Comfort My People — They Will Soar on Wings Like Eagles

Isaiah 40 is the great pivot of the entire book — from thirty-nine chapters of judgment and doom to twenty-seven chapters of consolation. It opens: 'Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.' A voice cries in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.' Then a litany of God's incomparable greatness: 'He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth. He brings princes to naught. The everlasting God does not grow tired or weary.' And then the promise: 'He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and stumble, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.' Handel opened his Messiah with verse 1 of this chapter. John the Baptist would be called its fulfillment.