Isaiah 35
Isaiah 35 — Commentary and Meaning
The short answer
Isaiah 35 is one of the most hopeful chapters in the Old Testament. It opens with a desert bursting into bloom: the wilderness is glad, the dry land rejoices, and barren ground blossoms "like a rose." The picture is deliberate. The wasteland that once stood between God's exiled people and their home is being transformed into a garden, because God himself is coming to save them.
The chapter then turns to the people making that journey. Weak hands are strengthened, feeble knees made firm, and fearful hearts told, "Be strong! Don't be afraid." When God arrives, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap "like a deer," and the mute sing. The healing of the land and the healing of the people belong together: creation and humanity are restored in the same act of rescue.
At the center of it all runs a road—the "Highway of Holiness." It is a safe, protected way through the transformed wilderness, reserved for the redeemed. No lion or ravenous animal threatens it, and even wayfarers who might lose their way cannot go astray on it. This is exodus language: as God once led Israel out of Egypt through the desert, he will lead the ransomed home again.
The chapter ends at the destination. The redeemed arrive in Zion with singing, crowned with everlasting joy, and "sorrow and sighing shall flee away." The New Testament picks up both halves of this vision. Jesus points to the healings of verses 5–6 as the sign of who he is, and the closing promise of verse 10 reappears at the very end of the Bible, in Revelation's picture of a world where tears, grief, and death are gone for good.
What scholars say
These two excerpts trace where Isaiah 35 travels in the New Testament: Brueggemann and Strawn show how Jesus answers John the Baptist by pointing to the healings of Isaiah 35:5–6, tying his work to the highway back home to God and to the exodus, while Barclay shows how the promise of Isaiah 35:10 belongs to the prophets' dream of a world without tears, grief, or death.
“Three points of connection between our text and the New Testament can be noted briefly: First, in response to John the Baptist’s query if Jesus is indeed “the one to come,” Jesus alludes to the healing promised in Isaiah 35:5–6 as proof of his identity (Matthew 11:5; Luke 7:22; see also Mark 7:37). This means that Jesus’s work in the Gospels is part of the highway of holiness back home to God. Second, further testimony to the exodusing God and the fundamental import of the exodus event is found in the fact that Christ’s passion takes place during Passover. Third, the second point casts light on a fascinating detail in the story of the Transfiguration. Luke 9:31 provides details about what Moses and Elijah say to Jesus when they appear alongside him: they “spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
“This fellowship with God in the golden age brings certain things. Tears and grief and crying and pain have gone. That, too, had been the dream of the prophets of past times. ‘They shall obtain joy and gladness,’ said Isaiah of the pilgrims of the heavenly way, ‘and sorrow and sighing shall flee away’ (Isaiah 35:10). ‘I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress’ (Isaiah 65:19). Death, too, shall be gone. That, too, had been the dream of the ancient prophets. ‘He will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces’ (Isaiah 25:8).”
What it means for you
Isaiah 35 speaks to anyone who feels stuck in a wilderness—grief, exhaustion, a long stretch of life that looks barren. Its word to "those who have a fearful heart" is not a demand to try harder but an announcement: God is coming, and the road home runs through the very desert you're standing in. The chapter invites you to read your hardest terrain differently, as a place God can transform rather than a place he has abandoned.
It also gives you somewhere to aim your hope. The joy at the end of the chapter isn't wishful thinking; it's a destination. Weak hands, feeble knees, and tired hearts are all welcome on this highway.
Isaiah 35 in context
Isaiah 35 comes right after Isaiah 34, a dark oracle of judgment on the nations, especially Edom, whose land becomes a desolate waste. The contrast is the point: one landscape withers under judgment while another blooms under salvation. The chapter also sits near the seam of the book of Isaiah, closing out the first major section (chapters 1–39) and anticipating the great message of comfort and homecoming that begins in chapter 40, where a voice again cries out to prepare a way through the wilderness for God and his returning people.