“…it shall be called the Highway of Holiness …”
(Isa. 35:8, NKJV)
In this teaching, we need to conclude the prophetic examination of the verse currently under purview. This text is an apt illustration of the current coming, as well as a forecast of the kingdom of Christ, that Rock which is loosening itself without the help of human hands. We will discuss the entire pericope in which this pivotal verse is embedded, as a living construction site, as we did in the teaching of Day 1594-1596. Within this lies principles and patterns which, if read correctly, can manifest a process “to recover what has been forgotten, to restore what has been lost, to perpetuate the presence or being of words” (Foucault’s words). Earlier we referred to these patterns as discursive thought, and found: This mystery of discursivity is also a generative germ cell of the gospel of Christ.
One should actually read Isa. 35:10 along with the preceding verses 8 and 9, for logical syntactic reasons: “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there …”
Your language sense should already alert you to the fact that verses 8 and 9 both foreground the deictic spatial concept there. Because verse 8 begins with the conjunction “And,” it is thus further clear that it is referring to the verses that precede it, and that outline that space. Verse 7 has clear references to space, but it also starts with the conjunction “And,” which means we have to go back to yet an earlier verse. But verse 6 starts with the word “Then,” which implies that something happened before it, thus we need to move to verse 5. But verse 5 also begins with “Then,” so for the same argument as just outlined, we need to move even further back, to verse 4: “Say to those who are fearful-hearted, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you.’”
In this fourth verse of Isa. 35 there is also a word that is repeated, the word come, and because the pericope relies on repetition to point out importance, we need to have a look at whether there is any repetition in verses 1-3. In verse 2 the word glory is repeated; in verse 1 there is correspondence between the following words/phrases: desert, wilderness, wasteland. In verses 1 and 2 the word blossom is repeated. In verse 2 rejoice and joy and singing.
In verse 8 we find no fewer than 3 repetitive instances of the same word/concept, in a single Scripture: highway, Highway of Holiness, road, what absolutely points to the importance of these words/concepts. Who walks on this way? There is clear correspondence between save (verse 4) and redeemed (verse 9) and ransomed (verse 10).
To summarise, the repetition in this section thus looks as follows (follow each colour or emboldened or underlined element; obviously it is much richer than what was just indicated in brief:
- The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
- It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel [= “garden-land’] and Sharon [= “plane, straight away”). They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellency of our God.
- Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
- Say to those who arefearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save”
- Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
- Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
- The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of jackals, where each lay, there shall begrass with reeds and rushes.
- A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall befor others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray.
- No lion shall be there, nor shall anyravenous beast go up on it; it 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, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
If you pay careful attention you will notice that verse 3 has no internal references, but is repeated almost verbatim in an external instance in the New Testament, in Heb. 12:12-13: “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” Straight paths are not found in the Isaiah verse, but is present in the rest of the pericope. If Luke 3:5 describes the spirit of Elijah that would function through John the Baptist, it is done as follows: “Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth …” In John 1:23 there is the testimony: “He said: ‘I am The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord.”’
This straight path is not just Jesus as the Way (“I am the Way – John 14:6); it is also not the first Christian church, which was known as “the Way” (Acts 24:14). In Heb. 10:20 the road to the third dimension, the Holy of Holies, is called “a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh” – this is what the redeemed will walk upon. If the Bride are “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30), the Way clearly points to “the mystery … (of the Body of) Christ.” This Way is the “gospel of Christ” that reveals the gospel of glory; this Way is the deictic there that is foregrounded. The excellence (= the manifested substance of glory) becomes a reality in the brokenness of the wasteland when God himself comes, manifested in his Son, or then: in His parousia. Then the garden-land, or paradise, comes, the third dimension comes into being, marked by joy and gladness. It breaks forth through the fountains of water (calling and purpose/ rhema-words) that are released. The redeemed will no longer be threatened by the darkness; there will be no roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8), and no ravenous beast will go there; and finally, Satan will be definitively dealt with (Isa. 40:2): “Her princes in her midst are [NO LONGER] roaring lions.” (Zeph. 3:3)
Here we’ve demonstrated how Scripture can be handled as a living construction site, and how principles and patterns can be read into it. By doing so we “recover what has been forgotten.”
- Selah: Try to read a pericope (perhaps Isa. 40?) in this way.
- Read: 13-18
- Memorise: 13:3 (how does this link to the teaching?)
