Isaiah 35

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 35

After the long, dark oracle of chapter thirty-four, where the LORD’s sword came down upon a rebellious world and the land was left to thorns and jackals, this short chapter opens like a window flung wide onto morning. It is the bright counterpart to all that judgment, and the contrast could hardly be greater. The very wilderness that lay parched and cursed now bursts into bloom, glad and singing, clothed with the glory of Lebanon and the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. Into that renewed land the prophet speaks a word of pure comfort to the fearful and the failing, telling them to be strong because their God is coming to save. And when He comes, everything broken is made whole: blind eyes open, deaf ears hear, the lame man leaps like a deer, the silent tongue breaks into song, and water gushes up where only sand had been. Through the heart of it runs a clean, safe road, the Way of Holiness, and upon it the ransomed of the LORD come streaming home to Zion with singing, crowned with a joy so complete that sorrow and sighing at last turn and flee away for good.

As you read, hold this: God Himself will come to save, transforming the wilderness and healing the broken, and He will lead His ransomed home on the Way of Holiness into a joy from which sorrow flees forever.

Isaiah 35:1–2 (BSB)

¹ The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose. ² It will bloom profusely and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

The chapter begins with a wonder, for it is the very ground itself that is told to be glad. The wilderness, that hard and hopeless place, is not merely watered or improved; it is made to rejoice and blossom, and not with a few scattered flowers but profusely, bursting into bloom with joy and singing. Think of what it means that the desert sings. It means the curse is being reversed at its root, that the God who once said the ground would bring forth thorns is now clothing that same ground with the glory of Lebanon’s cedars and the rich splendor of Carmel and Sharon. And notice where all this beauty is pointing, for the passage does not let us stop at the flowers. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. The blossoming desert is not the main thing; it is the doorway through which the whole creation comes to behold the glory of the One who made it and is remaking it. When God moves to save, even the dust rejoices, and everything it does is meant to lift our eyes to Him.

Isaiah 35:3–4 (BSB)

³ Strengthen the limp hands and steady the feeble knees! ⁴ Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

Now the vision turns from the singing land to the trembling people who live in it, and here is a word for every soul that has grown tired and afraid. Strengthen the limp hands, the prophet cries, steady the feeble knees, and say to those whose hearts are pounding with worry: be strong, do not fear. But mark carefully where that courage is to come from. It does not rest on some cheerful hope that things will simply get better on their own. It rests entirely on a single, staggering announcement: Behold, your God will come. He will come to set every wrong right, and He will come to save you. The whole weight of the comfort hangs on that name, your God, and on that verb, will come. This is the great heart of the chapter and the great hope of the whole Bible, that our rescue does not finally depend on our own strength but on the arrival of God Himself. Weak hands and buckling knees are not scolded here; they are met with the promise of a God who is on His way.

Isaiah 35:5–7 (BSB)

⁵ Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. ⁶ Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. ⁷ The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

See what happens the moment God comes. That little word “then” opens like a floodgate, and every kind of brokenness is undone at once. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame man does not merely walk but leaps like a deer set free across the hills, and the tongue that could form no words breaks out in a shout of joy. This is the very list our Lord Jesus would one day point to when John the Baptist sent from his prison to ask whether He was truly the One who was to come. Tell John, Jesus said, that the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, for He knew that these signs were Isaiah’s own signature of the coming of God to save. And notice how the healing of the people and the healing of the land are woven together into one glad picture, for in the same breath the waters gush forth and the parched ground becomes a pool, and the very lair where jackals once crouched is filled now with green reeds and papyrus. When God comes, He does not repair one corner of the ruin; He heals the whole world through and through, until even the haunts of death are turned into gardens.

Isaiah 35:8–9 (BSB)

⁸ And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it—only those who walk in the Way—and fools will not stray onto it. ⁹ No lion will be there, and no vicious beast will go up on it. Such will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk upon it.

Through the middle of this restored world the prophet lays down a road, and it is a road like no other. It has a name, the Way of Holiness, and everything about it is designed for the safety of the traveler. In the old wilderness a journey was a fearful thing, for the way was easy to lose and lions and beasts of prey lay in wait along it. But on this highway there are no lions, no ravenous creatures, no ambush, and no one wanders off it and is lost. It is a way set apart, a clean and consecrated road, and only those made holy walk upon it. We must not turn this into a hard word, as though the door were narrow out of stinginess, for the whole point is tender: this is the safe road home, the one path where the ransomed will never be devoured or lost along the way. The God who saves does not merely rescue His people and then leave them to find their own perilous way back. He builds them a road and keeps it clear, and He walks His redeemed (גֹּאֵל) goel, pronounced go-ALE. Strong's H1350, kinsman-redeemer, one who redeems or avenges on behalf of a relative. This is one of the warmest words in the whole Old Testament, and it is worth knowing well. To gaal is not simply to set free in a general way; it is what a near kinsman does when trouble falls on one of his own. When a man had lost his land or his liberty or even his life, it fell to his nearest relative, the goel or kinsman-redeemer, to step in at his own cost and buy him back, to take the burden as his own family duty. This is the very word that fills the little book of Ruth, where Boaz becomes the redeemer of a widow with nothing, and it is the word Job reached for in his anguish when he cried, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” So when Isaiah tells us that it is the redeemed, the geulim, who walk this holy road, he is telling us something precious about how they came to be there. They did not buy their own passage. A Kinsman drew near, took their ruin upon Himself, and paid the price to bring them home. And every believer who reads this knows the name of that Redeemer now, for He drew near to us in flesh and gave His own life to make us His. along it all the way to Himself.

Isaiah 35:10 (BSB)

¹⁰ So the redeemed of the LORD will return and enter Zion with singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.

And here the whole chapter arrives at its home, and what a homecoming it is. The redeemed of the LORD, His ransomed people, come back at last and enter Zion, and they do not creep in weary and beaten but come streaming through the gates with singing on their lips and everlasting joy set upon their heads like a crown. Slow down over that word “everlasting,” for it changes everything. The joys we know in this life are always shadowed by their ending; we are glad, and even as we are glad we know it will not last. But this joy has no evening. It is a crown that is never taken off. And then comes the tenderest promise of all, so beautiful that the prophet gives it to us twice over: gladness and joy will overtake them, will run them down and catch them and hold them fast, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. All the grief that has chased God’s people down the long ages, all the tears and the aching and the quiet nighttime sighs, will at last turn and run in the opposite direction and never be seen again. This is where the road leads. This is what it means that our God will come to save. Sing for it now, even in the wilderness, for the singing you begin here you will one day finish in Zion, and it will never end.