Isaiah35chapter 35

Isaiah 35:1-2

The chapter turns immediately from Edom's wasteland in chapter 34 to a wasteland transformed: the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall blossom as the rose. The glory of Lebanon is given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, so that the desert itself is dressed in the finest garden imagery Israel's own geography could supply. Delitzsch reads the contrast with the previous chapter as deliberate, Edom's desolation set directly against Zion's flowering, judgment and restoration placed side by side as the book's two movements meet.

Isaiah 35:3-4

The comfort is addressed to the discouraged directly: strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not. The ground of the courage is stated plainly, behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence, he will come and save you, vengeance and salvation named together rather than set against each other. Hebrews 12:12 draws on this verse's own vocabulary, lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, applying the prophet's comfort to a New Testament congregation running its own race.

Isaiah 35:5-6

The signs of the new age are named in a list the Gospels later treat as fulfilled in a person: the eyes of the blind opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame man leaping as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb singing. When John the Baptist sends from prison asking whether Jesus is he that should come, the Lord answers in this chapter's own vocabulary, the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the deaf hear and the dumb speak, verified at Matthew 11:5, pointing John back to Isaiah 35 as the answer to his question. Barnes reads the sequence as physical healing carrying a larger meaning without losing its literal force, the miracles of the ministry standing as the chapter's own proof text.

Isaiah 35:7-8

The water imagery continues where the healing list left off, the parched ground becoming a pool and the thirsty land springs of water, even the haunt of jackals turned to grass with reeds and rushes. Out of that transformed ground a road appears, an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness, a road the unclean cannot travel and on which even the simple, the wayfaring men though fools, will not lose their way. Delitzsch and Gill both take the highway as more than a literal road home from exile, a way of access to God himself marked out and kept safe for the redeemed rather than the strong.

Isaiah 35:9-10

The road is safe in a way no ordinary road is, no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast, but the redeemed shall walk there, danger removed rather than merely avoided. The chapter closes on its destination, the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, sorrow and sighing put to flight rather than merely endured. Henry reads the everlasting joy as the counterpart to chapter 34's everlasting smoke, the two chapters closing with matching phrases turned to opposite ends, one desolation without end and one joy without end.