In Isaiah 40:1, 2, God comforts His people. Their time of punishment has finally ended. What punishment is that?
 Is this punishment administered by Assyria, the rod of God’s anger (Isaiah 10), from which God delivered Judah by destroying Sennacherib’s army in 701 B.C. (Isaiah 37)? Or is it the punishment administered by Babylon, which would carry away goods and people from Judah because Hezekiah had displayed his wealth to the messengers from Merodach-baladan (Isaiah 39, NRSV)?
 “Assyria” and “Assyrian(s)” are mentioned 43 times from Isaiah 7:17 to 38:6, but this nation appears only once in the rest of Isaiah, where Isaiah 52:4 refers to past oppression by Egypt and then by “the Assyrian.” In the latter part of Isaiah, deliverance from exile in Babylon is mentioned (Isa. 43:14; Isa. 47:1; Isa. 48:14, 20), and it is Cyrus, the Persian who conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., who is to free the exiles of Judah (Isa. 44:28, Isa. 45:1, Isa. 45:13).
 Isaiah 1-39 emphasizes events leading up to deliverance from the Assyrians in 701 B.C., but at the beginning of chapter 40, the book leaps ahead a century and a half to the end of Babylon, in 539 B.C., and the return of the Jews shortly thereafter.
 Is the theme of return from Babylon linked with anything earlier in Isaiah? If so, what?
 Isaiah 39 serves as a transition to the following chapters by predicting a Babylonian captivity, at least for some of Hezekiah’s descendants (Isa. 39:6, 7). Furthermore, the oracles of Isaiah 13, 14, and 21 predict the fall of Babylon and the liberty this would bring to God’s people: “But the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land.... When the LORD has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon” (Isa. 14:1-4, NRSV). Notice the close connection with Isaiah 40:1, 2, where God promises His people there is an end to their suffering.