Isaiah 35:1

The wilderness, and the solitary place, shall be glad for them,.... Either for the wild beasts, satyrs, owls, and vultures, that shall inhabit Edom or Rome, and because it shall be an habitation for

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. The solitary place - literally, a dry place, tsiyaah (H6723), without springs of water.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 35 The joyful flourishing of Christ’ s kingdom, ,2. The weak he strengthens and comforts, ,4. His miracles, ,6. The prosperity and peace of his people, . And as the land of God’ s enemies, which was exceeding fruitful, shall be turned into a desolate wilderness, as was declared in the foregoing chapter; so, on the contrary, Emmanuel’ s land, or the seat of God’ s church and people, which formerly was deserted and despised like a wilderness, and which the rage and malice of their enemies had brought to desolation, shall flourish exceedingly. For them; for the wilderness and solitary place; or, for these things, which were prophesied in the foregoing destruction, concerning the ruin of the implacable enemies of God and his church. But that Hebrew letter which is in the end of this Hebrew verb, and is here rendered for them, is by all the ancient translators, and by divers others, neglected in their translations, as if it were only added to the verb paragogically, as grammarians speak; and therefore those two words may well be omitted.

Isaiah 35:1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.Ver. 1. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them.] The Edomites, and other enemies, have had their part. It hath been sufficiently said, "Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him." And now the prophet is bidden to say to the righteous, to tell him so from the Lord, that it "shall be well with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him." The "wilderness" and the "desert," that is, the poor people of God that have been oppressed and slighted in this world, shall be restored into a happy and flourishing estate. The Church shall have her halcyon days under Hezekiah, but especially under Christ, she shall have it both in temporals and spirituals.

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 paint the beauty of the chosen land flourishing once more as “the garden of Jehovah” (Genesis 13:10), and therefore a fit type of that which is in a yet higher sense the “Paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).

CHAPTER XXXV Flourishing state of the Church of God consequent to the awful judgments predicted in the preceding chapter. The images employed in the description are so very consolatory and sublime as to oblige us to extend their fulfilment to that period of the Gospel dispensation when Messiah shall take unto himself his great power and reign. The fifth and sixth verses were literally accomplished by our Saviour and his apostles: but that the miracles wrought in the first century were not the only import of the language used by the prophet, is sufficiently plain from the context. They, therefore, have a farther application; and are contemporary with, or rather a consequence of, the judgments of God upon the enemies of the Church in the latter days; and so relate to the greater influence and extension of the Christian faith, the conversion of the Jews, their restoration to their own land, and the second advent of Christ. Much of the imagery of this chapter seems to have been borrowed from the exodus from Egypt: but it is greatly enlivened by the life, sentiments, and passions ascribed to inanimate objects; all nature being represented as rejoicing with the people of God in consequence of their deliverance; and administering in such an unusual manner to their relief and comfort, as to induce some commentators to extend the meaning of the prophecy to the blessedness of the saints in heaven, 1-10. The various miracles our Lord wrought are the best comment on this chapter, which predicts those wondrous works and the glorious state of the Christian Church. See the parallel texts in the margin. On this chapter Bishop Lowth has offered some important emendations. I shall introduce his translation, as the best yet given of this singular prophecy: - 1. The desert and the waste shall be glad; And the wilderness shall rejoice, and flourish: 2. Like the rose shall it beautifully flourish; And the well-watered plain of Jordan shall also rejoice: The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, The beauty of Carmel and of Sharon; These shall behold the glory of JEHOVAH, The majesty of our God. 3. Strengthen ye the feeble hands, And confirm ye the tottering knees. 4. Say ye to the faint-hearted, Be ye strong; Fear ye not; behold your God! Vengeance will come; the retribution of God: He himself will come, and will deliver you. 5. Then shall be unclosed the eyes of the blind; And the ears of the deaf shall be opened: 6. Then shall the lame bound like the hart, And the tongue of the dumb shall sing; For in the wilderness shall burst forth waters, And torrents in the desert: 7. And the glowing sand shall become a pool, And the thirsty soil bubbling springs: And in the haunt of dragons shall spring forth The grass with the reed and the bulrush. 8.

1, 2. Joy in the desert, now transformed into a fertile and luxuriant plain. Cf. ch. Isaiah 41:18 f.

The wilderness and the solitary place - This is evidently figurative language, such as is often employed by the prophets.

1. The wilderness and the solitary place — “The solitary place” spoken of in the previous chapter, but now the home of the wild beasts no longer. See on Isaiah 35:7.