A Voice in the Wilderness

Covenant Structure in Isaiah 40:1-8

When it comes to understanding Scripture, location is everything. This is especially true when it comes to the prophets.

A factor that we moderns overlook as we read the Bible is its use of literary placement as a means of communicating the meaning of a passage. The words “A voice crying in the wilderness” cited from Isaiah by John the Prophet, made famous by their inclusion in all four Gospels (Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4-6; John 1:23) are a perfect example.

The structure of the book of Isaiah follows Israel’s annual festal calendar (which is also an expression of the biblical covenant pattern). Isaiah 40 begins the fifth section, which corresponds to Trumpets (see The Covenant Structure of Isaiah). The sixth section concerns the “Suffering Servant” which corresponds to the Day of Atonement. In context, these texts predict the “mustering” of a new Israel like the second census in the wilderness, and the reconquest of the Promised Land.

Because Isaiah is so obviously made of very different parts, it was fashionable for a while to assert that the book had two or more authors. But it simply follows the same “tessellated” pattern as the rest of the Bible. While the first part of the book of Isaiah is about judgment upon Israel and the nations, the second part is about the redemption and restoration of the nation. Since the entire book is a process of “death and resurrection” for the nation as a whole, the prophet includes a shortened account of Sennacherib’s failed attack (a close shave “death and resurrection” of Jerusalem) as the pivot at its center.

Within that account, Hezekiah’s illness and recovery takes the Trumpets or “resurrection” step in this central section of the book. The purpose behind its inclusion is found in the first chapter of the prophecy. In Isaiah 1:5-6, Judah is described as sick beyond all hope of recovery. So Isaiah’s “Edenic” fig cure for Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:21-22), sent from the Lord, is a sign of the work that Israel’s Great Physician will accomplish by “turning back the clock” on the sundial of Ahaz for the entire nation.

Why will you still be struck down?
Why will you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and raw wounds;
they are not pressed out or bound up
or softened with oil.

Thus, the mercy shown to the “Eve” city and the “Adam” king are signs of what God will do for Israel in the big picture after the exile. Zooming out again, Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31 to tell the first-century Jewish Christians that the reunion of north and south after the exile was itself a sign of an even bigger and better “new covenant” and an even greater act healing—the cross of Christ was “closing up the flesh” of the divide between Jew and Gentile. But this was also a warning. During the siege, many hundreds of those who hung onto the divide would be crucified on the walls of the city. After the siege, many more would be sold into bondage as slaves in Egypt. There is no escape from Jesus’ cup—even today, those who refuse it as a blessing inevitably drink it to the dregs as a curse.

John the Prophet quoted Scripture in the same way as the author of Hebrews, alluding to the redemption of physical Israel from bondage under physical Babylon to herald the imminent redemption of spiritual Jerusalem from bondage under a spiritual Babylon. These two cities—Jerusalem above and Jerusalem below—are the bride and the harlot at the end of Revelation. And Jesus (the man of sorrows) and Herod (the man of sin) are their respective “Adams.”

This method of “layering” also explains the identity of Isaiah’s “suffering servant.” That is the sixth section of Isaiah, corresponding to the Day of Atonement. In context, he is speaking of the entire nation bearing the curse on behalf of all nations. That was always Israel’s job, whether in obedience or disobedience, blessed or cursed, Israel’s fate was a testimony of the nature of the Lord. So we must understand that making the jump from Isaiah to the New Testament (as John, Jesus, and the Gospels do) is not interpretation but application.

Isaiah itself is replete with similar “meme warfare” that draws upon earlier Scriptures, especially the books of Moses. The reason many find it so difficult is simply because they don’t get the “jokes.” It is the same with the book of Revelation, where, like Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, and the martyrs, Jerusalem is spiritually given “new names”—Egypt, Sodom, and Babylon.

Overview

Isaiah 40:1-8 is the “Genesis” step of a cycle, but it works through the Heptateuch, so the “voice in the wilderness” is the Exodus stanza within the structure. Likewise, the Leviticus stanza speaks of lifting up and bringing down (the Latin levitas is a happy coincidence). After “all flesh” sees God’s glory (as a Lampstand or a fiery mountain in the wilderness), notice that the voice cries out again at the Trumpets step. The Lord blowing on people as grass is an ironic reference to Day 6 where God breathes life into Adam’s flesh. And in the final step, Yahweh is the true judge. Natural glories all fade, but the supernatural glory of God’s Word—in its promises and warnings, blessings and curses—is eternal.

Analysis

TRANSCENDENCE
Creation/Genesis/Ark/Sabbath: 
A Tenfold Consolation
Isaiah 40:1-2

PRIESTHOOD (Adam)		KINGDOM (Eve)
Comfort,	TRANSCENDENCE	that is ended her warfare,
comfort my people,	HIERARCHY	that is pardoned her iniquity,
says your God.	ETHICS	for she has received
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem	OATH/SANCTIONS	from the hand of Yahweh
and cry out to her,	SUCCESSION	double for all her sins.

• The use of the pattern of the Ten Words means that this restoration is a “new covenant” in the way that the second set of tablets given by God at Sinai was a “new covenant” (see “Why Ten Words on Two Tablets?” and “Moses New Covenant” in Schema Vol. 1). But the reference is Edenic, alluding to the use of this pattern in Genesis 3:16, where God speaks to the Woman (see “Covenant Structure in Genesis 3” in Schema Vol. 2). (In Hebrew, the first sentence is comprised of five words that also echo the fivefold covenant pattern.)
• However, the fact that the words work down each column then across, rather than in dyads working across then down, means that these are also two temple pillars, a promise of the re-establishing of Israel’s worship. In the Passover section of Isaiah, idolatrous Israel was included among the nations in a huge “two bronze pillar” literary construct where the corrupt old order was made into a pair of bloodied doorposts before it was torn down.
• Notice that “double for all her sins” at Succession strangely alludes to a covenant inheritance—a judgment that is somehow also a future. Israel was cut down but not cut off, bearing the curses of God on behalf of all nations. In that way, she was also a blessing to all nations, even before the Messiah. In contrast, the “double … double” in Revelation 18:6 was the cutting off of earthly Jerusalem while the heavenly city was freed.

HIERARCHY
Division/Exodus/Veil/Passover: 
A straight path in the desert for Yahweh
Isaiah 40:3

• The terraforming here is obviously spiritual in nature, but its physical referent was the path out of Egypt to Mount Sinai. Thus, it speaks of a return to the Word of God and the mountain of God in the path of the glory cloud of Yahweh Himself. The reconstruction of Zion and Jerusalem after the exile then became the typological foundation for the purely spiritual restoration after Pentecost, which is why John employed the type, and why Paul speaks of two Jerusalems.
• Notice that “prepare the way” corresponds to the Bronze Altar and Yahweh Himself is the blameless offering upon it. “Make straight” relates to the measuring of Israel against the standard of the Law at the first Pentecost, and the highway alludes to Israel passing between Gerizim and Ebal into the Land under Joshua.

ETHICS: PRIESTHOOD
Ascension/Leviticus/Altar & Table/Firstfruits: 
Valleys lifted up and mountains made low
Isaiah 40:4

PRIESTHOOD (priests)		KINGDOM (people)
Every valley	TRANSCENDENCE	and shall be made
shall be lifted up,	HIERARCHY	the slippery places
and every mountain	ETHICS	level
and hill	OATH/SANCTIONS	and the impassable places
brought low;	SUCCESSION	smooth.

• The terraforming here describes a reversal of idolatry. Things that seemed impossible would now happen by the sheer power of God.
• The valleys that would be lifted up are not exalted but exposed. The primary referent here is the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) where the Israelites sacrifices their children (see Altar of the Abyss – Part 2). The mountains and hills that would be brought down were the high places that all of the previous kings—even the righteous ones—had failed to remove. Likewise, in Revelation, the mountains of the Land and the islands of the Sea are the high places of the Jews and the Gentiles, but in that case Zion itself had become a high place and would be “thrown into the Sea.”
• The second column speaks of the traps and barriers constructed by the leaders that had led to the spiritual, then actual, bondage of the people.

ETHICS: KINGDOM
Testing/Numbers/Lampstand/Pentecost: 
All flesh will see God’s glory
Isaiah 40:5

• The Lampstand stanza is seven pure lights without any veils or coverings. The Lord Himself is the “burning bush” at the center of the cycle, a sign of the pillar of fire and smoke that would redeem the people.
• “All flesh” at step 5 refers to the Jews and the Gentiles, since the oikoumene (empire) would now represent the entire globe in the way that the Land of Israel had once done. This new Jew-Gentile construct is described as sacred architecture in Ezekiel 40-48.

ETHICS: PROPHECY
Maturity/Deuteronomy/Incense/Trumpets: 
A voice of warning to cry out
Isaiah 40:6

• The themes of prophecy and the fertility of the “bridal body” are combined in a warning to the nations. The segue to this subject that takes up the remainder of the cycle only makes sense when we remember that the Lampstand represented the Pentecostal “breath” of God. The city of Solomon, arrayed in all its glory (Matthew 26:27-30), would not last—its lampstands would be carried away. The city of Nebuchadnezzar would not last either—a pillaged lampstand would reveal the writing on the wall (Daniel 5:5).

OATH/SANCTIONS
Conquest/Joshua/Laver & Mediators/Atonement: 
The Lord blows on the people as grass
Isaiah 40:7

• The coming of the Lord being described as “breath” takes us back to the Garden of Eden, when the Lord arrived in “the breath of the Day” to impart His Spirit to Adam if he had been faithful, or to destroy him with his breath if he had not. The same imagery is used of the imminent destruction of the Herods in 2 Thessalonians 2:8.
• The covenantal background is the breath as the Oath (as a prophetic sword in the mouth) and the incineration of the people under the Sanctions. John the Prophet uses the image of the Spirit as a winnowing fan (Matthew 3:12).
• Notice the neat triplet in the Ethics step: breath / Yahweh / blows. The Law is given, it is opened, and it is received.
• The “field” is located in the place of the inheritance, or Promised Land, in the Succession step of the stanza.

SUCCESSION
Glorification/Judges/Shekinah/Booths 
The Word of God stands forever
Isaiah 40:8

• The final reveals more by saying less—the Ethics stanza is “closed” into a single line and the source of all sevenfold history is revealed to be the fivefold covenant.
• So, what is the significance of the grass and the flower? The grass comes out of the ground, and the flower comes out of the grass. The grass is the Man. Its flower, its glory, is the Woman.

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