From: Isaiah 35:4-7a
Promise of Redemption
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Commentary:
35:1-10 The focus now changes with this hymn celebrating Zion, the holy city. It
presents a picture of the restored Jerusalem in language reminiscent of that of
chapters 11 and 12. God who manifested his presence and protection during the
exodus, when Israel came up out of Egypt, will do so again in wonderful ways
as the redeemed flock back home to Zion. He will show them the route and give
them a highway and be with them in a sort of solemn procession to where he
dwells (v. 8). Just as in Babylon there was a “Holy Way” lined with statues of
lions and dragons that led to the temple of Marduk, the redeemed will have a tru-
ly “Holy Way” to take them to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. The joy of the
returnees is compounded by the instant cure of the blind, deaf and lame (cf. 29:
18-19), which is an anticipation of what will happen in the messianic era.
The miracles worked by Jesus demonstrate that the moment of true redemption
foreseen indistinctly by the prophets has come to pass (cf. Mt 11:2-6). St Justin,
showing the Jew Tryphon that this prophecy found fulfillment in Christ, points out:
“Christ is the stream of living water that flows from God; he sprang up in the de-
sert wastes of ignorance of God; that is, in the parched earth of all the nations.
He, who was born among your people, cured those who were blind from birth,
and the deaf and the lame: by his word alone, they leapt and heard and saw
once more. He raised the dead and gave them new life, and by all his good works
prompted men to see Him for who he is. [...] He did all these things to convince
those who were to believe in him, whatever bodily defects they might have, that
if they obeyed the teachings that he gave them, he would raise them up again at
his Second Coming and make them whole and perfect and immortal as He is”
(”Dialogus Cum Tryphone”, 69,6).
The Church uses this passage from Isaiah in the Advent liturgy (3rd Sunday, Cy-
cle A) to encourage the faithful in joyous hope that God will come and bring sal-
vation.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.