The Gifts of Comfort and Energy: So Isaiah 39, set in Isaiah’s own day, envisages the future deportation of Judeans to Babylon. Isaiah 40–55, however, is set in the time after this deportation has happened. It does not say “In days to come God will send a message of comfort to people who have been punished,” in the manner of a passage such as 30:19–26. It says, rather, “God is now comforting you who have been punished.” The traditional view is that these chapters were written by Isaiah ben Amoz, and we may assume that God could have revealed to Isaiah the message to be addressed to the people in Babylon 150 years after Isaiah’s day. But the way the chapters themselves speak suggests that they are rather words of comfort that God gave in the here and now of suffering through the pastoral mi…