Catholic Foundation Library #21

1. Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.
2. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.
3. A voice cries out: In the desert, prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
4. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low;  the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.
5. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
6. 
   

These five verses begin the 40th Chapter of the Book of Isaiah. We all know that Jesus went and lived in  Capernaum at the very beginning of his ministry. Why did he go up to  Galilee and begin there instead of starting in Jerusalem?

Isaiah prophesied that where the desolation of Israel began, the restoration will begin also, and when Samaria attacked the northern Kingdom of  Israel, it conquered first Zebulun and  Naphtali. Capernaum was a touchpoint for the land of these two tribes, so Jesus went to Capernaum because where the desolation started, there the restoration would begin. St. Matthew understood all  this when he wrote in Chapter 4 of his Gospel beginning with verse 13:

• He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
• that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled:
• "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
• The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen.