Isaiah 40

Isaiah 40:2

For she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

She hath received from the hand of God’s justice a large proportion of misery; double to that, which, if their sins had not forced him to this necessary infliction, he would have imposed on them.

Isaiah 40:3

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.

God shall have his prophets, who, in the most forlorn estate of his Church, shall excite those princes and governors, under whom his people shall be, for a preparation for their return out of the Babylonish captivity; and, as that return shall be a type and figure of the delivery of God’s Church from spiritual tyranny, he shall have his evangelical harbinger, before the coming of the Messiah, which shall be the voice of a crier in the wilderness.

Isaiah 40:4

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.

God shall remove every difficulty and impediment, which shall lie in the way of the restoration of his Church and people.

Isaiah 40:7

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

As the grass withereth and as the flower fadeth, upon every nipping wind or scorching sun; so do and shall the most glorious of the sons of men, if God in his displeasure shall but breathe upon them never so little.

Isaiah 40:9

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

O Zion and Jerusalem, do ye proclaim to all the world the infinite goodness of your God to you; and therefore take all advantage of the highest mountains, to publish it, that it may be most and best heard: since it is to you, that God imparts the first tidings of a Saviour, do ye gladly and zealously divulge it to all the earth; and say to the other cities of Judah, concerning the Messiah to be exhibited in the flesh, Behold your God.

Isaiah 40:11

He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

If there be any of his elect ones, that is weak and distressed, and that is over-pressed with the conscience of his own unworthiness, such a one will be pity and relieve.

Isaiah 40:15

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.

What needest thou care, O Israel, for all the world, if thy God be for thee? Alas, how poor a thing are all the nations of the earth, if they be compared to the power of the Almighty! they are but as one drop of a bucket to a whole spring; yea, to the sea itself.

Isaiah 40:26

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faulth.

Lift up your eyes to heaven, and consider the mighty power of him, that made all this glorious frame; that hath marshalled all those bright and goodly stars, like some mighty and innumerable host: he knows them all severally and distinctly, and hath ordained their several times of rising; and when he bids them come forth, not one of them do or can fail of his appearance.