Is 35:1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them. — The Hebrew reads יִשְׂשׂוּם yissosum (“they shall rejoice”), that is, they shall exult together, referring to the nations and to the Idumaeans whom, in the preceding chapter, he said would be destroyed by God—meaning: among the unbelieving nations and among the Edomites who are to perish and therefore to lament, the inhabitants of the desert who are to be converted to Christ, that is, the faithful Gentiles and Christians, shall rejoice. Hence the Hebrew, in regard to sense, may clearly be translated in this way: The desert and the solitary place shall rejoice, and the dry land shall exult, as Vatable renders it. By “desert,” “solitude,” and “dry land,” he designates the Gentile world and the regions of the nations; meaning that the Gentile world, hitherto deserted by God—deprived of salvation, righteousness, true religion, and the worship of God, not sharing in these things nor being heir to sanctity, to grace, and to the joy that is in the Holy Spirit—shall, through Christ, receive them. Therefore, “the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,” that is, it shall succeed to the glory of the Synagogue and of the Jews, so that it will be a faithful people and a Church beloved by God.
Thus teach St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Eusebius (Demonstratio Evangelica VI.21), Hilary on Psalm 65, Justin in Apologia II, and Gregory Nazianzen in Oration I against Julian. Likewise Eusebius, Theodoret, Cyril, and Hilary think that this ornament was fulfilled when Jesus came from Galilee to the deserts of the Jordan to be baptized by John. Add to these Hilary and Justin above, Prosper in Praedicta III.13, and Athanasius in De Incarnatione Verbi, who teach that Christ referred to this passage when He was asked by the disciples of St. John: “Art thou he that art to come, or must we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3). For Christ replied: “Go and report to John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk,” and so on—things which the Prophet here (vv. 5–6) foretells would come to pass under Christ and through Christ.
Ruffinus and Palladius apply these things literally to Egypt in the time of St. Antony and afterward, when it abounded in the faithful and in monks, almost luxuriantly. Hear them: citing this passage of Isaiah, and explaining it, they say: “Although these things are spoken about the Church, nevertheless in the deserts of Egypt they have also been fulfilled historically; for to the cities there come such great multitudes seeking salvation as the deserts of Egypt have produced; as many peoples are found in the cities, almost as many are found in the deserts in the multitudes of monks, so that ‘where sin abounded’ (namely, idolatry), ‘there grace abounded yet more.’” Thus Ruffinus (Historia Monachorum II.7) and Palladius (Lausiac History 52).
It shall bloom with the beauty of the lily. In the lily is signified the purity and chastity of the life of the saints in the Church.
Is 35:2 It shall blossom abundantly. — The Church shall send forth new and abundant branches, flowers and fruits—both of new believers, of individuals and of nations, and also of new virtues; for it will produce armies of virgins, martyrs, monks, and so forth. But who will bring about such a transformation? None other, of course, than He “Who commands the lilies of the field to shine forth, and Who bids the earth bring forth herbs” (alluding to Wisdom 16 and Genesis 1).
The glory of Lebanon was given it. — Although Lebanon was occupied by the Gentiles, it nevertheless belonged to the Jews, as Joshua 13:6 shows; and from Lebanon they brought cedars, pines, and all rare and precious woods to Jerusalem. Lebanon therefore signifies the Jews and the Synagogue; likewise Sharon, the very pleasant and most fruitful plain of Judea, and Carmel, its fertile mountain. Meaning: all the ornaments, riches, and spiritual delights of the Synagogue and of the Jews shall be transferred to the Church and to the Gentiles. Hence Symmachus, for “Sharon,” renders “the fields,” says St. Jerome.
They themselves will see the glory of the Lord— namely, His glorious miracles, His glorious Apostles, the glorious charisms of the Holy Spirit, the glorious Sacraments, ceremonies, and sacred worship.
Is 35:3 Strengthen the hands that are weak. — This is an apostrophe to the Apostles, that they might rouse and stir up the Gentiles—cast down, sluggish, and timid—to zeal for faith, salvation, and good works through the Gospel.
Strengthen debilitated knees. — For in the very fainthearted—when struck by fear or great dread—the knees tremble and are as if dislocated; they stand astonished and cannot advance, but falter and waver. The reason is that fear in itself, and through the sadness accompanying it, contracts the heart; and since the afflicted heart draws vital spirits to itself, coldness, trembling, and sometimes paleness follow in the outer members, especially in those farthest from the heart—such as the hands and knees. Aristotle teaches this in Problems XXVII.6; Macrobius in Somnium Scipionis I.11; Celsus XIX.6; and Fracastorius in De Sympathia I.15 and 19.
Is 35:4 Say to the faiht of heart. — Meaning: “Say, O Apostles, to the Gentiles: Do not be fainthearted, do not despair of belonging to the children of Abraham; for God is able to raise up children to Abraham even from stones. If you believe and obey Christ, you will be children of Abraham, although you are the children of idolaters, and although you yourselves have been idolaters—without God, without faith, without conscience; fornicators, perjurers, blasphemers, and so on. All these things baptism will wash away and will make you new men—even angels of God. You will be to God what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were.” To this alludes St. Paul in Hebrews 12:12.
Behold, your God will bring the vengeance of retribution. — That is, Christ God, to whom the Father has given all judgment (John 5), will cast out the devil, the tyrant who has oppressed you until now, and will bring you into the liberty of the children of God. He says “of retribution” because God repays “like for like” to the devil: for as he tyrannically ruled the Gentiles, so now Christ and Christians rule him sternly and rigidly. A similar thought occurs in Psalm 71.
God himself will come and save you. — Hence it is clear that God truly came into the world and took our flesh, and consequently that Christ is truly God. For the things that follow belong to Christ: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened” (cf. Matthew 11:5; 15:30). Thus teach St. Jerome, Cyril, Irenaeus (III.22), Cyprian (Against the Jews II.7), Eusebius (Demonstratio VI.21), Athanasius (De Humanitate Verbi), and Augustine (De quinque haeresibus VI). A similar passage occurs below in Isaiah 52:6.
Note: for “God” the Hebrew is אֱלֹהִים Elohim (“God who governs, provides, rules, and judges the world”). Christ therefore came into the world that He might, as Elohim, govern it, care for it, save it, heal those oppressed by the devil, and bring them into liberty. Again, for “He shall save you,” the Hebrew is יוֹשַׁעְכֶם yoshachem (“He will save you”), from which comes the name Jesus, meaning “Savior”—as if to say: Elohim will come in the flesh and will be to us Jesus. If you read instead יְשַׂחֵם yessachem, it means “He will delight you, He will overshadow you.” For Jesus is the joy and jubilation of our heart.
Is 35:5 Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened. — That is, the Gentiles—formerly blind in the eyes of the mind and dwelling in the darkness of unbelief—shall be enlightened by the light and radiance of the Gospel. They, who once were deaf to the words and law of God, shall now hear it and obey. As a sign of this reality, Christ healed many who were physically blind, deaf, lame, and so on, and with these cures bestowed also the spiritual light of mind, hearing, and uprightness of walk, granting them grace and cleansing them from their sins, as St. Augustine teaches. Hence St. Hilary and others, as I said above, think that Christ alluded to this passage in Matthew 11 when He said: “The blind see, the lame walk,” and so on.
Is 35:6 Then shall the lame man leap. — That is, the limping Gentiles—those who walked with uncertain and wavering steps, erring from the path of virtue—shall be strengthened by Christ and guided to walk straight, indeed even to leap upward toward heaven.
And the tongue of the mute sing. — Those who were eloquent in earthly and worldly matters but mute and speechless in divine things shall become articulate, speaking with great wisdom and spiritual power about grace, virtue, Christ, God and the Holy Trinity, blessedness, and eternity.
For in the wilderness shall water gush forth. — That is, he gives the reason for what precedes and shows that these things are to be understood spiritually, not bodily: “Therefore the eyes of the blind shall be opened,” etc., because in the desert—that is, in the Gentile world—“waters have burst forth,” that is, “they shall split themselves,” meaning that spiritual graces will gush forth abundantly; and the “thirsty land”—that is, the same sterile Gentile world—“shall become springs of water”: that is, shall possess fountains of water, meaning fountains of grace, “springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Thus St. Cyril and Theodoret.
Sanchez, more aptly, thinks that “because” here does not give a cause but connects extremes, meaning the same as “and”: that is, “The lame shall leap, the mute shall speak, and waters shall burst forth in the desert.” For it would be inapt here to say: “The lame shall leap because waters burst forth”—for what do waters do toward leaping?
Is 35:7 In the habitation of the dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. — In the preceding chapter he said that in devastated and deserted Edom there would dwell satyrs, hairy creatures, and lamiae—that is, dragons. Here, on the contrary, he says that in the Gentile desert, where dragons dwelt (for they love dry and arid places), there shall arise the greenery of the reed and the rush—things that grow only in moist soil, and therefore in a land no longer desert but fertile. Meaning: in the cities and souls of the Gentiles, which were dens—that is, proper dwelling places—of dragons, that is, of demons and sins, there shall arise the green growth of grace and virtues, so that they become temples of the Holy Spirit.
The Chaldean view was that beasts dwell in the hearts of wicked men. For unbridled appetites, which reason does not restrain so that they wander far and wide to their own destruction and that of others, were called beasts. Hence their saying: “The vessel of a wicked man is inhabited by the beasts of the earth.” Therefore the Egyptians used the image of a stag drawing serpents from their holes to signify a judge chastising the wicked. Pythagoras meant the same when he said that the souls of the wicked pass into animals—that is, become brutish because of brutish morals. Hence arose the myth of Circe, who changed men into beasts. Thus Theocritus: “Those whom virtue and wisdom have regarded cannot be overcome by the cups of Circe.”
Surely Saint Mary Magdalene—on whose feast I write these lines—was once the very resting place of dragons, for she had been held both in body and mind by seven demons. Yet once they were driven out by Christ, as Saint Luke recounts (Luke 7), what streams of repentance flowed out of that once-barren wilderness, what waters of tears; and what rich growth sprang up—charity, prayer, contemplation, and every virtue. “I found him whom my soul loves; I held him and would not let him go. Strengthen me with flowers, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy as fierce as Sheol (שׁאול Sheol, ‘the grave’); its lamps are lamps of fire and flame” (Song 3–8).
Enkindled with this divine fire, she clung to Christ without ceasing, seated at His feet, listening continually to His words. She followed Him everywhere while He taught and preached, undeterred by scribes or Pharisees, remaining with Him even to the cross and to death. She alone stood there fearless; she alone prepared His holy body with spices; she alone could not be torn from His tomb; and so she merited to see Him first in His rising.
Driven into exile by the Jews, she was carried by God’s providence to the shores of Gaul, where she spread the faith of Christ. At last, intoxicated with the love of her Beloved, she withdrew to the mountain near Marseilles. There she set before all ages the example of perfect penitence, living for thirty years without earthly food or drink, nourished only by the sweet tears of love and the ceaseless contemplation of the One she desired. Her life was no earthly life but angelic, and thus she was lifted up by angels seven times each day. Blessed indeed was she, who was found worthy to hear the angelic choirs singing their alternating hymns even while still in her mortal body.
Is 35:8 “And there shall be a path and a way”—that is, a narrow, straight, and holy road that leads to heaven. This desert which once seemed pathless—that is, the Church—shall not be like those barren solitudes and swampy marshes where reeds and rushes grow, but shall have a straight and narrow way: the way of faith and penitence, which guides those who desire it and is rightly called holy, because it leads into the holy Church and from there into heaven, the fellowship of the saints.
The text continues: “The unclean shall not pass over it.” In the earlier chapter the prophet had spoken of satyrs and evil beasts in the deserted land; now he contrasts the purified state of the Church, from which such things are expelled by the power of God. Demons, their snares, their assaults, and all harmful terrors are driven away from the Church of Christ. Thus the Fathers—Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret—understand this of the exorcisms of Baptism, by which the demon is put to flight from the one about to be washed.
Is 35:9 “And the redeemed of the Lord shall walk there”—that is, those who have turned away from their former impiety to the pure and holy worship of Christ.
Is 25:10 “They shall come to Zion”—to the Church on earth in her warfare, and far more to the Church triumphant in heaven. For those who are freed and redeemed do not return to captivity; they make their way, through this very path of faith, first into the militant Church and through her into the triumphant. So teach Jerome and Augustine, and the sequence makes it plain, for he adds:
“Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.” The head is taken for the whole person, part for the whole. Or perhaps more literally, the everlasting joy rests upon the very head itself, as a bridal crown once rested upon the bride when she was led from the fields into Zion with songs and rejoicing. So Christ shall lead His faithful and holy ones into the heavenly Jerusalem, as a bridegroom leads His beloved bride, crowned with nuptial glory, accompanied by the applause of all the heavenly company—where sorrow and sighing shall flee away. So speaks Saint Irenaeus.
This is declared with shining clarity in the vision of 2 Esdras (4 Ezra) and sung in the Paschal liturgy: “Wait, O nations, for your Shepherd… be prepared for the reward of the kingdom… Look toward the east and behold the joy that comes to you from God.” And again: “I, Ezra, saw upon Mount Zion a great multitude… and in the midst of them a young man of lofty stature placing crowns upon their heads.” When he asks the angel who they are, he is told: “These are they who have put off the mortal garment and have confessed the name of God. Now they are crowned and receive palms.” And the young man is revealed as the Son of God.
Tobias likewise sings: “The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of sapphire and emerald; all its walls of precious stone. Its streets shall be paved with pure and white stone; and in its ways they shall sing alleluia… Blessed be the Lord who has exalted it; may His kingdom endure forever.”
Boethius writes beautifully: “Eternity is the complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of endless life.” In this life nothing is perfect; some good is always lacking. One has wealth but not honor; honor but not health; health but not knowledge; knowledge but not grace. Even at a splendid feast, soon after one has eaten the delight fades; heaviness follows; vigor departs; the mind is restless; something is always missing. But in eternal life the blessed enjoy every good at once—the riches of God, the knowledge of God, the delights of God, the strength of God, the companionship of angels and all the saints—and they possess all these forever, always present, never diminishing.
Is not then everlasting joy upon their heads? Do they not obtain perfect gladness and exultation?
What then is blessed eternity? Let us ask those who have entered into it. Tell us, holy Peter, holy Paul, holy John—what is this blessed eternity? We cannot fully conceive or express it. “How long have you been within it?”—“One thousand five hundred years.” “And how far have you advanced within its depths?”—“We have scarcely begun.” These fifteen centuries have not taken away an hour, not a moment, not a smallest particle; it is to us as though we had only just begun. It remains ever new, ever fresh, ever delightful. An eternal joy still stretches before us.
What then is your eternity, so happy and so full? It is an abyss of joys, an abyss of ages, an abyss of endless days. Our times, our joys, our ages have no bottom and no shore. Their end we cannot see; their measure we cannot take; no measure suffices to contain them. Our reign, our blessedness, our glory, our gladness shall have no end.
Tell us, holy Catherine, holy Lucy, holy Agnes—you who contended for purity even unto death, who triumphed over fire, rack, and beasts—what is your eternity? Tell us, holy Jerome, Macarius, Anthony, Romuald, Elijah, Elisha—you who for fifty, sixty, a hundred years renounced all delights of the world, who wandered in skins of sheep and goats, needy, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy—what have you received for such labors? What is your everlasting joy?
Tell us, holy Stephen, holy Lawrence, holy Vincent; tell us, saints Clement of Ancyra and Agathangelus, who endured twenty-eight years of torture by racks, fire, scourges, and ceaseless torment—what is the measure of your joy? “A moment we suffered,” they reply, “and that moment has long fled; but we possess now an eternal delight which shall never pass away. It is always today; always present.”
Now they follow the Lamb and sing: “You have made us a kingdom and priests to our God, and we shall reign forever and ever.” His kingdom is “a kingdom of all ages,” His dominion “unto generation and generation.” Consider all ages of ages; all generations; all times—past, present, future. You have not yet reached the measure of their eternity. Through all these ages, through all these generations, through all these worlds of time, they shall reign, delight, and triumph with Christ and all the saints in unending joy.
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