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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 40:2 - 40:2
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The summons is now repeated with still greater emphasis, the substance of the consoling proclamation being also given. “Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her affliction is ended, that her debt is paid, that she has received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins.” The holy city is thought of here in connection with the population belonging to it. עַל־לֵב דִּבֶּר (to speak to the heart) is an expression applied in Gen 34:3 and Jdg 19:3 to words adapted to win the heart; in Gen 50:21, to the words used by Joseph to inspire his brethren with confidence; whilst here it is used in precisely the same sense as in Hos 2:16, and possibly not without a reminiscence of this earlier prophecy. אֶל קָרָא (to call to a person) is applied to a prophetic announcement made to a person, as in Jer 7:27; Zec 1:4. The announcement to be made to Jerusalem is then introduced with כִּי, ὅτι, which serves as the introduction to either an indirect or a direct address (Ges. §155, 1, e). (1.) Her affliction has become full, and therefore has come to an end. צָבָא, military service, then feudal service, and hardship generally (Job 7:1); here it applies to the captivity or exile - that unsheltered bivouac, as it were, of the people who had bee transported into a foreign land, and were living there in bondage, restlessness, and insecurity. (2.) Her iniquity is atoned for, and the justice of God is satisfied: nirtsâh, which generally denotes a satisfactory reception, is used here in the sense of meeting with a satisfactory payment, like עָוֹן רָצהָ in Lev 26:41, Lev 26:43, to pay off the debt of sin by enduring the punishment of sin. (3.) The third clause repeats the substance of the previous ones with greater emphasis and in a fuller tone: Jerusalem has already suffered fully for her sins. In direct opposition to לָקְחָה, which cannot, when connected with two actual perfects as it is here, be take as a perfect used to indicate the certainty of some future occurrence, Gesenius, Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Stier, and Hahn suppose kiphlayim to refer to the double favour that Jerusalem was about to receive (like mishneh in Isa 61:7, and possibly borrowed from Isaiah in Zec 9:12), instead of to the double punishment which Jerusalem had endured (like mishneh in Jer 16:18). It is not to be taken, however, in a judicial sense; in which case God would appear over-rigid, and therefore unjust. Jerusalem had not suffered more than its sins had deserved; but the compassion of God regarded what His justice had been obliged to inflict upon Jerusalem as superabundant. This compassion also expresses itself in the words “for all” (bekhol, c. Beth pretii): there is nothing left for further punishment. The turning-point from wrath to love has arrived. The wrath has gone forth in double measure. With what intensity, therefore, will the love break forth, which has been so long restrained!