1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Isaiah 40:1 | Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. | Be. Septuagint, "comfort my people." Let them not be dejected. (Haydock) --- The end of the captivity, and still more the coming of the Messias, afford consolation, (Calmet) and to this the prophet chiefly alludes. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:2 | Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: *she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. Apocalypse 18. | Evil. Hebrew and some Latin copies have, "warfare." --- Double. A rigorous chastisement, Apocalypse 18:6. (Calmet) |
| Isaiah 40:3 | *The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Matthew 3:3.; Mark 1:3.; Luke 3:4.; John 1:23. | God, that he may conduct his people from Babylon. (Sanchez) --- Yet the prophet speaks chiefly of John the Baptist, (Matthew 3:3.; Calmet) who is evidently foretold. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:4 | Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. | Plain. For the captives, or the conversion of the world, Baruch 5:6. |
| Isaiah 40:5 | And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. | Glory. God will rescue his people. Christ will redeem mankind. |
| Isaiah 40:6 | The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? *All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. Ecclesiasticus 14:18.; James 1:10.; 1 Peter 1:24. | Field. On the downfall of the empire of Babylon, the Jews were liberated. |
| Isaiah 40:7 | The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed, the people is grass: | |
| Isaiah 40:8 | The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever. | |
| Isaiah 40:9 | Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God: | Thou, female. How beautiful are the feet of those who announce good tidings! (Romans 10:15.) (Haydock) --- Thus a feminine noun is applied to Solomon, Ecclesiastes 1:Prophets make known to all the coming of the Saviour. (Calmet) --- Christ preaches from the mountain, and his apostles over the world. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:10 | Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: behold his reward is with him, and his work is before him. | Him. Christ will reward and punish, Jeremias 31:16., and Luke 2:34. |
| Isaiah 40:11 | *He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young. Ezechiel 34:23.; Ezechiel 37:24.; John 10:11. | Young, or have lately had young lambs, foetas. Jesus is the good shepherd, John 10:14. |
| Isaiah 40:12 | Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? | Who. He now proceeds to shew the difference between God and idols. --- Fingers, is not expressed in Hebrew, which may denote the epha, Psalm 79:6. (Calmet) --- God's power and goodness in the works of the creation, shew what he will do for man. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:13 | *Who hath forwarded the spirit of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor, and hath taught him? Wisdom 9:13.; Romans 11:34. | |
| Isaiah 40:14 | With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding? | |
| Isaiah 40:15 | Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance: behold, the islands are as a little dust. | Dust. Hebrew caddak, (Haydock) "as dok fallen." (Symmachus) --- It may signify an atom. (St. Jerome) --- If all nations be only like a drop, what portion of it do I occupy? (Calmet; ver. 17.) |
| Isaiah 40:16 | And Libanus shall not be enough to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering. | |
| Isaiah 40:17 | All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing, and vanity. | |
| Isaiah 40:18 | *To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make for him? Acts 7:40. | Image. Catholics never pretend to represent the Deity, when they depict the Father as a venerable old man, etc. They do not adore pictures, as our adversaries would insinuate. If we were disposed to cavil, we might bring the same charge against them. For a few weeks ago, "a beautiful altar-piece, painted and presented by the lady of major general Cheney, was put in Hornsea church, representing Christ blessing the bread and wine." But Protestants can confine such things to their proper use, and Catholic must adore them. (Haydock) --- "Such things the Jew, Apella, may believe: not I." (Horace) |
| Isaiah 40:19 | Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver? | Silver. Is God like these idols? (Haydock) --- Who knows not that the workman is better than they are? (Wisdom 13:11.) (Calmet) |
| Isaiah 40:20 | He hath chosen strong wood, and that will not rot: the skilful workman seeketh how he may set up an idol that may not be moved. | Wood. Hebrew hamsuccan, (Haydock) which Septuagint, Chaldean, and St. Jerome explain of a sort of wood used for idols. Moderns take it to be "a rich," or rather "a poor man. He who is mean in his offering, chooses wood that," etc. (Calmet) (Protestants) |
| Isaiah 40:21 | Do you not know? hath it not been heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood the foundations of the earth ? | Beginning, by the light of nature, and (Worthington) has not Moses declared that God alone created the world? (Haydock) --- His power and goodness herein convince us that he will not deny grace. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:22 | It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: *he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Genesis 1:6.; Psalm 14:2. | Locusts, compared with the greatest animals. --- Nothing. Hebrew, "a curtain." Septuagint, Syriac, "vault, (Calmet) or chamber," kamaran. |
| Isaiah 40:23 | He that bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothing, that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity. | Searchers. Hebrew, "princes to nothing." (Protestants) --- Philosophers know nothing independently of God, nor can they subsist without him. (Worthington) |
| Isaiah 40:24 | And surely their stock was neither planted, nor sown, nor rooted in the earth: suddenly he hath blown upon them, and they are withered, and a whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. | |
| Isaiah 40:25 | And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the holy One? | |
| Isaiah 40:26 | Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these things: who bringeth out their host by number, and calleth them all by their names: by the greatness of his might, and strength, and power, not one of them was missing. | Host of heaven, the stars, etc., Genesis 2:1., and Psalm 146:4. |
| Isaiah 40:27 | Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? | Judgment, or conduct, (Genesis 40:13.; Calmet) as if God minded not our affairs. |
| Isaiah 40:28 | Knowest thou not, or hast thou not heard? the Lord is the everlasting God, who hath created the ends of the earth: he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom. | |
| Isaiah 40:29 | It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not. | |
| Isaiah 40:30 | Youths shall faint, and labour, and young men shall fall by infirmity. | |
| Isaiah 40:31 | But they that hope in the Lord, shall renew their strength; *they shall take wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Psalm 10:5. | Eagles, who grow young, when they get new feathers, Psalm 102:5. (St. Jerome) --- In this and the following 26 chapters the prophet chiefly comforts his people, as he had rebuked them for their crimes in the first part. (Worthington) |