CHAPTER 35 Jun. 11 
God's Promise for Israel
The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose. 2It 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. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Tell 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. 5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. 6Then 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.7The 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 used to lay. 8A 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 will not go there, 9no 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. 10Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Commentary

35:4 Vengeance... retribution- see on 34:8.
35:10 Whatever possible application this may have had to Hezekiah’s time (e.g. the return of those who had fled Zion in fear) and what might have been after the destruction of the Assyrian invaders, or at the return of the exiles from Babylon, it is clearly a prophecy of God’s future Kingdom on earth when Christ returns. Our joy will be “everlasting”, whereas all joy in this life is tinged by the sense that it shall come to an end, the emotion has to subside, with the prospect of death ever before us. The joy we will then have shall have no fading away from a crescendo back into normality, but will have this ‘eternal’ aspect to it.