The Texts
A Striking Contrast Between Two Adjacent Chapters
In both Isaiah 34 and 35 a tremendous reversal is occurring, a graphic transformation — but in these two adjacent chapters the transformations are in opposite directions. In chapter 34 we observe what was once civilised and cultivated descending into abandonment and dereliction, while in chapter 35 we observe the exact opposite: the parched ground becoming a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. One verse describes a place becoming overrun with thorns, nettles, and brambles, becoming a habitation of dragons and a court for owls; the next tells us that in the habitation of dragons shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
When we observe these two chapters side by side we might almost think there is some dreadful contradiction, that the works of God stand in variance with one another. But Psalm 107:33–35 bears out that there is no contradiction. It is God who on the one hand turns rivers into a wilderness and on the other turns the wilderness into a standing water. He is equally in control of and in power over both processes. And verse 43 draws out the lesson: Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. Our attention is drawn precisely to the seeming opposition — and yet those who are truly wise, those granted spiritual understanding, will see in both the loving kindness of the Lord.
The Literal Fulfilment: The Rise and Fall of Nations
The most obvious level of understanding is the literal one. God has on numerous occasions in history visited temporal judgments upon various nations, causing regions once prosperous, fertile, and inhabited to fall into ruin and desolation. We need cast our eyes no further than the Mediterranean world: the archaeological sites and ruins of Greece and Italy, the region of the Tigris and Euphrates where famous cities once stood now largely uninhabited desert, regions formerly at the centre of civilisation that went from being the very height of the known world to abandoned backwaters where now ravens and owls occupy what was once human habitation and thorns and nettles spring up where once were palaces.
The opposite too has proved true: vast regions formerly uninhabited and deserted of people, known only to wild animals, in the relatively recent process of history have first seen population growth through immigration, then agriculture, then industry, and now stand full of people and vast modern cities where formerly there was nothing of the kind.
All of this is subject to the sovereign control of God — and we must register this truth plainly. We do not have a theology which says that if something appears beneficial it came from God but if something seems adverse there must be some other power equal and opposite to God who got the better of him. God is sovereign in all things, both those that appear advantageous and those that appear disadvantageous, whether in the rise or the fall of nations. He performeth all these things according to the good pleasure of his will. And our human judgements of what is “good” and what is “evil” in such events are almost always highly subjective, according only with our own personal point of view. To the inhabitants of Nineveh its fall to Babylon was a dreadful tragedy; to those oppressed by Assyria it was a cause for rejoicing. The rising Greek empire thought its victories over Persia were their glory days; to the Persians the very end of days. All equally subject to the sovereign control of God.
The Spiritual Fulfilment: The Rise and Fall of Christian Witness
But we need to see more deeply than the literal, because there is spiritual truth to be discerned here as well. Isaiah 35:4 makes this clear: those of a fearful heart are to be told “Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.” The mighty saving works of God are in view. And so spiritually speaking there may be times of desolation and distress such as Isaiah 34 depicts, and equally times of great spiritual blessing and prosperity such as chapter 35 describes — and God is sovereign in both.
Those who very erroneously describe Britain as a Christian country fail to observe this. Sad to say it is nothing of the kind in this day and age. Yet it must be acknowledged that there was a period of time, however briefly, when Christianity in this land was more favoured, when the tenets of Holy Scripture were more widely preached and upheld, when Christian truth and doctrine was in the ascendant. Those times have dramatically changed and continue to change for the worse. But should we be surprised? The seven churches addressed in the book of Revelation belonged to what is now modern-day Turkey. The epistles of Paul were directed to churches of that region. What can be said of Christianity in those places now? It is almost totally absent. Forces of secularism and of Islam completely dominate those regions and the Christian church is impossible to find. This is not bad luck or ill fortune — it is the sovereign hand of God who has decreed it and brought it to pass.
And yet observe what Psalm 107 specifically says as it describes these things: “He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” Where God has formerly sent times of great spiritual blessing and these have been received and benefited from for a season, invariably there comes a time of apathy, indolence, complacency, ignorance, departure, and sinning against the very light once enjoyed. Who could say it was unjust for God to withdraw his hand, to deflect his blessings elsewhere?
The Line of Confusion and the Stones of Emptiness
There is a remarkable description in Isaiah 34:11 — that God shall stretch out upon this place “the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness.” We know what it is to stretch out upon a thing a line — it speaks of the building process, of measuring, of a plumb line. When a city is in good order one might measure its buildings for squareness and trueness. But when this season of judgment has come and there has been abandonment and dereliction, there is hardly a standing wall. If one attempted to hold a plumb line against it there would be nothing straight, nothing that could be definitively measured — for all has fallen to the ground. And the remaining stones, which once denoted places of habitation, once marked a boundary between inside and outside that those within might have security — now simply stand as a testament to emptiness. The walls are broken down, the barriers felled, and there is emptiness on both sides.
What a fitting description, spiritually speaking, of the abandonment of spiritual truth — times when God’s judgment falls upon regions once blessed with a knowledge of him and his word. There can be no true measurement any more. There are no clear lines of demarcation, no proper sense of what is right and what is wrong. Simply this line of confusion; these broken-down walls; no longer any distinction between what was once inside and what was once outside.
The Vicious Cycle: Beasts and Thorns
The thorns, nettles, and brambles of Isaiah 34:13 can never be read without remembering their origin in Genesis 3 — things sent directly in consequence and as the punishment of sin, ever symbolic and typical of sin and wickedness in the Word of God. We read here not simply of the physical abandonment of material places, but of the increase of sin and iniquity where formerly the truth of God worked as something of a remedy and preventative against it. Now those restraints are removed; now these thorns and nettles are springing up with none to prevent them, even in fortresses and palaces — places once associated with good order and the upholding of authority.
And the wild beasts which descend upon such desolate scenes only render them worse and further unfit for habitation — a self-perpetuating cycle. We are not without evidence even from our own observations of this: an abandoned building soon overrun with insects and rodents, and then the predators that feed upon them, each making the place less fit for habitation than before. And so the Lord Jesus warned of evil spirits who, finding the house empty, swept and garnished, return with others more wicked than themselves — the latter state worse than the first.
Verse 16: The Turning Point
Isaiah 34:16 forms an important turning point between the two chapters: “Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.” Standing between these two seeming extremes is this verse — which tells us that neither of these two processes shall fail. Neither exists in isolation. Both are equally true and equally to be heeded, for it is God’s mouth that commands these things and his Spirit who brings them to pass.
Had God appointed only perpetual worsening and ongoing degeneration without reprieve, what a desperate plight the human race would be in. But God in his mercy and loving kindness has granted other occasions — other persons, other believing men and women, causing them to have an influence in their day and age, in order that the opposite process described in Isaiah 35 might also be seen. It is the loving kindness of God that he judges wickedness, and it is equally of the loving kindness of God that he grants spiritual blessing and prosperity on other occasions too.
The Desert Blossoms: Isaiah 35
And so in this very place of desolation — a dramatic transformation begins. “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” There could hardly be a more dramatic change than a place that seemed so barren to suddenly be supporting glorious colours and scent. Water is brought in where before there was parched ground. And where there was death and blastedness, where the creatures that dwelt there had defied human habitation and destroyed the remaining ground — now they are driven away, the ground is exposed again to sunlight and rain, and it springs forth with reeds and rushes.
But it is not simply the environment that is transformed — for here are people too: the blind whose eyes are opened, the deaf whose ears are unstopped, the lame leaping like a deer, the dumb breaking out in singing. God does not cause his truth to be preached and his light to shine simply for the sake of it, but in order that it might have a transformative effect upon particular individuals — men and women as barren and desolate and helpless as the places in which they were to be found. The children of wrath even as others, bearing all the hallmarks of the fallen world they were born into — but now transformed.
The Way of Holiness: A Pilgrimage, Not a Destination
The scene of Isaiah 35 is not a static place of isolated blessedness. Verse 8 introduces a highway: “And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness.” The bucolic scene of blossoming desert is not a final destination — it is a route, a path, a green way stretching onwards and upwards.
There have been times when the Lord has singularly blessed particular regions of the world with his light and truth — where it became widely known, where the cause of truth was upheld and honoured for a season. And alas, people have on those occasions begun to envisage that particular spot of the globe as some sort of Christian utopia — Jerusalem once, then Rome, then Britain. But this was the wrong notion. Yes, the Lord grants these places of spiritual blossoming and blessing — but only that they should lead us onward and direct us upward. The ransomed of the Lord are on their way somewhere, and it is to Zion they come with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. Whatever the present blessings of God in our own Christian lives, they can only be temporary because our present lives are only temporary. But as we continue in this way of holiness we shall come ultimately to Zion itself — where we shall obtain everlasting joy and gladness and where sorrow and sighing shall flee away.