Week 27 Isaiah 34-35
I’d like to ask a thousand people to read Isaiah 34 & Isaiah 35 back-to-back (it’s not a big assignment – 27-verses in total). The follow-up question would be: Which Chapter Do You Like?
I’m not saying that 100% of readers would choose Isaiah 35. But a lot would. One bible I read gives 35 the title: Hope for Restoration (another version calls it: Joy of the Redeemed). Hope & Joy? Restoration & Redemption? These sound alright. They definitely sound a lot better than the grisly menu in 34. One bible calls it: Judgment Against the Nations (the other – not so negatively: Message for the Nations).
Some readers might choose 34. But I’d predict that ~98% would go for the happier content of 35. I’d be in the 98% (the assignment was which chapter I liked…not which was more important).
My favorite passage in 35 is this one:
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there.
It reminded me a lot of Proverbs. Solomon talks quite a bit about getting on The Way. He doesn’t have anything positive to say about getting off it and onto another track. And Isaiah agrees: the best way to go is The Way.
Note: quote from Isaiah 35:8-9 (NIV)