No. 30. >> I appreciated that answer. Thank you. I noticed that the word comfort is repeated twice in Isaiah 40 Verse 1. What is the reason for this? How does the rest of the chapter develop that idea of comfort? >>DR. DANIEL L. GARD: Well, again, I appreciate that question, Nick. The repetition of the word comfort -- first let me read that particular verse. Isaiah Chapter 40 Verse 1: Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed. That her sin has been paid for. That she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. As I said before, it's even especially in the midst of our human suffering, self-inflicted pain, that we bring upon ourselves that God's precious Word comes and speaks these great terms of comfort of peace even in the midst of all of that. Here Isaiah in the beginning of the Book of Comfort, the second section, begins with this profound repetition of the word comfort. Now, the Greek word that translates this, by the way, is paraclete. If that sounds familiar to you, it should, because that's the word that Jesus uses to describe the come of the Holy Spirit is our paraclete. So if this were in Greek it would be paraclete, paraclete. So the connection then I think is very clear in the mind of our Savior between this concept of comfort in Isaiah. And that which would come to his New Testament people through the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The verb comfort in Hebrew is a command. That is to say it's an imperative. And it's in what we call the second person plural. And that's significant. Because it's not just speaking to one. But it's speaking to everyone. And it's speaking not as a suggestion but rather, to take this comfort. The word comfort in Hebrew has connotations of being sorry. Of repenting. Of being comforted. Or comfort. All these things are wrapped up together in this one Hebrew word. It has this idea of almost breathing deeply. In fact, some say that -- or believe that that is the original meaning of the word. It's an intensive form. So it urges us to look very deeply at what this comfort is. The comfort of which Isaiah speaks is the comfort that he would bring as God's prophet to his people. It's the same comfort that comes to the church today in that her pastors are called to speak to God's people. It's in the proclamation of his Word and in our New Testament church, the administration of his sacraments, that the word comfort still comes into a living reality for the people of God. The richness of that word of God's comfort is one that's absolutely in direct contradiction to that which the world offers. The world tells us that they can bring us comfort. In fact, the comfort that the world brings is nothing more than another form of despair. In the world today human beings amount to little more than just kind of the chance encounter of molecules that just happened by pure circumstance. By some sort of an undivine fiat that occurred in a space in time and now here we are. For God and for those who know God's Word, we are not just chance encounters. But we are the unique creation of God. And his love as our creator reaches into all of those times in our lives and brings to us that word of comfort. And it's here in this comfort, comfort of Isaiah, this often repeated term that we'll find occurring again and again throughout the book of Isaiah that we see this richness of God's comfort, this repetition, this constant outpouring of God's comfort. We see our need for it. And we'll also see the pastor's role in bringing this comfort of God to his people. This is God's comfort to us. And we find Isaiah now speaking it to the people of his time. And your task and my task is to continue to speak that word to comfort those who now live in a world which is still a world of pain and suffering.