8 And a highway shall be there and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass through it; but it shall be for these. Those that go [this] way -- even fools, -- shall not err [therein].
Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are they who enter in through it. For narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and they are few who find it.
For the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared, teaching us that, having denied impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things, awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God! Every valley shall be raised up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places a plain.
They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them will lead them, and by the springs of water will he guide them. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar; and behold, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
the new and living way which he has dedicated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and [having] a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience, and washed as to our body with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of the hope unwavering, (for he [is] faithful who has promised;)
But *ye* [are] a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light; who once [were] not a people, but now God's people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy.
Good and upright is Jehovah; therefore will he instruct sinners in the way: The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way.
And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all [their] days, for the good of them, and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not draw back from them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not turn aside from me.
In those days, and at that time, saith Jehovah, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping as they go, and shall seek Jehovah their God. They shall inquire concerning Zion, with their faces thitherward, [saying,] Come, and let us join ourselves to Jehovah, in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten.
In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO JEHOVAH; and the pots in Jehovah's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto Jehovah of hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein. And in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite in the house of Jehovah of hosts.
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple, and he that sits upon the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall not hunger any more, neither shall they thirst any more, nor shall the sun at all fall on them, nor any burning heat; because the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall lead them to fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 35
Commentary on Isaiah 35 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Edom falls, never to rise again. Its land is turned into a horrible wilderness. But, on the other hand, the wilderness through which the redeemed Israel returns, is changed into a flowery field. “Gladness fills the desert and the heath; and the steppe rejoices, and flowers like the crocus. It flowers abundantly, and rejoices; yea, rejoicing and singing: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the splendour of Carmel and the plain of Sharon; they will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendour of our God.” מדבּר ישׂשׂוּם (to be accentuated with tiphchah munach , not with mercha tiphchah ) has been correctly explained by Aben-Ezra. The original Nun has been assimilated to the following Mem , just as pidyōn in Numbers 3:49 is afterwards written pidyōm (Ewald, §91, b ). The explanation given by Rashi, Gesenius, and others ( laetabuntur his ), is untenable, if only because sūs ( sı̄s ) cannot be construed with the accusative of the object (see at Isaiah 8:6); and to get rid of the form by correction, as Olshausen proposes, is all the more objectionable, because “the old full plural in ūn is very frequently met with before Mem ” (Böttcher), in which case it may have been pronounced as it is written here.
(Note: Böttcher calls ûm the oldest primitive form of the plural; but it is only a strengthening of ûn ; cf., tannı̄m = tannı̄n , Hanameel = Hananeel , and such Sept. forms as Gesem, Madiam, etc. (see Hitzig on Jeremiah 32:7). Wetzstein told me of a Bedouin tribe, in whose dialect the third pers. praet . regularly ended in m , e.g., akalum (they have eaten).)
According to the Targum on Song of Solomon 2:1 (also Saad., Abulw.), the c hăbhatstseleth is the narcissus; whilst the Targum on the passage before us leaves it indefinite - sicut lilia . The name (a derivative of bâtsal ) points to a bulbous plant, probably the crocus and primrose, which were classed together.
(Note: The crocus and the primrose ( המצליתא in Syriac) may really be easily confounded, but not the narcissus and primrose, which have nothing in common except that they are bulbous plants, like most of the flowers of the East, which shoot up rapidly in the spring, as soon as the winter rains are over. But there are other colchicaceae beside our colchicum autumnale , which flowers before the leaves appear and is therefore called filius ante patrem (e.g., the eastern colchicum variegatum ).)
The sandy steppe would become like a lovely variegated plain covered with meadow flowers.
(Note: Layard, in his Nineveh and Babylon , describes in several places the enchantingly beautiful and spring-like variation of colours which occurs in the Mesopotamian “desert;” though what the prophet had in his mind was not the real m idâr , or desert of pasture land, but, as the words tsiyâh and ‛ arâbhâh show, the utterly barren sandy desert.)
On gı̄lath , see at Isaiah 33:6 (cf., Isaiah 65:18): the infin. noun takes the place of an inf. abs., which expresses the abstract verbal idea, though in a more rigid manner; 'aph (like gam in Genesis 31:15; Genesis 46:4) is an exponent of the increased emphasis already implied in the gerunds that come after. So joyful and so gloriously adorned will the barren desert, which has been hitherto so mournful, become, on account of the great things that are in store for it. Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon have, as it were, shared their splendour with the desert, that all might be clothed alike in festal dress, when the glory of Jehovah, which surpasses everything self in its splendour, should appear; that glory which they would not only be privileged to behold, but of which they would be honoured to be the actual scene.
The prophet now exclaims to the afflicted church, in language of unmixed consolation, that Jehovah is coming. “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and make the trembling knees strong! Say to those of a terrified heart, Be strong! Fear ye not! Behold, your God will come for vengeance, for a divine retribution: He will come, and bring you salvation.” Those who have become weak in faith, hopeless and despairing, are to cheer up; and the stronger are to tell such of their brethren as are perplexed and timid, to be comforted now: for Jehovah is coming nâqâm (i.e., as vengeance), and g e mūl 'Elōhı̄m (i.e., as retribution, such as God the highly exalted and Almighty Judge inflicts; the expression is similar to that in Isaiah 30:27; Isaiah 13:9, cf., Isaiah 40:10, but a bolder one; the words in apposition stand as abbreviations of final clauses). The infliction of punishment is the immediate object of His coming, but the ultimate object is the salvation of His people ( וישעכם a contracted future form, which is generally confined to the aorist).
“Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame man leap as the stag, and the tongue of the dumb man shout; for waters break out in the desert, and brooks in the steppe. And the mirage becomes a fish-pond, and the thirsty ground gushing water-springs; in the place of jackals, where it lies, there springs up grass with reeds and rushes.” The bodily defects mentioned here there is no reason for regarding as figurative representations of spiritual defects. The healing of bodily defects, however, is merely the outer side of what is actually effected by the coming of Jehovah (for the other side, comp. Isaiah 32:3-4). And so, also, the change of the desert into a field abounding with water is not a mere poetical ornament; for in the last times, he era of redemption, nature itself will really share in the doxa which proceeds from the manifested God to His redeemed. Shârâb (Arab. sarâb ) is essentially the same thing as that which we call in the western languages the mirage , or Fata morgana ; not indeed every variety of this phenomenon of the refraction of light, through strata of air of varying density lying one above another, but more especially that appearance of water, which is produced as if by magic in the dry, sandy desert
(Note: See. G. Rawlinson, Monarchies , i. p. 38.)
(literally perhaps the “desert shine,” just as we speak of the “Alpine glow;” see Isaiah 49:10). The antithesis to this is 'ăgam (Chald. ' agmâ' , Syr. egmo , Ar. agam ), a fish-pond (as in Isaiah 41:18, different from ' âgâm in Isaiah 19:10). In the arid sandy desert, where the jackal once had her lair and suckled her young (this is, according to Lamentations 4:3, the true explanation of the permutative ribhtsâh , for which ribhtsâm would be in some respects more suitable), grass springs up even into reeds and rushes; so that, as Isaiah 43:20 affirms, the wild beasts of the desert praise Jehovah.
In the midst of such miracles, by which all nature is glorified, the people of Jehovah are redeemed, and led home to Zion. “And a highway rises there, and a road, and it will be called the Holy Road; no unclean man will pass along it, as it is appointed for them: whoever walks the road, even simple ones do not go astray. There will be no lion there, and the most ravenous beast of prey will not approach it, will not be met with there; and redeemed ones walk. And the ransomed of Jehovah will return, and come to Zion with shouting, and everlasting joy upon their head: they lay hold of gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing flee away.” Not only unclean persons from among the heathen, but even unclean persons belonging to Israel itself, will never pass along that holy road; none but the church purified and sanctified through sufferings, and those connected with it. למו הוּא , to them, and to them alone, does this road belong, which Jehovah has made and secured, and which so readily strikes the eye, that even an idiot could not miss it; whilst it lies to high, that no beast of prey, however powerful ( p e rı̄ts chayyōth , a superlative verbal noun: Ewald, §313, c ), could possibly leap up to it: not one is ever encountered by the pilgrim there. The pilgrims are those whom Jehovah has redeemed and delivered, or set free from captivity and affliction ( גּאל , לג , related to חל , solvere ; פּדה , פד , scindere , abscindere ). Everlasting joy soars above their head; they lay fast hold of delight and joy (compare on Isaiah 13:8), so that it never departs from them. On the other hand, sorrow and sighing flee away. The whole of Isaiah 35:10 is like a mosaic from Isaiah 51:11; Isaiah 61:7; Isaiah 51:3; and what is affirmed of the holy road, is also affirmed in Isaiah 52:1 of the holy city (compare Isaiah 62:12; Isaiah 63:4). A prelude of the fulfilment is seen in what Ezra speaks of with gratitude to God in Ezra 8:31. We have intentionally avoided crowding together the parallel passages from chapters 40-66. The whole chapter is, in every part, both in thought and language, a prelude of that book of consolation for the exiles in their captivity. Not only in its spiritual New Testament thoughts, but also in its ethereal language, soaring high as it does in majestic softness and light, the prophecy has now reached the highest point of its development.