1. While Edom becomes a desert, for God’s people, on the other hand, the desert places burst into bloom, the fairest parts of Palestine sharing their fertile beauty with the waste places (Isaiah 35:2).7. Parched ground] RM ’mirage’: this which so often deceives travellers in the desert will become a real lake.Dragons] RV ’jackals.’8. An highway] by which the exiles may return through the desert. 9. Cp. Isaiah 51:11. read more
XXXV.(1) The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them . . .—The desolation of the chief enemy of Israel is contrasted with the renewed beauty of Israel’s own inheritance. The two last words are better omitted. The three nouns express varying degrees of the absence of culture, the wild pasture-land, the bare moor, the sandy steppe.Shall . . . blossom as the rose.—Better, as the narcissus, but the primrose and the crocus (Colchicum autumnale) have also been suggested. The words... read more
(2) The glory of Lebanon . . .—The three types of cultivated beauty are contrasted with the former three of desolation. See Note on Isaiah 33:9. And over this fair land of transcendent beauty, there will shine not the common light of day, but the glory of Jehovah. (Comp. Isaiah 30:26; Revelation 21:23.) read more
(3) Strengthen ye the weak hands . . .—Here the words are obviously, as they are quoted in Hebrews 12:12, figurative and not literal, and so far suggest a like interpretation for what follows. read more
(4) Be strong, fear not: . . .—The words are, of course, wide and general enough, but looking to the probable date of this section, we may perhaps connect them with the tone of Hezekiah’s speech in 2 Chronicles 32:7. Both king and prophet had the same words of comfort for the feeble and faint-hearted, and the ground of comfort is that the government of God is essentially a righteous government, punishing the oppressor, and saving the oppressed. (Comp. Joshua 1:6-7.) read more
(5, 6) Then the eyes of the blind shall . . .—The words are obviously to be interpreted, like those that precede them, and Isaiah 29:18, of spiritual infirmities. If they seem to find a literal fulfilment in the miracles of the Christ, it is, as it were, ex abundante, and as a pledge and earnest of something beyond themselves. read more
(7) The parched ground . . .—The Hebrew word is essentially what we know as the mirage, or fata morgana, the silvery sheen which looks like a sparkling lake, and turns out to be barren sand. Instead of that delusive show, there shall be in the renewed earth the lake itself.In the habitation of dragons . . .—Better, as elsewhere, jackals, which had their lair in the sandy desert.Shall be grass with reeds and rushes.—Better, grass shall grow as (or unto) reeds and rushes, the well-watered soil... read more
(8) An highway shall be there.—The raised causeway, as distinct from the common paths. (See Judges 5:6.) We are still in the region of parables, but the thought has a special interest as a transition, at the close of the first volume of Isaiah’s writings, to the opening of the second. The use of the road has been referred, by some interpreters, to the return of the exiles from Babylon. Rather is it the road by which the pilgrims of all nations shall journey to the mountain of the Lord’s house... read more
(9) No lion shall be there . . .—We have to remember that the lion had not ceased to haunt the valley of the Jordan, as it had done in the days of Samson (Judges 14:5), and David (1 Samuel 17:3-4; 2 Samuel 23:20). The recent depopulation of the northern kingdom had probably laid the country more open to their attack (2 Kings 17:25), and thus gave a special force to the prophet’s description. For “any ravenous beast,” read the most ravenous.The redeemed . . . (10) . . . the ransomed.—The Hebrew... read more
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Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Isaiah 35:9-10
Nothing will threaten or endanger the redeemed as they travel the holy highway to the holy city. This is the first of 24 occurrences of "redeemed" in Isaiah. The redeemed will come rejoicing into Zion, the New Jerusalem, where there will be no more sorrow or sighing, just unbreakable happiness, gladness, and joyful shouting (cf. Isaiah 51:11; Psalms 23:6; Ezekiel 36:24-28; Ezekiel 40-44; Zechariah 14:16-19; Revelation 21:1-4).While what Isaiah described here parallels to a limited extent the... read more