Seven Weeks of Consolation - Week 1 - part 1

In the wake of the Three Weeks of destruction - marking the commemoration of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the exile of the Jewish people - the next seven weeks are weeks of comfort and consolation. In these seven weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana seven Haftorahs are read, all from the book of Isiah, relating comfort and consolation looking forward to the future redemption and Messianic Era. This week's Haftorah will begin the Seven Weeks of Consolation series which reviews and examines the Haftorah of each of the upcoming seven weeks. This week we study the Haftorah known as Shabbat Nachamu (Sabbath of Consolation) - ישעיהו - Isaiah 40:1-26. Below you can find some resources for further study:

• You can find an article summarizing the next seven weeks of Haftorahs of comfort here and here
• You can find more in-depth information here 
• You can find information on Isaiah's authorship here
• You can find some historical information on the Decree of Cyrus which allowed Israel to rebuild the Temple here
• Overview study on the second half of Sefer Yeshayahu - The Book of Isaiah - from the OU.org by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag
• Overview study on this week's Haftorah from OU.org by Dr. Shawn Zelig Aster
• An in-depth study on this week's Haftorah from Chabad.org by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan