DUCCIO di Buoninsegna - "Isaiah" - 1308-11
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Isaiah 40:1-8
It's readings like the one above that draw me toward hope and expectancy in the season of Advent. Have I said that it's my favorite season of the church year?
Picture from the Web Gallery of Art.
Is there a translation of this that includes "the paper reeds by the brook" because that was the anthem we sang yesterday and our choirmaster said it came from this passage in Isaiah? I listened carefully and it wasn't in there.
ReplyDeleteCJ, I don't see anything in the reading that could be translated that way. The "reeds" could be grass, but nothing close to "paper" or "brook" seems to be present in the verses.
ReplyDeleteAdvent is my favorite liturgical season too, and Isaiah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. So poetic.
ReplyDeleteRuth, there seems to be too much focus on the apocalyptic for my taste, rather than on hope and expectancy as we await the celebration of the birth of the Christ child.
ReplyDelete