Story · 10 · The Creator
'Comfort ye, my people'
The opening lines of Handel's Messiah come from poems by anonymous Judean scribes, known as Second Isaiah, written to console their people after Babylon's devastation.
After lament comes comfort.
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In Jewish practice, Lamentations is chanted on the fast of Tisha be'Av, and the following Sabbath begins readings from Isaiah 40. Where Lamentations says no one comforts the widowed city, Second Isaiah answers with a chorus of consolation.
Bible reference: Isaiah 40:1
Source: Why the Bible Began, pp. 153–154
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