I’m hoping this will be one of my best posts. I love Isaiah chapters 40 and 41. These chapters are so rich in life lessons and temple imagery. Please read these two chapters carefully looking for temple symbolism. Please read this through to the end, and if you don’t want to do that, at least watch the video at the end. Please consider the following phrases and symbols in Isaiah 40:
- Received of the Lord’s hand (v. 2)
- The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness (v. 3)
- Make straight in the desert (v. 3)
- The crooked shall be made straight (v. 4)
- And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed (v. 5)
- The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it (v. 5)
- The voice said, Cry. And (I) said, What shall I cry? (v. 6)
- The spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it (spirit is breath here—v. 7)
- Get thee up into the high mountain (v. 9)
- Lift up thy voice with strength (this is the 3rd time the “voice” of the divine council has spoken—v. 9)
- The Lord God will come with strong hand (v. 10)
- He shall … carry them in His bosom (v. 11)
- Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand (v. 12)
- Meted out heaven with the span (v. 12)
- He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth (v. 22)
- Stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain (veil), and spreadeth them out as a tent (temple or tabernacle—v. 22)
- He shall also blow upon them (once again, breath and spirit are the same word in Hebrew and Greek—v. 24)
- Behold who hath created these things (v. 26)
- He calleth them all by names (v. 26)
Most of these are too sacred for me to describe in detail, so I hope you are getting these. Look and listen for these symbolic ideas when you are in sacred space. I want to discuss the last verse in more detail, because it’s all about the video at the end. Then, I want to link the two chapters together, because chapter 41 and part of 45 explain how the promise at the end of chapter 40 can come to fruition.
Isaiah 40:31 states:
“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.”
This verse is all about grace! It tells us how we can receive strength and power from the Lord. Let’s dissect it.
First, the word wait is important, and it doesn’t mean what you might think. I used to think of this as a passive verb. I just sit around and wait for God to perform His magic. It’s not that at all. The Hebrew word is qāvâ, meaning to bind together by twisting (like a rope). We are bound to Jesus Christ by covenants. D&C 43:9 says, “ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me.” This promise to have your strength renewed and “to run and not be weary and walk and not faint” is applicable to those who enter into covenants with the Lord, and especially temple covenants.
“They shall mount up with wings as eagles.” The video at the end is about the rebirth of eagles. They go through a midlife crisis at about age 40. Their beaks become dull and bent, their feathers and talons become brittle, and they can no longer survive without a painful process of rebirth. Flying becomes difficult and they can’t catch their prey. At this point, the eagle returns to his nesting place where he was born, high on a mountaintop. This legend has its origin among Native Americans. Some of these stories tell of other eagles dropping down food to rescue the distressed eagle. On the mountaintop, the eagle pounds his beak against a rock until it is broken. After waiting for a new beak to grow back, he begins to pluck out his talons, and then his feathers. New flexible baby feathers grow back, and the eagle makes his flight of rebirth and mounts up to new heights with his new wings.
Isaiah is full of such graphic visual imagery! Isaiah 40 begins the section Bible scholars call Deutero-Isaiah. The earlier chapters focus mainly on the judgments upon Israel and other nations. Chapter 40 begins the healing redemptive process. In verse 2 the Lord says, “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.” The Hebrew word for comfortably means “to commune with the inner soul and the seat of desire and passion.” This is where the Lord gets personal with us. It could have been translated as intimately.
But much of this covenant making leading to renewal and rebirth is explained in Isaiah 41. Keep in mind that the division of the Old Testament into chapters and verses did not begin until the thirteenth century A.D., and it continued into the sixteenth century. Thus, in early texts, chapter 41 would have been a continuation of chapter 40.
Chapter 41 begins in divine council language (like Isaiah 1) with the same theme of “renewing their strength.” The Lord says, “Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.” The Lord reminds us of the Abrahamic Covenant in verse 8, and how it applies to all generations in verse 4.
The heavenly secret of being “upheld” by the Lord is revealed in verse 10 and in the song, “How Firm a Foundation.” The Lord said, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” The right hand is the covenant hand. Jewish tradition held that kings (and queens) received their strength and power by figuratively holding God’s right hand. This is supported in Isaiah 45:1:
“Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.”
The secret of strength is in the handclasp, symbolized on the outside of the Salt Lake Temple. (I hope it’s on the new one too). This promise is repeated in Isaiah 41:13: “For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”
In the next verse we see the atoning grace of Jesus Christ: “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” It doesn’t sound complimentary that Israel is called a worm, but this refers more to the latter part of the verse, namely “thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” Yes, this is the famous “scarlet worm” as in Isaiah 1:18. Bible scholar Henry Morris wrote, “When the female of the scarlet worm species was ready to give birth to her young, she would attach her body to the trunk of a tree, fixing herself so firmly and permanently that she would never leave again. The eggs deposited beneath her body were thus protected until the larvae were hatched and able to enter their own life cycle. As the mother died, the crimson fluid stained her body and the surrounding wood. From the dead bodies of such female scarlet worms, the commercial scarlet dyes of antiquity were extracted. What a picture this gives of Christ, dying on the tree, shedding his precious blood that he might ‘bring many sons unto glory’ (Hebrews 2:10)! He died for us, that we might live through him! Psalm 22:6 describes such a worm and gives us this picture of Christ.” Three days after the death of the scarlet worm, the scarlet stains would become a white powder. Thus, “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
Please see below the image of the Seal of Melchizedek found in an Italian basilica, the handclasp on the Salt Lake Temple, and the video about the rebirth of eagles. I have chosen a longer version of this video with a lot of preaching (like my post), since it contains more detail on how the symbolism applies to our lives.
As you watch the video about eagles, think of the symbolism of returning to our heavenly home, becoming naked before God as the eagle plucks out his feathers, the power of sacred clothing as the eagle grows new feathers, our sacrifice of a broken heart as the eagle breaks his beak, the mountaintop as a temple, and the power of the wings to fly up on high. Remember that the border of the garment with the tassels on the prayer shawl and wings are the same Hebrew word kanaph.
How has the Savior transformed you?
