Deutero-Isaiah

Deutero-Isaiah is the second part of the book of Isaiah, chapters 40 to 55, which is called the book of consolation. It addresses Judah deported to Babylon: Jerusalem has fallen, the Temple is destroyed, and the people live far from their land, tempted to believe that their God has abandoned them or that the gods of Babylon have defeated him. To this downcast people, God announces forgiveness, the return, and the salvation he is preparing through his Servant.

The book of consolation

The book opens on an order of consolation, repeated to mark its force. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, cry out to her that her service is ended, that her guilt is atoned for.” Isaiah 40:1-2 The time of judgment is past: the exile has paid the debt, and God comes back to his own as a consoler. All the rest of the book unfolds this word: God remains faithful to his people, he redeems them and brings them back. The same opening sets the contrast on which this hope rests: “All flesh is like grass, all its beauty like the flower of the field… but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:6-8 The empires that deported Israel pass like grass; the promise that brings it home does not pass. Peter will say this word again to the baptised, born anew of a seed that does not perish (1 Peter 1:24-25).

A voice in the wilderness

A voice rises to prepare the coming of God. “A voice cries: In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord! Make level in the desert a highway for our God!” Isaiah 40:3 As one levels the road before an advancing king, the hearts must be prepared for the arrival of the Lord who comes to save. Then comes the messenger of good news, whose very feet are hailed. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings the good news.” Isaiah 52:7 And he whose road is prepared comes forward as a shepherd: “Like a shepherd he pastures his flock: with his arm he gathers the lambs, he carries them against his heart.” Isaiah 40:11 The power that comes carries the weakest. The Gospels will recognise this voice in John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of Christ.

The one God, creator

Deutero-Isaiah affirms the one true God, without equal and without rival. “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” Isaiah 44:6 This God is the creator of all, who holds the universe and leads the stars like an army, calling each one by its name. “Lift up your eyes on high and look: who created all this? He who leads out their host in order and calls them all by name.” Isaiah 40:26 Before him, the idols are nothing. The prophet mocks the man who fells a tree, burns half of it to warm himself and bake his bread, then carves the other half into a god before which he bows down. “He burns half of it in the fire… With the rest he makes himself a god, his idol; he bows down before it.” Isaiah 44:16-17 The idol comes from the same log as the hearth fire, and saves no one. This one God swears by himself that before him alone every knee will bow: “I swear by myself… before me every knee will bend, every tongue will swear by me.” Isaiah 45:23 Paul takes up this oath, which God makes for himself alone, and refers it to Christ: “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” Philippians 2:10 The adoration God reserves for himself alone is given to Jesus, whom every tongue proclaims Lord: this is to confess him God.

The redeemer of Israel

God makes himself the redeemer of his people. The Hebrew word rendered as “redeemer”, go’el (גֹּאֵל), designates the near kinsman who, in the law of Israel, redeems the member of his family fallen into slavery or debt and recovers his alienated property. God names himself that kinsman for Israel: he holds it as his own and pays to deliver it. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1 This belonging has worth in God’s eyes, who stakes everything on it. “You are precious in my eyes, because you have worth and I love you.” Isaiah 43:4 By this title, God takes upon himself to pay the price of the return and to bring his own back.

The new Exodus

To bring back his people, God does again what he had accomplished at the going out of Egypt, and greater still. Of old he had opened the sea and led Israel out of servitude; now he opens a road through the desert that separates Babylon from Jerusalem. “See, I am doing a new thing: it is already springing up, do you not see it? Yes, I will make a way in the desert, I will cause rivers to flow in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19 Water springs up for the people on the march, the road is levelled, and the return becomes a second exodus in which God walks before his own.

Cyrus, the instrument of God

God names the man through whom he will bring back his people, long before he appears: Cyrus, king of the Persians, who will overthrow Babylon and let the exiles return. God calls him his shepherd, charged to raise up Jerusalem. “I say of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, he will accomplish all my will." He will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt!" and of the Temple, "Let your foundations be laid!"” Isaiah 44:28 More astonishing still, God gives him the title he reserved for his kings and his priests. The Hebrew word rendered as “anointed”, mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ), from which comes “messiah”, designated the one whom God consecrated for a mission. God applies it here to a pagan king who does not know him. “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom I have grasped by the right hand… I have called you by name, I have given you a title of honor, though you did not know me.” Isaiah 45:1-4 The master of history uses a stranger to save his own: no power escapes his design. That God named Cyrus generations in advance is no detail: in this book it is his proof that he alone is God. Against the mute idols he stands as the one who announces the future before it comes. “From the beginning I announce the end; long in advance, what is not yet” Isaiah 46:10. And he says why he warns so early: lest his work be credited to the idols, “It was my idol that did them” Isaiah 48:5. The future foretold and then fulfilled is the signature of the one God. Amid these oracles rises a prayer the Church has made her own: “Heavens, pour down your dew from above, let the clouds rain down righteousness! Let the earth open and bring forth salvation.” Isaiah 45:8 The Church sings it in Advent, calling for the coming of the Saviour like the dew that descends from heaven.

The Servant of the Lord

As the book unfolds, a mysterious figure rises, whom God calls his Servant. The Hebrew word rendered as “servant”, ebed (עֶבֶד), says the one who belongs to a master and accomplishes his work. Four songs describe him. In the first, God presents his chosen one, on whom his Spirit rests, and who will bring justice to the nations with infinite gentleness, without finishing off what is already broken. “He will not break the bruised reed, he will not quench the wick that still smolders; faithfully he will proclaim justice.” Isaiah 42:3 In the second, the Servant speaks: called from his mother’s womb, he receives a mission that overflows Israel and extends to the whole earth. “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and bring back the survivors of Israel: I make you the light of the nations, that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6 In the third, he shows himself an obedient disciple, who listens to God each morning and holds firm under outrage. “I gave my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore out my beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spittle.” Isaiah 50:6 This Servant bears two faces. God first names his servant “Israel”, by the same name as his people, whom he had chosen to know him, to adore him and to carry his light to the nations. This people having failed in that vocation, a distinct Servant rises in the songs, faithful where Israel fell short, and who bears the mission in the name of all.

The suffering Servant

The fourth song brings the figure to its summit. The Servant there suffers and dies, and his suffering saves others. Despised, disfigured, he bears an evil that is not his own. “It was our sufferings that he bore, our sorrows that he carried… he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our faults; the punishment that brings us peace fell upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5 He does not defend himself; he lets himself be led to death in silence. “Mistreated, he humbles himself, he does not open his mouth, like the lamb led to the slaughter.” Isaiah 53:7 In dying, he offers his life in sacrifice for the sin of the multitude, and God raises him up and fills him with good. “After the torments of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the just one, my servant, will make a multitude righteous, bearing their faults himself.” Isaiah 53:11 The Church reads in this song the Passion of Christ, the just one delivered for sinners, who bears on the cross the sin of the world and gives life by his death. It is this text that the Ethiopian was reading, to whom Philip announced Jesus.

The bride taken back and the covenant of peace

After the song of the Servant, the book turns to Zion as to a bride whom God takes back. “like a woman abandoned, her heart broken, the Lord calls you back; like the wife of one’s youth who had been cast off.” Isaiah 54:6-7 And God seals this return with an oath like that of the days of Noah: as he swore that the waters of the flood would no more cover the earth, he swears to be angry with his people no more. “Though the mountains should depart, though the hills should be shaken, my love will not depart from you, my covenant of peace will not be shaken.” Isaiah 54:10

The efficacious Word and the invitation

The book ends on an invitation and a promise. God invites all the thirsty to come to him freely, as to a feast offered without price. “O all you who are thirsty, come to the water! Even without money, come, buy something to eat.” Isaiah 55:1 He urges them to seek him while he lets himself be found, and to return to him, for he pardons abundantly. “Seek the Lord while he lets himself be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way… let him return to the Lord, who will show him grace.” Isaiah 55:6-7 And he guarantees that his word accomplishes that for which he sends it. Like a messenger he dispatches, it goes out to do its work and returns to him only once the mission is fulfilled. “The rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without having watered the earth, without having made it fruitful and bring forth… So my word, gone out from my mouth, does not return to me empty: it accomplishes what I will.” Isaiah 55:10-11 The consolation promised at the threshold of the book thus ends in a covenant offered to all, sealed by a word that nothing halts.