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"O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain; O thou
that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not
afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!" (Isa. 40: 9).
In Volume XXXII, page 224, we have already discussed the question of the
translation of this passage, and in the light of Isa. 52: 7 feel obliged to adopt the marginal
alternative.
The Hebrew word which is translated "good tidings" is basar and the Hebrew word
which is translated "flesh" is also basar, and, extraordinary as it may at first appear, both
"good tidings" and "flesh" come from the same root. It may be useful to the student
unacquainted with the language if we show how these apparently unrelated ideas can
possibly grow from a common root.
Basar.--According to Gesenius, the primary sense is that of "beauty", and since the
face is made more beautiful by joy, so, by an easy transition, that which makes one joyful
is called by the same name. The word however quite naturally took another direction.
Beauty, says the proverb, is "skin deep", and basar came to mean the exterior skin, then
the flesh which the skin covered, and so, at length, by following two figurative pathways,
the one word came to stand for "flesh", which was likened to fading grass and "the
gospel", which endures for ever. Any student of English will be able to provide parallel
examples of this diversity growing from a common stock. The LXX translated this word,
"to bring", (or to tell), "good tidings", by the Greek euaggelizo, which in English became
"evangelize" and gives us the "evangel" or "gospel".
What was the "gospel" that brought comfort to Zion? It was one of few words but of
vast import, "Behold your God". This is expanded in the verses that follow, but all that
these verses can say, and much more, is implicit in these three words. Let us examine
this all-embracive evangel.
"BEHOLD!"--This is an interjection, and such particles of language are illusive
words, difficult to trace to their origin, but it appears that hen, "behold", is derived from
the verb henah "to be ready" (Deut. 1: 41), which in turn means "to be present". The
particle "behold" or "lo" generally indicates the presence of any one or thing, and the
evangel of Isa. 40: opens with the exhortation to behold, and gives the assurance that the
Lord is present.
One has only to call to mind the condition of the people that resulted in, and from, the
loss of the presence of God, to become conscious that Isaiah's "Behold!" indicates the
end of separation and suffering and the beginning of nearness and blessing.
"YOUR."--While God is God, quite independent of all human or angelic recognition,
Isaiah's evangel is not so much the fact that "God is" as that "God is yours".
A part of the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham is expressed in the words,
"I will be a God unto thee . . . . . I will be their God" (Gen. 17: 7, 8). The title "The God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", carries with it the very essence of the covenant