8 And a highway will be there; its name will be, The Holy Way; the unclean and the sinner may not go over it, and those who go on it will not be turned out of the way by the foolish.
Go in by the narrow door; for wide is the door and open is the way which goes to destruction, and great numbers go in by it. For narrow is the door and hard the road to life, and only a small number make discovery of it.
Let your desire be for peace with all men, and to be made holy, without which no man may see the Lord;
For the grace of God has come, giving salvation to all men, Training us so that, turning away from evil and the desires of this world, we may be living wisely and uprightly in the knowledge of God in this present life; Looking for the glad hope, the revelation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, so that he might make us free from all wrongdoing, and make for himself a people clean in heart and on fire with good works.
Like children ruled by God, do not go back to the old desires of the time when you were without knowledge: But be holy in every detail of your lives, as he, whose servants you are, is holy;
Who gave us salvation, marking us out for his purpose, not on account of our works, but in the measure of his purpose and his grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,
Go through, go through the doors; make ready the way of the people; let the highway be lifted up; let the stones be taken away; let a flag be lifted up over the peoples.
And I will take the blind by a way of which they had no knowledge, guiding them by roads strange to them: I will make the dark places light before them, and the rough places level. These things will I do and will not give them up.
A voice of one crying, Make ready in the waste land the way of the Lord, make level in the lowland a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and let the rough places become level, and the hilltops become a valley,
And there will be a highway for the rest of his people from Assyria; as there was for Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.
And it will come about that the rest of the living in Zion, and of those who have been kept from destruction in Jerusalem, will be named holy, even everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem:
And at your back, when you are turning to the right hand or to the left, a voice will be sounding in your ears, saying, This is the way in which you are to go.
They will not be in need of food or drink, or be troubled by the heat or the sun: for he who has mercy on them will be their guide, taking them by the springs of water. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways will be lifted up. See, these are coming from far; and these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
And I will say, Make it high, make it high, get ready the way, take the stones out of the way of my people.
Put up guiding pillars, make road signs for yourself: give attention to the highway, even the way in which you went: be turned again, O virgin of Israel, be turned to these your towns.
By the new and living way which he made open for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having a great priest over the house of God, Let us go in with true hearts, in certain faith, having our hearts made free from the sense of sin and our bodies washed with clean water: Let us keep the witness of our hope strong and unshaking, for he is true who has given his word:
But you are a special people, a holy nation, priests and kings, a people given up completely to God, so that you may make clear the virtues of him who took you out of the dark into the light of heaven. In the past you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; then there was no mercy for you, but now mercy has been given to you.
But having faith in his word, we are looking for a new heaven and a new earth, which will be the resting-place of righteousness.
And nothing unclean may come into it, or anyone whose works are cursed or false; but only those whose names are in the Lamb's book of life.
This is the law of the house: On the top of the mountain all the space round it on every side will be most holy. See, this is the law of the house.
Good and upright is the Lord: so he will be the teacher of sinners in the way. He will be an upright guide to the poor in spirit: he will make his way clear to them.
The opening of your words gives light; it gives good sense to the simple.
I go in the road of righteousness, in the way of right judging:
The highways are waste, no man is journeying there: the agreement is broken, he has made sport of the towns, he has no thought for man.
Your people will all be upright, the land will be their heritage for ever; the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, to be for my glory.
And I will give them one heart and one way, so that they may go on in the worship of me for ever, for their good and the good of their children after them: And I will make an eternal agreement with them, that I will never give them up, but ever do them good; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not go away from me.
In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God. They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.
The law of the Lord is good, giving new life to the soul: the witness of the Lord is certain, giving wisdom to the foolish.
Let the nations be awake, and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will be seated as judge of all the nations round about.
On that day all the bells of the horses will be holy to the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house will be like the basins before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of armies: and all those who make offerings will come and take them for boiling their offerings: in that day there will be no more traders in the house of the Lord of armies.
See, the virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and they will give him the name Immanuel, that is, God with us.
If any man is ready to do God's pleasure he will have knowledge of the teaching and of where it comes from--from God or from myself.
For by his act we were given existence in Christ Jesus to do those good works which God before made ready for us so that we might do them.
Because it is God's purpose that our way of life may be not unclean but holy.
This is why they are before the high seat of God; and they are his servants day and night in his house: and he who is seated on the high seat will be a tent over them. They will never be in need of food or drink: and they will never again be troubled by the burning heat of the sun: For the Lamb who is on the high seat will be their keeper and their guide to fountains of living water: and God will make glad their eyes for ever.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 35
Commentary on Isaiah 35 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 35
As after a prediction of God's judgments upon the world (ch. 24) follows a promise of great mercy to be had in store for his church (ch. 25), so here after a black and dreadful scene of confusion in the foregoing chapter we have, in this, a bright and pleasant one, which, though it foretel the flourishing estate of Hezekiah's kingdom in the latter part of his reign, yet surely looks as far beyond that as the prophecy in the foregoing chapter does beyond the destruction of the Edomites; both were typical, and it concerns us most to look at those things which they were typical of, the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. When the world, which lies in wickedness, shall be laid in ruins, and the Jewish church, which persisted in infidelity, shall become a desolation, then the gospel church shall be set up and made to flourish.
Thus do we find more of Christ and heaven in this chapter than one would have expected in the Old Testament.
Isa 35:1-4
In these verses we have,
Isa 35:5-10
"Then, when your God shall come, even Christ, to set up his kingdom in the world, to which all the prophets bore witness, especially towards the conclusion of their prophecies of the temporal deliverances of the church, and this evangelical prophet especially-then look for great things.'