Isaiah 35
The chapter before this one ended in fire - the judgment of Edom, streams turned to pitch, a land left to the owl and the raven. Now, without warning, Isaiah swings the camera to the opposite horizon, and the contrast could not be greater. Where chapter 34 was scorched waste, chapter 35 is a desert breaking into bloom. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose (v. 1). The driest, deadest, most God-forsaken-looking ground - the place where nothing grows and no one goes - is exactly where the new thing begins. This is one of the great signatures of God all through Isaiah: He does His most beautiful work in the places that look finished.3
And the renewal is not only of the land but of the people who live on it. To hands gone weak and knees gone wobbly, to hearts that have given up, the word comes: Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you (v. 4). Then Isaiah names the signs by which His coming will be known - and they are startlingly concrete. Not metaphors of the soul only, but eyes and ears and legs and tongues: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing (vv. 5-6). These are the very deeds Jesus would later point John the Baptist toward as the answer to the question, Art thou he that should come?
The vision closes by laying a road through it all. An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness (v. 8) - a road so plain that even the simplest traveler cannot lose it, so safe that no lion lurks beside it, walked only by the redeemed. And it leads somewhere: home. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (v. 10). The chapter that opened in a desert ends in a homecoming, with singing that does not stop and grief that finally, permanently, leaves.2
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Isaiah 35:1-7The Desert Shall Blossom as the Rose
1The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. 2It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God. 3Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 4Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.
The chapter opens by handing joy to the one place least equipped to feel it. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose (v. 1). A desert is, by definition, where life fails - dry, empty, the haunt of nothing. That is precisely why Isaiah chooses it. The promise is not that pleasant fields will get a little greener; it is that the dead ground itself will break into flower. And the bloom is not thin or grudging: It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing (v. 2). The most barren stretch of the world is given the glory of the most fertile - the glory of Lebanon with its famous cedars, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon with their lush slopes - all of it poured out on the wasteland. This is the way the LORD characteristically works in Isaiah: He does His most lavish work where everyone else sees only ruin. And the point of the flowering is not the flowers; it is what they let people see: they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God. The renewed desert becomes a window. Where there had been only emptiness, now the glory of God stands visible.3
Then the vision turns from the land to the people living on it, and the tone shifts from description to command: Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not (vv. 3-4). The picture is of exhaustion - hands gone slack, knees buckling, the body language of people who have stopped expecting good news. To them the word is not a scolding but a steadying. Notice that the strengthening is something the community does for one another: strengthen ye… say to them. Those who have heard the promise are told to take it to the discouraged, to put courage back into the fearful heart. And the ground of that courage is not a pep talk; it is a Person and an event: behold, your God will come… he will come and save you (v. 4). The reason to be strong is not that things are not as bad as they seem, but that God Himself is on His way. The verse holds two things together that the world keeps trying to split: God comes with vengeance and a recompence - setting wrong things right - and in the very same breath He comes to save. The coming that judges and the coming that rescues are one coming. For the fearful heart, that is the whole gospel in a sentence: he will come and save you.
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. 7And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
Now Isaiah names the signs by which the coming of God will be recognized, and their concreteness is the whole point: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing (vv. 5-6). The repeated Then ties the healings to the moment God arrives - when He comes, this is what follows. These are not soft, spiritual-only images. They are eyes, ears, legs, tongues: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame do not merely walk but leap as an hart - the bounding deer being the very emblem of strength let loose - and the mouth that could make no sound breaks into song. Each clause reverses a specific, daily affliction, and each reversal overshoots mere repair into joy: not just mobility but leaping, not just speech but singing. And the same life floods the ground beneath them: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert (v. 6). The healing of bodies and the watering of the waste are one act of God. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water (v. 7); even the habitation of dragons - the desolate lair where only wild things crouched - turns to marsh-grass and reeds, the soft green of a place where water now stands. Wherever God comes to save, death runs backward.
Isaiah 35:8-10The Way of Holiness
8And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. 9No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: 10And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Through the blooming wilderness Isaiah now lays a road: And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness (v. 8). A highway is a built-up road, raised and cleared - not a faint desert track you might lose, but an obvious, prepared way. And its first quality is its clarity: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. This is striking. The road home is not reserved for the clever or the spiritually elite; it is so plainly marked that even a simpleton cannot wander off it. No one is shut out for lack of skill. The second quality is purity: the unclean shall not pass over it. The way of holiness is exactly what its name says - a clean road, set apart, on which what defiles has no place. These two notes belong together. The road is wide open to the simple and the failing, yet it is genuinely holy; the way that excludes the unclean is the same way the fool walks safely. The gate is low enough for anyone to enter, and the path is clean enough to be called the LORD's own. It is a road that asks not cleverness but cleansing - and then keeps even the least able traveler from straying.
The next note is safety: No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there (v. 9). In Isaiah's world an open road through wild country meant real danger - lions, predators, bandits lurking where the desert met the way. The way of holiness has none of it. The threats are not merely held back but not found there at all; the danger is simply gone from the road. And the travelers are named for the first time: the redeemed. This is who walks here - not the self-sufficient or the strong, but those who have been bought back, rescued, brought out of bondage by Another. The whole picture quietly inverts the world's idea of a safe journey. We tend to think safety comes from our own competence, our own readiness for whatever lurks in the dark. Isaiah locates it elsewhere: the road is safe because of whose road it is. The redeemed are not safe because they are formidable; they are safe because the One who redeemed them has cleared the way. They walk a path with no predators on it, kept not by their strength but by His.
And the road leads home. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (v. 10). Every image in this last verse is motion toward joy. They return; they come to Zion; they arrive with songs. The joy is pictured as a crown - everlasting joy upon their heads - worn openly, the way a victor wears a wreath, and it is everlasting: not a mood that will lift by evening but a gladness with no expiry. Then comes the line the whole chapter has been moving toward: sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Notice the verb. Sorrow does not merely fade or lessen; it flees - it turns and runs, put to flight, gone. The chapter that opened in a desert closes in a homecoming where grief itself is evicted. This is the destination of the way of holiness: not just survival, not just arrival, but a joy that lasts forever and a sorrow that is finally, permanently chased off the field. The wilderness has not only bloomed; it has become the road that ends in unending song.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 35 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for chavatzelet (v. 1, the flower the KJV renders “rose”), for the joined phrase derekh ha-qodesh (v. 8, “the way of holiness”), and for the closing word-pair padah / ga'al behind “ransomed” and “redeemed” in verses 9-10.
- Isaiah 35 ↔ Matthew 11 · Luke 7 · Hebrews 12 · Revelation 21Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 35 to the rest of Scripture - the healings of verses 5-6 read alongside Jesus' own answer to John, the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk… and the deaf hear (Matt. 11:5; Luke 7:22); the feeble knees of verse 3 picked up in lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees (Heb. 12:12); and the vanished sorrow of verse 10 sealed in God shall wipe away all tears (Rev. 21:4).
- Isaiah 35 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 35 - the blooming wilderness of verses 1-2, the water imagery of verses 6-7 (springs, pools, the parched ground made a pool), the difficult habitation of dragons in verse 7, and the cleared, guarded highway of verses 8-9.
Where this echoes in Scripture
The Desert Shall Blossom as the Rose
- Matthew 11:4-6The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear... blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.Jesus answers John by pointing to verses 5-6 - the signs Isaiah named are the deeds He is doing.
- Luke 7:22the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.The same answer to John, naming the healings of verses 5-6 as the mark of the Coming One.
- Isaiah 32:3-4the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken... the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.The same cluster of opened eyes, ears, and loosed tongues that verses 5-6 promise.
- Hebrews 12:12-13lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet... let it rather be healed.Verse 3 taken up directly - weak hands and feeble knees strengthened, the lame healed rather than turned aside.
- Isaiah 41:18I will open rivers in high places... I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.The same water breaking out in the desert as verses 6-7 - the LORD turning parched ground to pools.
The Way of Holiness
- Isaiah 51:11the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head... sorrow and mourning shall flee away.A near-twin of verse 10 - the ransomed returning to Zion with everlasting joy, sorrow put to flight.
- John 14:6I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.The way of holiness (v. 8) named in person - Christ Himself the road home to the Father.
- Revelation 21:4God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.The final form of verse 10 - sorrow and sighing not merely fled but gone forever.
- Matthew 20:28the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.The price behind “the ransomed of the LORD” (v. 10) - a captive people bought back at the cost of His life.
- Acts 24:14after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers.The earliest name for following Jesus - “the Way” - echoing the way of holiness in verse 8.