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Messianic Prophecies

Isaiah 35:4

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Isaiah 35:4

Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong! Don’t be afraid! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will come and save you.

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The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

It will blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. Lebanon’s glory will be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They will see Yahweh’s glory, the excellence of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make the feeble knees firm.

Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong! Don’t be afraid! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.

A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called “The Holy Way”. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who walk in the Way. Wicked fools shall not go there.

No lion will be there, nor will any ravenous animal go up on it. They will not be found there; but the redeemed will walk there.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading holds that Isaiah 35:4 announces God's own direct coming to save, with no messianic intermediary in view, and notes that critical scholarship commonly assigns chapters 34-35 to a later (exilic or post-exilic) hand resembling Second Isaiah. Matthew 1:21's salvation theme is connected to this oracle only by identifying Jesus with the God who was to come. Critics observe that this identification is a New Testament theological claim rather than something the Isaiah text itself forecasts. On this view the correspondence depends on the christological premise, not on the oracle's own terms.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading holds that Isaiah 35:4's promise that God himself will come to save finds its fitting realization in the incarnation, where, on Christian teaching, God comes in person as Jesus. Matthew 1:21's naming of Jesus as the one who will save his people is read as identifying him with the saving God of the oracle. Proponents argue that only the incarnation adequately satisfies the text's demand for God's personal saving arrival, since no lesser agent would suffice. On this view the church's habit of applying divine-coming texts to Jesus reflects a recognition of his divine identity.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Matthew 1:21 Echo

    Matthew 1:21 does not quote Isaiah 35:4; it shares only the salvation motif (the name Jesus as 'God saves'), a thematic echo, while Matthew's actual formula quotation nearby (1:22-23) cites Isaiah 7:14, not 35:4.