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Messianic Prophecies

Isaiah 40:3, 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 40:3, 4

The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.

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“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.

“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”

The voice of one who calls out, “Prepare the way of Yahweh in the wilderness! Make a level highway in the desert for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.

Yahweh’s glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.”

The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God stands forever.”

You who tell good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who tell good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with strength! Lift it up! Don’t be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold, your God!”

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading places Isaiah 40:3-4 at the opening of Deutero-Isaiah (chs. 40-55), widely dated to the Babylonian exile (c. 540s BCE), where the "voice" announces YHWH's own return to Jerusalem and the building of a literal highway through the desert to bring the exiles home. On this reading the "way" is a road for YHWH's procession rather than a metaphor for spiritual preparation, and the referent is liberation from Babylon, not a first-century figure. Critics observe that the gospel application depends on the Septuagint word-division, which attaches "in the wilderness" to the crier, whereas the Hebrew attaches it to the act of preparing. The oracle is thus read as addressed to its own historical community rather than as a prediction.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The messianic-fulfillment reading takes Isaiah 40:3-4 as anticipating a forerunner who prepares the way for the coming of the Lord, realized when John the Baptist identifies himself with the "voice" of Isaiah 40:3 in John 1:23 and in the Synoptic parallels (Mark 1:3; Matt 3:3; Luke 3:4). On this reading the oracle's forerunner-then-divine-arrival structure corresponds to the Baptist announcing Jesus. Proponents note that all four gospels independently apply the text and that the Baptist appears to have deliberately adopted the wilderness setting and preparation message of the Isaianic forerunner. Some further hold that the oracle's language of divine coming carries an eschatological surplus beyond the historical return from exile.

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.

  • John 1:23 Direct quotation

    John 1:23 explicitly cites Isaiah by name and quotes Isaiah 40:3 as the Baptist's self-description.