John 1:22-23

“ They said then to him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to those who sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? 23. He said, I am a voice crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah. ”

The deputies have now exhausted the suppositions which were furnished by the accepted Messianic programme of their time. Nothing remains for them but to propose to John again the question which shall make him abandon the negative attitude to which he is limiting himself: “ Who art thou? ” that is to say, “ What personage art thou? ” For his extraordinary conduct must be occasioned by an exceptional mission. John replies to it by a passage from Isaiah, which contains at once the explanation asked for and the guarantee of his mission. The sense of the prophetic passage is this: Jehovah is on the point of appearing in order to manifest His glory. At the moment which precedes His appearance, without the appearing of any person on the scene, a voice is heard which invites Israel to make straight the way by which the Lord is to come.

The question in this description is not of the return from the captivity, but of the Messianic appearance of Jehovah. As in the East, before the arrival of the sovereign, the roads are straightened and leveled, so Israel is to prepare for its divine King a reception worthy of Him; and the function of the mysterious voice is to engage her in carrying out this work of preparation, lest the signal grace of which she is to be the object may turn into judgment. John applies to himself so much more willingly these words of Isaiah, because it fully accords with his desire to put his own person into obscurity and to let nothing but his message appear: “ A voice. ” The words in the wilderness can be referred, in Hebrew as in Greek, either to the verb to cry, or to the verb to make straight. As regards the sense, it amounts to the same thing, since the order sounds forth in the place where it is to be executed. The reference to the preceding verb is more natural, especially in the Greek. The wilderness designates in the East uncultivated lands, the vast extents of territory which serve for pasturage, and which are crossed by winding paths, and not by roads worthy of a sovereign. Such is the emblem of the moral state of the people; the royal way by which Jehovah is to enter is not yet prepared in their hearts. The feeling of national repentance is still wanting. The sojourning of the forerunner in the wilderness indicated clearly, through this literal conformity to the prophetic emblem, the moral accomplishment of the prophecy. Does the formula of citation, “ as said,” also belong to the reply of the Baptist? Or is it a remark of the evangelist? What makes us incline to the first alternative is, that the forerunner had more need of legitimating himself than the evangelist had of legitimating him so long afterwards. To reply as John does was to enunciate his commission, and to declare his orders. It was to say, in fact, to these deputies, experts in the knowledge of the law and the prophets, that, if he was not personally one of the expected ancient personages, his mission was, nevertheless, in direct connection with the approaching manifestation of the Messiah. This was all which the Sanhedrim and the people practically needed to know.

The inquiry had borne, at first, upon the office of John the Baptist. The deputation completed it by a more special interrogation respecting the rite of baptism, which he is allowing himself to introduce into the theocracy without the authorization of the Sanhedrim. The evangelist prepares the way for this new phase of the conversation by a remark having reference to the religious character of the members of the deputation.