- H.—“And a highway shall be there and a way, and it shall be called, The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men though fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon: it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there” (Is. 35:8–9). What are we to understand by these words of the prophet?
ANSWER. —The words in question are part of a prophecy beginning at the 1st verse of chapter xxxiv. and running on to the last verse of chapter xxxv. We must consider the prophecy as a whole before we can get an understanding of this part. The words in question are also highly figurative though not symbolic: that is, they are the figurative dressing up of the literal. They belong to the class of words employed by the same prophet in speaking of the mission of John the Baptist five chapters further on: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord: make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low,” &c. (40:3–4). The preparation thus described was not a work of civil engineering as the words literally taken would import. It was a work accomplished in the minds of men. Nevertheless, the terms employed to describe the work are not symbolic terms, but the figures of a literal work. There was a literal “one” who would literally “cry” or cause his voice to be heard in the literal “wilderness” in preparation of the way of the literal Lord, who would make his literal appearance: but there was to be no literal filling up of valleys or smoothing of rough roads, or casting up of a literal highway. These are the figures of the preparation of the Lord’s way among men.
So in the prophecy quoted above, the “highway” is a high way certainly, but not an elevated surveyor’s road. It is of the character described in the promise of Isaiah 58:14, to those who conform to the Lord’s will: “I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth.” This does not mean the Swiss Alps or the Indian Himalayas, but the places of high rank among men—the places at present occupied by the kings and princes of the earth, whether they ride along the literal valleys or climb the mountain-side. The nature and locality or the high way we must learn by considering the prophecy as a whole.
Verse 1 of chapter xxxiv. invites the nations to listen. A purpose has been formed by Yahweh concerning their armies, which He is about to announce. He announces it: their armies are wholly to be given to slaughter (verse 2). The whole social and political system based upon the power of their armies is to be dissolved in judgment (verse 4), inflicted at Bozrah (verse 6) in the day of the Lord’s vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion (verse 8). Idumœa, the scene of this fearful stroke of judgment, is to be given over to perpetual desolation (verses 9–17). As the result, Zion’s desert solitudes will rejoice (35:1), for the glory of the Lord shall be revealed (2). In prospect of this, the now fearful and weak who trust in Yahweh’s purpose are summoned to be strong of heart. God will come with vengeance to save them (verse 4). The New Testament shews in what way (2 Thess. 1:7– 10). Then ensues an era of emancipation for the friends of God. Even the (figuratively) blind, deaf, and lame share the blessedness (verses 5, 6). Streams of knowledge and light and joy and blessing break forth in the desert of human life everywhere (verse 7). But as the result of what?
Where will be the kernel of the new age of glory? where the cause that operates such a revolutionary and beneficent change in the condition of “all the families of the earth?” It is here where the “highway” comes into view. “A highway shall be there.” The highways have everywhere else been abolished. “In that day,” as the prophet writes earlier (chap. 24:21), “the Lord of Hosts shall punish the host of the HIGH ONES that are on high (namely) the kings of the earth upon the earth.” They have been deposed and gathered as prisoners, after the type of the Kings of Canaan to Joshua’s presence. Their governments have been ended: their high places are no more. But an highway shall be THERE—that is, in the Lord’s land (verse 8). “It shall be called, The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it.” This distinguishes it from all other highways that have ever been. The high places of the earth are not places of holiness, and never have been so: “the spirituals of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12) still continues to be the description of those who inhabit them. The unclean— (those who are such in God’s regard)—not only pass over their highways, but swarm in and cover them. The divinely clean cannot walk among them. But here is a highway where the state of things will be reversed: it will be a way of holiness, where the unclean will be unknown. As we read in the Apocalypse: “There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Continuing, Isaiah says: “It shall be for those”—defined in verse 10 as “the ransomed of the Lord.”
These at present are “the wayfaring men”— strangers and pilgrims—considered fools by their contemporaries in every generation of their development, and no doubt considerably such when judged by current standards of wisdom; for, as Jesus says: “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” Though fools now—fools for Christ’s sake, as Paul was (1 Cor. 4:10)— they will make no error when they come to walk the way of holiness. Invested with the incorruptible and immortal nature of the Spirit and exalted to power, in the Kingdom of God, they will govern mankind infallibly, and be the most efficient rulers the world has ever seen. The rulers of the present order are lions and ravenous beasts: none such will have place in the Kingdom of God. The men who will then ride in the high places of the earth will be lambs and shepherds by comparison—men who will govern in the spirit of gentleness and kindness, and in mercy and truth and the fear of God. Upon their own heads will be joy and honour: fled for ever will be sorrow and sighing.
(2001). The Christadelphian, 27 (electronic ed.), 182–183.
