First Cut
1) v.8 refers back to 42:6 that Simeon uses when seeing baby Jesus. Paul cites the first part of the verse in 2 Cor.6:2. Ross Wagner of Princeton did a monograph of Paul's use of Isaiah.

2) Hanson in Interpretation (Is. 40-66) at 132 speaks of "the one who chooses the unremarkable to accomplish remarkable things."

3) Now notice that the servant has real work to do of announcing a change. That change is in nature as well as in the renewed vision of a people. look how far the hand of God stretches from the exile community of Babylon and all the way to Egypt's south to the first cataract In v.13 that new nature sings and the words that start Is.40 are renewed here in reality.

4)Zion/Jerusalem is Dame or Widow or Mother Zion here.She personifies the feeling of being forsaken and forgotten.

5) The response is remarkable. Human mothers may fail but the divine motherly love of god cannot. Recall that compassion ruhammah is related to womb rehem,. in Hebrew.

6) No tattoos for God's people, but it surely sounds as if they are engraven in the hands of the Holy One.