Saturday, November 26, 2011

OT Notes Is. 40:1-11

1) Calvin noticed that a difference in tone starts here in the book. Most of us think that much of the next chapters reflect an exilic promise, far removed from the earlier material’s major concern.Not only that we are in a sort of choral back and forth with different voices.
2) Comfort here is a verb, an imperative plural verb. I guess it is devoted to a divine audience in heaven. If earth-directed who is to provide the comfort?
3) The response is one of resignation. Why bother. Life is transient.
4) Mark uses some of this material to introduce the gospel and the Baptist.
5) Double for her sins. The punishments were more than condign, they exceeded a proper sentence. Is this not more than tough love?
6) When God promises to be the shepherd, it is a swipe at the failed human leaders/ shepherds. Is it an admission of divine failure, of misplaced confidence in human leaders?
7) does the statement about the transitory nature of life, as in the flower fades, get a satisfactory resolution or response, or did I miss it? How do you find comfort over that point, or as Bruce Springsteen says, “everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.”
8) If I remember correctly Lee Michaels had a hit with a song that started out, it;s been 14 days, and Art Garfunkel had a song 99 miles. both deal with yearning on the road. Maybe that would be a good entry point to consider the King’s highway o this passage.
9) Don;t let it slip by you in the rush to finish. There it is again: do not be afraid/do not fear.

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