EarlyActs
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Isaiah 40 opens a section of the book with the announcement of an announcer; we later find that this is John the Baptist's campaign. The news for Israel is very comforting:
Her warfare is over.
Her iniquity is pardoned.
There is often parallelism in the Hebrew to clarify or intensify. In this case it is clarifying that its struggle has come to an end in the Gospel of Christ. For there is no other pardoning of iniquity. But by itself the first line is also of comfort that it no longer needs to engage in warfare as has been the case in the past. The nation could have a new identity in the Servant (Christ) and his mission. The rest of the book will unfold a lot of detail of this.
Her warfare is over.
Her iniquity is pardoned.
There is often parallelism in the Hebrew to clarify or intensify. In this case it is clarifying that its struggle has come to an end in the Gospel of Christ. For there is no other pardoning of iniquity. But by itself the first line is also of comfort that it no longer needs to engage in warfare as has been the case in the past. The nation could have a new identity in the Servant (Christ) and his mission. The rest of the book will unfold a lot of detail of this.
