Canter Bridge

Chapter 35 of the book of Isaiah initiates a bridge of sorts between the large section of the book that precedes it and the section or sections that follow. This short chapter is intensely lyrical, profoundly hopeful, and unshrinkingly exuberant.

As any large bridging element must do, it features themes that are familiar to us from glimpses we’ve enjoyed in the darker first section, themes that are developed widely and at times wildly in the chapters that follow.

Consisting of only ten verses, chapter 35 demands quotation in full.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; 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.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. 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. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35:1–10 ESV)

The chapter is a hymn to the return home of an exiled community that by all rights should have perished in captivity, as exiled peoples of the day were expected to cooperate in doing. It takes up and luxuriates in themes that have become the best-known tropes for readers of Isaiah. In so doing, it hints that those early glimpses of such promise are to become agenda-setting and panoramic in short order.

At the risk of singling out just one or two of these themes, the chapter transforms the death-dealing barrier between here and there that is a desert into a security-assured highway back home. All that is dead and dry blooms and waters. What once murdered the innocent with its savage heat now beautifies their path home and hydrates their dry tongues.

Yet it is a particularly tender turn of phrase that I wish to highlight here:

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’

This declaration shows that the news of return—brilliant and catalyzing as it looks from our distance—was not necessarily to be welcomed by those who had made their discouraged peace with exile. Such people, who deserve our sympathy, are possessed of ‘weak hands’ and ‘feeble knees’ that will require some strengthening if Return is to become more than a promising song. The devil ya’ knows, after all, looks better than the one ya’ don’t.

But hands and knees are not the only deficient body parts among captive Judah. The text reaches out to those who have an anxious heart (so ESV). A more literal reading might produce this:

Say to the hurried of heart (alternatively, ‘the racing of heart‘), ‘Be strong; fear not!  (Hebrew: נמהרי־לב)

To some readers, this rather poetic diagnosis will sound instantly familiar.

YHWH’s promise comes to anxiety-ridden, racing-hearted captives. It becomes good news to the adrenaline-rushed, panic-attacked little ones, the cowering and the self-sheltering. It dares them to reconsider the terms they have negotiated with their terrifying world and to accept a new and rather boisterous name, one with a slightly in-your-face confidence over against the jackals and bandits who used to patrol this road: the Redeemed.