The Big Picture of Isaiah 40-48

If you only look at one chapter of Scripture at a time in isolation, you lose as sense of the continuity of the whole, as well as the themes and motifs that span multiple chapters. Today, I want to do a quick overall review of the structure and themes of Isaiah 40-66, then take a holistic look at Part 1 in our study of God’s Highway Project.

Structure and Themes of Isaiah 40-66
Chapters 40-66 envision Israel at the end of the Babylonian captivity as the LORD prepares to bring her out of that oppression. These chapters are focused on hope and the promise of a coming salvation. God organizes His effort into three parts, each with a specific set of themes:

• Part 1 (Isaiah 40-48): Theme of His power and justice (Israel in a passive role)
• Part 2 (Isaiah 49-57): Theme of His love and peace (Israel in a passive role)
• Part 3 (Isaiah 58-66): Theme of return and glorification (Israel in an active role)

Isaiah 40 opens with the command to comfort God’s people, which is the overarching purpose of the instruction in these chapters. This comfort is accomplished by a two-fold experience of salvation:

• Salvation in a physical form (her warfare is ended)—deliverance from enemies and an end to physical conflict
• Salvation in a spiritual form (her iniquities are pardoned)—deliverance from sin and an end to spiritual conflict between Israel and God.

The opening command to comfort is followed by a second command to “prepare the way” (Isaiah 40:3). “Preparing the way” is a command that is repeated in Chapters 40 and 62, and it becomes the encompassing theme for these collective chapters. This theme is reinforced by a third appearance of the same command in Chapter 57.

Isaiah 40:4 lays out the four-step process that brings about the reversal of conditions for God’s oppressed people. The process is likened to building a highway. There is groundwork and a foundation that has to be established first, and then the path is laid and refined. God’s Highway Project involves:

• Lifting up valleys—Encouraging, consoling, exhorting, interceding
• Bringing down mountains—Challenging false sources of power and comfort and exalted attitudes such as self-righteousness and a victim mentality
• Straightening crooked places—In the Hebrew, “crooked” describes ways of life have become twisted or perverted, deceitful, sly, or fraudulent. It is a way of life where reasoning and values are skewed. Think of a crooked place like a maze. Each turn a person takes or decision they make that isn’t aligned with God’s truth and commandments leads them deeper into sin. Sinful pursuits lead to compromised lifestyles, bad coping habits, and skewed perceptions and/or values, and ultimately end in confusion, disillusionment, and despair.
• Smoothing rough places—The refining process. You may have established the road, but there can still be a lot of stumbling stones and residual mess to clean up.

Each of these steps describe a reversal of condition, and the reversals illustrate the concept of shuv, which is the Hebrew word for repentance or return. Shuv describes the act of going in one direction, then reversing course and going back the way from which you came. The reversal brings a radical change of condition. Israel’s oppression was caused by her falling away from the relationship with the LORD. The only way to end the oppression is by returning to the LORD. The author reinforces that key theme of return by the heavy use of reversals throughout the narrative (mourning to gladness, leanness to plenty, barrenness to fruitfulness).

The additional command to remove the stumbling stones is added to the process in Isaiah 57:14 and 62:10. A stumbling stone can be any obstacle that prevents healing, reconciliation, or restoration of relationships, or an agent that turns people away from God into sin. It can also keep a person from being able to accept comfort when it is offered.

Review of Part 1 (Isaiah 40-48)
Isaiah 40 opens with the command to comfort God’s people, which leads to the first foundational question: Where do you seek comfort? You won’t be comforted if you seek comfort from the wrong source. Isaiah 40:6-8 sets up the initial comparison between two sources of comfort:

• Through the world (all flesh)
• Through God and His Word

All flesh encompasses not just humanity but all created things, including those made by human hands (like idols). All flesh is like the grass. It is mortal, fleeting, and futile. Ultimately, its fate is in the hand of the Creator. God blow on it as He wills, and it withers and fades. Created things may seem to offer comfort, but the comfort is short-lived. Three, appropriately brief verses describe the fleetingness of "all flesh." The rest of the chapter goes on to present the eternality and superiority of God. He is all powerful. He is all-knowing. He holds power over all the affairs of His creation and gives power to whom He chooses. “To whom will you liken Me?” He asks.

So, this is the foundational understanding that must be laid: Where is comfort found? In what is fleeting or what is eternal?

The second, foundational understanding is in regard to God’s sovereignty, power, and ability to save His people. Israel has turned to other, idolatrous sources of power and empowerment in her search for comfort and salvation. The theme of Chapters 41-48  focuses heavily on the themes of sovereignty, power, and justice.

God in His sovereignty and power. This picture opens in Isaiah 40 with the command, “Behold, your God!” and continues to build through Chapter 48.

• He is the incomparable God in His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. In Isaiah 40, He is superior in His power and far-sightedness to His human rivals (nations and kings) and spiritual rivals (man-made idols). In Isaiah 44, He is the transcendent, ever-present God in Israel’s affairs In Isaiah 45, He is the universal God who extends salvation to all the world through Israel.
• He is the Creator. His claim to creatorship is the crux of the argument for His ability to save His people. Any power sourced in the flesh or created things has no ability to deliver because all are subject to the Creator’s will. It is the Creator, not the created, who holds the power and grants power as He sees fit.
• He is Israel’s Creator, specifically. He states repeatedly that He has created her, He has formed her (Isaiah 43:1, 44:2, 22, 24). She is His servant and, as such, He has a special claim to her. He is her Redeemer (Isaiah 41:14, 43:1, 14; 44:6, 22, 23, 24; 47:4; 48:17, 20) and Savior (43:3, 11-12; 45:15, 17, 21-22).
• He is the First and the Last (Isaiah 41:4, 44:6, 48:12). As Creator from the beginning, He is able to point to the former things that He has brought to pass, and now He is equally able to proclaim new things which He will bring to pass in the future—things which idols cannot do. Being able to predict the future is the supreme test of power and Godship.

God in His justice. In Isaiah 40:27, Israel raises a grievance against God for being an unresponsive judge who has overlooked His people’s plight. In response to this grievance, the LORD calls both the victim and the oppressor to His courtroom for examination and questioning, and He is impartial to both sides. He makes His case to Israel that she is the one being unresponsive to Him. While He sees her plight and will save her for His own name’s sake, she is not without reproach or above the Law. He is an impartial judge of both the oppressor and victim. His rebuttal to Israel's grievance is a balance of consolation and rebuke.

Consolations:

• He consoles her with assurances of who she is to Him. She is His servant, He has chosen her, He loves her (43:1-7).
• She doesn’t have to fear because He will be with her, He will help and strengthen her (“Fear not”—Isaiah 41:10, 13-14, 43:1, 5; 44:2, 8).
• He will bring her out of exile and bless her (Isaiah 41:17-20, 42:14-17, 43:14-21, 44:1-5).
• He will avenge her against Babylon (Isaiah 41:11-16; 47:1-15)
• He calls her to remember and bear witness of the former things that He has done and to wait for the “new thing” He is proposing to do (Isaiah 41:22-29, 42:9, 43:9-21, 46:9-13). He does these things as proof to her of His ability to redeem her, that she might see, know, understand, and believe that He is who He says He is (Isaiah 41:20, 43:10).
  
  

• For her idolatry. Idolatry is futile. Idols cannot point to what they have done in the past or what they will do in the future (Isaiah 41:5-7, 27-29). Idolatry is foolish and burdensome (Isaiah 44:9-20, 46:1-7). It takes more effort to serve idols than it does to serve God, and there is no profit or salvation after all the effort. Placing her faith in idols is causing her fear. 
• For her unresponsiveness to Him. She is as blind as the Gentiles (42:21-25; 43:8).
• For her disobedience to His commandments. If she had heeded the commandments, she would have known peace, but she forsook the blessing and the LORD gave her to the curse and the enemy just as He swore to do back in Deuteronomy (Isaiah 43:22-28, 48:17-22).
• For her failing as His witness (Isaiah 48:1-11). He did the former things and declares the new things because of her treachery.

Agents of Justice
There are three agents who mete out God’s justice: Babylonia, Cyrus, and the Servant.

• Babylonia. Babylonia was the original agent of divine justice against the unfaithful southern kingdom of Judah, just as Assyria was to the unfaithful northern kingdom of Israel. God reminds His people that their sins were the reason Babylonia was given rule over them (Isaiah 41:23-25). But Babylonia was too brutal and incurred God’s wrath (Isaiah 47:6). He raises up Cyrus to subdue Babylonia and avenge Israel.
  
  
• Cyrus. Cyrus is the central figure for Part 1. As God begins to build a case for His power and Godship, He harps on the evidence of the former things that He has done for Israel and the “new” thing that He will do in her future. Cyrus is the “new” thing—an unprecedented “messiah” or deliverer. He has a distinction as being the only Gentile to be given the title of messiah or “anointed one.” This raises an objection from Israel who is expecting a Davidic king to be their Messiah, which I think is why God uses Cyrus specifically. A Gentile deliverer is unexpected. Israel can’t dismiss him by saying that they saw him coming (Isaiah 48:6-8).
  
  Cyrus is commissioned in Chapter 45, where he is tasked with facilitating God’s vengeance on Babylonia and initiating Israel’s exodus back to the Land of Israel. We know from history that Cyrus does not bring the lasting kingdom of peace that God has promised nor does he provide the spiritual reconciliation between God and His people. He only facilitates the first step in the highway-building project, that is, physically releasing and separating the victim from the abuser.
  
  Chapters 41-48 focus on Cyrus, the exodus from Babylonia, and God’s command to remember the former and new things. After Chapter 48, these are not mentioned again. This stage of the process is counted as complete.
  
  
• The Servant. The Servant is the third and final agent of justice. He is introduced in Part 1 but becomes the central figure for Part 2, continuing into Part 3. Like Cyrus, the Servant is a man and a king. The description of His tasking connects Him to the Prince of Peace in Isaiah 9. He is also Mighty God (Isaiah 9, Isaiah 48). Unlike Cyrus who is merely introduced but never speaks, the Servant (“Me”) speaks about Himself and His work beginning in Isaiah 48. He goes uncharacteristically silent in Isaiah 53 as His signature role in the Highway Project plays out.
  
  In Part 1, the Servant is tasked with establishing justice on the earth, opening blind eyes, and freeing the captives (Isaiah 42). Freeing the captives seems redundant. If Cyrus sets the captives free, why would the LORD call a second messiah to do the same thing? What is not evident in Isaiah, but what we know from where we stand in history, is that there will come a day in the future when Israel again finds herself in exile again and must be delivered. The Messiah who delivers her in that day will not be a Gentile king but a Messianic Davidic king. Thus, the Servant and Cyrus have the same “messianic” tasking but appear in that capacity at two separate points in time. This kind of physical deliverance from oppressors comes to define Israel’s expectation of a messiah figure.
  
  Unlike Cyrus, the Servant will provide justice in both the physical and spiritual realms. He will sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty of the Law for Israel’s sin in the next stage of the process. In the final stage, He will deliver Israel physically again and bring about the lasting kingdom of peace. But it goes in that order. Israel missed Him in His first advent because they were expecting a conquering king like Cyrus. Instead, they got a sacrificial lamb.

So, we have our overall theme of comforting people and preparing a way for their return to God which is the only way that their oppression will be lifted. God presented the initial challenge of where to seek comfort and empowerment, then proceeded to lay down some foundational groundwork in regard to who He is—His sovereignty, His power, and His ability to save His people. He answers their cry for justice by raising up Cyrus and the Servant.

So how do we apply what God is modeling in these chapters in regard to comforting people who are oppressed, abused, or struggling on a rough road in life?

Progress on God’s Highway Project, Part 1 (Isaiah 40-48)

The overall application of Isaiah 40-66 is to understand:

• How God prepares His people spiritually, mentally, and emotionally for the oppression and exile looming on their horizon. That can apply to us as we wrestle with an eroding culture and its skewed values, knowing that the End Times are coming.
• What strategies God uses in bringing people out of a current experience of oppression, and in what capacity we ourselves are called to model or participate in the process.
• What specific issues arise during the experience of oppression. These include the reactions to abuse, oppression, or other victimization and become stumbling blocks to being comforted, healed, and restored in relationships with others and with God. They can also become a secondary form of oppression that remains and continues even after the oppressive circumstances have been lifted.

Israel is our specific case study. She is the worst case scenario in that she has sinned and is suffering exile and oppression as a consequence. Not all struggling people model Israel. There are those who have been victimized or become caught in a crooked place not of their making. Their own sin may not have been the cause of their troubles, but sin can manifest itself in how they react to their circumstances. Thus, sin must still be addressed.

God does a lot of heavy groundwork in these opening chapters. The first thing of which He reminds us is that we are flesh. We are like the grass—mortal, fleeting, insufficient and relatively powerless in comparison to God.


Let’s walk through the highway-building steps:

Lifting Up and Tearing Down
The steps of taking down mountains and lifting up valleys are seen in the alternating pattern of strong rebuke and consolation. God doesn’t offer one without the other. We talked about why a balance of that is needed (as a rule).

In the course of ministering to or counseling an oppressed or suffering person, we might need to address the sin in that person’s life that is causing their brokenness. But if we follow God’s model, the tearing-down must be paired with a lifting-up. Paul himself had to correct the Corinthian church over this after they came down on a man so hard that he was on the verge of despair (2 Corinthians 2:3-11). We see the same pattern modeled in Revelation 2-3. In His address to the churches, Christ uses a balance of rebuke and consolation, except for the persecuted church of Smyrna to whom He gives consolation only.

Straightening Crooked Places
This step of the process involves straightening out attitudes and behaviors that have become “crooked” (twisted or perverted, deceitful or sly). Crookedness can also manifest itself in being puffed up and self-righteous—a distorted perspective. These are all things that empower oppression, and it takes some breaking to straighten them out.

Cyrus is God’s tool for making the first stab at this task, namely dealing with the oppressor, Babylonia. He uses Cyrus to physically remove suffering Israel from her oppressor’s control. This is often a necessary first step—to take a victim out of harm’s way. But just taking the victim out of oppressive circumstances does not mean that the problems in her life are solved or that she is in any way healed and restored physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. It also doesn’t address Israel’s own crookedness which got her into this place.

The oppressor isn’t the only problem, although the victim would like to think they are, and part of straightening crooked places requires an impartial assessment of both parties and not overlooking the sin in the victim’s life as well. That oppressive experience—that season in the furnace of affliction—may have had a purpose in correcting crookedness. It did for Israel.

Smoothing Rough Places: Identifying Stumbling Stones
Some examples of stumbling stones in our chapters are:

• Truths about our condition that we don’t want to acknowledge. God opened Isaiah 40 with the statement that all flesh is like grass. There can be an unwillingness to acknowledge our own powerlessness, limitations, weaknesses, or sin, which then becomes a stumbling block to healing or being comforted. Christ is described in Isaiah as a stumbling block to those who refuse to believe in Him (1 Peter 2:4-10, Isaiah 28:16, Isaiah 8:14).
• Tangible things like idols (literal stones) or other physical sources of false comfort or salvation. Idolatry is definitely a stumbling stone over which God and Israel battle. When comforting a struggling person, you might find that there are temporal things or even people to which they are clinging that are keeping them in their oppressive circumstances.
• Emotional reactions to the abuse or oppression that add to and/or perpetuate oppression and can linger even after the actual oppressor is out of the picture. Fear was the major stumbling stone in Part 1 and is linked to the themes of power and justice. The desire for validation, vindication, and vengeance are other sub-topics under this theme. These, too, can become stumbling stones if not pursued correctly.
  
  

Removing the Stumbling Stone of Fear
Fear is the first and perhaps the greatest stumbling block that God addresses because it carries a power that rivals His own and can spawn other kinds of stumbling. There are nine imperative commands not to fear, seven of which fall in Chapters 41-44.

• Fear stems from a feeling of powerlessness. That powerlessness can spur the desire to take back the power by human means instead of relying on God’s power.
• Fear drives decision-making in a way that can override sound reasoning. For this reason, it is often a tactic that oppressors use to overpower and control us. A fearful person might seek relief from oppression in the wrong way, or they may refuse to leave an abuser for fear of being on their own. Fear can keep a person from speaking the truth (bearing witness) or doing something they know they should do. It can also make them do something they know they shouldn’t do.
• Fear is emotion-based.
• Fear can be guilt-based. It can take a person into a dark place and imprisoned them there. They might remain in the dark for fear of sin being brought to light. Thus, fear is tied to the stumbling block of shame, which God will deal with in Part 2.
• Fear is often a red-flag that something is wrong in the power dynamic—that power has been given to something that doesn’t or shouldn’t have power over us. When this happens, fear results (Isaiah 41).

God counters Israel’s fear with the tangible evidence of His power and assurance of His love, and He calls her to use a sound mind instead of her emotions. He urges her to consider His past faithfulness and deliverance that she might to see, hear, know, understand, and believe, and then to bear witness of that belief. Our witness of God’s deliverance and comfort is vital because it becomes a way of comforting other struggling people. God’s strategy for combatting fear is summarized in 2 Timothy 1:7, which was our key verse.


When we internalize an understanding of God’s power and presence in our circumstances, the fear becomes manageable (also see 2 Corinthians 4:7-10).

We all struggle with fear. Oppressed or abused people struggle with fear more than most. That fear and the doubt it causes can be contagious if we aren’t well-grounded in God’s power and love. So, how well-grounded are you?