The Land and Its People Are Transformed, 1-10
With this chapter, the prophecies of the first part of the book are brought to ‘a rapturous crescendo.’ (Harper’s Bible Commentary)
Motyer (TOTC) calls this ‘one of the most beautiful poems ever written’.
Kidner (NBC) observes:
‘The glory of this chapter is enhanced, if this is possible, by its setting as an oasis between the visionary wasteland of ch. 34 and the history of war, sickness and folly in chs. 36–39.’
Barnes, too, links this chapter with the previous one: their enemies having been destroyed (ch 34), the people of God experience security, prosperity and joy (ch 35).
Judgement and redemption are two sides of the same coin: we cannot have the one without the other.
The focus of vv1-6a is the coming of God, transforming the arid desert into a place of flourishing beauty; a place of hope and healing.
That of vv6b-10 is a new exodus; the people’s journey home through the transformed desert:
‘The desert produces brooks and meadows, the safe highway appears, and finally the pilgrims themselves come into view in the last verse, singing their way into Zion.’ (Kidner, NBC)
At a number of points this chapter anticipates the style and thought of Isa 40-66 (indeed, v10 is quoted in Isa 51:11).
It is, in fact, difficult to determine the chapter’s immediate referent. The fall of Jerusalem, and the return from exile in Babylon, did not take place until after Isaiah’s day. So we might consider that we have here an inspired message from the prophet about events which would later take place. Alternatively, it may be that the words are attributable to a later prophet who wrote during the time of the Babylonian exile. But, as many commentators have pointed out, the exalted language of this chapter is not exhausted by those events: a more distant, and complete restoration of God’s people is in view.
‘So the prophecy reaches a climax which already soars above Isaiah’s own times and anticipates the style and thought of chs. 40-66 (cf. the quotation in v 10 in 51:11) in its lyrical portrayal of the new exodus, the coming of God himself, the re-peopling of Zion and the endless joy of the redeemed.’ (Kidner, NBC)
Webb writes that chapters 34 and 35 speak of ultimate, as well as temporal, realities:
‘Clearly, a situation of exile and return is in view here, something that will be developed at length in the second half of the book. But just as clearlyk this chapter reaches beyond that to something else. The everlasting joy of this chapter corresponds to the everlasting destruction of the previous one. Beyond the judgments and blessings of history lie the final “everlastings” of salvation and damnation. These are the ultimate realities we have to reckon with. There are foreshadowings of them within history, but in Scripture something greater always looms up behind.’
Webb notes our tendency to want one of these realities without the other:
‘We, of course would like to have only one of these realities: blessing without curse, salvation without judgment, heaven without hell. And we are always in danger of rewriting the rules, so to speak, to suit our own inclinations. But the biblical revelation has a stubborn shape to it that resists all amnipulation of this kind. It forces us to decision: we must have it as it is or not at all; accept it or make up our own religion. No quarter is given, either by the biblical writers or by Jesus himself. On the last day, some will go away to eternal punishment, and some to eternal life.’
Following Goldingay, we may detect five scenes; five pictures of transformation:
1-2 – from desolation to fruitfulness
3-4 – from fear to hope
5-6a – from silence to jubilation
6b-7 – from desert to pool
8-10 – the way home
35:1 Let the desert and dry region be happy;
let the wilderness rejoice and bloom like a lily!
35:2 Let it richly bloom;
let it rejoice and shout with delight!
It is given the grandeur of Lebanon,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the grandeur of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
Verses 1 and 2 suggest the thought of ‘Eden restored’.
The desert – A picture of Judah, devastated by conquest, and the subsequent exile.
The imagery is of a desert carpeted with spring flowers and shaded with mighty trees (‘the grandeur of Lebanon’).
Carmel represents cultivated land, and Sharon beautiful flowers (cf. Song 2:1).
These three areas have already been linked in Isa 33:9. They were among the most beautiful and fertile places in the known world.
For whom is the desert so joyful, so beautified? It is for the redeemed, v10.
Motyer comments on the dominant motif of v1f:
‘Isaiah is living in exodus-terms. The people of God are a pilgrim-people. Once before the desert yielded water for their need (Ex. 17) and doubtless momentarily blossomed, but the day is coming when the final pilgrimage will be made through a transformed desert. The motif of a transformed world speaks as ever of the end of sin’s reign and the reversal of the Lord’s curse (Gn. 3:17ff.).’
Motyer quotes the hymn by G.W. Robinson which sings of the experience of those who know that they are ‘loved with everlasting love’:
‘Heaven above is softer blue,
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue,
Christless eyes have never seen.’
On creation itself sharing in the hope of redemption, see Rom 8:19-21.
They will see the grandeur of the LORD, the splendor of our God – This might refer to God’s glory being revealed in transformed nature, Isa 41:19–20; 51:3; 60:13. But, equally, it might mean a direct manifestation of God in his splendour, as in Isa 4:5; 24:23; 40:5; 52:10; 60:1–2; 66:18. (Smith, NAC)
But who will see God? In context, it is the redeemed, Isa 35:9f.
Derek Thomas notes that this passage is sometimes appealed to in support of the view that the return of the Jewish people to Palestine, the establishment of a Jewish state in May 1948, and the subsequent material and economic prosperity of modern Israel is a fulfilment of this and other prophecies.
Others apply this to Jewish prosperity in the Millennium.
But Thomas, following Calvin, goes on to say that Isaiah’s vision here is cosmic in scope. It refers to a transformation of the entire world. Its focus is the ‘kingdom of Christ’ – begun here, comleted hereafter.
35:3 Strengthen the hands that have gone limp,
steady the knees that shake!
35:4 Tell those who panic,
“Be strong! Do not fear!
Look, your God comes to avenge!
With divine retribution he comes to deliver you.”
Strengthen the hands that have gone limp, steady the knees that shake! – A call to mutual encouragement that is still relevant to Christians today, Heb 12:12.
‘The implication…is that the people of God are still in the period of waiting and need encouraging in the realm of action (hands), stability (knees) and conviction (hearts).’ (Motyer)
“Tell those who panic, “Be strong! Do not fear!” – ‘Isaiah’s readers are encouraged to adopt Joshua, with the promised land before him, as a model’. (Motyer)
“Look, your God comes to avenge! With divine retribution he comes to deliver you” – If the first note of reassurance is to look for God to ‘come’, the second is that when he comes he will put all wrongs to right, and the third is to bring deliverance.
This harks back to the preceding chapter. Yet to come in its fullness, 2 Thess 1:7-10. But God, while committed to the deliverance of his people, is intent on dealing their and his enemies.
Goldingay notes that because this promise is not applied only to the experience of the Judeans, it stands as ‘an ongoing promise to God’s people’.
Smith agrees that because no reason for this need for encouragement is given, we should not assume that it refers to the threat of suffering under the Assyrians or exile under the Babylonians. Rather, it points forward to the eschatological hope, when God will deliver his people from their enemies and establish justice on earth.
Matthew Henry reminds us that many Christians are in need of such strengthening:
‘Among true Christians there are many that have weak hands and feeble knees, that are yet but babes in Christ; but it is our duty to strengthen our brethren (Lk 22:32), not only to bear with the weak, but to do what we can to confirm them, Rom 15:1; 1 Th 5:14.’
35:5 Then blind eyes will open,
deaf ears will hear.
35:6 Then the lame will leap like a deer,
the mute tongue will shout for joy;
for water will flow in the desert,
streams in the wilderness.
35:7 The dry soil will become a pool of water,
the parched ground springs of water.
Where jackals once lived and sprawled out,
grass, reeds, and papyrus will grow.
Then blind eyes will open, deaf ears will hear…the lame will leap…the mute tongue will shout – These expressions together indicate a total transformation of present weakness into future abilities.
The physicality of these verses should not be minimised. For as Motyer comments, the day is coming when present weaknesses (v3) will be gone and present hope (v4) will be transformed into concrete reality:
‘Here is the Old Testament background to the New Testament doctrine of the redemption of the body. The contrast between two faculties of reception (eyes and ears) and two of action (leaping and singing) expresses totality.’
As Kidner (NBC) remarks, the healings of the Gospels show us the new age, described here, has dawned. See Jesus’ answers to the envoys of John the Baptist, Mt 11:4f; Lk 7:22.
Streams in the desert – Barnes comments:
‘The world, in regard to its real comforts without the gospel, may be not unaptly compared to a vast waste of pathless sands and arid plains. Nothing will more strongly express the blessings of the gospel than the idea of cool, refreshing, abundant fountains and streams bursting forth in such pathless wastes.’
The dry soil will become a pool of water – RV marg. – ‘The mirage shall become a pool’.
Jackals – Inhabitants of inhospitable places.
35:8 A thoroughfare will be there—
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it;
it is reserved for those authorized to use it—
fools will not stray into it.
35:9 No lions will be there,
no ferocious wild animals will be on it—
they will not be found there.
Those delivered from bondage will travel on it,
35:10 those whom the LORD has ransomed will return that way.
They will enter Zion with a happy shout.
Unending joy will crown them,
happiness and joy will overwhelm them;
grief and suffering will disappear.
A thoroughfare will be there – A ‘highway’ – a causeway raised above the surrounding countryside and therefore visible to all.
Motyer notes that we are not yet told which this highway leads, only who may (and who may not) travel on it.
Smith, however, thinks that this is the eschatological highway used by God’s people as they return to Zion to praise and worship God in the distant future (cf. Isa 62:9-12).
The ‘highway’ is a favourite motif of Isaiah (Isa 11:16; 19:19-25; 27:12-14; 40:3; 62:10), although we should not assume that it always has the same referent. Cf. also the announcement of John the Baptist.
The Way of Holiness – A route to be taken by God’s redeemed people (and only by them).
The unclean will not travel on it…fools will not stray into it – the former because they are not allowed; the latter because they choose to follow their own way, and not God’s.
No lions will be there, no ferocious animals – Just as no human frailty will impeded the progress of the travelors, so There will be nothing to make the journey hazardous or uncertain.
Verse 10 is nearly identical to Isa 51:11.
Those delivered from bondage…those whom the Lord has ransomed – They have been freed by divine grace both from sin and from its effects.
Barnes writes:
‘That Isaiah was acquainted with the doctrine of redemption is apparent from his fifty-third chapter. There is not here, indeed, any express mention made of the means by which they would be redeemed, but the language is so general that it may refer either to the deliverance from the captivity at Babylon, or the future more important deliverance of his people from the bondage of sin by the atoning sacrifice of the Messiah.’
This thoroughfare is for the Lord’s redeemed, and for them alone:
‘It is not for the profane, the polluted, the hypocrite. It is not for those who live for this world, or for those who love pleasure more than they love God. The church should not be entered except by those who have evidence that they are redeemed. None should make a profession of religion who have no evidence that they belong to ‘the redeemed,’ and who are not disposed to walk in the way of holiness. But, for all such it is a highway on which they are to travel.’ (Barnes)
Return – Goldingay comments that this verb is usually used (in Isaiah and elsewhere) for a return to the Lord. It is also a return to Zion.
Unending joy will crown them – Barnes comments that this expression
‘may refer to the practice of anointing the head with oil and perfume in times of festivity and joy—in contrast with the custom of throwing ashes on the head in times of grief and calamity (Rosenmüller). Or it may refer to a custom of wearing a wreath or chaplet of flowers in times of festivity, as is often done now, and as was commonly done among the ancients in triumphal processions (Vitringa). Whichever exposition be adopted, the idea is the same, that there would be great joy, and that that joy would be perpetual and unfading. This is true of all who return to Zion under the Messiah. Joy is one of the first emotions; joy at redemption, and at the pardon of sin; joy in view of the hopes of eternal life, and of the everlasting favour of God. But this joy is not short-lived and fading, like the garland of flowers on the head; it is constant, increasing, everlasting.’
Grief and suffering will disappear – Why end on this negative note? Perhaps this is what God’s people most needed to hear, because of the plight they were in (Goldingay).
Harper’s Bible Commentary comments that this chapter
‘gives readers an epitome of the promises of God throughout the book of Isaiah. The portrayal of restoration far exceeds the historical experience of Judah both after the return from the Babylonian exile and after the return from the Diaspora to the land of Israel. Its horizon lies in the ultimate renovation of the entire world and, consequently, in the hope of future readers of this prophetic book.’
Goldingay writes of ‘interrim’ fulfilments, on the way to ultimate fulfilment: its themes are taken up in Isa 40-55, and by Jesus in reference to his own ministry, Mt 11:5. And then,
‘in our own experience, when we see God replacing desolation by fruitfulness, fear by hope, silence by shouting, or desert by pool, and when we see believing communities finding their way back to God and back to the place of God’s purpose for them, we see this vision finding another interim fulfillment.’