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The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God had breathed for them in His word. I venture to think that they were laden with a richer consolation in that they came down a vista of nearly two hundred years. Old words are precious to mourners. That which is spoken at the moment is apt to be coloured by the thoughts and the doubts of the moment; an old word spoken out of the region of these present sorrows has double force. It seems to bring that which is absolute and universal to bear on that which is present and passing. This is why the Scripture is so precious to mourners. It belongs to all time. And these words rule all its declarations. It is comfort throughout and to the end. The mercies of judgment is a subject we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Stern, hard, unfaltering to the eye, but full of rich mercy to the heart. It was in tender mercy that man, the sinner, was sent forth to labour. In society we see on a large scale how God's judgments are blessings in disguise. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunderstorms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere. Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world. May we pray, then, in calamities for deliverance, when they are so likely to be blessings? Yes, for prayer is the blessed refuge of our ignorance and dread. But Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak of comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs — "Emmanuel, God with us."

(J. B. Brown, B. A.)

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KJV: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

WEB: "Comfort, comfort my people," says your God.