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Israel's Incomparable God
Isaiah 40.12-17 and 27-31
Good News Translation (GNT)
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12 Can anyone measure the ocean by
handfuls
or measure the sky with his hands?
Can anyone hold the soil of the earth in a
cup
or weigh the mountains and hills on
scales?
13 Can anyone tell the Lord what to do?
Who can teach him or give him
advice?
14 With whom does God consult
in order to know and understand
and to learn how things should be
done?
15 To the Lord the nations are nothing,
no more than a drop of water;
the distant islands are as light as dust.
16 All the animals in the forests of Lebanon
are not enough for a sacrifice to our
God,
and its trees are too few to kindle the
fire.
17 The nations are nothing at all to him.
27 Israel, why then do you complain
that the Lord doesn't know your
troubles
or care if you suffer injustice?
28 Don't you know? Haven't you heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God;
he created all the world.
He never grows tired or weary.
No one understands his thoughts.
29 He strengthens those who are weak and
tired.
30 Even those who are young grow weak;
young people can fall exhausted.
31 But those who trust in the Lord for help
will find their strength renewed.
They will rise on wings like eagles;
they will run and not get weary;
they will walk and not grow weak.
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Commentary taken from
Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary (concise)
and
NIV APPLICATION COMMENTARY
Comfort for the afflicted people of God.
Isaiah 40.12-17 and 27-31
Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary (concise)
Commentary on Isaiah 40:12-17
All created beings shrink to nothing in comparison with the Creator.
When the Lord, by his Spirit, made the world, none directed his Spirit,
or gave advice what to do, or how to do it.
The nations, in comparison of him, are as a drop which remains in
the bucket, compared with the vast ocean; or as the small dust in the balance,
which does not turn it, compared with all the earth.
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.
The services of the church can make no addition to him.
Our souls must have perished for ever,
if the only Son of the Father had not given himself for us.
NIV APPLICATION COMMENTARY -
ISAIAH 40:27-31
Waiting in Hope
The prophet anticipates the attitude of the exiles,
who will be saying that they are either now outside of God's vision
for them or else God has given up on them
To this Isaiah responds that to think in this way is to have much
too low a view of God.
He reminds them of who God is, dealing with the Creator's endless
power and wisdom in the first verse and his wonderful desire and ability
to share that power with the "weak" and the "weary" in the second.
So he speaks of both the being and the person of God.
Thus, his question is rather incredulous.
How could you say such things about God when you know perfectly well
who he is and what he is like?
He knows your situation perfectly, and he can and will
do something about it.
The fact is that the most vigorous things in creation ("young men")
cannot keep themselves going.
They are not self-generating but are dependent on outside sources
for their strength.
God is not like that; he is self-generating,
and that means he has abundant strength to give away to those
who will wait for him.
Here we come back to the theme of trust.
To "wait" on God is not simply to mark time; rather,
it is to live in confident expectation of his action on our behalf.
It is to refuse to run ahead of him in trying to solve
our problems for ourselves.
Thus, just as Isaiah called on the people of his own day to trust God
to solve their problems, he calls on the exiles in the age to come
to do the same thing.
If they are worn out and weary, hardly daring to believe that there
is any future for them, the God of all strength can give them
exactly what they need at the right time,
whether to "soar," "run," or "walk."
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