a pasture (i.e. open field · noun, common masculine singular absolute
place
וְצִיָּ֑הve.tzi.Yah
H6723
aridity · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
glad
יְשֻׂשׂ֥וּםye.su.Sum
H7797
to be bright · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + paragogic nun
desert
עֲרָבָ֛ה'a.ra.Vah
H6160
a desert · noun, common feminine singular absolute
rejoice
וְתָגֵ֧לve.ta.Gel
H1523
properly · conjunction + verb, qal jussive, 3rd person feminine singular
blossom
וְתִפְרַ֖חve.tif.Rach
H6524
to break forth as a bud · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person feminine singular
rose
כַּחֲבַצָּֽלֶתka.cha.va.Tza.let
H2261
probably meadow-saffron · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 51:3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the ga…
Ezekiel 36:35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become f…
Isaiah 55:12-13 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all th…
Isaiah 27:6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
Isaiah 52:9-10 Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
Isaiah 4:2 In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that a…
Revelation 19:1-7 And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto t…
Psalms 48:11 Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 35:1-4
In these verses we have,
I. The desert land blooming. In the foregoing chapter we had a populous and fruitful country turned into a horrid wilderness; here we have in lieu of that, a wilderness turned into a good land. When the land of Judah was freed from the Assyrian army, those parts of the country that had been made as a wilderness by the ravages and outrages they committed began to recover themselves, and to look pleasantly again, and to blossom as the rose. When the Gentile nations, that had been long as a wilderness, bringing forth no fruit to God, received the gospel, joy came with it to them, Psa 67:3, Psa 67:4; Psa 96:11, Psa 96:12. When Christ was preached in Samaria there was gre…
The wilderness, and the solitary place, shall be glad for them,.... Either for the wild beasts, satyrs, owls, and vultures, that shall inhabit Edom or Rome, and because it shall be an habitation for them: or they shall be glad for them, the Edomites, and for the destruction of them; that is, as the Targum paraphrases it,
"they that dwell in the wilderness, in the dry land, shall rejoice;''
the church, in the wilderness, being obliged to fly there from the persecution of antichrist, and thereby become desolate as a wilderness; and so called, in allusion to the Israelites in the wilderness, Acts 7:38 shall now rejoice at the ruin of Rome, and the antichristian states; by which means it shall…
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad. Here the Prophet describes a wonderful change; for having in the former chapter described the destruction of Idumaea, and having said that it would be changed into a wilderness, he now promises, on the other hand, fertility to the wilderness, so that barren and waste lands shall become highly productive. This is God's own work; for, as he blesses the whole earth, so he waters some parts of it more lightly, and other parts more bountifully, by his blessing, and afterwards withdraws and removes it altogether on account of the ingratitude of men.
This passage is explained in various ways. I pass by the dreams of the Jews, who apply all passa…
The Church Fathers
And "the excellency of Carmel" is given to the soul that bears the likeness to the desert, that is, the grace bestowed through the Spirit. For since Elijah dwelt in Carmel, and the mountain became famous and renowned by the virtue of him who dwelt there, and since moreover John the Baptist, illustrious in the spirit of Elijah, sanctified the Jordan, therefore the prophet foretold that "the excellency of Carmel" should be given to the river.
And "the glory of Lebanon," from the similitude of its lofty trees, he transfers to the river. For as great Lebanon presents a sufficient cause of wonder in the very trees which it brings forth and nourishes, so is the Jordan glorified by regenerating men and planting them in the Paradise of God: and of them, as the words of the Psalmist say, ever blooming and bearing the foliage of virtues, "the leaf shall not wither," and God shall be glad, receiving their fruit in due season, rejoicing, like a good planter, in his own works.
After John was killed, the Lord saw the time drawing near and withdrew to a deserted place called Bethsaida. This teaches mystically that a deserted Judah, which had beheaded its prophets by not believing them, would later become fruitful in the desert of a church that possessed no man of the Word. Hence, the beautiful Bethsaida means "house of fruitfulness." For it was about it that Isaiah said, "The desert and the dry land will rejoice, and the wilderness will exult and bloom like the lily," and again, "they will see the glory of the Lord and the beauty of our God."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Desert — (1.) Heb. midbar, “pasture-ground;” an open tract for pasturage; a common (Joel 2:22). The “backside of the desert” (Ex. 3:1) is the west of the desert, the region behind a man, as the east is the…
Rose — Many varieties of the rose proper are indigenous to Syria. The famed rose of Damascus is white, but there are also red and yellow roses. In Cant. 2:1 and Isa. 35:1 the Hebrew word habatstseleth…
Desert · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Deserts · Illustrative of: The Gentiles — Illustrative of: The Gentiles
Flowers · Mentioned in scripture: The rose — Mentioned in scripture: The rose
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Joy · 2:11;4:7;5:11;9:2,14;13:5;14:7;16:5,6,8,9,11;17:15;19:8;20:5;21:1,6;28:7;30:5,11,12;32:1,2,11;33:21;35:9;36:8;40:16;42:4;43:4;45:15;46:4;51:8,12;53:6;63:5-7,11;64:10;68:3;69:32;70:4;71:23;85:6;89:15,16;97:11,12;100:1,2;104:34;105:3,43;119:1,2,14,16,55,111,162,165;126:5,6;132:16;138:5;149:2,5; — 2:11;4:7;5:11;9:2,14;13:5;14:7;16:5,6,8,9,11;17:15;19:8;20:5;21:1,6;28:7;30:5,11,12;32:1,2,11;33:21;35:9;36:8;40:16;42:4;43:4;45:15;46:4;51:8,12;53:6;63:5-7,11;64:10;68:3;69:32;70:4;71:23;85:6;89:15,16;97:11,12;100:1,2;104:34;105:3,43;119:1,2,14,16,55,111,162,165;126:5,6;132:16;138:5;149:2,5;
Rose · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Edom falls, never to rise again. Its land is turned into a horrible wilderness. But, on the other hand, the wilderness through which the redeemed Israel returns, is changed into a flowery field. "Gladness fills the desert and the heath; and the steppe rejoices, and flowers like the crocus. It flowers abundantly, and rejoices; yea, rejoicing and singing: the glory of Lebanon is given to it, the splendour of Carmel and the plain of Sharon; they will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendour of our God." מדבּר ישׂשׂוּם (to be accentuated with tiphchah munach, not with mercha tiphchah) has been correctly explained by Aben-Ezra. The original Nun has been assimilated to the following Mem, just as pi…
God will come to vindicate and transform his people. Instead of being deaf, blind, and lame (see 6:10), the people will be pure, holy, and redeemed.
35:1 God’s land would become like a wasteland, spiritually desolate and physically depleted. However, God would turn the desert into a garden (see also 32:15), taking his people from exile to glory.
Rashi on Isaiah 35:1
shall rejoice over them (יְשֻׂשׂוּם) This is usually the sign of the direct object, inappropriate here in the case of an intransitive verb. (like יָשׂוּשׂוּ מֵהֶם, shall rejoice from them). Comp. (Jer. 10:20) “My sons have gone away from me (יְצָאֻנִי).” Also, (I Kings 19:21) “He cooked the meat for them (בִּשְּׁלָם),” equivalent to בִּשֵּׁל לָהֶם, “He cooked the meat for them.”
Desert and wasteland Jerusalem, called ‘wasteland,’ and Zion, called ‘desert,’ they shall rejoice over the downfall of the mighty of the heathens and Persia ([Manuscripts yield:] of Edom and Bozrah). ([The Warsaw edition reads:] the mighty of Seir (and Bozrah).)
and the plain shall rejoice the plain of Jerusalem.
