Let me take you back to a time before we started reading, talking and learning about Isaiah.

You might have begun to wonder if such a time ever existed!

In some blog posts about the wider literary and historical context of Isaiah, I wrote about how the current consensus among scholars of the bible is that the book of Isaiah is actually a combination of at least two, possibly three, texts, each from a different time.

The most widely agreed upon divide for this separation of authorship and context is one which we read this week.

Isaiah 40.

It is argued that most of what comes before now, the repeated calls of judgement and hope, punishment and promise, are both written and set in the time of Isaiah himself. If we need reminding, that is thought to have been the end of the 8th century BC. This, as we’ve covered, is the time of the Assyrian threat, and God’s main message through Isaiah appears to have been something like ‘You are going to have a time of suffering, because of what you’ve done and how you’ve behaved, but that won’t last forever and I will make things better afterwards.’

Isaiah 1-39 is largely a warning of what is to come. This makes sense in both the textual narrative and the historical context.

Isaiah 40, then, begins with a clear change in tone:

“Comfort, O comfort my people,  says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” – Isaiah 40:1-2

Having read just a few days ago about the ‘Woes’ of Isaiah, and the ‘Apocalypse’ of Isaiah, where has this language of comfort come from?

Well, those pesky ‘biblical scholars’ are making a case that Isaiah 40, and much of what comes after it, was not written at the end of the 8th century, but rather in the 6th century, in the midst of the Babylonian exile. This was another time of great strife for the people of Judah.

Whilst the threat of imminent invasion was the primary concern in Isaiah’s day, that was already a lived reality for those in exile.

Unlike in 701 when the Assyrians tried to besiege Jerusalem but were defeated, the Babylonian siege of 598/7 was more effective, resulting in the pillaging of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the deportation of potentially 7000 people back to Babylon and the surrounding region.

Isaiah 1-39 is an attempt to warn the people of what is to come and to explain why. Isaiah 40 and beyond begins to speak to those who have been punished. Those who have suffered the consequences of their actions.

God’s message transitions from woe to comfort.

As we move through these next chapters this coming week, keep an eye out for the shift in imagery. Rather than a focus on destruction, the pictures speak to restoration and renewal.

It appears, then, that the times of hope that were promised earlier in Isaiah, are about to be fulfilled. God is saying ‘now is the time’!

As we read in Isaiah 40:

‘Jerusalem… has served her term… her penalty is paid’

What God was warning through Isaiah has come to pass. Now it’s time for what God has promised.