Isaiah 40:3-5 The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.… This preparation is not to be regarded as confined to the chosen people of Israel. It is true, "Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the peoples." But even darkness, thick darkness, may be preparatory to light. It was so at the creation of the world. It is so in everyday experience. If we believe, as believe we must, that man was created with capacities for comprehending the light; if we believe that in his pure and unfallen state it was natural for him to love the light; if we believe that his higher nature is never wholly lost: then we must confess that the very darkness in its depth and grossness must have caused longings deep and vast. When men groped in the darkness, and missed their way, and felt they had missed it, they must have longed for the Day Star to arise and shine. They must have said, we were meant for something better than this. They must have hoped for happier times. "They sat in darkness and the shadow of death, being fast bound in misery and iron. They fell down, and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress." He in whose heart a longing for better things has arisen, albeit that longing may be indefinite and ill-directed, has not been left unprepared for receiving a gift from God. (F. Watson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. |
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