Ye prophets and ministers of God, comfort and encourage God’s people, who are now ready to faint, with hopes and assurance of that salvation which, in due time, I will work for them. He mentions hands and knees, because the strength and weakness of any man eminently appears in those parts. read more
Your God will come; though he seem to be absent, and departed from you, he will come to you, and abide with you. He will shortly come in the flesh. For although this and the following promises may be metaphorically taken, concerning the temporal deliverance of his people from Babylonian and other oppressors; yet they are much more emphatically and literally understood concerning the redemption of God’s people by Jesus Christ, as is sufficiently manifest, both from the words and phrases... read more
The most ignorant and stupid creatures shall be forced to acknowledge the wonderful works of God. Or rather thus, The poor Gentiles, who before were blind and deaf, shall now have the eyes and ears of their minds opened to see God’s works, and to hear and receive his word. And in token hereof, many persons who are corporally blind and deaf shall have sight miraculously conferred upon them; all which being so fully and literally accomplished in Christ, and applied by Christ to himself, it is a... read more
Then shall the lame man leap for joy, or go nimbly and readily. And this clause also, and that which follows, are to he understood both spiritually and literally, as in the former verse. In the wilderness small waters break out, and streams in the desert; the most dry and barren places shall be made moist and fruitful; which is principally meant of the plentiful effusion of God’s grace upon such persons and nations as had been wholly destitute of it. read more
Those dry and parched deserts, in which dragons have their abode, shall yield abundance of grass, and reeds, and rushes, which grow only in moist grounds, Job 8:11. read more
An highway shall be there, and a way: the highway and the way are not to be taken for two different ways, but for one and the same way, even a causey or cast-way, which is both raised ground, as the first Hebrew word signifies, and a way; both signifying a convenient, prepared, plain, and common road or path for travellers, such as the doctrine of the gospel is, which is frequently compared to a way, both in the Old and New Testament, as hath been often observed. It shall be called the way of... read more
It shall not only be a plain, but a safe way, free from all annoyance or danger from mischievous creatures. This is the same promise, for substance, with that Isaiah 11:9, They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. read more
The ransomed of the Lord; they whom God shall rescue and redeem from their corporal slavery in Babylon, and especially from their spiritual bondage under sin and Satan. Shall return, and come to Zion; shall come again to Zion, from whence they had been carried away captive. Or, shall return, to wit, to the Lord now mentioned, and come to Zion, i.e. join themselves to God’s church and people. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away; which expressions are too magnificent and emphatical to be satisfied... read more
TRANSFORMATIONIsaiah 35:1-2; Isaiah 35:7. The wilderness and the solitary place, &c.Chapters 34, 35, form one prediction, first announcing the doom of Edom, and then taking us into a new sphere where all is light, beauty, and gladness; a prediction which had a fulfilment in the return of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon to Jerusalem, which they set above their chiefest joy. But the prophecy is one of those in which the co-called secondary meaning is, in truth, the primary; the... read more
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Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible - Isaiah 35:2
The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; the wilderness shall be as pleasant and fruitful as Lebanon, and Carmel, and Sharon; which were eminent parts of the land of Canaan, as hath been oft noted. They, who are understood by the wilderness, shall see the glory of the Lord; the glorious discoveries and effects of God’s power and goodness to his people. read more