Isaiah 40:4
“Prepare the Way of the LORD”Isaiah 40:3–5
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain
Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain
Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain
- כָּלkoleveryH3605N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
- גֶּיאgei'valleyH1516N-csNoun Singular common gender Absolute
- יִנָּשֵׂאyi·na·Se'it will be lifted upH5375V-Niphal-Imperf-3msVerb Niphal Imperfect 3rd Singular Masculine
- וְכָלve·kholand everyH3605Conj-w ¦ N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Constructוְandכָלevery
- הַרharmountainH2022N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
- וְגִבְעָהve·giv·'Ahand hillH1389Conj-w ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteוְandגִבְעָהhill
- יִשְׁפָּלוּyish·Pa·luthey will become lowH8213V-Qal-Imperf-3mpVerb Qal Imperfect 3rd Plural Masculine
- וְהָיָהve·ha·Yahand it will becomeH1961Conj-w ¦ V-Qal-ConsecPerf-3msVerb Qal Consecutive Perfect 3rd Singular Masculineוְandהָיָהit will become
- הֶעָקֹבhe·'a·Kothe steep [place]H6121Art ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteהֶtheעָקֹבsteep [place]
- לְמִישׁוֹרle·mi·Shor[into] level groundH4334Prep-l ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteלְ[into]מִישׁוֹרlevel ground
- וְהָרְכָסִיםve·ha·re·kha·Simand the rough placesH7406Conj-w ¦ Art ¦ N-mpNoun Plural Masculine Absoluteוְandהָtheרְכָסִיםrough places
- לְבִקְעָהle·vik·'Ah[into] a plainH1237Prep-l ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteלְ[into]בִקְעָהa plain
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?
This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.
Words in [ ] are added by the English.
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Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Isaiah 40:3–8. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.
The time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, having come, the people of God must be prepared, by repentance and faith, for the favours designed them; and, in order to call them to both these, we have here the voice of one crying in the wilderness, which may be applied to those prophets who were with the captives in their wilderness-state, and who, when they saw the day of their deliverance dawn, called earnestly upon them to prepare for it, and assured them that all the difficulties which stood in the way of their deliverance should be got over. It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us if we find God's grace preparing us for it, Psalm 10:17. But it must be applied to John the Baptist; for, though God was the speaker, he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and his business was to prepare the way of the Lord, to dispose men's minds for the reception and entertainment of the gospel of Christ. The way of the Lord is prepared,
I.By repentance for sin; that was it which John Baptist preached to all Judah and Jerusalem (Matthew 3:2, Matthew 3:5), and thereby made ready a people prepared for the Lord, Luke 1:17.
1.The alarm is given; let all take notice of it at their peril; God is coming in a way of mercy, and we must prepare for him, Isaiah 40:3-5. If we apply it to their captivity, it may be taken as a promise that, whatever difficulties lie in their way, when they return they shall be removed. This voice in the wilderness (divine power going along with it) sets pioneers on work to level the roads. But it may be taken as a call to duty, and it is the same duty that we are called to, in preparation for Christ's entrance into our souls.
(1.)We must get into such a frame of spirit as will dispose us to receive Christ and his gospel: "Prepare you the way of the Lord; prepare yourselves for him, and let all that be suppressed which would be an obstruction to his entrance. Make room for Christ: Make straight a highway for him." If he prepare the end for us, we ought surely to prepare the way for him. Prepare for the Saviour; lift up your heads, O you gates! Psalm 24:7, Psalm 24:9. Prepare for the salvation, the great salvation, and other minor deliverances. Let us get to be fit for them, and then God will work them out. Let us not stand in our own light, nor put a bar in our own door, but find, or make, a highway for him, even in that which was desert ground. This is that for which he waits to be gracious.
(2.)We must get our hearts levelled by divine grace. Those that are hindered from comfort in Christ by their dejections and despondencies are the valleys that must be exalted. Those that are hindered from comfort in Christ by a proud conceit of their own merit and worth are the mountains and hills that must be made low. Those that have entertained prejudices against the word and ways of God, that are untractable, and disposed to thwart and contradict even that which is plain and easy because it agrees not with their corrupt inclinations and secular interests, are the crooked that must be made straight and the rough places that must be made plain. Let but the gospel of Christ have a fair hearing, and it cannot fail of acceptance. This prepares the way of the Lord; and thus God will by his grace prepare his own way in all the vessels of mercy, whose hearts he opens as he did Lydia's.
2.When this is done the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, Isaiah 40:5.
(1.)When the captives are prepared for deliverance Cyrus shall proclaim it, and those shall have the benefit of it, and those only, whose hearts the Lord shall stir up with courage and resolution to break through the discouragements that lay in their way, and to make nothing of the hills, and valleys, and all the rough places.
(2.)When John Baptist has for some time preached repentance, mortification, and reformation, and so made ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luke 1:17), then the Messiah himself shall be revealed in his glory, working miracles, which John did not, and by his grace, which is his glory, binding up and healing with consolations those whom John had wounded with convictions. And this revelation of divine glory shall be a light to lighten the Gentiles. All flesh shall see it together, and not the Jews only; they shall see and admire it, see it and bid it welcome; as the return out of captivity was taken notice of by the neighbouring nations, Psalm 126:2. And it shall be the accomplishment of the word of God, not one iota or tittle of which shall fall to the ground: The mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and therefore the hand of the Lord will effect it.
II.By confidence in the word of the Lord, and not in any creature.
The mouth of the Lord having spoken it, the voice has this further to cry (he that has ears to hear let him hear it), The word of our God shall stand for ever, Isaiah 40:8.
1.By this accomplishment of the prophecies and promises of salvation, and the performance of them to the utmost in due time, it appears that the word of the Lord is sure and what may be safely relied on. Then we are prepared for deliverance when we depend entirely upon the word of God, build our hopes on that, with an assurance that it will not make us ashamed: in a dependence upon this word we must be brought to own that all flesh is grass, withering and fading.
(1.)The power of man, when it does appear against the deliverance, is not to be feared; for it shall be as grass before the word of the Lord: it shall wither and be trodden down. The insulting Babylonians, who promise themselves that the desolations of Jerusalem shall be perpetual, are but as grass which the spirit of the Lord blows upon, makes nothing of, but blasts all its glory; for the word of the Lord, which promises their deliverance, shall stand for ever, and it is not in the power of their enemies to hinder the execution of it.
(2.)The power of man, when it would appear for the deliverance, is not to be trusted to; for it is but as grass in comparison with the word of the Lord, which is the only firm foundation for us to build our hope upon. When God is about to work salvation for his people he will take them off from depending upon creatures, and looking for it from hills and mountains. They shall fail them, and their expectations from them shall be frustrated: The Spirit of the Lord shall blow upon them; for God will have no creature to be a rival with him for the hope and confidence of his people; and, as it is his word only that shall stand for ever, so in that word only our faith must stand. When we are brought to this, then, and not till then, we are fit for mercy.
2.The word of our God, that glory of the Lord which is now to be revealed, the gospel, and that grace which is brought with it to us and wrought by it in us, shall stand for ever; and this is the satisfaction of all believers, when they find all their creature-comforts withering and fading like grass. Thus the apostle applies it to the word which by the gospel is preached unto us, and which lives and abides for ever as the incorruptible seed by which we are born again, 1 Peter 1:23-25. To prepare the way of the Lord we must be convinced,
(1.)Of the vanity of the creature, that all flesh is grass, weak and withering. We ourselves are so, and therefore cannot save ourselves; all our friends are so, and therefore are unable to save us. All the beauty of the creature, which might render it amiable, is but as the flower of grass, soon blasted, and therefore cannot recommend us to God and to his acceptance. We are dying creatures; all our comforts in this word are dying comforts, and therefore cannot be the felicity of our immortal souls. We must look further for a salvation, look further for a portion.
(2.)Of the validity of the promise of God. We must be convinced that the word of the Lord can do that for us which all flesh cannot - that, forasmuch as it stands for ever, it will furnish us with a happiness that will run parallel with the duration of our souls, which must live for ever; for the things that are not seen, but must be believed, are eternal.
Historical interpretation
Four Centuries of Reception
8 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [Isaiah 40:3-5] John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [Isaiah 40:3-5] And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. [Isaiah 40:3-5]
And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. [Isaiah 40:3-5]
It is said that the valleys are filled, because the Lord has entered the world, and has redeemed all the peoples from the bondage of the devil, and brought them back to the faith and adoration of their Creator and has taught them to hope in eternal salvation. This is also said, because he has filled the deep valleys and the horrible and inhospitable caves with ascetics, who, after abandoning the cares of this world, exclusively devote themselves to honor and praise God.
(Verse 3 onwards) The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. LXX: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God, for the Lord has spoken. When the scribes and Pharisees and Jewish leaders heard John preaching in the wilderness and baptizing with a baptism of repentance, they sent messengers to ask him if he was the Christ, or Elijah, or a prophet. And when he answered that he was none of these, they asked him again, 'Then who are you?' So that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? And he answered: I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, as Isaiah the Prophet said (John 1:22-23)'. In which it should be noted that the straight paths of the Lord and the ways of our God: the filling of valleys and mountains, the humbling of hills and the correction of the wicked, and the rough places made level: and the glory of the Lord and the salvation of our God, will not be proclaimed in Jerusalem, but in the solitude of the Church, and in the deserted multitude of the nations, of which we read above (Isaiah 35:1): 'Rejoice, O desert, and let the wilderness exult, and let it blossom like the lily.' For this knowledge of God was unknown and humbled by idols, lowly in confession, exalted in pride, rough and unyielding in wrath. But after the glory of the Lord appeared, and all flesh saw the salvation of God, everything suddenly changed, and the way of the Lord was prepared, so that the glory of God would appear in the wilderness. When the Lord was baptized in the Jordan and the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and remained in him, and the voice of the Father from above was heard, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him. (Matthew 3:17). And all flesh saw the salvation of God. Which is why it was called flesh, because it did not have the Holy Spirit before. Concerning this, the Lord says: My spirit will not remain in these people, because they are flesh (Gen. VI, 3). But that flesh will see the salvation of God, of which the same Joel spoke: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy (Joel. II, 28). This is not only what John proclaimed at that time, who was the precursor and forerunner of the word of God, rightly called the voice (Matth. III); but even to this day in the wilderness of the Gentiles, the teachers of the Churches cry out: that we may make straight paths and ways for God in our hearts, that we may be filled with virtues, and may be inclined with humility; that we may change what is evil into what is right, and what is rough into what is gentle: and thus we may deserve to see the glory of the Lord and the salvation of God.
According to the plain teaching of the Lord, the king’s highway is easy and smooth, though it may be felt as hard and rough. For those who piously and faithfully serve him, when they have taken on them the yoke of the Lord and have learned of him, that he is meek and lowly of heart, at once [they] somehow or other lay aside the burden of earthly passions and find no labor but rest for their souls, by the gift of the Lord. [To this] he himself testifies by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Stand on the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls.” For to them at once “the crooked shall become straight and the rough ways plain”; and they shall “taste and see that the Lord is gracious.” And when they hear Christ proclaiming in the Gospel, “Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you,” they will lay aside the burden of their sins and realize what follows: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The way of the Lord then has refreshment if it is kept according to his law.
He has clearly shown by these terms the facility of the evangelical proclamation: thanks to this facility, in a short time it filled the whole world. One should understand by “filled valleys” and “mountains and hills brought low” that literally it relates to a way that is level and cleared of all obstacles, but in a figurative sense, the souls of the unbelievers are the valleys, those who are lying in some way at the bottom of a pit and who do not have the intelligence to turn toward the heavens, while the mountains and the hills are the demons who are worshiped on the mountains and on the hills, whose deceit has been ended by the incarnation of our Savior.
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This verse
Every low place is raised and every height brought down, and crooked and rough ground is made straight and level, so that nothing stands in the way of the LORD’s coming.
“Every valley shall be exalted,”
The valley, gayʼ, is a narrow gorge between steep sides, and it is to be lifted up, nâsâʼ, and filled in. God raises the lowly (Luke 1:52).
“and every mountain and hill shall be made low:”
Every height is brought down, a picture of God humbling the proud and removing what stands in his way.
“and the crooked shall be made straight,”
ʻÂqôb is winding, uneven ground, and the same word is used of what is deceitful. God sets right what is twisted.
“and the rough places plain:”
Rugged ground is made level and smooth, so the road runs clear. Luke quotes this verse of John the Baptist’s preaching (Luke 3:5).
Passage studyIsaiah 40:3–5
Prepare Ye the Way of the LORD
Summary
These three verses tell how God’s comfort reaches his people in the second half of Isaiah. A voice calls out in the wilderness for a road to be made ready for the LORD. Every valley is to be raised, every mountain and hill brought low, and the crooked and rough ground made straight and level, so that a highway runs clear through the desert for our God. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed and all flesh will see it together, and this is sure because the LORD has spoken it. The Gospels tell us that John the Baptist was the voice, and the Lord who came after him was Jesus.
Where these verses come in Isaiah
Chapters 1 to 39 of Isaiah are largely words of judgment against Judah and the nations around it, warning of exile because of idolatry and unfaithfulness. Chapter 40 begins something new with God’s own tender words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (Isaiah 40:1), and the chapters from here to the end of the book are often called the Book of Comfort. The time of punishment is over, and these three verses tell how the comfort comes: God himself is coming to his people.
The exile in view is the one in Babylon, when Judah lost its land, its Temple and its king, and the people were left in suffering and despair. Isaiah spoke these words long before it happened, and they reached ahead to the people who would live through it and wonder whether God had left them. God’s answer to them is a road being built for him in the desert.
Who is the voice crying in the wilderness?
Isaiah gives the herald no name. We hear only a voice, qôwl, the word for any voice or sound, used here for a loud, public cry meant to be heard and acted on. The one calling has been sent by God to announce that he is about to arrive, as a herald goes ahead of a king. To those who first heard Isaiah, the voice announced God’s return with his people from Babylon.
The New Testament tells us who the voice was. Matthew, Mark and Luke all quote this verse about John the Baptist (Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4), and Luke quotes all three verses of the passage (Luke 3:4–6). In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist says it of himself: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (John 1:23). The word of God came to John in the wilderness (Luke 3:2), and he went out “preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Luke 3:3), calling people to get ready for the one coming after him. All four Gospels connect this verse with John, which makes it one of the clearest Old Testament prophecies to be fulfilled in the New.
The prophet Malachi takes up the same picture of one who goes before the Lord: “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (Malachi 3:1). The forerunner announces the Lord’s arrival and readies the hearts of the people to receive him.
A highway for our God
When a king was expected to travel through a region, it was the custom to have the roads made ready for him, and the nations did the same for the processions of their gods. The roads were cleared of obstacles, levelled and straightened, often at great cost, and the size of the work showed how great the coming ruler was. Isaiah applies that picture to the LORD. The road is for God himself, and its breadth and straightness speak of his majesty and of how certainly he is coming.
“Prepare” is pânâh, to clear a way and make it ready. “The way of the LORD”, derek Yᵉhôvâh, is the road on which the LORD himself will travel. “Make straight” is yâshar, to make straight, even and level, and the same word is used of what is right and upright, so a straightened road easily pictures a life set right with God. The “highway”, mᵉçillâh, is a raised, built-up road, prominent and well made, fit for a royal procession. And the road is “for our God”, ʼĕlôhîym. The God who is coming belongs to the people waiting for him, bound to them by his covenant, and he comes to redeem them.
Why the wilderness and the desert?
The voice cries in the wilderness, midbâr, and the highway runs through the desert, ʻărâbâh. Midbâr first means open country where flocks are driven to pasture, and so the empty land far from the towns. Both words describe barren, hard country where no grand road could exist by nature or ordinary effort, and that is where God promises to make one.
The wilderness was also a picture of Israel’s condition. Exile would leave the people desolate, and generations of sin and rebellion had left them spiritually barren. Yet the wilderness was the place where God had cared for Israel after the Exodus, feeding them with manna (Exodus 16), and where he met them at Sinai and gave them his covenant (Exodus 19). It had been a place of testing through forty years of wandering and a place where God made himself known. So when God’s coming begins in the wilderness, we learn that he does his great work in the places that look most hopeless.
Every valley exalted, every mountain made low
Verse 4 tells what the road builders are to do. Every valley, gayʼ, a gorge or narrow valley between steep sides, is to be “exalted”, lifted up and filled in. The verb nâsâʼ means to lift, and Scripture uses it in a very wide range of ways, including to hold up, to raise, to take away and to forgive. Every mountain and hill is to be made low. The crooked ground is to be made straight, and the rough places plain, which means level and smooth. When the work is done, nothing high or low, twisted or broken, is left standing between God and his people.
The word for crooked, ʻâqôb, describes uneven, winding ground, and it is also used of what is deceitful and corrupt. So the picture of a road made straight speaks of setting right what is morally twisted, ending injustice and deceit and establishing what is upright.
The raising of valleys and lowering of mountains also pictures something God does throughout Scripture, when he lifts up the lowly and brings down the proud. Mary sings of it: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:52–53). Those in the valleys of oppression, despair or obscurity are raised, and the pride and entrenched power that set themselves against God’s purposes are brought low.
Is the levelling literal or a picture?
The words describe real land, and the picture is of road building, but the meaning reaches beyond hills and valleys. For the exiles it spoke of the journey home from Babylon, which God would make possible as though he had levelled a road before them. Luke applies this very verse to the ministry of John the Baptist (Luke 3:5), and that shows us where the levelling matters most. John’s call to repentance and baptism brought down the proud and lifted the humble in people’s hearts so that they were ready to receive Jesus.
God calls his people to prepare the way, and the reason they prepare is that he has already chosen to come. Getting ready answers his grace and clears away what stands between us and him, such as sin, rebellion and unbelief, so that we can know his presence and receive the salvation he promises.
The glory of the LORD revealed
Glory, kâbôwd, comes from a root meaning weight or heaviness. Used of God, it means the weight of who he is: his greatness, splendour, honour and majesty, and his presence made evident. To be revealed, gâlâh, means to uncover or lay bare, so that what was hidden is plainly seen. God himself will bring his glory into the open.
For the people of Judah, God’s glory had long been bound up with his presence in the tabernacle and the Temple, often called the Shekinah. With the Temple lost, the promise that his glory would be revealed told them that he had not abandoned them. It also reached further than they had known, because this time his glory would be seen beyond one people and one place, and the nations who had watched Israel’s humiliation would see it too.
John tells us where this glory was seen: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Son is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). In Jesus the invisible God was seen, though at his first coming only those who believed recognised his glory.
How can all flesh see it?
“All flesh”, kol-bâsâr, means all mankind. The word bâsâr, flesh, also carries a sense of human frailty and mortality, so the phrase sets weak, mortal people before the glory of the eternal God. “Together”, yachad, means all at once and all alike, so that nobody is left out.
The return from Babylon was a first taste of this, and the full sight of it belongs to the return of Christ. Jesus said that “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30), and Revelation says, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him” (Revelation 1:7). On that day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). Habakkuk looks ahead to the same glory, when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14), and a psalm says, “The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory” (Psalm 97:6).
All flesh will see it with their eyes, at a real event the whole world witnesses, and they will see it with understanding too, for no one will be able to deny who God is. His purpose to save reaches out to all of creation.
For the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it
The promise ends with its guarantee. The mouth, peh, of the LORD has spoken, dâbar, and what he says he does. People’s promises can be broken, forgotten or blocked by circumstances, while God’s word carries its own power to come true. So the revealing of his glory rests on his will and power alone, and nothing people do or fail to do can hold it back. This is the ground of all the comfort that follows in Isaiah, and of every promise in Scripture.
Christ, the Lord who came
John the Baptist prepared the way, and Jesus is the LORD, our God, for whom the way was prepared. Isaiah’s road was for the LORD himself, and the one who came down it was Jesus. His coming was the long-awaited visit of God to his people, bringing comfort and salvation and setting up God’s eternal kingdom.
Jesus is also the way itself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). By his perfect life, his death on the cross and his resurrection, he made the crooked paths of sin straight, brought down the mountains of pride and self-righteousness, and filled the valleys of despair, so that sinners have a direct road to God. That is the righteousness of God given through faith in him, by which we are forgiven and reconciled to God (Romans 3:21–26). His first coming began this levelling, and his second coming will complete it in the new heaven and new earth, where all things are made new (Revelation 21:1–4).
Making ready for the Lord
Isaiah’s road was built for a King who was certain to come, and we live between his first coming and his second. Getting ready for him is the repentance John preached, and it goes on through the whole of a believer’s life. Pride, self-sufficiency, stubbornness and unforgiveness are the hills God brings down in us. He lifts us out of the valleys of discouragement, insecurity and old failures. Whatever is crooked in us, such as dishonesty, compromise or wrong done to others, he can make straight.
John was a voice that made the way ready for others, and we can do the same in our own place, telling people about Jesus and showing them his love so that they come to know him. When life feels like a wilderness, remember where God chose to build his highway. He makes a road through the desert, and his glory will be seen, because the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
Isaiah 40:3
“The voice of him that crieth”
A herald’s voice, qôwl, loud and public, sent ahead to announce that God is coming. Isaiah gives no name, and John the Baptist says, “I am the voice” (John 1:23).
“in the wilderness,”
Midbâr, the open, empty country beyond the towns. It pictures Israel’s desolation in exile, and it was the place where God had cared for Israel and met them at Sinai.
“Prepare ye the way of the LORD,”
A command to clear the road, pânâh, for the LORD himself, derek Yᵉhôvâh. For John’s hearers it meant repentance.
“make straight in the desert”
Yâshar, to make straight and level, a word also used of what is upright. The desert, ʻărâbâh, is barren ground where no road could be built by ordinary means.
“a highway for our God.”
The mᵉçillâh is a raised, built-up road fit for a royal procession. “Our God” tells the people that the one coming is their own covenant God.
Isaiah 40:4 This verse
“Every valley shall be exalted,”
The valley, gayʼ, is a narrow gorge between steep sides, and it is to be lifted up, nâsâʼ, and filled in. God raises the lowly (Luke 1:52).
“and every mountain and hill shall be made low:”
Every height is brought down, a picture of God humbling the proud and removing what stands in his way.
“and the crooked shall be made straight,”
ʻÂqôb is winding, uneven ground, and the same word is used of what is deceitful. God sets right what is twisted.
“and the rough places plain:”
Rugged ground is made level and smooth, so the road runs clear. Luke quotes this verse of John the Baptist’s preaching (Luke 3:5).
Isaiah 40:5
“And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,”
Glory, kâbôwd, is the weight of God’s greatness and presence, and revealed, gâlâh, means uncovered. It was seen in Jesus (John 1:14).
“and all flesh shall see it together:”
Kol-bâsâr, all mankind, frail and mortal, seeing it yachad, all at once. It will be seen in full when Christ returns (Revelation 1:7).
“for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
The guarantee of the whole promise. The LORD’s own mouth, peh, has spoken, dâbar, and what he says he does.
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