Isaiah 40 opens with the word comfort. To hear it as the people who first received it heard it, you have to know what had already happened to them.

A Babylonian army took Jerusalem in the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, and then took it apart.

"And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem… And all the army of the Chaldees… brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about." (2 Kings 25:9–10)

The temple was ash, the walls were rubble, and the people who were left were carried away (25:11) into the territory of the empire that had done it. By the time these chapters are speaking, that community holds both those who still remembered the city and a generation who knew it only by description.

That is the ground this week's reading stands on. So when the first line of Isaiah 40 says comfort, it is not addressed to people waiting to see how things turn out. It is addressed to people for whom things have already turned out, and badly — and everything that follows, the courtroom and the satire and the foreign king and the long argument about who actually runs history, is said to them in that condition.

(Historical & Cultural Context sets out the dating, what is debated about it, and what life in Babylonia looked like for them.)

If you have opened Isaiah for a comforting verse and lost the thread when the speaker changes, this week gives you a way through. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" opens Isaiah 40. The next nine chapters turn that promise into an argument, with a foreign king, a fallen city, and finally Zion's fear that God has forgotten her. The walkthrough below follows each chapter in order.

The chapters address people in Babylonian exile. For the shift from Isaiah's own setting and the separate question of when these chapters were written down, see Historical & Cultural Context.

Every chapter below is discussed in the walkthrough that follows, and all ten are assigned — the block is continuous. Chapters 46 and 47 are easy to read quickly, and they contain one of the sharpest things in the whole week.

A Servant Song is a passage about the Lord's servant; a fulfilment formula is a Gospel writer's statement that an event fulfils prophecy.

The last column shows how later New Testament writers and speakers use these chapters, and the italic note says who is speaking — a Gospel writer in his own narration, or a speaker quoting Isaiah of himself. It matters which: when John the Baptist quotes 40:3 of himself that is a claim; when Matthew quotes it in narration that is the writer's reading. Their quotations are not all doing the same thing; the chapter readings and Key Passages explain the relevant settings.

Isaiah 40 — the announcement, and the ground it stands on

The chapter opens with a command given in the plural and never addressed to anyone by name: comfort ye. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem. Tell her the account is settled.

Then a voice, and a road: "Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." All four Gospels will take this verse up for John the Baptist. Before it was about John, it was about a caravan of exiles walking home across a desert, and about the God coming down that road to meet them.

Verses 6 through 8 say the hardest true thing in the week. All flesh is grass. Empires included; readers included. One thing survives: "the word of our God shall stand for ever." That sentence is doing structural work — every promise in the nine chapters that follow rests on it.

The rest of the chapter piles up pictures of scale. The nations are a drop in a bucket and fine dust on a scale. He takes up the islands like a very little thing. He calls the stars by name and not one is missing. And then, having established that this God is beyond comparison, the chapter ends by bending all the way down to one tired person: "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength."

The final verse ends with the plainest action — walking. Key Passages, passage 2 looks at the order the verse closes in.

Isaiah 41 — the courtroom opens

Here the book's argumentative machinery starts up, and it does not stop until chapter 48.

The nations are summoned. A conqueror appears from the east but is not named here. Chapter 44 identifies him as Cyrus of Persia, the king who would take Babylon and allow the exiles to return. For now Isaiah asks the gods of the nations to do what the Lord says He can do: announce what will happen. They cannot answer.

The silence that follows is the argument.

And in the middle of that prosecution the Lord turns aside to speak directly to the smallest party in the room: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

The phrase "right hand of my righteousness" joins the Lord's power to His faithfulness. He can uphold Israel, and He will keep His promise. A few verses later He calls them "thou worm Jacob" and promises help in the same breath.

Isaiah 42 — the Servant appears, and He will not finish off what is nearly gone

A servant appears whom the Lord upholds. He will not break a bruised reed or put out a smoldering wick (verses 1–4). Key Passages, passage 4 stays with those images and the question of who the servant is.

Later in the chapter comes a promise that has carried a great many people: "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not… I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

And then the same chapter hands the word to somebody else. Verses 18–20 call Israel servant as well — and there it is not a compliment: "Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent?" (42:19). The servant who will not break a bruised reed and the servant who cannot see straight are both called servant inside one chapter. So the word by itself settles nothing — check which servant a verse is talking to before you decide what it means.

Isaiah 43 — called by name

This is the chapter people write in the front of their scriptures.

"Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine." Then verse 2, which is worth reading slowly for what it does not say:

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."

The water and fire are not called off. The promise attaches to the crossing: "I will be with thee." Weekly Insights considers Daniel 3 alongside this verse and the important limit of that comparison: Daniel's rescue is not a guarantee that no individual will be harmed.

Verse 4 goes further than a book of prophecy usually goes: "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee."

Then the courtroom reopens with a twist: "Ye are my witnesses." The exiles — defeated, displaced, with no standing anywhere — are called to the stand as evidence of who the Lord is.

And before the chapter reaches its final charge, the Lord says, "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert" (Isaiah 43:19).

Yet the chapter does not pretend Israel's failure is unreal. After naming their weariness and neglect, the Lord says, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins" (43:25). The promise rests on who He is, not on what they have earned.

Then comes the hard turn. Verses 26–28 reopen the charge, naming ancestral and leadership failure and the judgment that followed. That sequence does more than name the wrong honestly. Before the chapter reaches its final charge, the Lord has already promised to act, to make a way, and to blot out transgressions for His own sake. Latter-day Saints can hear in that order an echo of the plan of redemption: the way back was prepared even before the Fall.

Isaiah 44 — the funniest passage in the week, and then Cyrus

"I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

Then the chapter turns to idol-making — and Isaiah is not the only prophet to take an axe to it. Jeremiah works the same ground — a tree cut out of the forest, shaped with the axe, decked with silver and gold, nailed down so it will not fall over, and gods that "must needs be borne, because they cannot go" (Jeremiah 10:3–5). What Isaiah does differently is refuse to let go of the log. A man cuts down a tree. Half of it heats his house and roasts his dinner — "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire." The other half he carves into a god, and then kneels down in front of it and says, "Deliver me; for thou art my god." Same tree. Same man. Same afternoon.

Then verse 20 stops the laughing: "He feedeth on ashes… nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" Notice where the chapter has arrived. In the middle of a courtroom argument between God and the nations, the decisive move against idol-worship turns out to be a joke — and then the joke turns, and the closing clause is not about the idol at all. It is about the man holding it. (What that clause is doing, and why it reaches a reader who has never carved anything, is Key Passages, passage 6 — and it is worth the trip.)

The chapter closes with a name that stops a first-time reader: "That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure."

Isaiah 45 — the Lord's anointed, who did not know Him

And then the word that should stop everyone: "Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus."

Anointed was Israel's title for a king or a priest — someone set apart by God's choosing. Here it is given to Cyrus, a Persian ruler who did not know the Lord. The Lord says that twice (verses 4–5). God can work through someone outside Israel for Israel's sake. (For more on the title, see Word Studies, study 5.)

That same verse 4 also says why, and it re-centres the whole chapter: "For Jacob my servant's sake." The empire is not the subject of that sentence. A beaten people who had every reason to believe they had dropped out of God's attention are the subject — and Persia is the arrangement made on their behalf.

Then comes a difficult line: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." Here evil means calamity, not moral wrongdoing — the verse sets it opposite peace. Isaiah is saying that God rules even when disaster comes, not that He makes people sin. Babylon's gods do not govern a separate part of history. (For the fuller explanation, see Key Passages, passage 7.)

And five times in this chapter God says a version of one sentence in His own voice: I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Keep that claim in mind when you reach Babylon's boast in chapter 47.

Isaiah 46 — a god you carry, or a God who carries you

"Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast."

Bel and Nebo were major Babylonian gods. Isaiah has them "upon the beasts" and "a burden to the weary beast", and he notices one thing: the animals are struggling. The gods are freight. They have to be lifted.

Then he turns it around: "even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." He has carried this people since before they could walk and will still be carrying them when they are grey.

A god you carry, against a God who carries you. For people living among the temples and processions of an imperial capital, that was not an abstract point. It is the whole of chapters 44 and 46 in one image.

Isaiah 47 — Babylon's confidence fails

The Come, Follow Me manual directs us to 47:7–11. Isaiah speaks to Babylon as a woman who expects to remain powerful forever. He tells her to leave her throne and sit in the dust. This is a picture of an empire losing the position it thought it could never lose.

In verses 8 and 10 Babylon says in her heart, "I am, and none else beside me." Compare the Lord's words in chapter 45: "I am the LORD, and there is none else." The contrast is between the Lord, who promises deliverance, and an empire that assumes it needs no one and cannot fall.

Isaiah also names what Babylon did to others: it showed the captives no mercy and laid a heavy yoke on the elderly (verse 6). Its confidence in wisdom and secret practices will not protect it (verses 10–15). Read the chapter with both charges in view. Babylon is not merely proud; it has harmed people, and the powers it relies on cannot save it. Weekly Insights considers how later scripture uses Babylon as a symbol without confusing that later use with Isaiah's historical setting.

Isaiah 48 — refined in a furnace, and told to leave

Chapter 48 is unusually blunt with its own audience: "I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." This is not a book that flatters the people it comforts.

And in the middle of it comes this: "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Not in spite of the furnace. In it.

The Lord says He held back His anger "for my name's sake" and would not cut Israel off (Isaiah 48:9–11). The furnace image does not say that everyone who suffered was guilty.

Then the release. "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob." After eight chapters of argument, the verdict becomes an instruction: leave, and sing on the way out.

The chapter ends on a hard note that the lesson should not soften: "There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked."

Nephi copied this entire chapter onto his own record as 1 Nephi 20.

Isaiah 49 — the Servant, and the hands

"Listen, O isles, unto me."

The servant is called Israel yet is also sent to gather Israel (verses 3–6). His work reaches beyond Israel to the nations. Key Passages, passage 8 examines the tension and the Latter-day Saint reading.

And then the chapter turns, and the people simply say it:

"But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me."

Isaiah has already named this complaint at Isaiah 40:27. Here Zion says it herself. The answer is not an explanation of her suffering or another argument about why God can be trusted. It is an image: "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:16). Weekly Insights follows that image into its devotional meaning.

The comfort announced in Isaiah 40 is not a gentle word set beside disaster. Through these ten chapters, the Lord exposes idols and empires and shows that He governs history. That long argument finally reaches its point when Zion names the fear underneath it all: that she has been forgotten.

The God who answers her is the same God who has carried the case through chapters 40–48. His answer does not dismiss her fear. It gives her a reason to believe that she remains seen, remembered, and held.

If you do one thing with this week, read Isaiah 49:1 beside 1 Nephi 21:1. Notice the added address to people who have been "broken off" and driven out—and why a family in the wilderness heard this chapter as their own.

Continue to Historical & Cultural Context.

Last week's reading ended with Assyria threatening Jerusalem. This week opens after another empire, Babylon, has destroyed the city. The people addressed here have lost their home.

"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."

(Isaiah 40:1–2)

The Lord speaks comfort to people living after catastrophe. He tells them to "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans" (48:20). Chaldeans refers to Babylon's ruling people.

Babylon had burned Jerusalem and its temple, broken down the walls, and deported many survivors (2 Kings 25:9–11).

Some exiles remembered Jerusalem; others had grown up without seeing it. At the return, Ezra 3:12 describes older people weeping at the new temple foundation while others shouted for joy.

When Were These Chapters Written?

That Babylonian setting raises a natural question. Isaiah 40 speaks to people after Jerusalem's fall, but Isaiah of Jerusalem lived long before it. When did these chapters take shape?

Many biblical scholars date much of Isaiah 40–55 to the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC. They call this part of the book Deutero-Isaiah, or "Second Isaiah." The setting, its references to Babylon and Cyrus, and differences from much of Isaiah's earlier material lead them to that conclusion.

Other readers understand these chapters as prophecy Isaiah received before the exile, including the naming of Cyrus. The Church's Old Testament student manual presents that view. Later scribes may also have gathered and edited earlier prophecies.

Latter-day Saint writer Daniel T. Ellsworth addresses both views in Their Imperfect Best. He accepts that Isaiah of Jerusalem did not write every part of the book, rejects a simple three-author division, and takes predictive prophecy seriously.

The Book of Mormon makes the dating question sharper. The brass plates held the prophets' writings (1 Nephi 5:13). Nephi says he read Isaiah to his family (1 Nephi 19:23) and quotes Isaiah 48–49 in 1 Nephi 20 and 21. Together, those passages imply that Lehi's family had these chapters before Jerusalem's destruction. Neither view supplies a complete history of how the book was assembled.

Isaiah 36–39 connect Isaiah's own lifetime to the exile addressed in chapter 40.

Assyria's king Sennacherib took Judah's fortified cities, but Jerusalem survived. The account says that the angel of the Lord struck the Assyrian camp. Yet the story does not end with Jerusalem's deliverance.

After Babylonian envoys visit Hezekiah, Isaiah tells the king that his treasures and descendants will one day be carried to Babylon. Hezekiah answers, "Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken," then adds, "For there shall be peace and truth in my days" (Isaiah 39:8). The judgment is real, but it lies beyond his own lifetime.

That is the bridge to Isaiah 40. Chapter 39 looks ahead to the disaster; chapter 40 speaks to the people who will eventually live through it. The comfort of Isaiah 40 is addressed not to the time before the loss, but to its aftermath.

Why These Connections Matter in the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon's writers knew this larger scriptural world. Lehi's descent from Manasseh (Alma 10:3) gave his family northern-Israel roots, though the record does not tell us when or why his ancestors came to Judah. The northern kingdom had already fallen, and Judah's earlier deliverance from Assyria did not make Jerusalem invulnerable.

Hezekiah's story also includes a sign: after the Lord promises he will recover, the shadow on Ahaz's sundial moves ten degrees backward (2 Kings 20:9–11; Isaiah 38:8).

Centuries later, Mormon writes that if the Lord tells the earth to go back and lengthen the day, it is done (Helaman 12:14–15). He does not name Hezekiah or Ahaz. The allusion works because his readers already know the story. These connections do not replace Isaiah's exilic setting; they show why that earlier history remained meaningful to Nephite readers.

The full Hezekiah account is in 2 Kings 18–20, assigned in Week 29.

These chapters name a Persian king who lived long after Isaiah of Jerusalem.

"That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."

(Isaiah 44:28)

Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the exiles to return. The book of Isaiah names him twice and calls him God's "anointed":

"Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden…"

(Isaiah 45:1)

Ezra records Cyrus's decree allowing the people to return and rebuild the temple: "let him go up to Jerusalem… and build the house of the LORD God of Israel" (Ezra 1:2–3).

Anointed is an unexpected title for a foreign king. Being given it does not make Cyrus a secret believer — Isaiah says plainly that he did not know the Lord. Yet God calls him to help restore Judah.

Isaiah's point is plain: God can work through a king who does not know Him.

Bel and Nebo were major Babylonian gods. For Judah's exiles, they were not distant names from a foreign religion. Their worshippers surrounded them in the empire that had destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.

The exiles were settled across Babylonia, not only in its capital; Ezekiel, for example, lived "at Tel-abib ... by the river of Chebar" (Ezekiel 3:15). Their own temple was gone. Babylon's gods belonged to the public world they now had to inhabit.

That setting gives force to Isaiah 46:

"Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast."

(Isaiah 46:1)

Isaiah pictures the gods of Babylon as images loaded onto animals. The next verse says they go "into captivity." The passage does not identify a particular event, so we should not pretend to know whether Isaiah imagines a religious procession, the movement of cult images, or defeated gods being hauled away. His point is clear in any case: these gods cannot move, rescue, or carry anyone. They must be carried.

That prepares Isaiah's contrast in the verses that follow: "even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you" (Isaiah 46:4). In the setting of exile, this is not an abstract argument about idols. It is a claim about which God can still hold a displaced people.

For the wider carried-versus-carrying thread across the week, see Weekly Insights and Overview.

The place names show how far this week's setting has shifted.

Assyria, the threat in last week's reading, is absent. Babylon and the Chaldeans now dominate the setting.

Cyrus is named twice, but Persia is not. The passage focuses on the man God calls, not the empire he rules.

To locate Babylon and Jerusalem, see The Scriptures, Mapped or Bible Mapper. Neither establishes the exiles' exact route.

These chapters are poetry. At several points they sound like a courtroom: the Lord challenges the nations and their gods to present evidence.

"Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob… Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen."

(Isaiah 41:21–22)

The idols cannot declare what will happen. The Lord says He can: "Declaring the end from the beginning" (46:10). He points to fulfilled words as evidence that the exiles can trust His promise.

The comfort in chapter 40 is more than reassurance. These chapters give a displaced people reasons to trust the One who promises to bring them home.

Nephi quotes Isaiah 48 and 49 as 1 Nephi 20 and 21, then explains them to his brothers in 1 Nephi 22.

The opening of 1 Nephi 21 includes words absent from the King James text of Isaiah 49:

• Isaiah 49:1 begins, "Listen, O isles, unto me."
• 1 Nephi 21:1 first addresses "all ye that are broken off and are driven out" before the same call to the isles.

The added words address people "broken off" and "driven out." Nephi's family had left Jerusalem. His version of the chapter speaks directly to their situation.

Teaching Applications offers a side-by-side reading activity.

Nephi applies Isaiah's words to his family. That application does not erase the chapters' Babylonian-exile setting. Key Passages, passage 8 explores the distinction.

Continue to Key Passages.

The Text

"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… The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

(Isaiah 40:1–2, 8)

How the Passage Works

The opening is a command to speak comfort to Jerusalem, and verse 2 gives the reason in the same breath: "that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned."

The verse does not promise that every hardship ends at once. It settles the matter of her sin, and says nothing about when her circumstances will change. And comfort ye is an instruction to speak, not a description of how anyone feels. Word Studies examines the Hebrew verb. (For who these chapters address, and when they were written, see Historical & Cultural Context, section 1.)

Then verse 3 turns outward, and the picture is a road crew: "Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." The image is an approaching king, and people going out ahead of Him to level the ground — a verse about manual labour, in a chapter about comfort. (The Overview follows where the Gospels take it.)

Verses 6 to 8 set all flesh is grass against "the word of our God shall stand for ever." Nothing here makes the withering smaller. What it names instead is one thing that lasts.

Try this. Read verses 6–8 twice — once thinking of the empire, and once thinking of yourself. The verse means both, and it means them differently.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Preparing the Lord's way means making ready to receive Him. Restoration scripture reuses that invitation in D&C 33:10, 65:1, 3, and 133:17. Their wording sometimes follows the Gospel quotations of Isaiah 40:3 rather than Isaiah's English line exactly.
• The promise that God's word outlasts what fades stands behind 1 Peter 1:24–25, where Peter quotes these verses and then names what the enduring word is: "the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

Study Questions

1. What does verse 2 say has ended — and what does it not say has ended?
2. All flesh is grass could be despairing or freeing. Which is it here, and what makes the difference?

The Text

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?… 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 40:28, 30–31)

How the Passage Works

This passage answers a complaint. At Isaiah 40:27, the Lord asks why His people are saying, "My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God." In other words: God has lost sight of us, and our case has gone unheard. Verses 28–31 answer that fear.

Read verses 30 and 31 together. Verse 30 names the youths and the young men—the strongest people Isaiah could have chosen—and says that even they faint, grow weary, and fall. Verse 31 does not promise strength to people who are naturally stronger. It promises strength to they that wait upon the LORD.

Wait in English can sound passive, as though it means sitting still while time passes. The Hebrew is qāvâ (קָוָה): to wait for or to hope in. The verse speaks of people who keep hoping in the Lord. That is not pretending that the delay is easy; it is continuing to turn toward Him while the answer has not yet come. Word Studies, study 2 explores the word's Greek and Latin renderings.

The verse ends, "they shall walk, and not faint." Weekly Insights follows that final image into the reader's lived experience. Here, Isaiah's central claim is simpler: the God who does not grow weary has not lost sight of people whose strength has run out.

That answer is also why this verse keeps reappearing in Restoration scripture and Latter-day Saint teaching. Its promise is not that faithful people never become tired; it is that strength is received from the God who does not grow weary. The connections below show how later scripture and prophets have returned to that promise without replacing Isaiah's original answer to people who fear they have been forgotten, or that their own strength may not be enough.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• You have almost certainly quoted this verse without knowing it was Isaiah. The Word of Wisdom's closing promise reads: "And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint" (Doctrine and Covenants 89:20). That is Isaiah 40:31's second half, nearly word for word.
• And notice what the Restoration did with it. Isaiah gives the promise to those who wait upon the LORD; the Word of Wisdom gives the same promise to those who keep a commandment about the body. Both are about strength that is received rather than generated — and the second is not a replacement for the first. Read them together and the Word of Wisdom stops being a health code and becomes a form of waiting on the Lord.
• Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles put the same question to the word itself in "Waiting upon the Lord: Thy Will Be Done" (October 2011): "In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust." His sermon reaches that same insight through the English scriptures; the Hebrew study offers a complementary lens.
• Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles opened "Waiting on the Lord" (October 2020) with the question the verse actually answers: "How long do we wait for relief from hardships that come upon us?… Why the delay when burdens seem more than we can bear?"

Study Questions

1. Why does Isaiah choose the youths as his example of failing strength?
2. How does Isaiah 40:27 change the meaning of "wait upon the LORD" in verse 31?

The Text

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

(Isaiah 41:10)

How the Passage Works

Isaiah 41 begins as a public challenge. The Lord summons the nations and their gods to present their case and show what they can do (Isaiah 41:1, 21–22). The question is not whether Israel has enough strength to survive on its own. It is whether any rival can do what the Lord does.

In the middle of that public case, the Lord turns to frightened Israel: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee." The promise is personal, but it is not detached from its setting. Israel hears it while the Lord is exposing the weakness of the gods and powers that claim to stand beside Him.

Read the verse slowly and notice its structure: two commands, each immediately given a reason—fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God—and then three promises that build on one another: strengthen, help, uphold. The first addresses your capacity. The second names His participation. The third speaks to the point when your own capacity is gone and He is holding you up.

And notice which promise receives the final phrase: uphold—not strengthen or help. It is the third promise that carries "the right hand of my righteousness." The God who calls Israel not to fear is not asking them to deny the danger. He is telling them who remains with them in it.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Jean A. Stevens, then First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency, took this verse as the title of her April 2014 general conference address, "Fear Not; I Am with Thee," and read it as spoken to each person individually: "Wherever we find ourselves on the path of discipleship, whatever our worries and challenges may be, we are not alone. You are not forgotten."
• The same pairing appears again two chapters on in Isaiah 43:5 — "Fear not: for I am with thee" — followed immediately by a promise of gathering. In this book, fear not and I will gather you keep arriving together.

Study Questions

1. What do the promises to strengthen, help, and uphold add to one another?
2. What does it do to the verse to know it is spoken inside a courtroom argument?

The Text

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles… A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench… I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles."

(Isaiah 42:1, 3, 6)

How the Passage Works

Four passages in Isaiah are usually called the Servant Songs. Two fall within this week's chapters—this one and Isaiah 49—and the other two come next week. This is the first. A figure appears without being named, and the passage describes Him through the work He comes to do.

Start with verse 3, because it is the line that stays with you. A bruised reed is a stalk already crushed; the ordinary thing to do with it is snap it off. Smoking flax is a lamp wick down to its last thread, producing more smoke than light; the ordinary thing is to pinch it out. Both images picture something nearly spent. In both cases, the Servant refuses to finish off what is already weak.

Verse 4 makes clear that this gentleness is not weakness. The Servant will not Himself fail or be discouraged until He has set judgment in the earth. He is steady enough to carry the work through, and gentle enough not to crush those who have little strength left.

Isaiah does not name the Servant here; it simply says, "Behold my servant, whom I uphold." Matthew later identifies Him with Jesus Christ. Word Studies, study 3 explores the Hebrew word for servant and the ancient witnesses' different readings of this passage.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Matthew 12:18–21 quotes the first four verses of this passage and applies them to the Savior. It is Matthew's narration that makes the identification — the Savior does not quote it of Himself here — and Matthew places it immediately after a scene in which Jesus heals quietly and asks not to be publicized. He reads a bruised reed shall he not break as a description of how the Lord worked, not only of what He accomplished.
• The Lord says He will give the Servant "for a covenant of the people" (Isaiah 42:6–7). In the next line the Servant opens blind eyes and brings prisoners out of darkness. His work is how the Lord's promised help reaches people. Latter-day Saints see that work fulfilled in Jesus Christ; the same covenant phrase returns in Isaiah 49:8.

Study Questions

1. Which of the two images in verse 3 lands harder for you — the crushed stalk or the dying wick — and why?
2. What does Isaiah's description of the Servant tell you before Matthew identifies Him?

The Text

"But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."

(Isaiah 43:1–2)

How the Passage Works

Start with verse 1, because everything verse 2 promises rests on it.

The word behind redeemed is gā'al (גָּאַל), used for a relative who acts to restore family property or freedom; such action could involve a payment. In this verse the Lord claims Israel as His own and promises to act for them.

The go'el was the nearest relative, and the role carried real obligations — which is the whole force of the word here. (Word Studies, study 4 sets out those duties with their references, and where Boaz goes beyond them.)

Then I have called thee by thy name — and then verse 4: "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee." It is almost embarrassing to read aloud.

Now read verse 2 against verse 1. The waters and the fire are not called off. Verse 2 promises company inside them, to the very people verse 1 has just called mine.

That is a smaller promise than the one we usually want and a much larger one than we usually believe. A people who had already watched their city burn were in no position to be told the fire would not come. They could be told Someone was in it with them.

Isaiah uses fire differently elsewhere in these chapters. In 43:2, the waters and fire are not called off; the promise is company inside them. Isaiah 48:10 makes a different claim: in the "furnace of affliction," the Lord has not stopped choosing Israel. That can help a reader see purpose in affliction; 43:2 does not ask us to find a purpose in a particular fire or promise what it will produce. It promises company, not improvement—and to someone in the fire, those are very different things.

Two cautions belong with this verse whenever it is taught. Daniel 3 sets the same shape in a scene — a furnace, and a fourth figure in it — but it is a later parallel, not a fulfilment; Isaiah is not predicting Daniel. Daniel 3 is a rescue, but that rescue cannot turn Isaiah's promise to Israel into a guarantee that no faithful individual will come to bodily harm.

Alma 14 is the painful counterpoint. Believing women and children are not spared, and Alma and Amulek are made to witness their deaths. Alma says that the Lord receives them "up unto himself, in glory" (verse 11). The difference between these accounts is not a measure of anyone's faithfulness. Thou shalt not be burned speaks to Israel in its covenant identity, but it does not assign identical bodily outcomes to every group or individual within Israel. Jerusalem itself had already been burned (2 Kings 25:9); the verse is not a promise that fire never reaches God's people. Together, Daniel's rescue and Alma 14's grief bear witness that God does not abandon His people, whether deliverance comes in the moment or faith must endure suffering, loss, and even death.

Most of us will never face literal fires like those in these stories. But spiritual and circumstantial fires are real: illness, strain on a home, a family in crisis, or losses that make ordinary life feel impossible. These are the places where we turn to the Lord for help. Isaiah 43 does not say they will never come. It promises that the Lord will not leave His people without His presence as they turn to Him.

Try this. Verse 1 names Jacob and Israel—a people. Put your own name where those names stand, knowing that this promise reaches into your own life. What changes in your mindset as you face your own personal challenges?

Latter-day Saint Connections

These connections follow the two movements of Isaiah 43: first, the Lord calls Israel His own and redeems them; then He gathers the scattered people home.

• When the Lord says, "I have redeemed thee," He uses the language of a kinsman who acts for family. Redemption is more than rescue from danger: it is the Lord claiming a covenant relationship and acting to restore His people. Latter-day Saints see that relationship fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s Atonement. In Mosiah 15:1–9, Abinadi explains the Savior’s redeeming work through the relationship of Father and Son.
• That redemption leads into gathering. Isaiah 43:5–6 promises that the scattered will be brought "from the east… from the west… from the ends of the earth." Isaiah 48:20 then says, "Go ye forth of Babylon," and Doctrine and Covenants 133 takes up the same call: "Go ye out from Babylon"—including "spiritual Babylon." The Lord who calls His people His own also calls them out and gathers them home.

Study Questions

1. What is the difference between a promise to spare you the fire and a promise to be with you in it?
2. What obligations did a go'el carry? Which of them do you see the Savior fulfilling?

The Text

"Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it… He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh… And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god."

(Isaiah 44:15–17)

How the Passage Works

Isaiah walks the reader through a woodworking shop, and the verses quoted above are the whole of the joke.

Then verse 20 stops being funny: "He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" The man is not stupid. He is deceived, which is a different condition—and the sharpest line is the last one. The thing is in his hand, and he cannot see it clearly enough even to ask the question.

Isaiah is describing real idols, made of wood, for people who really did commission them. That is his subject, and it does not need translating into something else. But the question he ends on has a careful, wider application. Sometimes people outside a situation can see what we cannot yet see from inside it: an unhealthy habit, a destructive way of thinking, or a relationship that has become controlling or unsafe. That does not mean the person closest to it is foolish or simply choosing not to notice. Fear, habit, pain, and proximity can make honest seeing difficult.

This is one reason a trusted friend, counselor, or therapist can be a gift. They may be able to offer enough distance and safety to help us ask the question we could not ask alone. Isaiah is not inviting us to diagnose everyone else’s hidden idols. He is inviting humility about our own blind spots—and courage to receive help when we need it.

(Isaiah 46 turns this image around; Weekly Insights stays with it.)

Try this. Read 44:20 and ask: Is there something in my life I need help seeing clearly? If the question brings something serious or unsafe to mind, do not carry it alone.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Alma 31 gives the Book of Mormon's version of the same observation, and the detail is what makes it land. The Zoramites — a group that had separated from the Nephites — built a tall stand "in the center of their synagogue… the top thereof would only admit one person" (31:12–14), climbed it one at a time and said the same prayer word for word (31:20, 22), then stepped down and did not speak of God again all week (31:23). They called it the Rameumptom, which the record translates for us: "the holy stand" (31:21). The comparison is not exact—the Zoramites did not worship the Rameumptom as a god. But Isaiah’s question still reaches them: a structure made by human hands had become the center of a worship practice that fed pride, excluded the poor (Alma 32:2–5), and distracted the people from what was really important.

These stories invite us to pause and ask: What has begun to claim my trust, attention, or allegiance in a way that belongs to God? And can I see it clearly?

• The counterweight to the whole passage is Isaiah 44:6: "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." The satire exists to make room for that sentence.

Study Questions

1. Why does Isaiah make the reader watch the whole process rather than simply condemning the idol?
2. Verse 20 says the man cannot ask the question. What makes a question unaskable?

The Text

"Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him… For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."

(Isaiah 45:1, 4–5)

How the Passage Works

Stop at the first line of this chapter.

His anointed is māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ)—Israel's word for its own kings and priests—given here to a Persian emperor. Word Studies, study 5 explains the word and its Greek and Latin renderings. The surprise is deliberate. Cyrus is not presented as a secret believer: twice the Lord says, "though thou hast not known me." Yet the Lord can appoint someone who does not recognize Him and work through that person for the restoration of His people.

Verse 4 gives the reason: "For Jacob my servant's sake." Cyrus is the means, not the point. The chapter is not chiefly about a Persian king; it is about the Lord’s covenant care for Israel.

Then verse 7 makes the larger claim: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil." Here, evil translates raʿ (רַע), a word that can describe moral wrong but also calamity, disaster, and adversity. Its pairing with peace points to the latter sense. Isaiah is not saying that God authors sin. He is saying that neither peace nor catastrophe lies outside the Lord’s rule.

That claim matters in Babylon. Bel, Nebo, and the other gods were imagined as having their own powers and territories—the two Isaiah names appear at Isaiah 46:1. Isaiah denies that the Lord is simply the strongest god in the crowd. There is no rival power running the difficult half of history. The Lord alone is God—and He is acting, even through Cyrus, for Jacob’s sake.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• The naming of Cyrus is the evidence these chapters themselves put forward for their central claim: that the God who "declar[es] the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10) is the only one who can be trusted about anything. See section 1 of Historical & Cultural Context for the dating question this raises.
• Isaiah 45:23 — "unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear" — is taken up in Doctrine and Covenants 88:104 and by Paul in Philippians 2:10–11, where what Isaiah says of the Lord is said of Jesus Christ.

Study Questions

1. What does it mean that the Lord calls a man my anointed and thou hast not known me in the same breath?
2. How does "for Jacob my servant's sake" change the way you read the rest of the chapter?

The Text

"And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified… And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD… It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob… I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth."

(Isaiah 49:3, 5–6)

How the Passage Works

Isaiah 49 gives the reader a question before it gives an answer. In verse 3, the Lord says to the servant, "Thou art my servant, O Israel." But in verses 5–6, the same servant is formed "to bring Jacob again to him" and "to raise up the tribes of Jacob." The servant is called Israel, yet the servant is sent to gather Israel.

The chapter leaves both statements in view. Israel can be the covenant people as a whole, and a servant can stand within that people as their representative, carrying their calling on their behalf. Word Studies, study 3 sets out several ancient ways readers have understood that tension.

Latter-day Saints read this passage both corporately and individually: Israel is the servant people called to gather, and Jesus Christ is the Servant who fulfills that calling in its fullest sense—redeeming and gathering Israel, and becoming "a light to the Gentiles." Nephi quotes this chapter and explains that the Lord will bring His people "out of captivity" (1 Nephi 22:11–12). That is our reading of the passage; it does not erase its first setting among a people in exile who needed to hear that they had not been forgotten.

Even the servant’s own words leave the outcome open: "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD" (verse 5). Verse 6 then widens the work rather than narrowing it: gathering Jacob is called "a light thing" beside the larger calling to be "a light to the Gentiles."

Zion’s Question

Then Zion speaks the fear beneath the chapter: "The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me" (Isaiah 49:14).

"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."

(Isaiah 49:15–16)

Notice what is engraved. Not a name — "I have graven thee" — the city herself. And then, in the same verse, "thy walls are continually before me." Zion has been mourning those walls as rubble; the verse says they have not left His sight. Weekly Insights takes the verse further.

(Historical & Cultural Context sets Isaiah 49:1 beside Nephi's expanded opening at 1 Nephi 21:1.)

Latter-day Saint Connections

• 1 Nephi 21 is this chapter from the brass plates, and 1 Nephi 22 is Nephi answering his brothers' question about what it means. Read them together; the commentary is attached to the text.
• Mosiah 14 is Isaiah 53 on the brass plates, and Mosiah 15 is Abinadi naming who the servant is. His first sentence after the quotation is: "I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people" (Mosiah 15:1). Isaiah 53 is next week's reading, and Abinadi's full argument belongs there with it.

Study Questions

1. Verse 5 leaves the outcome open — "though Israel be not gathered." Why might Isaiah have left it there rather than resolving it?
2. Zion's complaint in verse 14 is answered with an image rather than an argument. Why was that the right answer?
3. What do you make of "a light thing" — that gathering all Israel is described as the smaller half of this Servant's work?

Continue to Word Studies.

Five words carry most of this week's weight, and each one is larger in Hebrew than the English word the King James translators had available. No knowledge of Hebrew is needed — every study begins in English and says what the comparison adds.

A note for later: Study 2 shows how the ancient translations sharpen Isaiah 40:31’s verbs wait and renew.

(Three names appear as you read, and are worth knowing once. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by Jewish scholars a couple of centuries before Christ; it is frequently quoted in the New Testament, and where it differs from the Hebrew it shows how these verses were being read in antiquity. Swete is the scholar whose printed edition of that Greek text is quoted here. The Vulgate is Jerome's Latin translation; he worked on the Old Testament through the 390s and the project as a whole was complete by about AD 405. It is where a great many English religious words came from.)

The week opens on a word said twice:

"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."

(Isaiah 40:1)

The Hebrew doubles it exactly — naḥămû naḥămû, the same command given again. Doubling is how Hebrew presses a command home: the call is for comfort in full. And the verb is nāḥam (נָחַם), which covers more ground than the English comfort.

Here the command is to comfort or console Jerusalem—not merely to tell her to feel better. The next clause tells the speaker what good news to announce: her season of hard service has run its course, and her iniquity has been pardoned.

The word translated warfare is ṣāḇā’ (צָבָא). It can describe military service, but it can also mean an assigned term of difficult labor or duty. Jerusalem is pictured as a people who have endured a long, grievous season; God commands that they be told it is not being held over them forever.

Elsewhere, the same Hebrew root, nāḥam, can describe relenting, compassion, or a change of course. That is not the grammatical sense of the command in Isaiah 40:1, which is comfort. But it adds a meaningful perspective: the God who had addressed Jerusalem in judgment now commands that comfort be spoken to her. The relationship is moving from discipline toward restoration. Her guilt has been addressed, and the burden she has carried is coming to its end.

The Greek translation also says to comfort. Greek Isaiah 40:1 opens Παρακαλεῖτε, παρακαλεῖτε—a form of parakaleō (παρακαλέω). In other contexts, the verb can mean to invite, appeal, encourage, or call someone alongside.

Here, it means comfort. Verse 2 repeats the verb—comfort her—and then names pardon with a different word, lyō (λύω): to loose or release. Her sin has been loosed.

The connection to John is not that Isaiah is secretly naming the Holy Ghost. Isaiah speaks of God’s command to bring comfort to a people whose warfare is ended and whose iniquity is pardoned. But the Greek translators use parakaleō for that comfort, and John uses its related noun, paraklētos (παράκλητος), for the Helper Christ promises to send.

In John 14:16–18, the Savior promises "another Comforter" and then says, "I will not leave you comfortless." Isaiah speaks of the comfort God gives to His wounded people; John names the One who comes alongside Christ’s disciples so that they are not left alone in receiving it. The shared Greek root does not make the two passages say exactly the same thing, but it helps us see why Comforter is more than a gentle title.

The Latin takes a different grammatical shape: Jerome wrote consolamini consolamini, which is where English receives console and consolation. Greek gives the image of a helper called alongside; Latin expresses consolation to my people, and verse 2 gives the command to speak comfort to Jerusalem.

Try this. Read Isaiah 40:1 and John 14:16–18 together. What changes when the promise of a Comforter is not only a promise of relief, but a promise that you will not be left alone?

Language note. Modern Greek parakalō comes from ancient parakaleō: para, “beside” or “alongside,” and kaleō, “to call.” It has developed into the everyday polite word please. Someone asking for a repetition might say páli, parakalō: “again, please.” English speakers might answer that situation with “Pardon?” But pardon is our English idiom, not a meaning of the Greek verb.

Cross-Language Connections

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."

(Isaiah 40:31)

Isaiah speaks to people whose strength is failing.

First, wait. The Hebrew qāvâ (קָוָה) means to wait for or hope in someone. The object of that hope matters here: the Lord, not the people's own strength. Waiting might mean continuing to pray and act faithfully when an answer has not yet come.

And the word keeps a picture in it. qāvâ shares a root with the noun qāv (קָו), a measuring line — a cord pulled taut. Waiting on the Lord looks like that: holding on to Him, and stretched toward Him while you wait.

The ancient translations add shades of meaning. The Greek uses hypomenō (ὑπομένω), a word for enduring; the Latin uses sperant, hoping. Both are words for something you do.

Second, renew. The Hebrew verb ḥālap̄ (חָלַף) can mean change as readily as renew, and the ancient translators took it that way: the Septuagint has ἀλλάξουσιν ἰσχύν, they shall exchange strength, and the Vulgate mutabunt fortitudinem, the same thought in Latin. The King James reaches for the outcome instead — strength renewed.

And verse 29 says where that strength comes from: the Lord "giveth power to the faint" (Isaiah 40:29). The weary are not told to find reserves they had overlooked. He supplies what they do not have.

Try this. For one week, whenever you would say you are waiting on an answer, read Isaiah 40:31 and ask what being stretched toward Him would look like in that specific situation — and ask it against the verse rather than in general.

Cross-Language Connections

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth." (Isaiah 42:1)

"Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." (Isaiah 49:3)

Both verses use the same Hebrew word in the same form — ʿaḇdî, my servant — from ʿeḇeḏ (עֶבֶד).

Say servant in English and the humblest sense may arrive first. The Hebrew word can describe a household slave, a king's minister, or a worshipper of God in different settings. Isaiah 42:1 calls this figure the Lord's servant; that relationship matters before we try to name the figure.

One story shows that range doing work. At 2 Samuel 10:2–4 David sends men to a neighbouring king to offer condolences on his father's death — "by the hand of his servants" — and the king, suspecting spies, shaves off half of each man's beard and cuts their garments away at the hip before sending them back. Nobody in that scene thinks the insult was aimed at household staff. They were the king's own representatives, and humiliating them was an act of war, which is exactly what it started.

So the word names a position defined entirely by whose you are — the humblest station there is, or the highest office in a kingdom, depending on whose servant you happen to be. Moses, Joshua, David and the prophets all carry this title, and it is an honour every time.

Four ancient readers, three different answers

Here is where this week's word study becomes genuinely interesting. Isaiah 42:1 does not name the servant. The Hebrew simply says my servant. Four ancient witnesses to the verse survive, and they do not all name him the same way:

Two ancient Jewish translations read the same unnamed servant two different ways — one corporately, as the covenant nation; one messianically, as an individual deliverer. Neither is a Christian reading imposed from outside. Both are inside Judaism, and they are reading the same words.

That is worth knowing because it is exactly the tension Isaiah 49 puts on the page — a servant called Israel who is sent to gather Israel. The tension is not a problem later readers created. It is in the text, and ancient readers in three languages felt it.

A detail easily missed. The Septuagint does not even use the same Greek word in both places: pais (παῖς) at 42:1 — a word that means child as readily as servant — and doulos (δοῦλος), a bondservant, at 49:3. The Greek translator was making distinctions the Hebrew did not force on him.

Cross-Language Connections

"Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine."

(Isaiah 43:1)

Redeem has become a churchy word, which is a shame, because gā'al (גָּאַל) began as a family word.

A go'el was a close relative expected to act when a family member's loss threatened their future. If someone lost land through debt, a go'el could buy it back (Leviticus 25:25). If someone had been sold into slavery, a relative could pay to free him. If a family member was killed, the go'el pursued justice (Numbers 35:19). The word describes kinship made practical: someone who steps in, accepts a cost, and works to restore what has been lost.

A legal note. Preserving a deceased man's name through marriage to his widow is a levirate responsibility, specifically assigned to the man's brother in Deuteronomy 25:5. It belongs to the same larger family ethic as a go'el's work, but Scripture gives it its own rule rather than calling it one branch of the redeemer's legal duty. Boaz is unmistakably a go'el, yet he is not Mahlon's brother. Ruth 4 brings these related responsibilities together: he redeems the family property as a kinsman, and he marries Ruth so that the dead man's name is preserved (Ruth 4:10).

A Latter-day Saint connection. Boaz is a type of Christ: a near kinsman who willingly bears the cost of restoration and gives Naomi and Ruth a future they could not secure for themselves. His faithfulness gives redemption a human shape—belonging, cost, and a future made possible through another's willing action.

Jesus Christ fulfills that pattern on an incomparably larger scale. He joined Himself to us, took upon Himself the cost we could not pay, and makes restoration possible when we cannot restore ourselves. Hebrews says that He shared "flesh and blood" with His people and is not ashamed to call them brethren (Hebrews 2:11–17). Boaz helps us hear Isaiah's words—"I have redeemed thee… thou art mine"—as a promise of costly belonging and restoration.

The Greek makes the cost explicit. Septuagint Isaiah 43:1 has ἐλυτρωσάμην σε, from lytroō (λυτρόω): to release on receipt of a ransom. The related noun, lytron (λύτρον), is the price paid to free a slave or captive—and it is the word the Savior uses of Himself: "to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).

The family-law background and the Greek ransom image illuminate complementary dimensions of redemption: belonging, cost, deliverance, and restoration. Isaiah says, "I have redeemed thee… thou art mine." Christ gives His life as the ransom that makes that belonging possible.

Try this. Read Ruth 4:1–10 and notice what Boaz accepts in order to restore a family's future. Then read Isaiah 43:1 again.

Cross-Language Connections

"Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden."

(Isaiah 45:1)

This is the most startling single word in the week's reading, and English hides it completely.

His anointed is māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ) — the word that comes into English as Messiah. Its literal sense is physical: someone had poured oil on your head. In Israel that act set apart kings and priests, and the title belonged to them.

Here it is given to a Persian emperor whom the Lord says had not known Him (Isaiah 45:4–5).

The Greek and the Latin both keep it, and both are startling to read. Septuagint Isaiah 45:1 says τῷ χριστῷ μου Κύρῳ — to my christos, Cyrus. Jerome's Latin says christo meo Cyro — the same. Christos (Χριστός) is simply the Greek for anointed, and it is the word that becomes Christ.

So a Latin Bible reader in the fourth century came to Isaiah 45 and read my christ, Cyrus. That is not a mistranslation; it is what the Hebrew says. What it tells you is that the title is an office before it is a name. Saul is called the Lord's anointed. David is. The high priest is. Cyrus is.

And that is precisely what makes the word mean what it means when the New Testament uses it of one Person. The title had a long life as a description before it settled on Jesus of Nazareth as a name — which is why Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi is a claim and not a greeting: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16).

There is also a quiet point here about how God works. He can name a man who does not know Him, appoint him to a work of restoration, and accomplish it — and the reason is given a few verses on, at 45:4: "For Jacob my servant's sake." The anointing is not a statement about Cyrus's righteousness. It is a statement about whose purposes he is serving without knowing it.

Cross-Language Connections

Continue to Jewish Perspective.

This section listens to Jewish readers who have studied Isaiah 40–49 closely across many centuries. Their readings can help us notice questions, patterns, and historical settings that are easy to miss when we read these chapters only through later Christian interpretation.

This is not an attempt to adopt another community's religious practice or to blur real differences between Jewish and Latter-day Saint readings. Where a source reaches a different conclusion, the difference will be named plainly. The purpose is to learn carefully from a living interpretive tradition while remaining honest about where our own reading begins.

Every quotation links to Sefaria, where you can read it in its larger context. Each source will be introduced when it appears, rather than asking you to learn the whole reference system before the first passage.

The week's first line repeats itself: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" (Isaiah 40:1). It is easy to hear emphasis there and move on.

About this source. Lamentations Rabbah is a collection of Jewish interpretive commentary on Lamentations, assembled over centuries. It is a midrash: a reading that draws meaning from Scripture's language, patterns, and connections with other passages.

The rabbis of Lamentations Rabbah heard an answer to something.

Their reading builds a chain, and doubling runs through every link of it — sometimes as a word said twice, and at the punishment link as a measure paid double. The wording below is the Midrash's own, which keeps each doubling visible where the King James smooths it into ordinary English:

They sinned doubly, as it is written: "Jerusalem has committed a sin [ḥet ḥata]" (Lamentations 1:8).

They were punished doubly, as it is written: "For it has received from the hand of the Lord double for all its sins" (Isaiah 40:2).

They are comforted doubly, as it is written: "Comfort, comfort [naḥamu naḥamu] My people" (Isaiah 40:1).

— Lamentations Rabbah 1

Compare your own Bible and you will see why the chain needed its own translation. The King James has "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned" at Lamentations 1:8 and "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people" at Isaiah 40:1 — both good English, and the first hides a doubled word the argument depends on.

Notice what that does to the opening. The doubled comfort is not decoration. It is measured against the doubled punishment named one verse later, and it is set to match. The comfort is the same size as the loss.

And notice the order the rabbis kept: the sin is not minimized to make the comfort possible. It is counted first, in full, and the comfort still balances it.

LDS Connection

As a Latter-day Saint comparison, Alma's account of remembered sin and relief after turning to Christ (Alma 36:17–20) is the nearest picture of comfort arriving after pain.

The Hebrew of Isaiah 40:1 gives a command in the plural — comfort ye — and never says to whom. English readers usually assume God is speaking to Himself, or to angels, or to nobody in particular.

About this source. Targum Jonathan is an Aramaic translation of the Prophets that often explains as it translates. The English excerpt uses Sefaria's edition of the 1871 Chaldee Paraphrase; its capitalization belongs to that translator and does not itself identify a figure with Jesus Christ.

Targum Jonathan answers the question:

"O ye prophets, prophesy comforts to my people, saith your God."

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 40:1

That is an interpretation, and the translator has made it visible rather than hidden it. His reading is that the comfort of Isaiah 40 arrives through people who have been sent to deliver it — that God's response to a devastated nation was to commission prophets and put words in their mouths.

It is worth sitting with how ordinary that makes the mechanism. The comfort is real, it is God's, and it comes by somebody being sent to say it.

LDS Connection

This is a familiar idea to Latter-day Saints, and it is one of the clearest overlaps in the whole section. The Lord's own formula is "whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:38).

Read the Targum's line before the next general conference and the sessions look slightly different: not a schedule of talks, but the assignment of Isaiah 40:1 being carried out. Prophesy comforts to my people.

All four Gospels quote Isaiah 40:3 in connection with John the Baptist. The King James punctuation reads, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way," placing the voice in the desert.

The Hebrew can also be read another way: "In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord." On that reading, the wilderness belongs with the road being made—a highway through the open country for people returning home. The ancient Hebrew text did not supply modern punctuation, so both readings are worth noticing. The Gospels help us see John preparing the way for the Lord; Isaiah's immediate setting helps us see exiles being brought home.

Targum Jonathan takes up that second question—who the road is for:

"A voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way before the people of the Lord; cast up a highway in the plain before the congregation of our God."

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 40:3

In the Hebrew, the road is prepared for the Lord. In this Targum, it is prepared for His people: a way through the wilderness for exiles walking home. That reading stays close to the chapter's immediate promise without displacing the Gospel reading.

LDS Connection

Latter-day Saints rightly read the verse with the Gospels: John prepares the way for the Lord Himself.

But the two images belong together. The Lord comes to gather and bring His people home; a road prepared for Him becomes the road on which He leads them. Doctrine and Covenants 133:17 draws on the same language in its latter-day gathering: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord."

Read Targum Jonathan through these chapters for any length of time and one phrase keeps appearing where the Hebrew simply has God speaking or acting: my Word. The Aramaic term is Memra, meaning word, speech, or utterance. English translations commonly render it Word.

Three examples from this week's chapters show the pattern:

"Fear not, for my WORD shall be thy support; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." — Targum on Isaiah 41:10

"Yea, by my WORD I have laid the foundation of the earth, and by my might I have suspended the heavens." — Targum on Isaiah 48:13

"I by my WORD have made a covenant with Abraham your father." — Targum on Isaiah 48:15

The Word in these passages is not merely a sound. It creates, sustains, and remembers covenant. That belongs to a broader Jewish world in which God creates by speaking and Torah is understood as the pattern through which creation is ordered. A classic midrash pictures God looking into Torah and creating the world (Bereshit Rabbah 1:1).

In Targum Jonathan, Memra is a reverent way of speaking about God Himself in action: creating, making covenant, commanding, and sustaining His people.

The Targum does not only say that God speaks; it says that by His Word He laid the earth's foundation, that His Word supports the fearful, and that by His Word He made covenant with Abraham. God's Word is therefore active: it does what God wills and carries forward what God has promised.

A Sign in the First Sentence of Scripture

To see the next connection, begin with the first sentence of the Old Testament. In Hebrew, Genesis 1:1 reads:

Bereshit bara Elohim 'et ha-shamayim ve-'et ha-aretz.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

The small word 'ēṯ (אֵת) appears twice in that sentence: once before the heavens, and once before the earth. English does not translate it, which is why most English readers never notice it.

'Ēṯ is the definite direct-object marker. Its job is simple: it points to the person or thing receiving the verb's action. In Genesis 1:1, God is the One acting; created is the action; and 'ēṯ points the reader to what God created—the heavens and the earth. It works like a small signpost in the sentence: "Look here. This is where the action is directed."

The word is spelled Aleph–Tav, the first and final letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Blue Letter Bible's BDB entry identifies its usual grammatical role and explains that the ground form is אוֹת ('ot)—Aleph–Vav–Tav—with the 'ēṯ forms abbreviated (BDB via Blue Letter Bible).

LDS Connection

John deliberately returns to Genesis's beginning: "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1–3).

Logos is the Greek word John uses for the Word. It can mean a spoken utterance, the specific logos and characters used to write or relay a message, and the reason, pattern, or logic expressed through that message. John gathers those meanings in Jesus Christ. He is not only the subject of the gospel record; He is the divine Word through whom God's order, creative purpose, and saving plan are made known.

The Joseph Smith Translation makes the gospel connection explicit:

"In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God."

In Greek, Christ calls Himself "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending" (Revelation 1:8; Doctrine and Covenants 19:1). Alpha and Omega are Greek's first and final letters; Aleph and Tav hold those same places in Hebrew.

For Latter-day Saints, Christ is the living Word: Jehovah, the God of Israel and Creator under the Father's direction (Doctrine and Covenants 93:6–10). He is Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, and the author and finisher of faith.

John's claim is not merely that there is a Word. Jewish scripture and the Targum already speak of God's Word as creative, covenant-making, and active in the world. John's claim is who the Word is: "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

Here the traditions make different identifications. The Targum speaks reverently of God's Word; John identifies that Word as Jesus Christ. Yet the common ground remains meaningful: God's Word creates, reveals, makes covenant, and calls His people toward Himself.

Jewish tradition's careful attention to the letter of Torah preserves the words through which covenant is remembered and taught. That care matters. A covenant cannot be lived if its words are forgotten, changed, or detached from the life of the community that receives them.

For Latter-day Saints, Christ teaches that scripture must also lead us to Him. He tells readers that the scriptures testify of Him, yet warns that they may search them without coming to Him for life (John 5:39–40). Paul later names the same need: "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Corinthians 3:6).

The answer is not to discard the letter. It is to receive it through the Spirit of Christ. The written word preserves the covenant; the Spirit helps us hear its meaning; and the living Word makes its promise real in us.

Isaiah 45:7 is the hardest sentence in this week's reading:

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

The daily blessing before the morning Shema begins with Isaiah's language: "Who forms light and creates darkness." The Shema is the declaration "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4), named from its first Hebrew word, hear, and said morning and evening. But the blessing does not continue with "creates evil." Instead, it says "creates all things."

About this source. The Talmud is a major rabbinic collection of law, argument, and commentary. Berakhot 11b means the tractate Berakhot ("Blessings"), page 11, side b; the Gemara is the discussion preserved there.

Set the two side by side and the substitution is visible at a glance:

The difference is deliberate. In Berakhot 11b, the rabbis ask why the blessing preserves darkness but softens evil. Rava's answer turns attention to the pairing of day and night: each is named beside the other so that neither can be mistaken for an independent power.

That is close to Isaiah's own point. Light and darkness, peace and calamity, do not come from rival gods. Israel's God governs the whole world.

LDS Connection

Latter-day Saints have a scripture that does similar work: "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11), placed inside a plan that one God governs.

The most human sentence in the week is Zion's, in Isaiah 49:14: "The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me."

The Targum sharpens it:

"But Zion said, The Lord hath taken His Shekinah from me, and the Lord hath cast me away."

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 49:14

The Shekinah is the divine Presence — the word comes from a Hebrew root meaning to dwell, and it names God's dwelling among His people, as in the tabernacle. So Zion's complaint is not vague abandonment. It is that the Presence which used to live in the temple is gone, which is exactly what someone who had lived through the fall of Jerusalem would say.

And then the Targum does something remarkable with the answer. Where the Hebrew gives God's reply in two verses, the Targum stages a conversation:

The verse opens as a question — can a mother forget the child at her breast? — and then, in the Targum, Israel answers it:

"The congregation of Israel answered and said: If there is no forgetfulness with Him, perhaps He will not forget that I have made a calf of gold? The prophet said to her, Yea, these things shall be forgotten. And she said to him, If there is forgetfulness with Him, perhaps it will be forgotten that I said on Sinai: We will do and obey? He answered and said to her: My Word shall not cast you off."

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 49:15

Read that slowly, because it is psychologically exact in a way that repays the attention. Israel is caught between two fears and names them both:

• If God remembers everything, He remembers the golden calf.
• If God can forget, He might forget that we said yes at Sinai.

Either way she loses — remembered too well, or forgotten altogether. And the answer refuses the choice rather than settling it. My Word shall not cast you off moves the question off God's memory entirely and onto God Himself: what holds is not how well He recalls the covenant, but that He is the one keeping it.

Then comes the verse the chapter has been building toward:

"Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."

(Isaiah 49:16)

The Targum keeps the image exactly: "as upon the hands thou art engraven before me."

LDS Connection

The Targum has Zion engraved on the hands. At Bountiful the hands were held out to be touched — "thrust your hands into my side" (3 Nephi 11:14). One text says the mark is there; the other invites people to find it.

Four things, and none of them requires agreeing with a reading that is not ours.

1. The Midrash hears the doubling in verse 1 as an answer. In its reading, comfort is measured against loss.
2. The comfort arrives through people who are sent. That is the Targum's reading of the plural imperative, and it is the way it still works.
3. A hard verse can be kept hard. The rabbis of Berakhot 11b argued about Isaiah 45:7 and left the argument on the page. Difficulty is not disloyalty.
4. Zion's two fears are real and they are answered together. My Word shall not cast you off — and then, in the Hebrew, hands with something cut into them.

Continue to Teaching Applications.

Choose the setting you are teaching in. Each activity begins with scripture, supplies the context it needs, and gives learners something to do. The fuller explanations belong in Historical & Cultural Context, Key Passages, Word Studies and Jewish Perspective; none of them needs repeating in class.

One note that applies to every activity below. These chapters were spoken to people who had already lost almost everything. That makes them unusually comforting and unusually easy to teach badly. Invite; do not require anyone to describe a loss, a doubt or a hard season aloud. The promises land without disclosure.

Start with the bag. Hand someone something heavy and have them carry it around the room for a minute while the family talks. Then have somebody else take the bag and carry it for them, so the first person walks the same circuit with empty hands. Nobody lifts anybody — the weight moves, not the person. Ask what the difference felt like: not just lighter, but who was doing the carrying.

Now read Isaiah 46:1, where Babylon's gods have to be carried too — the verse puts them "upon the beasts" and calls them "a burden to the weary beast." Bel and Nebo were two of those gods, loaded onto animals that struggle under the weight.

Then read Isaiah 46:3–4, where the Lord says the opposite of Himself: "even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you."

Now put the two side by side, and ask which one the bag was.

Closing question: What did the idols promise that they could not deliver? Where do we sometimes place more trust than a thing can bear?

Read Isaiah 44:14–20 aloud, slowly, and let the class notice that it is funny before it is anything else.

Make two columns on the board: what the wood does and what the man says about it. Let the class fill them from the text. The gap between the columns is the whole argument.

Then read verse 20 on its own: "He feedeth on ashes… he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?"

Discussion: the man is not called stupid but deceived. What makes a question unaskable? What helps a person become able to ask one again?

Keep this general. Isaiah's subject is a literal carved image, and what carries across to a class is the not-asking — never anyone's particular attachment. A class discussion is not the place to name someone else's. Close on Isaiah 44:6 — "I am the first, and I am the last" — and end there.

Read Isaiah 49:15–16. Explain the words children may not know: graven means carved or written deeply into something so it does not come off, and palms are the insides of your hands.

Tell them what was happening: God's people had been taken far away from home, and they thought He had forgotten them. God's answer was to speak of His own hands — "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."

Activity: give each child an outline of a hand to write or draw on. As an illustration, ask them to add someone God remembers — themselves, a friend, someone in their family. Then read 3 Nephi 11:14–15, where people touch the risen Lord's hands. Isaiah gives an image in words; 3 Nephi describes a later encounter.

Two cautions. Verse 15 begins by asking whether a mother could forget her child — some children in a Primary class have lost a mother, or have a hard one. Read the second half, which is the promise: "yet will I not forget thee." And do not tell children Isaiah is describing the crucifixion.

Read Isaiah 40:28–31. Ask what wait upon the Lord sounds like in ordinary English. Most answers will involve doing nothing while time passes.

Read verse 30 as well: even young people grow weary. Ask where they would look for help when their own strength is not enough. If the class wants to examine the Hebrew and the older translations, Word Studies, study 2 has them.

Discussion in two parts:

1. Verse 30 says the youths are the ones who faint. Why do you think Isaiah picked the strongest example he had?
2. What might it mean to receive strength from the Lord rather than rely only on your own?

Ask why the verse ends with walking. Let the class answer before offering an interpretation.

Private reflection: Think of something you are waiting for. What would seeking the Lord's help look like today? Nobody needs to share it.

Isaiah 42:1 says "Behold my servant" and does not say who the servant is. That silence is in the Hebrew itself — it is the text every later reader had to work from. Three ancient translations answered it, and they did not agree: two filled it in, and the Latin Vulgate leaves it unnamed, exactly as the Hebrew does. The comparison is the lesson.

Put the Hebrew and its three translations side by side. If the class needs the names: the Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, Targum Jonathan an Aramaic translation of the Prophets, and the Vulgate Jerome's Latin Bible.

Then read Isaiah 49:3, 5–6, where the servant is called Israel and sent to gather Israel.

Discussion: two of those ancient translations are Jewish, and they go in opposite directions on the same verse. What do you make of that?

The discipline to keep, and it is the point of the exercise. Say what each tradition says, accurately, and resist the urge to score it. The Targum names a Messiah; it does not name Jesus of Nazareth, and a Latter-day Saint reading is ours to hold without needing the other traditions to be wrong. Jewish Perspective keeps that boundary throughout, and is the fuller treatment of how to hold a difference without ranking it.

These chapters are unusually good ground for this, because so much of what a Latter-day Saint loves in them is loved by other people too.

If you are talking with a Jewish friend: Isaiah 45:7 is discussed in connection with a morning blessing before the Shema (Berakhot 11b). If this is part of your friend's practice and they want to talk about it, ask how they understand the words. Do not assume they use that prayer or ask them to speak for all Jews.

If you are talking with a Christian of another tradition: Isaiah 40:3 is in all four Gospels, and Matthew takes up Isaiah 42:1–4 at Matthew 12:18–21. There is a great deal of common ground before any difference arrives.

What to avoid: presenting someone else's reading as the mistake your reading corrects. Jewish Perspective shows one way to describe a difference without ranking it — state both, say which is yours, and stop.

Open Isaiah 49:1 and 1 Nephi 21:1 side by side and read the first sentence of each.

Ask what audience each opening names and how that might have mattered to Nephi's family. Then invite the reader to name a line in this week's chapters that speaks to their own situation.

If you are studying with one other person, read Isaiah 43:1–2 together, then read Daniel 3:19–27 beside it and ask what the king saw that he did not expect. Say plainly that this is a parallel, not a fulfilment — the promise is company in the fire, not exemption from it. Then notice what 43:2 does not promise. It never says the water will be avoided; it says "I will be with thee" while it is crossed. That is worth saying out loud to someone who is in the water now, and it is the reason this verse goes better with one person than explained to a room.

Continue to Study Questions.

These twenty questions move from understanding the passage toward considering a response. Choose a few that fit your study rather than working through all of them. Personal questions are invitations, not assumptions about anyone's circumstances — these chapters address people who had already lost a great deal, and a question about loss is never a request to describe yours. Historical and literary explanations are in Key Passages and Historical & Cultural Context.

1. Read Isaiah 40:1–8. What has already happened to the people being addressed, and what tense is used to say so?
2. In Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1–5, who is Cyrus, what is he called, and what does the text say twice about what he does not know?
3. Read Isaiah 46:1–4. What are Bel and Nebo doing in verse 1, and what does the Lord say He does instead?
4. In Isaiah 49:1–6, what is the servant called, and what is the servant sent to do? Name both from the verses.
5. Read Isaiah 48:20 and 48:10. Where are the people being told to leave, and what does the Lord say the experience there has been?

1. Read Isaiah 44:14–20. The passage is funny until verse 20. What does verse 20 add that the rest of it does not, and why might Isaiah have put it last?
2. Look at the order in Isaiah 40:31 — mount up, run, walk. Why might the least dramatic of the three be placed last?
3. Read Isaiah 43:2 and list the things it takes for granted will happen. What is promised, and what is not?
4. Isaiah 42:3 names two things almost finished — a crushed reed and a dying wick. Read verse 4 with it. What does verse 4 say about the same Servant, and what does putting the two verses together do to your picture of Him?
5. Compare Isaiah 41:21–22 with 46:9–10. What test does the Lord propose to the other gods? Then ask: if the Lord can announce and accomplish what the idols cannot, what reason does that give the exiles to trust His promise to bring them home?
6. Isaiah 42 gives the title my servant to two different figures — the one who will not break a bruised reed (42:1–4) and one who is blind and deaf (42:18–20). Read both. What is the same title doing in each place?
7. Read Isaiah 40:30–31. What does renew their strength let you see, and what does the Greek and Latin reading — they shall exchange strength — let you see instead? (Word Studies, study 2 has both.)
8. Read Isaiah 45:7 in its chapter rather than alone. What is the verse claiming, and what is it not claiming? Notice what evil is paired against in the same line.
9. Read Isaiah 45:5–6 and then Isaiah 47:8, 10. What is similar and what is different in the two speakers' claims? Then, if you want to take it further: what do you make of the difference, and does it change how you read the man with the log in Isaiah 44:14–20?

1. Isaiah 40:1–2 speaks comfort to people on the far side of something rather than before it. What changes about a promise when it arrives afterward instead of in time to prevent the loss?
2. The man in Isaiah 44:20 cannot ask himself the question. What helps a person become able to ask a question they have been avoiding?
3. Isaiah 41:10 promises three things in order — to strengthen, to help, and then to uphold, which is what is left when your own strength has run out. Which of the three describes where you are this week?
4. In Isaiah 49:16 the answer to Zion is an image, not an explanation. Is there someone this week for whom an act would be the better answer?

1. Read Isaiah 49:1 beside 1 Nephi 21:1. What does Nephi's version add, and how does it explain why he read these chapters to his family? See Historical & Cultural Context, section 7.
2. Two ancient Jewish translations filled the silence at Isaiah 42:1 differently — the Septuagint supplied Jacob and Israel, the Targum supplied the Messiah. What do you make of two ancient Jewish translations going different ways on the same line? See Key Passages, passage 4 and Word Studies, study 3.

Continue to Weekly Insights.