Matthew 3:3

‘For this is he who was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make you ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’

We now learn that the arrival of John was no accident. He had come, as God had foreordained and declared, in order to bring about all that Isaiah had spoken of (Isaiah 40:3). His arrival was the arrival of the one who was to persuade the people to prepare the way for God finally to act, and who was to call on them to smooth the way for His coming, to smooth the way for the coming of the King. The Isaianic prophecies are in process of being ‘filled to the full’. The difference now is that ‘the Lord’ will come among men as a human being.

Thus the way was to be smoothed for the Lord’s coming by the effect of Johns preaching on them which would make them also smooth the way for His coming (compare Malachi 4:5-6), in a way similar to that in which the prominent townspeople of a town would repair the roads that led to the town and make them level if some great king was coming. For in Him was coming the Isaianic King and Servant (see Matthew 3:17), and the way had to be prepared for Him spiritually in the hearts of men.

‘Spoken of through Isaiah the prophet.’ As we have already seen, there is surely no coincidence in the fact that Isaiah is here named for the first time (in contrast with the anonymous Matthew 1:23) and that the quotations which are pinpointed in the next few chapters (up to Matthew 13:14) are all from Isaiah and are all specifically referenced with his name (as against mainly anonymous quotations elsewhere, with the exception of Jeremiah). Thus we may consider that this opening formula to the Isaiah sayings is worded differently so as to open the series. Matthew wants us to see Jesus over this period as very much the King and Servant of Isaiah, and as fulfilling all that Isaiah had declared and revealed.