Isaiah — Comfort, Comfort My People
Deutero-Isaiah's vision of divine comfort and universal redemption — 'Comfort, comfort My people, says your God' — is the supreme prophetic declaration of hope after catastrophe.
Isaiah 40 opens with the most consoling words in the Hebrew prophetic tradition: 'Nachamu nachamu ami — Comfort, comfort My people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem; proclaim to her that her term of service is ended, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.' These words, addressed to the Jewish exiles in Babylon after the destruction of the First Temple, are the paradigm of the Jewish theology of hope after catastrophe. Isaiah 40-55 (Deutero-Isaiah) contains the deepest vision of universal redemption in the Hebrew Bible: the God of Israel will not only redeem Israel but will use Israel as a 'light to the nations' (42:6); the Suffering Servant (52:13-53:12) will bear the sins of many; and ultimately 'all flesh together shall see that the Lord's mouth has spoken' (40:5). The regular recitation of Isaiah's consolation haftarot during the seven weeks between the 9th of Av and Rosh Hashanah structures the Jewish calendar of mourning into hope.
Comfort, comfort My people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.
Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' — written in the aftermath of the Holocaust — echoes Isaiah's prophetic response to catastrophe: meaning can be found even in the deepest suffering, and the capacity to envision a future beyond present anguish is itself a source of survival and dignity.
Tanakh
Written about in
- What Judaism says about grief
"Comfort, comfort My people" was addressed to exiles who had already lost everything, not to people being spared. Seven weeks of consolation readings run from the ninth of Av to Rosh Hashanah: the calendar schedules recovery as firmly as it schedules mourning.