"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comforting words to Jerusalem, and cry unto her;

That her warfare is ended, that the expiation of her iniquity is accepted (Lowth),

That she hath received from the hand of JEHOVAH double for all her sins.

Hark! a voice crying in the wilderness,

'Clear the way of JEHOVAH !

Make level in the desert a highway for our God.'

And the glory of JEHOVAH shall be manifested,

And all nations shall see together the salvation of our God

For the mouth of JEHOVAH hath spoken.

Hark! a voice saying 'Cry,'

And I answered, 'What shall I cry?'

'All flesh is grass

And all its beauty like a flower of the field.'

[(Lowth),

Upon a high mountain get thee up, O Zion, bringer of good tidings (or Evangelistess Zion) [Delitzsch];

Exalt thy voice with strength, Jerusalem, bringer of good tidings;

Exalt it, be not afraid,

Say to the cities of Judah 'Behold your God!'

Behold the Lord JEHOVAH! as a mighty one will He come,

His arm ruling for Himself;

Behold His reward is with Him, and the recompense of His work before Him.

Like a Shepherd shall He feed His flock,

In His arm shall He gather up the lambs

And shall bear them in His bosom: the nursing ewes shall He

gently lead" (Marginal).

-ISAIAH xl, I-II.

I.

"Comfort ye,

comfort

ye my people,

saith your God."

"Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." -ISAIAH xl. 10, II.

Power and

WHILE the prefatory utterance

“COMFORT YE, COMFORT VE," forms

Tenderness. the key-note to the great Prophecy of Consolation which follows, there is a further prologue, or introduction to the Book, extending from the 1st to the 11th verse inclusive, and which contains in brief, what is amplified in the subsequent twenty-seven chapters. The beauty and peculiarity of the closing words. of the introduction (which we have selected as

our first theme), consists in the combination of the might of ADONAI JEHOVAH (ver. 10), with the gentleness of the Shepherd, carrying in His bosom the weak and weary of the flock (ver. 11). Ere the prophetic roll is unfolded, the aged seer would seem desirous to announce, in a preliminary sentence, the characteristics of the Divine Being who had selected him as His minister of comfort:-he would himself anticipate the mission and message immediately after given to another, and say to the cities of Judah (to the Church of Christ until the end of time), “Behold your God!"

Let us first of all, however, trace the connection of the verses with the other words of inauguration of which they form a part.

The opening scene of the inspired drama, if it may be so expressed, lies in a wilderness. In that wilderness there had been heard a precursive note as of a herald's or harbinger's trumpet, announcing a new and more glorious

manifestation of Jehovah's presence to His Church as her Deliverer and King,-" Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for OUR GOD!" (ver. 3). The Prophet standing on his distant watch-tower waits for further disclosures. His suspense, ere long, is relieved. A new voice (not "the voice" as in our version, but another-anonymousprobably divine) breaks the trance of that still hour and scene-"A voice said, 'Cry,' and he said, 'What shall I cry?'-'All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field" (ver. 6). To the Seer, this utterance had its sad interpretation and fulfilment in the wreck and ruin of his beloved Jerusalem; in her Temple being rased to the ground, her holy cities turned into a wilderness, and all her pleasant things laid waste; or as she herself is afterwards depicted, under another figure, as a widow, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, weeping for her children in distant Babylon, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. He

B