Isaiah 57:14

And shall say or, And it shall be said (R.V. marg.). The speaker is Jehovah ("my people"), not one of the angelic beings of the Prologue. The expression means simply "the word shall go forth."

The image of the highway of salvation is taken from ch. Isaiah 40:3 (see also Isaiah 62:10), but seems to be applied somewhat differently. There it meant an actual highway for the return of the exiles through the desert; here, as the context shews, it is only a figure for the removal of spiritual obstacles to the redemption of Israel (Isaiah 57:17). Such a modification of the conception, although of course no proof of post-exilic authorship, is certainly very intelligible on that hypothesis. After the return of the first band of exiles it became apparent that the inauguration of the Messianic age was not to take the form of a triumphal march of Jehovah and His people across the desert to Canaan. The prophet's bold image of the miraculous highway necessarily lost its primary physical significance, and could be retained only as an emblem of the preparation for that larger deliverance to which the hopes of the post-exilic community were eagerly directed. It is applied, in short, in precisely the same way as at a later time to the preparatory mission of the Baptist (Mark 1:3; John 1:23).