Isaiah 40:12 Context: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the sky with his span, and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

◄ Isaiah 40:12 ►

Context

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
         And marked off the heavens by the span,
         And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
         And weighed the mountains in a balance
         And the hills in a pair of scales?

13Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
Or as His counselor has informed Him?

14With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge
And informed Him of the way of understanding?

15Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales;
Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

16Even Lebanon is not enough to burn,
Nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

17All the nations are as nothing before Him,
They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.

18To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare with Him?

19As for the idol, a craftsman casts it,
A goldsmith plates it with gold,
And a silversmith fashions chains of silver.

20He who is too impoverished for such an offering
         Selects a tree that does not rot;
         He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman
         To prepare an idol that will not totter.

21Do you not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
         And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
         Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
         And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

23He it is who reduces rulers to nothing,
Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.

24Scarcely have they been planted,
         Scarcely have they been sown,
         Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
         But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
         And the storm carries them away like stubble.

25“To whom then will you liken Me
That I would be his equal?” says the Holy One.

26Lift up your eyes on high
         And see who has created these stars,
         The One who leads forth their host by number,
         He calls them all by name;
         Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
         Not one of them is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,
And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”?

28Do you not know? Have you not heard?
         The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
         Does not become weary or tired.
         His understanding is inscrutable.

29He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.

30Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,

31Yet those who wait for the LORD
         Will gain new strength;
         They will mount up with wings like eagles,
         They will run and not get tired,
         They will walk and not become weary.

Parallel Verses

American Standard Version
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

Darby Bible Translation
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with his span, and grasped the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in scales?

English Revised Version
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

Webster's Bible Translation
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

World English Bible
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and marked off the sky with his span, and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

Young's Literal Translation
Who hath measured in the hollow of his hand the waters? And the heavens by a span hath meted out, And comprehended in a measure the dust of the earth, And hath weighed in scales the mountains, And the hills in a balance?

Library

April 18. "They Shall Mount up with Wings" (Isa. Xl. 31).
"They shall mount up with wings" (Isa. xl. 31). "They shall mount up with wings as eagles," is God's preliminary; for the next promise is, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." Hours of holy exultation are necessary for hours of patient plodding, waiting and working. Nature has its springs, and so has grace. Let us rejoice in the Lord evermore, and again we say, rejoice. And let us take Him to be our continual joy, whose heart is a fountain of blessedness, and who …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

'Have Ye Not? Hast Thou Not?'
'Have ye not known, have ye not heard? hath it not been told yon from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?... Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard?'--ISAIAH xl. 21 and 28. The recurrence of the same form of interrogation in these two verses is remarkable. In the first case the plural is used, in the second the singular, and we may reasonably conclude that as Israel is addressed in the latter, the nations outside the sphere illumined by Revelation are appealed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Unfailing Stabs and Fainting Men
'...For that He is strong in power; not one faileth.... He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.'-- ISAIAH xl. 26 and 29. These two verses set forth two widely different operations of the divine power as exercised in two sadly different fields, the starry heavens and this weary world. They are interlocked, as it were, by the recurrence in the latter of the emphatic words of the former. The one verse says, 'He is strong in power'; the other, 'He giveth …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

O Thou that Bringest Good Tidings
'O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!'--ISAIAH xl. 9. There is something very grand in these august and mysterious voices which call one to another in the opening verses of this chapter. First, the purged ear of the prophet hears the divine command to him and to his brethren--Comfort Jerusalem with the message of the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Shepherd and the Fold
... Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation.' EXODUS XV. 13. What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children of Israel singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of national pride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feel its grandeur. The deliverance has made the singer look forward to the end, and his confidence in the issue is confirmed. I. The guiding God: or the picture of the leading. The original is 'lead gently.' Cf. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Secret of Immortal Youth
'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.'--ISAIAH xl. 30, 31. I remember a sunset at sea, where the bosom of each wavelet that fronted the west was aglow with fiery gold, and the back of each turned eastward was cold green; so that, looking on the one hand all was glory, and on the other …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Salvation Published from the Mountains
O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! I t would be improper to propose an alteration, though a slight one, in the reading of a text, without bearing my testimony to the great value of our English version, which I believe, in point of simplicity, strength, and fidelity, is not likely to be excelled by a new translation …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Consolation
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received at the LORD 's hand double for all her sins. T he particulars of the great "mystery of godliness," as enumerated by the Apostle Paul, constitute the grand and inexhaustible theme of the Gospel ministry, "God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Harbinger
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD , make straight in the desert a high-way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. T he general style of the prophecies is poetical. The inimitable simplicity which characterizes every …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Withering Work of the Spirit
THE passage in Isaiah which I have just read in your hearing may be used as a very eloquent description of our mortality, and if a sermon should be preached from it upon the frailty of human nature, the brevity of life, and the certainty of death, no one could dispute the appropriateness of the text. Yet I venture to question whether such a discourse would strike the central teaching of the prophet. Something more than the decay of our material flesh is intended here; the carnal mind, the flesh in …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

This Sermon was Originally Printed
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."--Isaiah 40:1. WHAT A SWEET TITLE: "My people!" What a cheering revelation: "Your God!" How much of meaning is couched in those two words, "My people!" Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens are the Lord's and he reigneth among the children of men. But he saith of a certain number, "My people." Of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others. While …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

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