Isaiah 35:1-10; Let the Advent Celebration Truly Begin!

"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8 A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

I. Introduction

With this passage we come to the pinnacle of Advent joy, the zenith of Isaiah's hopeful expressions. Well, if you think about it for a while, maybe you would have trouble making quantitative distinctions between the levels of hope in Is. 2; Is. 7; Is 9.; Is. 11 and here. Nevertheless, we have such bold, unrestrained, jubilant hope here that only the coldest or hardest of hearts can't be stirred by this passage. My comments here will only focus on the last six verses (5-10). The three images that are most powerful to me are the waters bursting forth (v. 6); the highway which shall be "there" (v. 8), and the joy upon the heads of the redeemed (v. 10). I hope that if you catch the spirit of this passage, your days, too, might be joyful.

I can never read this passage without Handel's Messiah immediately coming to mind. Near the end of Part I, after the soprano reaches heights of joy (and musical note "highs"!), the alto sings:

"Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the deaf shall sing..."

This text is crucial to Handle's presentation of the unfolding story of redemption.

II. The Waters Burst Forth (v. 6)

The first sign that something new is happening right before our eyes is the transformation of the desert. Deserts are an ever-present reality in the Holy Land. Though they can become torrential streams at times (which probably provides the background image for this passage), their dessication symbolizes the extreme dryness that can take over the spiritual life also. In this new time, when the "eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped," we also have reference to waters. The verse that stopped me in my tracks was v. 6b:

"For waters shall break forth in the wilderness..."

When I looked up the Hebrew verb bqa, translated as "break forth," I began a journey of imaginative power, beauty and shock. One dictionary runs through the various ways to translate this verb into English. These include: "cleave, divide, break through, rip open a woman with child, to be laid open, hatch, rend, tear in pices (as wild beasts), break through..." Quite a linguistic reach in this verb. I decided to lok at a few verses with this verb. Here are few:

"Then shall light break forth (bqa) like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly," Is. 58:8.

"They hatch (bqa) adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web..." Is. 59:5.

"Then a breach (bqa) was made in the city wall; the king with all the soldiers fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls.." II Kings 25:4.

"And all the people went up following him (Solomon), playing on pipes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth quaked (bqa) at their noise."

"The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open (bqa), and the colds drop down the dew...," Prov. 3:19-20.

Together these texts give us a word of remarkable scope and power. There is a generative or explosive force behind the word. I especially like the Prov. 3 text just quoted--the verb takes on the image of primeval potency, of an almost thunderous deep-in-the-earth earthquake rumbling. This is the kind of image that knocks your socks off, that makes you as well as all nature almost cower before it. So, when I turn back to the English of 35:6, I am a little disappointed. It does have waters "breaking forth" in the wilderness but then it concludes with "streams in the desert." Those last four words give the text a "Row, row, row your boat" type of feeling, which is anything but the true sense. God's work in making the wilderness come alive is tantamount to a new creation, a bursting forth of divine energy which was restrained deep in the earth. Catch that for Advent.

I need one more essay to finish my thoughts.

3117