The voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God!
Isaiah's book turns here from warning to comfort. The first sound in that comfort is one voice in empty country, telling a nation to clear a road for its God. Two questions follow. Who is the traveller? And why does the herald stand in a desert instead of the capital?
Only a Voice
The verse never names the speaker. It names only a sound. When men pressed John the Baptist to say who he was, that sound was his whole answer.
They were determined to have an answer, and he gives them one. They would compel him to speak of himself, and he does so. But look at his answer! Who or what was he? Nobody. He was only "a voice." This is morally lovely. The self-emptiness of this most honoured servant is beautiful… Here was a man of real power and dignity, one of Christ's most outstanding servants, in the very highest position. His preaching had stirred the hearts of thousands. Angels had announced his birth. Prophets had foretold his ministry. He was the herald of the kingdom, the friend of the King. Yet when this remarkable man was forced to speak of himself, all he would say was, "I am a voice." Not even a man, but only a voice.
Another writer traces that emptiness back to its cause, and then to the words themselves.
What makes him morally great is that he is less than nothing in his own eyes. This is not because he tries to hide himself, but because for him Christ fills heaven, earth, eternity, and his own heart… He might have said, "I am the mouthpiece of God"; but no, an instrument might even think itself something. "I am the voice of one crying" — that, so to speak, takes away his personality. "Crying in the wilderness" — a voice that wakes an echo, worth nothing in the hearing of men.
The Wilderness Was the Nation
The New Testament reads the line as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." That desert is not just where John lived. It describes the state of the people, and it changes what he could preach.
This is why John the Baptist does not appeal to the people as a whole, like the prophets who came before him. He says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." Israel was a wilderness for God. From now on his appeal rests on their ruin beyond repair. The older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to Jehovah… Like them, John the Baptist had preached repentance, but a repentance founded on ruin without remedy.
Whose Way Is Prepared
The road is prepared for "the LORD" — Jehovah, God's own name in the Old Testament. The New Testament applies two prophecies about that road to Jesus.
Jehovah's word to Malachi is, "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me." The Spirit applies these words to Christ… Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The second quotation from Isaiah speaks of preparing the way of the LORD. So again it is Jehovah whose way is prepared — for Jesus is Jehovah.
The same reasoning is used elsewhere as direct evidence for the deity of Christ, alongside passages such as Micah 5:2 and Zechariah 13:7:
All Scripture confirms the truth that Jesus is Jehovah. John the Baptist was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord" — that is, Jehovah (Isa. 40).
What "Make Straight" Asks For
The road-building language is moral, not literal. Straightening the path means dealing honestly with what is crooked.
Repentance was certainly a first necessity in this preparation. It meant facing honestly the sin that had dishonoured God. The Lord's paths had to be made straight. He would allow no twisting deceit in men's minds. They could not come to Him while they were dishonest.
Fulfilled — And Still Ahead
John's ministry fulfilled the verse. But the road was never finished, because Israel refused the message.
It was not the person nor the work of Israel's hope in power. For Israel as a whole was blind and deaf; the testimony was interrupted, the Messiah refused. So there was only a partial application… The way of Jehovah was not yet prepared. There was no straight highway in the desert for God. God put man on his own responsibility, and man heard the cry only to sin the more. But in time God will make it all good in grace by His own power.
The Gospel writers do not all quote this passage to the same length.
Only the Spirit of God in Luke takes care to give it the fullest breadth… We do not have this anywhere else. In Matthew, Mark, and John the quotation stops short of it. But Luke, though he begins with the Jew, does not end with him; he clearly goes out to all the nations. So the Spirit adds expressions here that give largeness and breadth.
Summary
- Voice — The herald keeps no name of his own. Asked who he was, he said only, "I am a voice."
- Wilderness — The desert pictures the nation's state, so the call is repentance that owns ruin beyond repair.
- The LORD — The road is prepared for Jehovah, and the New Testament gives that name to Jesus.
- Straight — The preparing is moral: face sin honestly, with nothing crooked left in the way you come to God.
- Glory — The herald came and was refused, so the highway still waits. God will yet make it good by His own power, and His reach goes out to all the nations.