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, &c. Whom did God either need or take to advise him in any of his works, either of creation or the government of the world? Were they not all the effects of his own sole wisdom? Therefore, though all the nations of the world should conspire and contrive against him, and oppose this work of his, as indeed they will do, yet his own counsel shall confound all their devices, and he will carry on his work in spite of them. Who taught him in the path of judgment How to conduct himself, and manage his affairs with good judgment and discretion? Bishop Lowth translates the verse, Whom hath he consulted, that he should instruct him, and teach him the path of judgment; that he should impart to him science, and inform him in the way of understanding? Thus the prophet, in the most sublime manner, celebrates the divine majesty and greatness, but particularly his wisdom. Rapt into an ecstasy, after he had described the beginning and the nature of the new economy, he sees that there would be many men of worldly prudence, who would hesitate at the methods of the divine counsel, and that the pious themselves, considering the extent and firmness of the kingdom of Satan in the world, the obstinate prejudices of the Gentiles, and the power of idolatry, would have their fears and doubts of the effect and success of the kingdom of the Messiah; a spiritual kingdom, to be established without any external means, by the mere preaching of the word, and to oppose itself to whatever was great or strong among men. The prophet, therefore, recurs to these thoughts; teaching, first, that the divine counsel, though it might seem strange to carnal judgment, was yet founded in the sovereign and most perfect wisdom and knowledge of God, whereof the clearest proofs were discernible in the structure of this world; that God was wiser than men; that his counsel was maturely weighed; that it pertained to his wisdom and glory to establish and to promote his kingdom in the world, rather by this method than any other, that he might put to shame all carnal wisdom, both of the Jews and Gentiles; for that the foolishness of God, as it seems to carnal men, is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men, (1Co 1:22,) &c., therefore he knew that this method of establishing his kingdom would have its certain effect; that this word, this faith, would overcome the world, and subvert idolatry. See Vitringa and Dodd.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 40:12-31. An Expansion of the Text Suggested in Isa 40:6-8.
Isa 40:12-17. The Majesty of God, in Whose Eyes the World is Insignificant.God is the Creator, disposing of earth and heaven as very small things. No adviser instructed Him. The nations in His sight are like the drop hanging from the bucket, or the dust on the scale, too small to count in the bulk. The forests of Lebanon and the many wild beasts that range them would not provide fuel and victims for a worthy sacrifice.
Isa 40:14. path of judgement: rather, the correct way.way of understanding: how to do it.
Isa 40:15. isles: properly coastlands, but used as a synonym for (distant) lands.
Isa 40:17-20. What Material Image Can Represent so Mighty a God?
Isa 41:6 f. should be inserted to fill the obvious gap between Isa 40:19 and Isa 40:20. In their present context they are a disturbing element. Addressing mankind the prophet asks, If God is so exalted, what can represent Him? A molten image? Why the founder makes a core, which the goldsmith plates with gold, the workmen heartening each other as they work! A wooden idol? Carved from a tree and propped securely lest it fall! How absurdly inadequate!
Isa 40:19. graven image: the original sense of the word; here simply image; a molten image is in question. In Isa 40:20 it is used of a carven image.and casteth . . . chains: LXX omits; delete as a guess at unintelligible and corrupt Heb.Isa 41:6. Render, Each helps the other, and says to his comrade, Be strong.
Isa 40:7. carpenter: render, artificer.that smiteth the anvil: what has the blacksmith to do here? The last delicate modelling?fastened it: it may be the gold plating: the next clause is a gloss from Isa 40:20.
Isa 40:20. He . . . oblation: improbable translation of unintelligible text. Possibly emend, He who cuts out an image (of wood).
Isa 40:21-26. Gods Absolute Power over the Universe and its Inhabitants.The appeal is again to mankind. The universe from the beginning has shown its Makers might. Enthroned high above the disc-like earth, He spreads the heavens over it, easily as if they were but a tent (cf. mg.). History shows that no earthly power, however august, can for a moment survive His attack. What image can represent such an one? Even the stars (regarded here as in some sense personalities; Gen 2:1*, Job 38:7*) are His handiwork, and He summons them forth each night to take their appointed stations; so great is His might that none of them dare play truant.
Isa 40:24. Their reign seems to end before it has begun (mg.).
Isa 40:26. Read, For fear of him who is great in might and strong in power not one fails.
Isa 40:27-31. Yahweh, the Eternal God. shall Strengthen All who Trust in Him.Israel complains that God has forgotten her just claims. Does she not see that God takes long views beyond her absorption in the moment? Let her not fear that He has become decrepit. On the contrary, His overflowing strength shall fill those who trust in Him so that they, when even strong men despair, shall rise above all feebleness.
Isa 40:27. way: render, fate.Judgement: render right.passed away from: i.e., is forgotten by.
Isa 40:31. mount . . . eagles: read, Put forth wings like (those of) eagles. The following words are an addition and an anticlimax.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
40:12 Who hath comprehended the waters in the hollow of his {r} hand, and measured heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
(r) Declaring that as only God has all power, so does he use the same for the defence and maintenance of his Church.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The incomparable Lord 40:12-26
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 (Isa 40:12-26), each introduced by several questions.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The incomparable Creator 40:12-20
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
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.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER VI
GOD: A SACRAMENT
Isa 40:12-16
SUCH are the Four Voices which herald the day of Israels redemption. They are scarcely silent, before the Sun Himself uprises, and horizon after horizon of His empire is displayed to the eyes of His starved and waiting people. From the prologue of the prophecy, in Isa 40:1-11, we advance to the presentation, in Isa 40:12-31 and Isa 41:1-29, of its primary and governing truth-the sovereignty and omnipotence of God, the God of Israel.
We may well call this truth the sun of the new day which Israel is about to enter. For as it is the sun which makes the day, and not the day which reveals the sun; so it is God, supreme and almighty, who interprets, predicts, and controls His peoples history, and not their history, which, in its gradual evolution, is to make Gods sovereignty and omnipotence manifest to their experience. Let us clearly understand this. The prophecy, which we are about to follow, is an argument not so much from history to God as from God to history. Israel already have their God; and it is because He is what He is, and what they ought to know Him to be, that they are bidden believe that their future shall take a certain course. The prophet begins with God, and everything follows from God. All that in these chapters lends light or force, all that interprets the history of today and fills tomorrow with hope, fact, and promise alike, the captivity of Israel, the appearance of Cyrus, the fall of Babylon, Israels redemption, the extension of their mission to the ends of the earth, the conversion of the Gentiles, the equipment, discipline, and triumph of the Servant Himself, -we may even say the expanded geography of our prophet, the countries which for the first time emerge from the distant west within the vision of a Hebrew seer, -all are due to that primary truth about God with which we are now presented. It is Gods sovereignty which brings such far-off things into the interest of Israel; it is Gods omnipotence which renders such impossible things practicable. And as with the subjects, so with the style of the following chapters. The prophets style is throughout the effect of his perfect and brilliant monotheism. It is the thought of God which everywhere kindles his imagination. His most splendid passages are those, in which he soars to some lofty vision of the Divine glory in creation or history; while his frequent sarcasm and ridicule owe their effectiveness to the sudden scorn with which, from such a view, scattering epigrams the while, he sweeps down upon the heathens poor images, or Israels grudging thoughts of his God. The breadth and the force of his imagination, the sweep of his rhetoric, the intensity of his scorn, may all be traced to his sense of Gods sovereignty, and are the signs to us of how absolutely he was possessed by this as his main and governing truth.
This, then, being the sun of Israels coming day, we may call what we find Isa 40:12-31 and Isa 41:1-29 the sunrise-the full revelation and uprising on outsight of this original gospel of the prophet. It is addressed to two classes of men; in Isa 11:12-16 to Israel, but in chapter 41 (for the greater part, at least) to the Gentiles. In dealing with these two classes the prophet makes a great difference. To Israel he presents their God, as it were, in sacrament; but to the Gentiles he urges Gods claims in challenge and argument. It is to the past that he summons Israel, and to what they ought to know already about their God; it is to the future, to history yet unmade, that he proposes to the Gentiles they should together appeal, in order to see whether his God or their gods are the true Deity. In this chapter we shall deal with the first of these-God in sacrament.
The fact is familiar to all, that the Old Testament nowhere feels the necessity of proving the existence of God. That would have been a proof unintelligible to those to whom its prophets addressed themselves. In the time when the Old Testament came to him, man as little doubted the existence of God as he doubted his own life. But as life sometimes burned low, needing replenishment, so faith would grow despondent and morbid, needing to be led away from objects which only starved it, or produced, as idolatry did, the veriest delirium of a religion. A man had to get his faith lifted from the thoughts of his own mind and the works of his own hand, to be borne upon and nourished by the works of God, -to kindle with the sunrise, to broaden out by the sight of the firmament, to deepen as he faced the spaces of night, -and win calmness and strength to think life into order as he looked forth upon the marshalled hosts of heaven, having all the time no doubt that the God who created and guided these was his God. Therefore, when psalmist or prophet calls Israel to lift their eyes to the hills, or to behold how the heavens declare the glory of God, or to listen to that unbroken tradition, which day passes to day and night to night, of the knowledge of the Creator, it is not proofs to doubting minds which he offers: it is spiritual nourishment to hungry souls. These are not arguments – they are sacraments. When we Christians go to the Lords Supper, we go not to have the Lord proved to us, but to feed upon a life and a love of whose existence we are past all doubt. Our sacrament fills all the mouths by which needy faith is fed-such as outward sight, and imagination, and memory, and wonder, and love. Now very much what the Lords Supper is to us for fellowship with God and feeding upon Him, that were the glory of the heavens, and the everlasting hills, and the depth of the sea, and the vision of the stars to the Hebrews. They were the sacraments of God. By them faith was fed, and the spirit of man entered into the enjoyment of God, whose existence indeed he had never doubted, but whom he had lost, forgotten, or misunderstood.
Now it is as such a minister of sacrament to Gods starved and disheartened people that our prophet appears in Isa 40:12-31.
There were three elements in Israels starvation. Firstly, for nearly fifty years they had been deprived of the accustomed ordinances of religion. Temple and altar had perished; the common praise and the national religious fellowship were impossible; the traditional symbols of the faith lay far out of sight; there was at best only a precarious ministry of the Word. But, in the second place, this famine of the Word and of Sacraments was aggravated by the fact that history had gone against the people. To the baser minds among them, always ready to grant their allegiance to success, this could only mean that the gods of the heathen had triumphed over Jehovah. It is little wonder that such experience, assisted by the presentation, at every turn in their ways, of idols and a splendid idol-worship, the fashion and delight of the populations through whom they were mixed, should have tempted many Jews to feed their starved hearts at the shrines of their conquerors gods. But the result could only be the further atrophy of their religious nature. It has been held as a reason for the worship of idols that they excite the affection and imagination of the worshipper. They do no such thing: they starve and they stunt these. The image reacts upon the imagination, infects it with its own narrowness and poverty, till mans noblest creative faculty becomes the slave of its own poor toy. But, thirdly, if the loftier spirits in Israel refused to believe that Jehovah, exalted in righteousness, could be less than the brutal deities whom Babylon vaunted over Him, they were flung back upon the sorrowful conviction that their God had cast them off; that He had retreated from the patronage of so unworthy a people into the veiled depths of His own nature. Then upon that heaven, from which no answer came to those who were once its favourites, they cast we can scarcely tell what reflection of their own weary and spiritless estate. As, standing over a city by night, you will see the majestic darkness above stained and distorted into shapes of pain or wrath by the upcast of the citys broken, murky lights, so many of the nobler exiles saw upon the blank, unanswering heaven a horrible mirage of their own trouble and fear. Their weariness said, He is weary; the ruin of their national life reflected itself as the frustration of His purposes; their accusing conscience saw the darkness of His counsel relieved only by streaks of wrath.
But none of these tendencies in Israel went so far as to deny that there was a God, or even to doubt His existence. This, as we have said, was nowhere yet the temptation of mankind. When the Jew lapsed from that true faith, which we have seen his nation carry into exile, he fell into one of the two tempers just described-devotion to false gods in the shape of idols, or despondency consequent upon false notions of the true God. It is against these tempers, one after another, that Isa 40:12-31 is directed. And so we understand why, though the prophet is here declaring the basis and spring of all his subsequent prophecy, he does not adopt the method of abstract argument. He is not treating with men who have had no true knowledge of God in the past, or whose intellect questions Gods reality. He is treating with men who have a national heritage of truth about God, but they have forgotten it; who have hearts full of religious affection, but it has been betrayed; who have a devout imagination, but it has been starved; who have hopes, but they are faint unto death. He will recall to them their heritage, rally their shrinking convictions by the courage of his own faith, feed their hunger after righteousness by a new hope set to noble music, and display to the imagination that has been stunted by so long looking upon the face of idols the wide horizons of Divine glory in earth and heaven.
His style corresponds to his purpose. He does not syllogise; he exhorts, recalls, and convicts by assertion. The passage is a series of questions, rallies, and promises. “Have ye not known? have ye not heard?” is his chief note. Instead of arranging facts in history or nature as in themselves a proof for God, he mentions them only by way of provoking inward recollections. His sharp questions are as hooks to draw from his hearers hearts their timid and starved convictions, that he may nourish these upon the sacramental glories of nature and of history.
Such a purpose and style trust little to method, and it would be useless to search for any strict division of strophes in the passage. The following, however, is a manifest division of subject, according to the two tempers to which the prophet had to appeal. Isa 40:12-25, and perhaps Isa 40:26, are addressed to the idolatrous Jews. But in Isa 40:26 there is a transition to the despair of the nobler hearts in Israel, who, though they continued to believe in the One True God, imagined that He had abandoned them; and to such Isa 40:27-31 are undoubtedly addressed. The different treatment accorded to the two classes is striking. The former of these the prophet does not call by any title of the people of God; with the latter he pleads by a dear double name that he may win them through every recollection of their gracious past, Jacob and Israel (Isa 40:27). Challenge and sarcasm are his style with the idolaters, his language clashing out in bursts too loud and rapid sometimes for the grammar, as in Isa 40:24; but with the despondent his way is gentle persuasiveness, with music that swells and brightens steadily, passing without a break from the minor key of pleading to the major of glorious promise.
1. AGAINST THE IDOLATERS. A couple of sarcastic sentences upon idols and their manufacture (Isa 40:19-20) stand between two majestic declarations of Gods glory in nature and in history (Isa 40:12-17 and Isa 40:21-24). It is an appeal from the worshippers images to their imagination. “Who hath measured in his hollow hand the waters, and heaven ruled off with a span? Or caught in a tierce the dust of the earth, and weighed in scales mountains, and hills in a balance? Who hath directed the spirit of Jehovah, and as man of His counsel hath helped Him to know? With whom took He counsel, that such a one informed Him and taught Him in the orthodox path, and taught Him knowledge and helped Him to know the way of intelligence?” The term translated “orthodox path” is literally “path of ordinance or judgment, the regular path,” and is doubtless to be taken along with its parallel, “way of intelligence,” as a conventional phrase of education, which the prophet employed to make his sarcasm the stronger. “Lo nations! as a drop from a bucket, and like dust in a balance, are they reckoned. Lo the Isles! as a trifle He lifteth. And Lebanon is by no means enough for burning, nor its brute-life enough for an offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, as spent and as waste are they reckoned for Him.”
When he has thus soared enough, as on an archangels wings, he swoops with one rapid question down from the height of his imagination upon the images.
“To whom then will ye liken God, and what likeness will ye range by Him?”
“The image! A smith cast it, and a smelter plates it with gold, and smelts silver chains. He that is straitened for an offering-he chooseth a tree that does not rot, seeks to him a cunning carver to set up an image that will not totter.”
The image shrivels up in face of that imagination; the idol is abolished by laughter. There is here, and for almost the first time in history, the same intellectual intolerance of images, the same burning sense of the unreasonableness of their worship, which has marked all monotheists, and turned even the meekest of their kind into fierce scorners and satirists-Elijah, Mohammed, Luther, and Knox. We hear this laughter from them all. Sometimes it may sound truculent or even brutal, but let us remember what is behind it. When we hear it condemned-as, in the interests of art and imagination, its puritan outbursts have often been condemned-as a barbarian incapacity to sympathise with the aesthetic instincts of man, or to appreciate the influence of a beautiful and elevating cult, we can reply that it was the imagination itself which often inspired both the laughter at, and the breaking of, images, and that, because the iconoclast had a loftier vision of God than the image-maker, he has, on the whole, more really furthered the progress of art than the artist whose works he has destroyed. It is certain, for instance, that no one would exchange the beauties of the prophecy now before us, with its sublime imaginations of God, for all the beauty of all the idols of Babylonia which it consigned to destruction. And we dare to say the same of two other epochs, when the uncompromising zeal of monotheists crushed to the dust the fruits of centuries of Christian art. The Koran is not often appealed to as a model of poetry, but it contains passages whose imagination of God, broad as the horizon of the desert of its birth, and swift and clear as the desert dawn, may be regarded as infinitely more than compensation-from a purely artistic point of view – for the countless works of Christian ritual and imagery which it inspired the rude cavalry of the desert to trample beneath the hoofs of their horses. And again, if we are to blame the reformers of Western Christendom for the cruelty with which they lifted their hammers against the carved work of the sanctuary, do not let us forget how much of the spirit of the best modem art is to be traced to their more spiritual and lofty conceptions of God. No one will question how much Miltons imagination owed to his Protestantism, or how much Carlyles dramatic genius was the result of his Puritan faith. But it is to the spirit of the Reformation, as it liberated the worshippers soul from bondage to artificial and ecclesiastical symbols of the Deity, that we may also ascribe a large part of the force of that movement towards Nature add the imagination of God in His creation which inspired, for example, Wordsworths poetry, and those visual sacraments of rainbow, storm, and dawn to which Browning so often lifts our souls from their dissatisfaction with ritual or with argument.
From his sarcasm on the idols our prophet returns to his task of drawing forth Israels memory and imagination. “Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? He that is enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its dwellers are before Him as grasshoppers; who stretcheth as a fine veil the heavens, and spreadeth them like a dwelling tent” (that is, as easily as if they were not even a pavilion or marquee, but only a humble dwelling tent). “He who bringeth great men to nothing, the judges of the earth He maketh as waste. Yea, they were not planted; yea, they were not sown; yea, their root had not struck in the earth, but (immediately) He blew upon them and they withered, and a whirlwind like stubble carried them away. To whom, then, will ye liken Me, that I may match with him? saith the Holy One.” But this time it is not necessary to suggest the idols; they were dissolved by that previous burst of laughter. Therefore, the prophet turns to the other class in Israel with whom he has to deal.
2. TO THE DESPAIRERS OF THE LORD. From history we pass back to nature in Isa 40:26, which forms a transition, the language growing steadier from the impetuosity of the address to the idolaters to the serene music of the second part. Enough rebuke has the prophet made. As he now lifts his peoples vision to the stars, it is not to shame their idols, but to feed their hearts. “Lift up on high your eyes and see! Who hath created these? Who leads forth by number their host, and all of them calleth by name, by abundance of might, for He is powerful in strength, not one is amissing.” Under such a night, that veils the confusion of earth only to bring forth all the majesty and order of heaven, we feel a moments pause. Then as the expanding eyes of the exiles gaze upon the infinite power above, the prophet goes on. “Why then sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel? Hidden is my way from Jehovah, and from my God my right hath passed.”
Why does the prophet point his people to the stars? Because he is among Israel on that vast Babylonian plain, from whose crowded and confused populations, struggling upon one monotonous level, there is no escape for the heart but to the stars. Think of that plain when Nebuchadrezzar was its tyrant; of the countless families of men torn from their far homes and crushed through one another upon its surface; of the ancient liberties that were trampled in that servitude, of the languages that were stifled in that Babel, of the many patriotisms set to sigh themselves out into the tyrants mud and mortar! Ah heaven! was there a God in thee, that one man could thus crush nations in his vat, as men crushed shell-fish in those days, to dye his imperial purple? Was there any Providence above, that he could tear peoples from the lands and seas, where their various gifts and offices for humanity had been developed, and press them to his selfish and monotonous servitude? In that medley of nations, all upon one level of captivity, Israel was just as lost as the most insignificant tribe; her history severed, her worship impossible, her very language threatened with decay. No wonder, that from the stifling crowd and desperate flatness of it all she cried, “Hidden is my way from Jehovah, and from my God my right hath passed.”
But from the flatness and the crowd the stars are visible; and it was upon the stars that the prophet bade his people feed their hearts. There were order and unfailing guidance; “for the greatness of His might not one is missing.” And He is your God. Just as visible as those countless stars are, one by one, in the dark heavens, to your eyes looking up, so your lives and fortunes are to His eyes looking down on this Babel of peoples. “He gathereth the outcasts of Israel. He telleth the number of the stars.” {Psa 147:1-20} And so the prophet goes on earnestly to plead: “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? that an everlasting God is Jehovah. Creator of the ends of the earth. He fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. Giver to the weary of strength! And upon him that is of no might, he lavisheth power. Even youths may faint and be weary, and young men utterly fall; but they who hope in Jehovah shall renew strength, put forth pinions like eagles, run and not weary, walk and not faint.” Listen, ears, not for the sake of yourselves only, though the music is incomparably sweet! Listen for the sake of the starved hearts below, to whom you carry the sacraments of hope, whom you lift to feed upon the clear symbols of Gods omnipotence and unfailing grace.
This chapter began with the assurance to the heart of Israel of their Gods will to redeem and restore them. It closes with bidding the people take hope in God. Let us again emphasise-for we cannot do so too often, if we are to keep ourselves from certain errors of today on the subject of Revelation-the nature of this prophecy. It is not a reading-off of history; it is a call from God. No deed has yet been done pointing towards the certainty of Israels redemption; it is not from facts writ large on the life of their day, that the prophet bids the captives read their Divine discharge.
That discharge he brings from God; he bids them find the promise and the warrant of it in their Gods character, in their own convictions of what that character is. In order to revive those convictions, he does, it is true, appeal to certain facts, but these facts are not the facts of contemporary history which might reveal to any clear eye, that the current and the drift of politics was setting towards the redemption of Israel. They are facts of nature and facts of general providence, which, as we have said, like sacraments evidence Gods power to the pious heart, feed it with the assurance of His grace, and bid it hope in His word, though history should seem to be working quite the other way.
This instance of the method of revelation does not justify two opinions, which prevail at the present day regarding prophecy. In the first place, it proves to us that those are wrong who, too much infected by the modern temper to judge accurately writers so unsophisticated, describe prophecy as if it were merely a philosophy of history, by which the prophets deduced from their observation of the course of events their idea of God and their forecast of His purposes. The prophets had indeed to do with history; they argued from it, and they appealed to it. The history that was past was full of Gods condescension to men, and shone like Natures self with sacramental signs of His power and will: the history that was future was to be His supreme tribunal, and to afford the vindication of the word they claimed to have brought from Him. But still all this-their trust in history and their use of it-was something secondary in the prophetic method. With them God Himself was first; they came forth from His presence, as they describe it, with the knowledge of His will gained through the communion of their spirits with His Spirit. If they then appealed to past history, it was to illustrate their message; or to future, it was for vindication of this. But God Himself was the source and Author of it; and therefore, before they had facts beneath their eyes to corroborate their promises, they appealed to the people, like our prophet in chapter 40, to “wait on Jehovah.” The day might not yet have dawned so as to let them read the signs of the times. But in the darkness they “hoped in Jehovah,” and borrowed for their starved hearts from the stars above, or other sacrament, some assurance of His unfailing power.
Jehovah, then, was the source of the prophets word: His character was its pledge. The prophets were not mere readers from history, but speakers from God.
But the testimony of our chapter to all this enables us also to arrest an opinion about Revelation which has too hurriedly run off with some Christians, and to qualify it. In the inevitable recoil from the scholastic view of revelation as wholly a series of laws and dogmas and predictions, a number of writers on the subject have of late defined Revelation as a chain of historical acts, through which God uttered His character and will to men. According to this view, Revelation is God manifesting Himself in history, and the Bible is the record of this historical process. Now, while it is true that the Bible is, to a large extent, the annals and interpretation of the great and small events of a nations history-of its separation from the rest of mankind, its miraculous deliverances, its growth, its defeats and humiliations, its reforms and its institutions; in all of which God manifested His character and will-yet the Bible also records a revelation which preceded these historical deeds; a revelation the theatre of which was not the national experience, but the consciousness of the individual; which was recognised and welcomed by choice souls in the secret of their own spiritual life, before it was realised and observed in outward fact; which was uttered by the prophets voice and accepted by the peoples trust in the dark and the stillness, before the day of the Lord had dawned or there was light to see His purposes at work. In a word, Gods revelation to men was very often made clear in their subjective consciousness, before it became manifest in the history about them.
And, for ourselves, let us remember that to this day true religion is as independent of facts as it was with the prophet. True religion is a conviction of the character of God, and a resting upon that alone for salvation. We need nothing more to begin with; and everything else, in our experience and fortune, helps us only in so far as it makes that primary conviction more clear and certain. Darkness may be over us, and we lonely and starved beneath it. We may be destitute of experience to support our faith; we may be able to discover nothing in life about us making in the direction of our hopes. Still, “let us wait on the Lord.” It is by bare trust in Him that we “renew our strength, put forth wings like eagles, run and not weary, walk and not faint.”
Put forth wings-run-walk! Is the order correct? Hope swerves from the edge of so descending a promise, which seems only to repeat the falling course of nature-that droop, we all know, from short ambitions, through temporary impulsiveness to the old commonplace and routine. Soaring, running, walking-and is not the next stage, a cynic might ask, standing still?
On the contrary, it is a natural and a true climax, rising from the easier to the more difficult, from the ideal to the real, from dream to duty, from what can only be the rare occasions of life to what must be lifes usual and abiding experience. History followed this course. Did the prophet, as he promised, think of what should really prove to be the fortune of his people during the next few years?-the great flight of hope, on which we see them rising in their psalms of redemption as on the wings of an eagle; the zeal and liberality of preparation for departure from Babylon; the first rush at the Return; and then the long tramp, day after day, with the slow caravan at the pace of its most heavily-laden beasts of burden, when “they shall walk and not faint” should indeed seem to them the sweetest part of their Gods promise.
Or was it the far longer perspective of Israels history that bade the prophet follow this descending scale? The spirit of prophecy was with himself to soar higher than ever before, reaching by truly eagle-flight to a vision of the immediate consummation of Israels glory: the Isles waiting for Jehovah, the Holy City radiant in His rising, and open with all her gates to the thronging nations; the true religion flashing from Zion across the world, and the wealth of the world pouring back upon Zion. And some have wondered, and some scoff, that after this vision there should follow centuries of imperceptible progress-five-and-a-half centuries of preparation for the coming of the Promised Servant; and then-Israel, indeed gone forth over the world, but only in small groups, living upon the grudged and fitful tolerance of the great centres of Gentile civilisation. The prophet surely anticipates all this, when he places the walking after the soaring and the running. When he says at last, and most impressively, of his peoples fortunes, that they “shall walk and not faint,” he has perhaps just those long centuries in view, when, instead of a nation of enthusiasts taking humanity by storm, we see small bands of pioneers pushing their way from city to city by the slow methods of ancient travel, -Damascus, Antioch, Tarsus, Iconium, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth and Rome, -everywhere that Paul and the missionaries of the Cross found a pulpit and a congregation ready for the Gospel; toiling from day to day at their own trades, serving the alien for wages, here and there founding a synagogue, now and then completing a version of their Scriptures, often times achieving martyrdom, but ever living a pure and a testifying life in face of the heathen, with the passion of these prophecies at their hearts. It was certainly for such centuries and such men that the word was written, “they shall walk and not faint.” This persistence under persecution, this monotonous drilling of themselves in school and synagogue, this slow progress without prize or praise along the common highways of the world and by the worlds ordinary means of livelihood, was a greater proof of indomitableness than even the rapture which filled their hearts on the golden eve of the return, under the full diapason of prophecy.
And so must it ever be. First the ideal, and then the rush at it with passionate eyes, and then the daily trudge onward, when its splendour has faded from the view, but is all the more closely wrapped round the heart. For glorious as it is to rise to some great consummation on wings of dream and song, glorious as it is, also, to bend that impetus a little lower and take some practical crisis of life by storm, an even greater proof of our religion and of the help our God can give us is the lifelong tramp of earths common surface, without fresh wings of dream, or the excitement of rivalry, or the attraction of reward, but with the head cool, and the face forward, and every footfall upon firm ground. Let hope rejoice in a promise, which does not go off into the air, but leaves us upon solid earth; and let us hold to a religion which, while it exults in being the secret of enthusiasm and the inspiration of heroism, is daring and Divine enough to find its climax in the commonplace.