Advent Season · Third Sunday of Advent · Year A
Isaiah 35:1-10
Joy of the Redeemed
December 14, 2025
Overview & Insights
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom.” (Isaiah 35:1)
Streams Turned into Desolation, Desert into Pools: While chapter 33 looks back and reworks the message of the book so far, it does so in a way that points forward and emphasizes the wondrous reversal and restoration that Yahweh will bring about. Since the second half of the book is more renewal-focused, chapter 33 thus also anticipates this material. Chapters 34–35 then mirror chapter 33. They have one eye to what has preceded, but they more explicitly point to what will come, introducing us to themes to be developed in the second half of the book. We will see that chapters 36–39 are stories that talk about Isaiah and were therefore hardly written by him, while chapters 40–66 presuppose a later context than Isaiah’s day and are presumably the words of later prophets.
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Commentary
Isaiah 35:1-10 Commentary by Anathea Portier-Young workingpreacher.org
Reads Isaiah 35 as both God's coming in Christ and our own coming home, tracing the transformation of wilderness into highway as literal and spiritual homecoming.
Isaiah 35:1-10 Commentary cepreaching.org
Treats Isaiah 35 as a vision of reversal, where the desert's transformation previews the healing miracles Jesus points to in Matthew 11.
3rd Sunday in Advent (Cycle A) agapebiblestudy.com
Catholic Sunday-reading notes tying Isaiah 35:4-6's healing signs (the blind see, the lame leap) to their fulfillment in Christ's ministry.
Isaiah 35 Commentary: Israel's Happy Future enduringword.com
Verse-by-verse commentary on Isaiah 35 emphasizing the wilderness blossoming and the 'Highway of Holiness' as pictures of restored Zion.
Isaiah 35 Commentary preceptaustin.org
Compiles multiple classic commentators (Guzik, Teed, Walvoord) on Isaiah 35, framing it as Israel's promised millennial restoration.
Background & Word Study
Isaiah 35 sefaria.org
Hebrew text with Jewish translation and commentary for Isaiah 35, including the 'Sacred Way' (derekh ha-qodesh) highway imagery.
Isaiah 35:1-7 - Here Is Your God-Who Restores All Things enterthebible.org
Word study on Isaiah 35:1-7 tracing how God's coming strengthens hands, firms up knees, and restores creation itself, not just people.
The Church Fathers
Questions preachers ask
What is the Holy Way in Isaiah 35?
A road home through the desert, made so plain that no traveller on it can get lost and no lion can waylay them. It is the return from exile described as a highway, and the ransomed of the Lord walk it singing.
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