November 30 2025, Sunday School Lesson

Who Is like God?

Lesson Text: Isaiah 40:12-17

Related Scriptures: Psalm 33:8-17; Isaiah 41:21-29; Jeremiah 10:1-25; Daniel 4:28-37; Revelation 15:2-4

TIME: about 700 – 695 B.C.

PLACE: Jerusalem

Golden Text “All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity” (Isaiah 40:17).

Introduction

Many Christians are familiar with Isaiah 40. After thirty-nine chapters of impending judgment and destruction – with only brief respites of hope – the prophet delivered a new message for those who would be exiled in Babylon. One day, the exile would end and give way to freedom. Most popular are the opening verses, which anticipate John the Baptist (Isa. 40:1-3; cf. Matt. 3:3), and the concluding assurance of renewed strength (Isa. 40:29-31). Between these passages lies a series of poetic remarks on God’s character.

Verses 12-17 form a coherent unit, which further divides in two. The opening verses (vss.12-14) contain three sets of rhetorical questions, and the latter portion contains three sets of statements. The opening questions attend to cosmic dimensions, surveying the known world and God’s counsel. The subsequent verses (vss. 15-17) shift from cosmology to politics, but the theological force remains. God is unmatched in power and wisdom; nothing compares with Him.

LESSON OUTLINE

1. QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS – Isa. 40:12-14

2. STATEMENTS WITHOUT RESPONSES – Isa. 40:15-17

QUESTIONS

1. How does Isaiah imitate Genesis 1?

2. Why did Isaiah use language from a familiar Babylonian prayer?

3. How did the prophet express a view of the night sky different from Babylon’s?

4. According to Proverbs 8, who watched God create the cosmos?

5. What does the word choice in Isaiah 40:13 suggest about God’s Spirit?

6. How is Isaiah’s mention of Lebanon applicable today?

7. How does Israel’s history magnify God’s might over the nations?

8. Which resources of Lebanon fell short before God?

9. What sacrifices does God ask of us?

10. What does the word “vanity” recall inverse 17?

ANSWERS

1. Recalling the order of Genesis 1, Isaiah progressed from the water (Gen. 1:2-6) to the sky (vss. 7-8) to the earth (vs. 9).

2. Isaiah’s Babylonian-style question, then, delivered a theological punch to Israel’s enemy. Marduk is nothing.

3. Humanity is not subject to the sky’s destiny. The sky is subject to God. Yahweh alone knows and directs the future.

4. There, Wisdom personified describes her experience of the Creation. She was a spectator to God’s craftsmanship, watching Him construct the cosmos.

5. He is unmatched, free from outside manipulation. His Spirit is self-directing; no one directs, determines, or measures it.

6. Isaiah’s discussion of Lebanon should serve as a model that we can apply to any nations.

7. Already, Israel had suffered enslavement in Egypt, periods of Canaanite submission, Assyrian deportation, and Babylonian exile. Before the returning Jews stood a coming span of imperial dominance. Babylon gave way to Persia gave way to Greece. Greece gave way to Rome.

8. The surplus of its forest could not supply enough wood for sacrificial fires. That was true of its animals as well.

9. No animal sacrifice, even if it drained Lebanon of its wildlife, is sufficient. Instead, we are to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving (vs. 14), praising the Architect of the cosmos for all He has done.

10. The nations’ final descriptor, “vanity,” also means chaotic formlessness and fits firmly in the Creation theology Isaiah composed throughout. The idea of formlessness first appears in the second verse of the Bible, where it describes the pre-ordered state of the cosmos.