Isaiah 40-41

Isaiah 40
God's People Are Comforted [A Psalm]

1-2 Comfort my people, for Jerusalem has paid double for all her sins.
3-5 A voice cries out: "...prepare the way of the LORD, make straight...a highway for our God....The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain." Fulfilled in John the Baptist, Matthew 3:3 and other gospel accounts.
6-8 People are like grass, no more constant than the flowers of the field. "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever." (See James 1:11) Man is weak and subject to worldly elements...
9-11 Proclaim God to the cities of Judah. He comes with might; he will feed his flock, gathering lambs in his arms and gently leading the mother sheep. ...but God is mighty and takes care of his own.
12-17 Who is mightier than God? There is no one who can direct him or teach him. The nations are like a drop "from a bucket...and dust on the scales." This reminds me of the last words of God to Job in chapter 38.
18-21 Would you compare God to an idol, made by man?
21-22 Don't you know it is God who "sits above the circle of the earth...who stretches out the heavens like a curtain....?"
23-24 Dignitaries of the earth are scarcely planted before he "blows on them, and they wither."
25-26 Who is my equal? says the Holy One.
27-31 God sees you, Jacob and Israel. He is everlasting, never tiring, giving strength to the weary.

30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 41
1-20 Israel Assured of God's Help

1 Let the people renew strength; let us draw near together for judgment.
2-10 The nations on the coastland have reason to fear the LORD, but I will strengthen my servant Israel. "I will uphold you with my victorious right hand."
11-13 You will not be able to find your enemies, because they shall be as nothing.
14-16 I will help you overcome your enemies, and you shall rejoice in the LORD.
17-20 When the poor and needy seek water, I will provide it in rivers and fountains and will plant trees in the forest, so that all will know that the LORD has done this.

21-29 The Futility of Idols

21-24 Challenge to false gods: Tell us the future; tell us the past; do good, or do harm, "that we may be afraid and terrified." But, of course, you can't, for you are nothing. "Whoever chooses you is an abomination."
25-29 I "stirred up" one from the north, who will trample on rulers. No one else predicted this; their gods were silent, for "they are all a delusion...their images are empty wind." Commentators see this as a prophecy of the invasion of Cyrus the Mede, some 150 years later.