Is there any logical order connecting the seven haftarot of consolation read over the Shabbatot following Tisha B’av? They are all from the book of Isaiah, but they are certainly not read in synagogue chronologically or even sequentially. In fact, the haftara for our parsha, Ki Tetze, actually precedes the haftara we read two weeks ago, on Shabbat Parshat Re’eh. Is the order random? Or is there, perhaps, a deeper logic that traces a progression of ideas?
Commentators throughout the ages have offered various suggestions. Let’s explore two of the most compelling theories.
The first is offered by Rabbi Yehoshua Ibn Shouaib, a fourteenth-century Spanish luminary and student of the Rashba, who wrote a seminal series of derashot on the different parashot of the Torah. According to Ibn Shuaib, the seven haftarot read during these weeks correspond to different voices in the drama of Israel’s exile and redemption – each of whom has its own need for consolation and salvation:
1. Va’etchanan: God Himself accompanies Israel in exile, and will one day return triumphantly: “A voice calls out: ‘Clear the Lord’s way in the desert: smooth across the arid plain a road for our God’” (Isaiah 40:3).
2. Ekev: The Messiah longs to come to console the world and bring about the resettlement and flourishing of Israel’s lands and cities, but has been delayed by Israel’s behavior. “For your ruins, for your wastelands, for the land of your destruction, for you will be too narrow for your dwellers, while those who would destroy you will be far away from you” (49:19–20).
3. Re’eh: The patriarchs, who looked on in sorrow as their descendants’ folly led to disaster, await their rehabilitation: “All your children will be students of the Lord, and great will be your children’s peace” (54:13).
4. Shofetim: The Jewish people cry out for comfort, and God answers: “It is I, I who comfort you” (51:12).
5. Ki Tetze: The land of Israel itself prays to be repopulated with life: “You shall overflow rightward and left, your children possessing nations, and filling forsaken towns with life” (54:3).
6. Ki Tavo: Jerusalem longs to be rebuilt on eternal foundations: “Your gates will be always open, day and night, never closed” (60:11).
7. Nitzavim: Zion, the site of the Temple, laid waste by Israel’s enemies, waits silently for God’s dramatic redemption— and Am Israel yearns for this moment. “For Zion’s sake I cannot be silent, for Jerusalem’s I cannot be still until righteousness bursts forth shining, and rescue burns like a brand, and all nations see your righteousness, all the kings your glory” (60:1–2).
The beauty of Ibn Shouaib’s interpretation lies in showing how the Jewish people are not alone in their pain and longing. The greatest spiritual forces in the world, God, the Messiah, the Land, Jerusalem, Zion all yearn together with us, magnifying our strength and hope.
Meanwhile, Rabbi David Abudraham, a Spanish commentator of the same era, offered a different perspective. He viewed the progression of the haftarot as a dialogue between three partners: God, Israel, and the prophet Isaiah.
The first haftara opens with God commanding Isaiah to console the people: “Comfort, comfort My people” (40:1). But the nation refuses to accept his words: “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord, He has forgotten me.’” (49:14–15) – hence, it is God Himself who must offer them comfort. The prophet relays this message back to God, protesting that the people refuse to be consoled – “oppressed and storm-swept, never comforted” (54:11).
And so, over the three following haftarot, God agrees to address the people directly: “It is I, I who comfort you” (51:12). He recognizes their pain (“Barren woman, never a mother” - 54:1); announces that it will come to an end (“Rise, give light, for your light has come” - 60:1); and heralds the joy by the Jewish people that will replace the pain (“I shall rejoice, rejoice in the Lord” - 61:10).
Abudraham’s approach is elegant because of the direct connection and earnest communication between God and the Jewish People and the emphasis it places on relationship in the process of redemption.
Whichever perspective we adopt on the connection between the haftarot, both resonate powerfully in our collective experience today. We are living in a fractured world where redemption cannot come to one part of Israel without the other, nor to the Jewish people without humanity as a whole. God’s comfort must reach every corner: to our hostages in the dark underground tunnels, to families mourning lost loved ones, to the wounded struggling to heal, and to the heroic families shouldering the national burden as their husbands and fathers serve hundreds of days in reserve duty. Our need for redemption is collective and God offers consolation to us all, including Himself, as one.