1. Comfort, O comfort My people. The prophecies of Second Isaiah begin abruptly, with no introductory formula such as “The word of the LORD came to me, saying.” If such introductory matter once existed, it would have been editorially deleted in order to encourage the perception that these prophecies are a direct continuation of what has preceded. Scholars have long puzzled over who is being addressed in the first verse. A prevalent view that it is the members of the divine council seems unlikely because there are no hints in the entire passage of a celestial setting. Others have proposed that these (the Hebrew verb is a plural) are a group of prophets exhorted to comfort Israel, but there are no such groups in the texts of the literary prophets. Groups of prophets appear only in the narrative books, where they are wandering bands of ecstatics. Perhaps it is simplest to assume that those addressed are people in general, or even the nations, enjoined to comfort Israel. In any event, the key word “comfort” at the very beginning of Second Isaiah sounds the great theme of Second Isaiah’s prophecies.

2. her term of service. The exile is imagined as a term of indentured servitude, or even a prison sentence, which is now completed.

4. the crooked shall be straight. The power of this stark formulation is worth preserving literally, even though the phrase might mean “the rugged ground shall be leveled.” The poet, conjuring up the expanse of arid land, abounding in ravines and ridges and rough terrain, that stretches between Babylonia and Judah, imagines a miraculous smoothing out of the ground as a great highway is laid down for the return of the exiles.

5. all flesh together see. This universalizing phrase might be taken as an indication that all humanity is addressed at the beginning of the prophecy.

6. A voice calls out. This could well be a truncated version of the divine call to the prophet to take up his mission.

trust. The Hebrew ḥesed here carries its sense of faithfulness or loyalty in meeting an obligation.

8. Grass dries up, the flower fades. The fondness of this poet for evocative repetition is evident here. In this case, it amounts to an incremental repetition, in which the increment is a strong antithesis to what has been repeated: “but the word of the LORD our God stands forever.”

9. here is your God. God’s vivid presence is manifest in the power and love with which He brings the exiles back to their land.

11. Like a shepherd He minds His flock. This simile makes a lovely counterpoint to the previous verse: first God shows overwhelming force (“His arm commanding for Him”) and now tender solicitude as the shepherd gathering lambs in His lap.

12. Who with his hand’s hollow has measured the waters. With this prophecy, soaring poetry becomes the vehicle to convey God’s magisterial role over all creation. It is perhaps at this point, most likely in the later sixth century B.C.E., that the universalist potential of biblical monotheism is fully realized. As several commentators have noted, there is a certain affinity here with the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job 38, though one cannot assume that either poet knew the other’s work.

weighed with a scale the mountains. Throughout these lines, there is a yawning gap between the paltry instruments of human measurement and the vastness of creation.

14. With whom did He counsel. This excludes not only puny humankind but also perhaps any traditional notion of a divine council from playing any part in creation.

15. the balance’s dust. This strikingly picks up the imagery of measuring instruments from verse 12, pushing it further by likening humankind to the dust left on the pans of a balance after it has been used—which is to say, something that has no weight at all.

17. as nothing and void. The second of the two Hebrew terms, tohu, takes us back to the primordial chaos (tohu wabohu) before creation.

19. The craftsman has shaped the idol. This would be a woodworker carving the idol, which would then be overlaid with precious metals. The focus on the manufacturing process that produces idols vividly conveys the futility of fashioning such material images of purported deities and stands in contrast to God, Who has no likeness (verse 18).

20. Mulberry wood. The Hebrew mesukan is obscure. This translation adopts one scholarly proposal, assuming that attention to craft materials fits in with the preceding verse, but there is no consensus on this.

22. He spreads out the heavens like gauze. This verset and the next are reminiscent of the splendid depiction of the grandeur of the Creator in Psalm 104.

26. He Who musters their host by number / and all of them calls by name. This is a beautiful instance of the focusing or heightening that takes place between the first verset and the second in a line of biblical poetry: first, God musters the host of the heavens, the stars, as their supreme commander; then, going beyond what any terrestrial general could do, He is able to name each one of the vast multitude of the stars.

31. grow new pinions like the eagles. The phenomenon of molting and getting new feathers is here extended, probably as a deliberate hyperbole, to the growing of new wings. The Hebrew ʾever is clearly a poetic term for “wing,” and does not mean “feather,” as some translations have it.

shall run and shall not tire. God’s inexhaustible nature is transferred to those who wait or hope for Him. If the prophet still has in mind his previous vision of a miraculous return to Zion, this idea here of a spectacular infusion of strength in the faithful would serve a double function: it would link up with the idea of a renewal of national strength after the crushing ordeal of the exile, and it could suggest that those marching over the long highway through the wilderness will not weary on the way.