Isaiah 40:1–2: Reading Royal Commission as a Call for Return Migration in the Early Persian Period

Abstract

This paper offers a new interpretation of Isa 40:1–2 that takes into account the greater rhetorical project of Isa 40–48 as well as evidence of Judean diaspora life from Āl–Yāḫūdu. Rather than a charge to the divine council, the call to comfort Jerusalem is meant to inspire an embedded community of Judeo-Babylonians to return migrate by hailing them as members of Yahweh's royal procession. This new reading gestures towards broader questions of Judean diaspora identity in the 6th century.