Say to them that are of a timid heart, Be strong, fear not; behold your God vengeance cometh, the recompense of God! He will come himself, and save you.
Chapter 34 ends in judgment on the nations, and chapter 35 opens on restoration. Verse 4 speaks into that gap, to people whose hearts are giving way: how can vengeance be the comfort offered to the fearful?
One writer marks where this chapter stands, and what order God works in:
This final chapter of the first great part of Isaiah's vision brings forward what follows the great judgments of the day of the Lord. Those judgments come when our Lord Jesus Christ appears from heaven in flaming fire. This answers once more the unscriptural view that the coming of the Lord in judgment means the complete end of the world. After the ruin of judgment comes the glory of restoration.
The two halves of the verse are not in tension. What falls on the oppressor is the very thing that lifts the oppressed:
The curse of Genesis 3:17-18 will be lifted, so that even the deserts will be richly fruitful. The vengeance of God will mean deliverance for Israel, and safety. But not only that, since they themselves will be transformed. They will see spiritually, they will hear, they will sing with gladness, and all their hopes will come true.
Another writer warns against softening the promise:
Divine vengeance on the enemies accompanies their salvation. Take all its fullness of meaning: it will be accomplished to the letter. God will prove that not a word of His mercy to Israel and their land can fall to the ground.
God does not send a deliverer; He comes in person. One writer sets this verse beside chapter 40 and notes which age it belongs to:
It is striking to read in Isaiah 35:4, "Behold, your God! Vengeance comes" (which in no way describes the gospel, but fully describes the future kingdom), "the recompense of God. He will come Himself and save you"; and in Isaiah 40:9-10, "Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with might, and His arm shall rule for Him." The same Spirit, the same hand wrote both passages.
This is one link in a chain running through the whole book. The same writer traces the refrain across Isaiah's sections — chapter 12, chapter 25, chapter 33 — and places our verse in the series:
Again in Isaiah 35:4, "Be strong, fear not; behold, your God: vengeance is coming, the recompense of God! He will come Himself, and save you."
The verses that follow promise miracles when He comes. One writer treats those miracles as proof of who the Coming One is:
We only need to look at Isaiah 35:4-6 for the proof. Miracles would bring in the kingdom, and the One who acted this way was the God of Israel come to save them.
One healing in particular carried that proof:
We have not, I believe, one case of curing the blind before Christ came. It was a miracle which, according to Jewish tradition, was reserved for the Son of David. He it was who, according to Isaiah 35, was to open the eyes of the blind. The Lord puts the blind receiving their sight as the first outward miracle to show that He truly was the Christ who was to come.
Commentators are careful here: the miracles were a sample, not the fulfilment. As Gaebelein puts it, Jesus did these signs to prove He held the power of the kingdom, "however Isaiah 35 looks forward to the kingdom, which is yet to come."
The verse is not a private meditation. Someone is told to say it out loud to frightened people, and the message itself is what strengthens them:
This announcement restores the faithful remnant. Is it also for us the greatest source of joy? Or would His coming feel like being torn away from the earth, instead of lifting us up to set us where our treasure is? The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Do we?
- Fear — The verse speaks to people whose hearts are giving way. It does not scold their fear; it gives them something to look at.
- Behold — The cure for fear is a Person, not information: "Behold your God." The same cry comes again in Isaiah 40, from the same hand.
- Vengeance — What sounds like a threat is the rescue. The blow that falls on the oppressor is the same act that frees the oppressed and transforms them.
- Himself — He does not send help; He comes. The miracles of Jesus showed that the God of Israel had come to save.
- Fulfilment — The miracles were a foretaste. The kingdom this chapter describes is still to come. Judgment first, then restoration glory — and not one word of God's mercy will fail.
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped;
Isaiah 35 paints a desert bursting into flower, and in the middle of that scene stands a promise about human bodies. Everything hangs on one word, "then" — so the questions are what this healing waits for, and whether it is meant literally, spiritually, or both.
The verse hangs on the announcement just before it: God Himself will come with vengeance and salvation. The healing follows that arrival, and it reaches the land and the people together.
Once God has stepped in, the blessing for Israel and the land that Isaiah 35 predicts will come. The picture is a lovely one — a delightful scene of earthly blessing. The curse of Genesis 3:17-18 will be lifted, so that even the deserts will be abundantly fruitful. God's vengeance will mean deliverance and safety for Israel. But not only that, since they themselves will be transformed. They will see spiritually, they will hear, they will sing with gladness, and all their hopes will be realised.
When Jesus healed, He did what this verse describes. Yet the chapter itself looks further on, to a kingdom that has not begun.
His miracles are also touched on. In chapter 35 we read: "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." When He appeared among His people He did these miracles to prove to the nation that He had the power of the kingdom in His hands. But Isaiah 35 looks forward to the kingdom, which is still to come.
What changes is not the power but the conditions around it. Christ healed while Satan was still loose in the world.
When Christ was here, He displayed the "powers of the world to come," or of the kingdom, casting out evil spirits and healing people. When that day arrives, Satan will be in the bottomless pit.
John the Baptist sent men to Jesus with a question, and the answer pointed to what they could hear and see. The first item on that list carried a weight only readers of Isaiah would feel.
They were to go and tell John what they heard and saw; and there we have what the Old Testament had predicted as the signs and effects of the Messiah's power. I believe we have not one case of curing the blind before Christ came. It was a miracle which, according to Jewish tradition, was reserved for the Son of David. He it was who, according to Isaiah 35, was to open the eyes of the blind. The Lord puts the blind receiving their sight first among the outward miracles, to show that He was really the Christ who was to come.
One miracle in Galilee stood as a pledge of something far larger.
In the day of God's glory on the earth, this constant burden of the spiritual heart will certainly be removed. The sigh or groan of the needy and of the prisoner will no longer be known. Then will come the fulfilment of that prophecy of which this Galilean miracle was the pledge: "Behold, your God … will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened … and the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing … and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
The words invite a spiritual reading. Commentators welcome it, but not as a replacement for the plain sense.
Healing the blind was a marked work of the divine Messiah. So Isaiah predicted in his earlier announcement (Isa. 35:5): "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened"… Without doubt we are justified in giving the widest scope to the language used; but the figurative in no way sets aside the literal.
The same promise covers a nation's blindness, which also has an end date.
What a change from their state when they said, "He had no beauty that we should desire Him." That belonged to the day of their national blindness as pictured in Isaiah 53. "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened" (Isaiah 35:5). Then the period of their judicial blindness will be ended (see also Rom. 11:25-27).
- The cause. The healing begins with "then" — it follows God's own coming to save, not human progress.
- The gift. Opened eyes and unstopped ears come with a lifted curse and a transformed people who see, hear and sing.
- The proof. Giving sight to the blind was the sign held back for the Messiah, which is why it headed Christ's answer to John.
- The pledge. One healing in Galilee was a pledge of the whole promise: the day when sorrow and sighing flee away.
- The reach. The literal sense stands, and the spiritual sense stands with it — including the end of a nation's blindness toward her Messiah.
then shall the lame [man] leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and torrents in the desert.
Isaiah 35 follows a chapter of unsparing judgment. Then the scene changes: a desert blooms, a crippled man leaps, and a silent tongue breaks into song. Is this poetry about better days, a picture of the miracles Jesus did, or a promise God will keep to the letter?
The healings and the streams belong to a set time. A storm comes first. Then God shows what He delights in.
Whatever sin and misery Satan had brought into this world, God will show by this that goodness and mercy are His own delight. This is the time that is coming for the earth, though a terrible storm ushers it in. … God's vengeance on the enemies goes together with Israel's salvation. … Take it in all its fullness of meaning: it will be accomplished to the letter. God will prove that not one word of His mercy to Israel and their land can fall to the ground.
The verse compares the healed man to a deer. That animal was known for the way it moved.
In predicting God's blessing upon Israel in a future day it is said, "the lame man shall leap like a deer." The deer are remarkable for their pleasing form, their graceful movements, and their great agility.
The man who could not walk does not just walk. He moves with grace and speed.
Jesus opened blind eyes and freed silent tongues. One writer weighs what those miracles proved, and what they did not yet bring.
His miracles are also touched upon. In chapter 35 we read: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing." When He appeared among His people, He did these miracles to prove to the nation that He held the power of the kingdom in His hands. But Isaiah 35 looks forward to the kingdom, which is still to come.
The healings also work as a diagnosis. One writer sees in the mute man, silenced by a demon, a picture of the nation that would not praise its King.
Instead of praising their King, Israel was mute, and is mute now. But the demon will be cast out. Then Israel will speak His praises and sing the new song to the Lord. What a day it will be, when mute Israel is at last the people "formed to show forth His praise!"
The second half of the verse widens the scene from bodies to the land itself.
We know from Scripture that great physical power will attend this coming kingdom. As prophets sing, the wilderness "shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." The lame shall leap as the deer, and the tongue of the mute shall sing. The cow and the bear shall feed together, and the wolf shall lie down with the kid. Nature in all its order shall own the presence of the Lord. … As creation has already felt the bondage of corruption, it shall then feel the liberty of glory.
The bodily wonders wait for that day. Something matching them is happening now.
These were true cases of physical healing. In dealing with them our Lord was fulfilling what Isaiah 35:5-6 had predicted of Him long before. This kind of miracle has ceased for the present, and will reappear when God sets up the Millennial kingdom. But meanwhile the spiritual wonder happens before our eyes every day. The grace of God is revolutionising men's lives all the time: it makes the dead alive, gives the blind sight, and makes the mute both speak and sing.
Isaiah names who this refreshing is for, and that sets a condition.
When "the lame man" shall "leap like a deer," then "in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." But all this refreshing that Isaiah predicted is for "the ransomed of the Lord," and for no others. So only repentance and a complete turning round would bring such times. If that took place, God would send Jesus Christ to bring them to pass.
- Storm first. The leaping and the singing come after judgment. God uses that contrast to show that goodness and mercy are His delight.
- Sample given. The miracles of Jesus proved that the kingdom's power was in His hands. Isaiah 35 still points ahead to the kingdom itself.
- Song restored. The mute tongue pictures a nation that would not praise its King; the promise is that it will one day sing.
- Ground healed too. Streams in the desert show the cure reaching past human bodies to creation. Creation has felt the bondage of corruption; it will feel the liberty of glory.
- Ransomed only. The whole refreshing belongs to "the ransomed of the Lord." Repentance and turning are the road into it. Meanwhile grace works the same wonder in changed lives every day.