1. The sense of a Divine desertion. "My way is hidden from the Lord." It was the necessary result of the prophet's office that all the nation's sorrows must press home on his spirit, and must wound with their keenest anguish his sensitive soul. Now, remembering this union of deep sympathy with the people, observe the tremendous power with which, for fifty years, the wickedness of the land, and God's great judgment upon it, must have pressed on his large and tender heart. It made his very office often seem a vanity. Many men have had the same experience; perhaps all earnest men must undergo it.

2. The absence of Divine recompense. "My judgment is passed over from my God." The prophet unquestionably spoke these words as a cry uttered only by himself. The people were buried in God-forgetting repose. The priests were dead in formalism. The spiritual life of the land was decaying; and thunders of woe were muttering in the nation's future. What had his life been worth? Apparently nothing! All great men think that they die in failure. Is it not hard for a man who has given to God his all, and worn out his life in His service, to go out into the eternal silence and see no reward?

II. THE TRUTH THAT REMOVED ISAIAH'S DESPONDENCY. In the verses following our text we perceive that the double manifestation of God's greatness in Nature, and the tenderness of His revealed will, dispelled the gloom.

1. The greatness of God in Nature. He speaks not only of the unsearchable Creator, but of the everlasting God. Thy recompense is sure — thy work, and conflict, and toil are for eternity; then "why sayest thou, O Jacob, that thy way is hidden from the Lord?"

2. The tenderness of the revealed will. "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, He increaseth strength." The revelation of God's tenderness is far more full for the Christian man, and has, therefore, far greater power to remove our despondency. We know how the Great Shepherd gave His life for the sheep.

III. THE RESULTS OF ITS REMOVAL.

1. Strength in weakness. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Feebleness is transformed into power when God has taught His great lesson of "glorying in infirmity."

2. Immortal youth. "They shall mount up on wings as eagles." You have heard the old Jewish fable, that the eagle in dying recovered its youthful power.

(E. L. Hull, B. A.)

II. WHAT DO WE KNOW OF GOD THAT WE SHOULD TRUST HIM? What aspects does He present to us? We have two sources of knowledge — what He has said to, and what He has done for, man.

1. There is something unspeakably sublime in the appeal in ver. 26. It is heaven's protest against man's despair. Nor is Isaiah the only sacred writer who utters it. There is something very strikingly parallel in Job (Job 38.). In both cases God's appeal is to the grand and steadfast order of the vast universe, which He sustains and assures. God tells us that all the hosts of heaven are attendant on the fortunes of mankind. They all live that God's deep purpose concerning man may be accomplished.

2. God declares here that we are not only involved inextricably in the fulfilment of His deepest and most cherished counsels, but that we are needed to satisfy the yearnings of His Father's heart.

III. WE MAY APPLY THESE PRINCIPLES to the seasons of our experience when faith in the living God is the one thing which stands between us and the most blank despair.

1. The deep waters of personal affliction.

2. The weary search of the intellect for truth, the struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, to know the inscrutable, to see the invisible, which is part, and not the least heavy part, of the discipline of a man and of mankind.

3. Dark crises of human history, when truth, virtue, and manhood seem perishing from the world.

(J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)

1. Whence they took those names — from one who had found God faithful to him, and kind in all his straits.

2. Why they bore those names — as God's professing people, a people in covenant with Him.

II. THE WAY OF REPROVING THEM IS BY REASONING WITH THEM. "Why?" Consider whether thou hast any ground to say so. Many of our foolish frets and fears would vanish before a strict inquiry into the cause of them.

III. THAT WHICH THEY ARE REPROVED FOR IS AN ILL-NATURED, ILL-FAVOURED WORD THEY SPOKE OF GOD, as if He had cast them off. There seems to he an emphasis laid upon their saying it. It is bad to have evil thoughts rise in our mind, but it is worse to put an imprimatur to them, and turn them into evil words. David reflects with regret upon what he had said in his haste when he was in distress.

IV. THE ILL WORD THEY SAID WAS A WORD OF DESPAIR CONCERNING THEIR PRESENT CALAMITOUS CONDITION. They were ready to conclude —

1. That God would not heed them. "My way is hid from the Lord."

2. That God could not help them. "My judgment is passed over from my God, i.e., my case is so far past relief that God Himself cannot redress the grievances of it.

( M. Henry.)

I. When they do not perceive THE PROCURING CAUSES from whence their troubles proceed. This perplexing circumstance greatly increases their uneasiness, and induces them to request with Job that God would show them wherefore He contendeth with them.

II. When they do not discover THE IMPORTANT PURPOSES to which they are especially directed. Uncertainty as to the particular ends which afflictions are sent to accomplish augments not a little the pressure of distress, and disposes good people to bemoan themselves in the language of the dejected Church, "He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out." I can neither see the reason nor the end of my affliction; my way seems to be hid from the Lord.

III. When they do not discern WHAT IS PRESENT DUTY. Notwithstanding the blessed God hath clearly taught in His word what He requires, yet there are particular situations wherein the best of men have been perplexed as to what course they ought to follow. In such cases they have said with the good King of Judah, we know not what to do; and have lamented that their way was hid from the Lord.

(R. Macculloch.)

(Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)

I. GOD'S POWER THE COMFORT OF HIS PEOPLE. Certain it is that our only true comfort is found in God. Life, when we can turn to God, is never cruel and hard; however full of trial it may be it never seems unkind; for we know that a hand of love appoints what a heart of love designs, and that all things must work together for good. And God has surrounded us on every side with reminders of what He is. When the heart is sad and low go out and be a witness of God's power; go out in the quiet evening when the gold and fire and purple of the sunset have paled away, and see God bringing out His stars. And as you remember that the infinite mind, your Father, knows their number, calls them all by names, as the Eastern shepherd used to call his sheep, and so follows each with His love, surrounds each by His care, so bathes each in His smile that "not one faileth" — do they not with a loud shout of song pour down upon your soul the same consolation? Not only God's power as manifested in the sky, but His power as seen on earth may be our hope. God is about you on every side. No star, no bird, no flower is hid from Him. Never, then, can we say, "My way is hid from the Lord," etc.

II. But a further source of consolation is GOD'S TENDERNESS. "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." God's tenderness is only rightly seen when viewed in conjunction with His greatness. We see the tender in contrast with the mighty. And this is real tenderness. Tenderness is strength in gentle action. When the power that might crush heals, uplifts, and strengthens, then we see tenderness. Gentleness is not weakness, but it is calm, quiet, loving strength. When the wind — which might wrench the oak from its moorings, snap the cables it has thrown around the rocks, and carry it away on its wings — lifts the hair and fans the cheek of the dying child, it is gentle. When the sun — mighty in his strength, pouring his scorching light on far-off worlds — shoots down a golden ray to cheer the drooping plant, or to "increase strength" in the little seedling which a raindrop would almost crush, it is gentle. And such is the God of whom we speak. The great Father has also a mother's tenderness. "He giveth power to the faint." He who Himself is never weary stoops to those who have no might, that He may increase strength. The faint and weak, they are the children of the strong and mighty! And to the faint He giveth "power" — power to suffer, to endure. To the weak He giveth "strength" — strength to labour, to accomplish. There is nothing in this world so mighty as the weakness which takes hold of the Divine strength. Yonder the ocean is white with foam. Wave chases wave across the dark surface of the deep as cloud chases cloud across the blackened sky. No ship could live in such a storm. The mightiest anchor ever forged could give no safety in such an hour. But out, where the storm is fiercest, on those dreadful rocks against which the waves dash themselves into clouds of spray, is a tiny, helpless shell-fish. Its very strength is weakness. It clings simply by its emptiness; but, clinging to that rock, not all the thunders of the ocean dislodge it thence. It is weakness taking hold of strength. Tender and yet mighty is our God, and His tenderness is His people's comfort. Whilst we bow in reverence before that power which holds untold worlds in their shining courses, we bow in profounder reverence and love before that power when we behold it in gentle exercise, giving power to the faint.

III. There is a further source of consolation open to us — GOD'S WISDOM. "There is no searching of His understanding." To say merely that man cannot understand God is to say very little; but the language is the statement of an eternal fact. There is no searching of His understanding; not by the brightest intellects of earth nor by the grandest intelligences of heaven. And God's infinite wisdom is to us the needful complement of His infinite power. Power, uncontrolled by wisdom, is rather to be feared than worshipped and loved. And shall He who has conceived that mighty plan — that plan which embraces all worlds in its grand conception — not understand the plan of our short life? Never let us think "our way is hid from the Lord"; to Him every circumstance of our life is known.

(H. Wonnacott.)

1. It is necessary to creation. If the world were from eternity, then might it go on self-sustained, as it had ever been: if it were of chance, it might be supported by the same contingency which produced it. If a first cause was necessary to the production of these things, He is also essential to their preservation; and the same voice of nature which proclaims the being of a God, declares His Providence.

2. We must take the testimony of Scripture on this subject.

3. From prophecy.

II. THE DOCTRINE OF A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.

1. As consistent with the Divine character. The grand objection against a particular Providence has been, that it reduces the Deity to the necessity of superintending such minute concerns as are beneath His dignity — reduces the Deity to a necessity! What necessity can subsist but in His will? The objection proceeds upon principles entirely erroneous. It is an erroneous calculation to call anything great or little in such connection. All affairs are not to us of equal importance — the bursting of a bubble and the ruin of an empire. But, in reasoning thus, we are reducing the Deity to a finite standard, and making Him altogether "such an one as ourselves." With Him the affairs of an empire and of individuals are equally manageable. The reasoning is false, also, upon the principle of dignity. It deteriorates nothing from the dignity of God to form a mite, with all the vessels and organs adapted to its existence: mere minuteness of operation surely cannot be deteriorating. What it was no degradation to God to create, it can be no degradation to God to preserve and manage.

2. As necessary to the general arrangements of Providence. Here we notice the operations of God, as demonstrating His government. The constitution of nature is of parts: systems compose the universe — worlds compose systems — a conglomeration of particles compose a world. Take the world of waters: seas form oceans — rivers, seas — streamlets, rivers — drops, streamlets — and the atom is infinitely divisible. Take the human frame; made up "of that which every joint supplieth." Apply this scale of operations to Providence, and then we affirm that no concern can be so little as to be below the superintendence of God; for none can be so small as not to form a part of the grand scheme of Providence. Our ignorance on this subject can be no objection against its reality. I cannot, indeed, trace the link which knits my little concerns with the "ways of eternal Providence"; but neither can I trace the invisible chain which holds all created things together in its remotest parts: some of the larger links I discern, but more are invisible to me. He who admits the doctrine of a general providence and denies that of a particular one, is a being whose obliquity of intellect allows him to conceive of a whole, while he denies the existence of the parts of which that whole is composed.

3. As demonstrated in the course of providential dispensations. Review the circumstances of your separate lives. That life will furnish each of you with the desired evidences on this part of the subject. How frequently have the best concerted plans proved unavailing!

4. As harmonising with our prescribed duties, it is supposed, in the prescription of prayer. Where would be the utility of prayer, or the propriety of prescribing it, if the world was governed by a fate superior to the will of the Supreme Being? The prescription of prayer supposes, on the part of the Deity, a will as well as a power to govern. And this doctrine is reconcilable with the use of means; nay, it requires them.

5. As revealed in the Scriptures.

6. As most consolatory.

(W. Patten.)

(F. B. Meyer, B. A.)

(T. Leighton.)

     5265   complaints
     5360   justice, God
     5821   criticism, among believers
     5928   resentment, against God
     6109   alienation
     6115   blame
     8722   doubt, nature of
     8723   doubt, results of

Isaiah 40:25-28

     4007   creation, and God

Isaiah 40:27-31

     6233   rejection, experience

'Have Ye Not? Hast Thou Not?'
'Have ye not known, have ye not heard? hath it not been told yon from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?... Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard?'--ISAIAH xl. 21 and 28. The recurrence of the same form of interrogation in these two verses is remarkable. In the first case the plural is used, in the second the singular, and we may reasonably conclude that as Israel is addressed in the latter, the nations outside the sphere illumined by Revelation are appealed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Unfailing Stabs and Fainting Men
'...For that He is strong in power; not one faileth.... He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.'-- ISAIAH xl. 26 and 29. These two verses set forth two widely different operations of the divine power as exercised in two sadly different fields, the starry heavens and this weary world. They are interlocked, as it were, by the recurrence in the latter of the emphatic words of the former. The one verse says, 'He is strong in power'; the other, 'He giveth …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

O Thou that Bringest Good Tidings
'O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!'--ISAIAH xl. 9. There is something very grand in these august and mysterious voices which call one to another in the opening verses of this chapter. First, the purged ear of the prophet hears the divine command to him and to his brethren--Comfort Jerusalem with the message of the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Shepherd and the Fold
... Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation.' EXODUS XV. 13. What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children of Israel singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of national pride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feel its grandeur. The deliverance has made the singer look forward to the end, and his confidence in the issue is confirmed. I. The guiding God: or the picture of the leading. The original is 'lead gently.' Cf. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Secret of Immortal Youth
'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.'--ISAIAH xl. 30, 31. I remember a sunset at sea, where the bosom of each wavelet that fronted the west was aglow with fiery gold, and the back of each turned eastward was cold green; so that, looking on the one hand all was glory, and on the other …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Salvation Published from the Mountains
O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! I t would be improper to propose an alteration, though a slight one, in the reading of a text, without bearing my testimony to the great value of our English version, which I believe, in point of simplicity, strength, and fidelity, is not likely to be excelled by a new translation …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Consolation
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received at the LORD 's hand double for all her sins. T he particulars of the great "mystery of godliness," as enumerated by the Apostle Paul, constitute the grand and inexhaustible theme of the Gospel ministry, "God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Harbinger
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD , make straight in the desert a high-way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. T he general style of the prophecies is poetical. The inimitable simplicity which characterizes every …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Withering Work of the Spirit
THE passage in Isaiah which I have just read in your hearing may be used as a very eloquent description of our mortality, and if a sermon should be preached from it upon the frailty of human nature, the brevity of life, and the certainty of death, no one could dispute the appropriateness of the text. Yet I venture to question whether such a discourse would strike the central teaching of the prophet. Something more than the decay of our material flesh is intended here; the carnal mind, the flesh in …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

This Sermon was Originally Printed
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."--Isaiah 40:1. WHAT A SWEET TITLE: "My people!" What a cheering revelation: "Your God!" How much of meaning is couched in those two words, "My people!" Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens are the Lord's and he reigneth among the children of men. But he saith of a certain number, "My people." Of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others. While …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

8Th Day. Reviving Grace.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."--ISAIAH xl. 31. Reviving Grace. "Wilt thou not revive us, O Lord?" My soul! art thou conscious of thy declining state? Is thy walk less with God, thy frame less heavenly? Hast thou less conscious nearness to the mercy-seat,--diminished communion with thy Saviour? Is prayer less a privilege than it has …
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

"And the Redeemer Shall Come unto Zion, and unto them that Turn,"
Isaiah lix. 20.--"And the Redeemer shall come unto Zion, and unto them that turn," &c. Doctrines, as things, have their seasons and times. Every thing is beautiful in its season. So there is no word of truth, but it hath a season and time in which it is beautiful. And indeed that is a great part of wisdom, to bring forth everything in its season, to discern when and where, and to whom it is pertinent and edifying, to speak such and such truths. But there is one doctrine that is never out of season, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Hillis -- God the Unwearied Guide
Newell Dwight Hillis was born at Magnolia, Iowa, in 1858. He first became known as a preacher of the first rank during his pastorate over the large Presbyterian church in Evanston, Illinois. This reputation led to his being called to the Central Church, Chicago, in which he succeeded Dr. David Swing, and where from the first he attracted audiences completely filling one of the largest auditoriums in Chicago. In 1899 he was called to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, to succeed Dr. Lyman Abbott in the pulpit …
Various—The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10

Of Loving Jesus Above all Things
Blessed is he who understandeth what it is to love Jesus, and to despise himself for Jesus' sake. He must give up all that he loveth for his Beloved, for Jesus will be loved alone above all things. The love of created things is deceiving and unstable, but the love of Jesus is faithful and lasting. He who cleaveth to created things will fall with their slipperiness; but he who embraceth Jesus will stand upright for ever. Love Him and hold Him for thy friend, for He will not forsake thee when all …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Prayer and Devotion
"Once as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly had been to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God. As near as I can judge, this continued about an hour; and kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud.. I felt an ardency of soul to be what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to love …
Edward M. Bounds—The Essentials of Prayer

The God of all Comfort
"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." Among all the names that reveal God, this, the "God of all comfort," seems to me one of the loveliest and the most absolutely comforting. The words all comfort admit of no limitation and no deductions; and one would suppose that, …
Hannah Whitall Smith—The God of All Comfort

Appendix xi. On the Prophecy, Is. Xl. 3
ACCORDING to the Synoptic Gospels, the public appearance and preaching of John was the fulfilment of the prediction with which the second part of the prophecies of Isaiah opens, called by the Rabbis, the book of consolations.' After a brief general preface (Is. xl. 1, 2), the words occur which are quoted by St. Matthew and St. Mark (Is. xl. 3), and more fully by St. Luke (Is. xl. 3-5). A more appropriate beginning of the book of consolations' could scarcely be conceived. The quotation of Is. xl. …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Justification.
Among all the doctrines of our holy Christian faith, the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, stands most prominent. Luther calls it: "The doctrine of a standing or a falling church," i.e., as a church holds fast and appropriates this doctrine she remains pure and firm, and as she departs from it, she becomes corrupt and falls. This doctrine was the turning point of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It was the experience of its necessity and efficacy that made Luther what he was, and …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

The Humble Worship of Heaven.
1 Father, I long, I faint to see The place of thine abode, I'd leave thy earthly courts and flee Up to thy seat, my God! 2 Here I behold thy distant face, And 'tis a pleasing sight; But to abide in thine embrace Is infinite delight. 3 I'd part with all the joys of sense To gaze upon thy throne; Pleasure springs fresh for ever thence, Unspeakable, unknown. 4 [There all the heavenly hosts are seen, In shining ranks they move, And drink immortal vigour in, With wonder and with love. 5 Then at thy feet …
Isaac Watts—Hymns and Spiritual Songs

At Rest
Gerhard Ter Steegen Is. xl. 11 O God, a world of empty show, Dark wilds of restless, fruitless quest Lie round me wheresoe'er I go: Within, with Thee, is rest. And sated with the weary sum Of all men think, and hear, and see, O more than mother's heart, I come, A tired child to Thee. Sweet childhood of eternal life! Whilst troubled days and years go by, In stillness hushed from stir and strife, Within Thine Arms I lie. Thine Arms, to whom I turn and cling With thirsting soul that longs for Thee; …
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

His Schools and Schoolmasters.
(LUKE 1.) "Oh to have watched thee through the vineyards wander, Pluck the ripe ears, and into evening roam!-- Followed, and known that in the twilight yonder Legions of angels shone about thy home!" F. W. H. MYERS. Home-Life--Preparing for his Life-Work--The Vow of Separation--A Child of the Desert Zacharias and Elisabeth had probably almost ceased to pray for a child, or to urge the matter. It seemed useless to pray further. There had been no heaven-sent sign to assure them that there was any …
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

Impiety of Attributing a visible Form to God. --The Setting up of Idols a Defection from the True God.
1. God is opposed to idols, that all may know he is the only fit witness to himself. He expressly forbids any attempt to represent him by a bodily shape. 2. Reasons for this prohibition from Moses, Isaiah, and Paul. The complaint of a heathen. It should put the worshipers of idols to shame. 3. Consideration of an objection taken from various passages in Moses. The Cherubim and Seraphim show that images are not fit to represent divine mysteries. The Cherubim belonged to the tutelage of the Law. 4. …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion