Isaiah 40:3

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
voice	ק֣וֹל Kol	H6963	a voice or sound · noun, common masculine singular absolute
crieth	קוֹרֵ֔א ko.Re'	H7121	to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
wilderness	בַּמִּדְבָּ֕ר ba.mid.Bar	H4057	a pasture (i.e. open field · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Prepare	פַּנּ֖וּ pa.Nu	H6437	to turn · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
way	דֶּ֣רֶךְ De.rekh	H1870	a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular construct
LORD	יְהוָ֑ה Yah.weh	H3068	Jehovah · proper noun, a title
straight	יַשְּׁרוּ֙ ya.she.Ru	H3474	to be straight or even · verb, piel imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
desert	בָּעֲרָבָ֔ה ba.'a.ra.Vah	H6160	a desert · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
highway	מְסִלָּ֖ה me.si.Lah	H4546	a thoroughfare (as turnpiked) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
God	לֵאלֹהֵֽינוּ le.lo.Hei.nu	H430	gods in the ordinary sense · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix

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

Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, eve…
Mark 1:2-5 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
John 1:23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.
Matthew 3:1-3 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
Luke 1:16-17 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
Luke 1:76-77 And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;
Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
Isaiah 57:14 And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 40:3-8

The time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, having come, the people of God must be prepared, by repentance and faith, for the favours designed them; and, in order to call them to both these, we have here the voice of one crying in the wilderness, which may be applied to those prophets who were with the captives in their wilderness-state, and who, when they saw the day of their deliverance dawn, called earnestly upon them to prepare for it, and assured them that all the difficulties which stood in the way of their deliverance should be got over. It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us if we find God's grace preparing us for it, Psa 10:17. But it must be applied to John the Baptist; f…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 40:3

crieth in the wilderness--So the Septuagint and Mat 3:3 connect the words. The Hebrew accents, however, connect them thus: "In the wilderness prepare ye," &c., and the parallelism also requires this, "Prepare ye in the wilderness," answering to "make straight in the desert." Matthew was entitled, as under inspiration, to vary the connection, so as to bring out another sense, included in the Holy Spirit's intention; in Mat 3:1, "John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness," answers thus to "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." MAURER takes the participle as put for the finite verb (so in Isa 40:6), "A voice crieth." The clause, "in the wilderness," alludes to Israel's passage through…

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John Gill on Isaiah 40:3

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,.... Not the voice of the Holy Ghost, as Jarchi; but of John the Baptist, as is attested by all the evangelists, Matthew 3:3 and by John himself, John 1:23, who was a "voice" not like the man's nightingale, "vox et praeterea nihil" a voice and nothing else; he had not only a sonorous, but an instructive teaching voice; he had the voice of a prophet, for he was a prophet: we read of the voices of the prophets, their doctrines and prophecies, Acts 13:27, his voice was the voice of one that crieth, that published and proclaimed aloud, openly and publicly, with great eagerness and fervency, with much freedom and liberty, what he had to say; and this…

The Church Fathers

They were not reborn, those who were baptized by John's baptism, by which Christ himself was baptized. Rather, they were "prepared" by the ministry of a forerunner, who said, "Prepare a way for the Lord"—for him in whom alone they could be reborn.
— Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion 14:49

Now the way of the Lord is made straight in two ways: by contemplation, which is clarified by truth unmixed with falsehood, and by activity, which follows sound contemplation of the appropriate action to be taken, which is conformed to the correct sense of these things to be done.
— Origen of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 6:103

While the heavenly powers rejoice, let the souls that are to be united to the spiritual bridegroom make themselves ready. For the voice is heard of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord." For this is no light matter, no ordinary and indiscriminate union according to the flesh but the all-searching Spirit's election according to faith.
— Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 3:1

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…
Highway — A raised road for public use. Such roads were not found in Palestine; hence the force of the language used to describe the return of the captives and the advent of the Messiah (Isa. 11:16; 35:8;…
Isaiah, The Book of — Consists of prophecies delivered (Isa. 1) in the reign of Uzziah (1-5), (2) of Jotham (6), (3) Ahaz (7-14:28), (4) the first half of Hezekiah’s reign (14:28-35), (5) the second half of Hezekiah’s…
John the Baptist — The “forerunner of our Lord.” We have but fragmentary and imperfect accounts of him in the Gospels. He was of priestly descent. His father, Zacharias, was a priest of the course of Abia (1 Chr.…
Christ Is God · As Jehovah — As Jehovah
Herald · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Highways · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
John · .Prophecies concerning — .Prophecies concerning
Proclamation · Imperial — Imperial
Prophecies Respecting Christ · His being preceded by John the Baptist — His being preceded by John the Baptist
Quotations And Allusions · IN THE NEW TESTAMENT FROM, AND TO, THE OLD TESTAMENT — IN THE NEW TESTAMENT FROM, AND TO, THE OLD TESTAMENT
Straight

Isaiah 40:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 40:3-8

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 40:3

John Gill on Isaiah 40:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Isaiah 40:3

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 40:3-8

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 40:3

John Gill on Isaiah 40:3

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Isaiah 40:3

Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 40:3

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Isaiah 40:3-5

Rashi on Isaiah 40:3