Seder 59: Isaiah 34-35---Renewal in the Wilderness

 The image of a wilderness or desert (midbar in Hebrew) has multiple connotations in the Bible.  As a dry and desolate place, it can also represent judgment or spiritual ruin.  An example is in the prophecy of Isaiah 34, where God announces that the nations will be judged for opposing his plan to bring blessing to the world through the descendants of Abraham (vv 1-4, 8).  

Edom is presented as an example.   The Edomites had a long history of opposing the Israelites, beginning in the fortieth year of the Exodus (Nu 20:14-21).  Later they rejoiced as Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians (Ps 137:7; Obadiah 10-14).  As a result, Edom would receive a punishment that the text compares to that of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were in that region (vv 9-10).  Their land would become unfit for human habitation, an abode of unclean creatures (vv 11-15).

On the other hand, the wilderness could be a place of revelation, renewal, and transformation.  We see this in the following chapter of Isaiah.  Isaiah 35 pictures a blossoming of the desert, with physical and spiritual healing for those who follow God.

Both of these wilderness motifs are present in the Exodus.  For the older generation of Israelite men, the wilderness became the place where they would die.  But the wilderness was also the place where God nurtured, fed, and taught the Israelites.  

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on March 1, 2025, Kyle Kettering explained that at Mt. Sinai, God presented to the Israelites and the world a way of life promoting well-being in every sense.    

 Kyle related a rabbinic midrash based on a hyperliteral reading of Exodus 19:8,11, which report that "all the people answered together and said, `All that the LORD has spoken we will do,'' and that after three days of preparation, God would come at Sinai "in the sight of all the people."

Taking "all" in these verses in the mathematical sense of "every single one," the sages reasoned that for all the people to be able to see, hear, and follow God, God must have provided healing for those who were blind, deaf, or had other infirmities.  This teaching ties in well with the imagery of Isaiah 35:5-6.  

Christians see one fulfilmment of Isaiah 35 in the miraculous healings performed by Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was pleased to heal people to enable them to follow God in wholeness.  That kind of wholeness is what God desires for all of us.