The opening passage of Isaiah chapters 40-66, 40:1-11, is best understood as a prologue to all that follows. The assumed historical context of Isaiah 40-66 is entirely different from that of Isaiah 1-39, as is clear from references it contains: Jerusalem and the townships of Judah are in ruins (44:26), and a new world-conqueror, Cyrus, is expected to allow the Judean exiles to return and the temple to be rebuilt (44:28). Babylon the Mistress of Kingdoms - not Assyria - has become helpless, and will soon suffer disaster (47:1-15).
Isaiah 40:1-11 begins with a summons to console Jerusalem. Her debt has been paid, and a new day is dawning. Yahweh is coming in all his glory. It’s time to prepare a way for him (40:1-3). As elsewhere in Isaiah 40-48, the addressees where not specified are the exiles in Babylon.
A summons comes again, this time to an individual: “cry out!” An individual answers, “What will I cry?” (40:6a). To judge by the words that follow (40:6b-7), the individual is despondent. But the respondent is tasked to be a messenger all the same, and is addressed as a heraldess to Jerusalem. The people, to be sure, were as grass, but now Yahweh is about to arrive. "Do not be afraid," says the summoner to the summoned (40:9). And she is not afraid. “My Lord Yahweh is near,” she says. He comes like a shepherd with a flock in train (40:10-11).
The one who replies, “What will I cry?” (40:6a) is addressed as a heraldess (40:9). The summons is initially made generically: a masculine verb is used: “Cry out!” (40:6a). But when the one who replies is spoken to in the following, feminine verbs are employed “Get up . . . lift . . . lift . . . say” (40:9). The person who responds is a woman. She may also be the author of Isaiah 40 and following.
To the author or authors of Isaiah 40-66, we owe some of the most sublime poetry ever written. “Give comfort, give comfort, my people, your God says” is a parade example thereof.
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